Buying Music on the internet & DRM

After the massive bad press Sony BMG has received over the last month for their Copy Protection rootkit problem. I think there is starting to be a bit of a backlash against the music industry (I hope). If you don't know what I'm on about, read this.

Basically the copy protection Sony used on some of their CDs enabled people to gain access to your computer if you had used the CD on your computer. It wasn't quite as bad as it was made out if you had a firewall and even if you didn't you were very unlikely to hacked but it created a lot of bad press and highlighted the crippling things that are being done to the music you pay for.

Why is someone gonna pay for a CD when people can still find it for free on the internet. People are willing to buy music if its fairly priced and doesn't have massive restrictions on it. A lot of people are buying music from the iTunes music store but I wont be one of them. There are too many restrictions on a song I buy. I am more in favour of Napsters model of renting the music. I would rather not do either, I'd rather buy an MP3 which has no restricitons. You can burn it to CD or put it on ANY MP3 player. Unlike iTunes or Napster that limit you to certain portable players. The only place I know you can buy commerical music as MP3s is www.allofmp3.com although this is a bit of a grey area as to whether its legal outside Russia but they have been going a long time and the music industry has been thwarted so far in getting it closed down. At least this is a fair way of buying music!!

I would say some people are completely nuts, buying a full album for £9.99 from iTunes when you can buy the CD from your local supermarket or Amazon for less than £8. You could then rip the CD to any format or quality without any restrictions. Even the stupid Sony protection could easily be beaten. Just hook your Hi-Fi up to the computer using an Optical cable and you have a perfect digital copy of the CD. Fair enough it has to be done in real-time and not ripped at high speed but better than paying for a restricted version on the internet!!

I listen to Adam Curry's Daily Source Code Podcast regularly and he is behind the Podsafe Music Network. It's basically unsigned bands or bands that have agreed to let their music be played for free on Podcasts. He is trying to setup a way for people to buy the tracks from the site. I would like to think that this will be in an unrestricted MP3 format, I'd be suprised if it wasn't from listening to Adam talk about it.

Come on Music Industry wake up and smell the roses people WILL buy music if its at a good price and without stupid restrictions. People already buy from iTunes even more will join them without stupid DRM. Otherwise you will never stop people sharing and downloading pirate music from the internet. Look whats happened with Copy Protection on CDs, the same will come for Digital Music on the internet that is protected with DRM (I hope)!!