Music Retailers Beg Recording Industry To Drop DRM

from the who-is-it-helping? dept

Tue, Nov 20th 2007 7:33pm — Mike Masnick

We've already seen more and more musicians tells the recording industry to drop DRM policies that hurt the consumer. And, of course, we know that consumers prefer non-DRM'd music (which sorta goes without saying). Now even music retailers are wondering what the recording industry is thinking. A group of UK retailers have banded together to urge the industry to drop DRM altogether in order to help boost holiday sales this year. Of course, in the past, we've seen the recording industry insist DRM was needed to protect both the artists and the retailers -- but it certainly looks like both are finally realizing what many have said all along: the only thing that DRM "protects" (and it does a piss poor job of it) is the obsolete business model of the record labels.

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Filed Under: drm, recording industry, retailers

8 Comments

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Jase, 20 Nov 2007 @ 8:04pm

Brilliant!
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Max Powers, 21 Nov 2007 @ 12:03am

Hard to Change
I wonder if it is a problem with the people in charge being too old to change. I worked for a Vocational School that the President insisted that there was no need to upgrade our computers after 6 years of the same ones.

Oh, we were a computer training school. Duh. I finally left out of embarrassment.
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Jay Garrett, 21 Nov 2007 @ 12:35am

Flexible
I think that the music industry has been forced to change, as have the retailers. Right now they are all having to test and try things that they perhaps never imagined they'd have to. The whole industry has been pretty much the same for decades and they were the ones calling the shots more often than not. Now it's the buyer that has a bigger say.
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Known Coward, 21 Nov 2007 @ 2:10am

The Artists
Protect the artists, my ass.
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Da_ALC, 21 Nov 2007 @ 2:14am

Record labels need to face that they cant and wont make as much money as they used to. Things change!
There are allot of business models running at the moment which should just be shut down and rebuilt; The bradband internet system and the mobile phone system in the UK for example. They only exist to exploit people in ways that dont even make sence.. charging people for imaginary services. This, to me, is pathetic exploitation.
Google with the 'g-phone' android system are obviously trying to change this, but in the UK carriers wont let it happen.
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John, 21 Nov 2007 @ 3:33am

DRM is crapola
Preaching to the converted... Anyone can convert a DRM plagued CD into DRM-free music, and then it's only a matter of time until it spreads out to anyone who wants a copy, that's just the way it is. As a soon to be signed artist, I've come to accept the fact that what little money we make will be from merchandise sales and live shows, and whatever CDs we sell at the shows. And as an avid downloader, I still buy the same amount of CD's as before, only now I buy the "right" CD's, not the one's that I quickly discover are crap. I also support private p2p programs such as GigaTribe: http://www.gigatribe.com
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Nov 2007 @ 7:51am

There are still dedicated music retailers?

Not sure about the UK, but most music in the US is now sold by retailers that use it as a loss leader to get people in the store weekly for new releases (Best Buy, WalMart, and so on). They don't care if they make zero margins on music, because if you come in the store regularly eventually you'll buy the big screen TV.

WalMart in particular is the master of the zero or negative margin loss leader and the large margin upsell.
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased), 21 Nov 2007 @ 2:01pm

Can't compete
With certain recording companies opening up their catalogs to other retailers sans DRM it would be hard to compete with encumbered merchandise when customers can get the 'free' stuff elsewhere.
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