RIAA Clings to DRM and the Past: It's Time to Look Forward
Just when you thought the music business was entering a reasonable truce with the DRM-hating public the Recording Industry Association of America wants to promote the controversial technology. David Hughes, who is in charge of the technology unit for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), told the Digital Hollywood Conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, that DRM will still be a necessary component in the music business as music subscription services continue to require it.
I find the statement odd considering the current trends that are taking the music industry away from the use of DRM. Most major record labels are moving away from DRM and now sell DRM-free tracks on Amazon, iTunes, and on Zune's marketplace. What Hughes doesn't seem to realize is that the use of DRM technology to protect songs has been on life support for years - and someone needs to pull the plug.
Not only is DRM demeaning to honest music lovers, it's a pain. Consider last month's news that Microsoft will close its PlaysForSure licensing server that was tied to the now shuttered MSN Music store. Come September, when Microsoft turns off the licensing server, music tracks purchased from MSN Music before 2006 will only playback on PCs with PlaysForSure DRM installed.
It is unfortunate that the traditional recording business has been turned upside down. I don't celebrate Tower Records being forced to close its retail doors in 2006. Richard Branson unloaded his ailing Virgin Mega Stores because of the changing winds. And it's too bad great recording artist are no longer discovered through the old network of recording execs, radio DJs, and the local record store.
Meanwhile peer-to-peer services are still extremely popular and continue to grow in user numbers and in the volume of content swapped.
As the world becomes more and more digital every day, it's time for the RIAA to try something new just as its artist are. With bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Radio Head, and even online holdouts like Metallica now ditching DRM and experimenting with new ways to distribute their music and making money, why is the RIAA still advocating subscription services? Please.
If you want to get an idea where the music industry might be headed, check out this Freakonomics blog, David Byrne's article in Wired, or Steve Jobs' open letter that arguably started us down the DRM-free path in the first place.
Granted, the future is scary. The recording industry will never be the same. But, lets face it, DRM is dead. Lets nail the coffin shut and move on.
CREDIT - PC World contributor Ian Paul
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Are you kidding? You need drm for subscription. Subscription is so nice to have especially for pop music and oldies that you never care to own. Without drm how could this subscription be possible. I will never buy music with drm as i buy the mp3's but love subscription.
The solution, for me at least, is fairly simple; artists make better music the public WILL buy the material. Metallica was the wrong band to lead this fight as they haven't put out anything WORTH buying since their "Black" album, possibly Load. So of course their numbers were down, but it had nothing to do with P2P networks./ Look at profits from other artists at the time, Eminem, Fiddy and others were all selling massive numbers and Eminem even went so far as to say he didn't care about file sharing, as they weren't hurting his numbers. Personally, I use P2P as a sort of "demo" service, I get some files from an album and if there are at least 3-4 good songs I go buy the album. If the disc as a whole sucks I'm not spending my hard earned money to support crap music. If Metallica put out a decent record (ie. Lars shut up and James picked up a beer) They would be singing a MUCH different tune, literally and figuratively. St Anger sold like crap because that is what it was.