Music Biz To Relax Restrictions?

[HardOCP News]

C|Net seems to think that the growing anti-DRM crowd could force the music industry to relax digital restrictions on MP3s. While that is a perfectly logical line of thinking, the one thing C|Net forgot in this equation is that the music industry doesn’t think logically. Anyhow, we can only hope they are right.

In 2007, the majors will get the message, and the digital-right management (DRM) wall will begin to crumble. Why? Because they'll no longer be able to point to a growing digital marketplace as justification that DRM works. Revenue from digital downloads and mobile content is expected to be flat or, in some cases, decline next year. If the digital market does in fact stall, alternatives to DRM will look much more attractive.

 

[Farva]

I think it would be a great idea, but I really don't think its going to happen.

It may work if they start to lose money. Remember, money talks, but money can't convince idiots

 

[Cannydog]

All I know is that I'm not buying their music until they wake up. If I can't buy a song and listen to it anywhere, on any device I own, as many times as I want, I simply WILL NOT BUY!! In addition I insist on some facility to preview, or sample, what I'm about to buy, because I don't want to buy junk.

The problem is that I realize that many people aren't as patient as I am. They don't feel they can wait (years) for the industry to get a clue. Also there are people who have more money than sense and they support these companies. So I don't really expect much progress overall.

I just wish MP3.com had avoided the Madonna songs, or whatever it was that got them sued into oblivion. I still think their business model was the best. I could sample songs from unknown and unsigned artists, and buy their music. Oh well those days are long gone...

 

[nilepez]

I want lossless files made available. I'd still buy CD's most of the time, but occasionally there's a song I like by an artist that I know I generally dislike (Madonna's Ray of Light fit that category many years back).

And if they stick to lossy, then how about vorbis? There are a several players that use it and it has better sound than any other format at 160kbs or below (the only one AFAIK, that can reproduce 20hz to 20khz at 160kbs....mp3 never does, at any bit rate, in my tests). I really don't get the reasoning of each store only selling songs in one format. I've never used the allofmp3 site, but at least they offer the music in virtually every format (including FLAC, I think).

But as I said, I'll mostly stick to CDs. I like having the disc, the packaging and so on, and most of the time, the CD's dont' cost much more htan buying albums on iTunes.