Get Your DRM-Free Music From Warner While You Can, It Won't Last For Long

from the you-might-want-to-read-those-deals-you-sign. dept

Thu, Jun 7th 2007 11:29pm — Joseph Weisenthal

Back in April, MP3.com founder Michael Robertson unveiled his latest startup, dubbed AnywhereCD, which offered DRM-free downloads of complete albums. There was just one tiny problem: Warner Music, the label whose music AnywhereCD licensed, claimed that it never gave Robertson permission to do this. At the time, it was pretty unclear how the two parties had such a divergent view of their agreement, but given Robertson's penchant for getting publicity, the whole story wasn't at all out of the ordinary for him. The two sides have now come to an agreement, and it seems as though the two sides genuinely disagreed about what exactly they had agreed to. As such, they're come to a bizarre compromise whereby AnywhereCD will be allowed to continue selling DRM-free albums, but only through September. It still seems unbelievable that there was such confusion over the initial deal, although good entertainment lawyers are stretched pretty thin these days, so maybe Warner had the second string in that day. Still, maybe something good can come out of it if Warner sees that DRM-free sales don't cause the sky to fall.

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17 Comments

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Mark Bowness, 8 Jun 2007 @ 1:56am

Interesting.. so its a give away for a month. I wonder what the benefit of that to both parties is? Presumably just profile.

Mark Bowness
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Peet McKimmie (profile), 8 Jun 2007 @ 3:34am

Re:
More like four months...
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Luci, 8 Jun 2007 @ 3:46am

Re:
How is this a give away? It's DRM-Free, not free. And three months (July, August, and September), if you discount June altogether. The benefit might not be to them so much as to consumers, especially if it shows that DRM-free content is not antithetical to Warner's profit margins.
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GoblinJuice, 8 Jun 2007 @ 4:19am

Testing the water, perhaps?
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The infamous Joe, 8 Jun 2007 @ 4:46am

Aw hell...
I don't know if Warner knows this, but selling a CD is selling DRM-free music. So I don't understand what their issue is with selling music online without DRM, it just skips the 'ripping' step. In fact, if I recall way back in the day when I last bought a CD, 'ripping' was step number 1.

DRM only hinders the 'honest' customer anyway-- people that illegally download don't have to worry about DRM. I, myself, don't care if they never start selling music DRM-free. ;)
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Mike4, 8 Jun 2007 @ 5:09am

Re: Aw hell...
Just to piggyback a little bit on what you were saying, infamous Joe....

The funny thing here is that selling DRM-free music really would be beneficial for everyone. I personally will never pay a cent for a download if I do not have complete control over how I can use it. I can easily find other places to grab the song for free, so why do I want to waste my time and money and something that's broken to begin with? Then, as Joe said, I can easily buy the physical cd and rip it to my computer - without any DRM. Of course, going to the store costs me time and gas, and forces me to by a cd full of tracks that suck when I only wanted 2 or 3, so downloading those 2 or 3 songs elsewhere is just easier. As it stands now, the recording industry is just not getting any of my money.

Message to the Recording Industry: I have money here that I'm ready to hand over to you if you can supply me with the product I want - the same product I can get elsewhere for free. Why does it seem that you don't have any interest in coming to get my money?
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Disappointed, 8 Jun 2007 @ 5:38am

Why do I need the CD??
It seems to sell CD+MP3, aww you raised my hopes up!

I'd like to ditch the CD and just get the MP3s. Maybe a little cheaper too, I don't see the point of paying for the CD and shipping costs when I only want the MP3s.

So what's the problem, I don't mind if you stick a transaction number in the MP3 track. But it has to play on all of my MP3 players (and all future mp3 players too, NO BACKSIES!).
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Overcast, 8 Jun 2007 @ 6:21am

With the current 'War on the Consumer' from the Media companies - I don't want the music, DRM free or not. If it's so very important for them to be sure no one else has it - they can keep it!
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Paul`, 8 Jun 2007 @ 6:22am

Re: Aw hell...
2 things:
They Do stick DRM on CD's, i have a few and had to use TuneBite to use the files on my MP3 player as the ripping program that was on the CD only allowed the files on the PC its ripped to, no external thingers.

And yeah, DRm just stuffs up the average joe. If you want to share a file on whatever, be it p2p or file servers, the people who want to do it will be the people who have the means to strip DRM from files.
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SailorRipley, 8 Jun 2007 @ 6:49am

Re: Re: Aw hell...
watcha talking about Paul`? who did what now?
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JS Beckerist, 8 Jun 2007 @ 7:40am

this is a test
This is their test, to see if sales are really better for this service than for the current system. As a result, if we don't support this then it helps nothing! Buy buy buy folks!
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CDUser, 8 Jun 2007 @ 8:10am

MP3 too lossy
Why would you want to pay the same cost or more for something is missing quite a bit of the data? I hit up the 1st week of sales when they are $10 on release for CDs. Much better quality sound off the CD. MP3 is harsh though a good receiver. MP3 good for car use with all the noise to mask the crap sound it really is. Sell digital music in FLAC (free lossless audio codec) format and you might get me to buy online instead of the physical CD.. Sure the files are huge, but all the data is there when you play it back. Just like the CD.
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The infamous Joe, 8 Jun 2007 @ 9:07am

Re: this is a test
If this was really a test, it would be full of what people like.

As it is, with the AnywhereCD model, you have to buy the entire CD. So, I am still being forced to buy songs I don't like/want-- except when I do it with a CD, I get a booklet and some art-- but with AnywhereCD, I just get wasted money.

If an apple farmer *forced* people to buy 6 bad apples with every one good one, he'd go out of business, and rightfully so.
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GoblinJuice, 8 Jun 2007 @ 9:59am

Re: Re: this is a test
> If an apple farmer *forced* people to buy 6 bad apples with every one good one, he'd go out of business, and rightfully so.

Not if he had political pull! :-P
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Charles Griswold, 8 Jun 2007 @ 1:49pm

Re: Why do I need the CD??
I'd like to ditch the CD and just get the MP3s.
I prefer getting my music on dead dinosaur media; that way if my hard drive melts down I still have the original CDs. It might be different if I could be sure that I could re-download music that I had already bought.
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Interesting Article, 8 Jun 2007 @ 2:10pm

Read this. RIAA lied to Congress
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2007/03/music_cd_im_jus.html

one long url so copy paste to reform it correctly.
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Charles Griswold, 8 Jun 2007 @ 2:24pm

Re: MP3 too lossy
Why would you want to pay the same cost or more for something is missing quite a bit of the data? [ . . . ] Sell digital music in FLAC (free lossless audio codec) format and you might get me to buy online instead of the physical CD.. Sure the files are huge, but all the data is there when you play it back. Just like the CD.
Check out Magnatune. You can listen to everything before you buy it, you can (at your option) pay as little as $5.00 per album, you can get it in any number of different formats, some of which are CD quality and lossless, there is no DRM, and the artists get half of what you pay for the album.

Disclaimer: I have absolutely nothing to do with Magnatune or any of their artists; I just love their business model.
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