DISQUS

Bob Caswell: Amazon MP3 Expanding Internationally, More DRM-Free in 2008

  • Tyler Reber · 1 year ago
    See, Amazon's got the right idea going DRM-Free. Just today there was news out of a new service that was supposed to open tonight (though some reports are saying it's a scam) that would enable users to download all the free music they wanted, LEGALLy off of a type of P2P platform. The catch was that it's ad supported AND the music comes with DRM. The recording industry and it's contractors really just need to give up on the whole DRM kick if they want users to feel more inclined to pay for music downloads. It's good to see that some of them have and that Amazon is taking advantage of it and providing DRM free music to it's users.
  • Paul Ellis · 1 year ago
    Amazon's DRM-free MP3s are definitely a step in the the right direction, but Qtrax isn't necessarily bad. I'm just glad the record labels have finally realized the value most people put on DRM'd music (almost zero). Qtrax is just more choice, and that can't be bad. I won't use it probably, but others might. On that same token, I won't use Amazon's MP3 store either because I can't stand the low fidelity of MP3. I know, I'm a music snob. :)
  • Tyler Reber · 1 year ago
    Qtrax is a good idea in principle, mainly because of the the vast number of songs they said they would offer. The issue is that according to most news sites I've been reading this afternoon, Qtrax has yet to sign any contracts with any of the major music labels. Apparently, most of them are even going so far as to deny ever even being in negotiations with Qtrax...with the exception of Universal. This is slightly dissapointing.

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080128-q...

    If someone could somehow figure out a way to offer free, legal, DRM-Free music (either MP3's or WMA's) that were atleast 192kbps or better, that would be amazing. It could even be ad supported for all I care. Sadly, this is probably just a dream. ;-)
  • Paul Ellis · 1 year ago
    I don't think you could ever full support a non-DRM music business model with advertising. I would doubt you could even support a paid subscription model (ala Napster 2.0) without DRM. I probably won't be purchasing downloaded tracks until they are either losslessly compressed CD-quality files (FLAC, WMA Pro, Apple Lossless) or a high quality audio codec at a higher sample rate and bit-depth (WMA/Vorbis/AAC at 96khz/24bit). At this point, I still find it easiest to just order the CD from Amazon and rip it myself.