As someone who loves music and who
\nlistens to a lot of secular music besides some Classical and Gregorian
\nChant I have watched closely over the years music available over the
\nInternet. My pirating days of music are long gone and the
\ninitial arrival of Napster occurred after my initial conversion so I
\nhave never illegally downloaded any music – though I use to have a
\nlarge collection of cassettes that I duplicated from other people while
\non cruises. I threw out all of my duplicated tapes after my
\nconversion and my current music collection contains music either in the
\nform of CD’s I have bought or music I have bough on line. I
\nmention this just to say that in theory and in practice I am against
\nstealing music.<\/p>\n
That being said I really hate DRM
\n(Digital Rights Management) in music where the main purpose seems to be
\nto punish the user who has bought the music or other media. For example
\nI have bought a good amount of music from iTunes that I can’t play at
\nwork. Where I work the IS department blocks iTunes so any
\nmusic I place on my work computer that has DRM can’t play.
\nIf I plug my iPod into my work computer and try to play songs purchased
\nfrom iTunes it won’t play if it has DRM.<\/p>\n
Now I know I can buy the CDs myself and
\nthen rip them and have it totally DRM free and bypass this, but I
\nreally like both the pricing and instant availability of online music
\nstores. Though I got burned by Sony when they installed a
\nroot kit on my PC when I listened to a Our Lady Peace CD, so even some
\nCDs have some insidious forms of DRM.<\/p>\n
I ended up using the analog
\nhole where you rip music you bought to CD and then rip that CD back to
\niTunes without and DRM. The problem is of course
\nthat you loose some music fidelity in this conversion. Though
\nI am old enough and lived too long on an Aircraft Carriers for my ears
\nto know the difference.<\/p>\n
A lot of music I listen to is just not
\navailable at local stores and I would prefer not to have to
\nbuy the CDs online first. I use to be a subscriber to emusic
\nback when they let you download all you want of MP3s with no DRM.
\n The main problem with emusic was is that there were limited
\nrecord labels that would allow their music to be provided in non-DRM
\nformat so this limited their catalog. So I was pretty happy
\nto hear that iTunes would start to sell DRM-free music at double the
\nbit rate of normal iTunes purchases, though they increased the price on
\nthese offerings. I subsequently downloaded several albums
\nfrom what Apple calls iTunes plus and found that the music encoded at
\n256 kbps was significantly better and even I could tell the difference.
\n After that I determined that I would no longer buy any music
\nwith DRM or was encoded at only 128 kbps.<\/p>\n
Luckily this pledge is going to be
\neasier to keep than in years past. Both Amazon and Walmart
\nhave entered the marketplace with DRM-free MP3s encoded at 256 kbps at
\na price point around $.89 cents a song and around $8.99 an album.
\n I am pretty album-centric so hardly ever buy individual songs
\nin the first place. This has prompted iTunes to lower their
\nprices on their DRM-free music from $1.29 per song to $.99 per song.
\n As a platform I prefer iTunes for ease of use.
\n Bought I have now bought songs from both Walmart and Amazon.
\n Walmart has a long way to go in the ease of use category, but
\nAmazon while not being as good as iTunes is good enough and I have
\nfound music on Amazon\/Walmart that is DRM-free while the same album on
\niTunes has DRM.<\/p>\n
When iTunes first started their iTunes
\nPlus they offered to allow you to re-download music you had bought in
\nthe past that is now DRM-free. Though of course they were
\ncharging the difference between the price you paid and the price of the
\nmusic now which was usually under $3.00. What annoys me now
\nis that after Apple reduced their individual iTunes Plus song prices to
\nbe competitive with Amazon they didn’t decrease their price if you
\nbought the whole album. I can’t think of any good reason to
\ndo this from a competitive structure other than to prevent being
\nallowed to get the DRM free music you had bought previously without any
\ncharge. When the iPhone price dropped so dramatically within
\ntwo months of it’s release they offered a $100 dollar rebate. I just
\nwish they would do something similar for those who paid a premium price
\nbefore the dropped their price and that they drop the price of the
\nwhole albums in iTunes plus to be competitive with Amazon\/Walmart.
\n Though maybe that is just me whining since as a company they
\ncan set prices as they please – I just find their new pricing structure
\nto be inconsistent.<\/p>\n
On the whole I would rather buy
\nDRM-free songs from iTunes than from other outlets because of both ease
\nof use and the fact that the AAC format is superior to the MP3 format.
\n But when it comes to an album that has not DRM at amazon and
\nthe same one having DRM on iTunes then Amazon will win out every time
\nfor me. The good news is that more and more music is being
\noffered DRM free and in the long run I think will only help their sales.<\/p>\n
People who steal and then share music
\nwill continue to do so DRM or not. There are already hacks
\nout there to remove the DRM from both protected WMAs and protected
\nAACs. Like with all DRM schemes it only hurts the customer
\nand not who they are directed at. Maybe one day they will learn this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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