In my neighborhood, the first person to mow their lawn in the spring is a jerk, because then the rest of the lawns look like ass, and we have to mow them. Here is a typical spring conversation in my neighborhood:

"Hey Bill, I see you finally caved in and mowed your lawn, huh?"

"Yeah, it was up to my knees, and I figured..."

"Thanks A Lot, Asshole!"

I imagine it was the same with DRM-Free music, nobody wanted to be the first to sell it, and be hated by the RIAA. Smaller sites like magnatune and mp3tunes were too small to be a threat, so they were like weeding the garden, and didn't really count. But we knew the end was near when we heard Steve Jobs half-hearted anti-DRM speech.

But now, like Fish says, "The game is over!". Amazon has announced that they will have DRM-free music available later this year.

So the rest of the music outlets can hate Amazon for forcing their hand, and i-tunes and microsoft will be forced with a decision. They are big enough that they could try to keep their DRM-infected collections in place, perhaps offering them at reduced rates compared to DRM-free tracks. (Or, if you see the glass as half-empty, consider that the DRM-free tracks would come with an "I buy DRM-Free Music, and therefore, I am a criminal, and must pay extra" fee). Oldsters might remember the fee that was added to blank cassette tapes and blank CDs marked as blank "AUDIO" CDs. This is how the industry dealt with their fear that anyone with a tape deck and a CD player was 'ripping them off', and I see no reason for them to be original now.

Perhaps Microsoft, i-Tunes and such could contract big-name acts to come over and release only DRM-infected tracks EXCLUSIVELY through their websites. That would be a clever way to get people to succumb to their DRM-Protection; even if people knew about it, understood it, and didn't like it, they would still Buy it if they wanted the product badly enough.

It would also make them the New Record Labels.


Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: DRM Sucks, Million Dollar Idea, Music Industry