Tuesday, July 25. 2006
Jessica - She's no Morgan, but She'll Have to Do
I've never thought of Jessica Simpson as the poster child for the anti-DRM movement. I'd always hoped someone possessing sardonic wit and individuality would step forward, like Morgan Webb of XPlay fame. But more people know the name Jessica Simpson, and we'll take almost all the help we can get.
After much cajoling, Yahoo Music has convinced Sony to release one digital single without the accompanying digital rights management. Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair" will sell for $1.99 (compared to the standard price of $0.99). Pro-DRM companies such as Jupiter Research have been quick to dismiss the news as a short-term gimmick that will have little to no effect on the long-term online music market.
I disagree.
As online music distributors (alternatives to iTunes Music Store) get stronger, so too grows their ability to influence the market and thus music labels. Yahoo has expressed their DRM-free preference before. General manager Dave Goldberg spoke at Music 2.0 conference in Los Angeles in February and implored music labels to decrease their demand for and usage of digital rights management, "DRM is not a consumer value proposition, it's a consumer cost. It creates a nice barrier of entry for the tech companies, rather than something that's beneficial to labels, artists or consumers." This sentiment was mirrored with the words of product management director Ian Rogers who wrote on the Yahoo Blog, "Our position is simple: DRM doesn't add value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day — the Compact Disc) or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform."
Obviously Yahoo had the market presence to convince Sony to release "A Public Affair" without DRM. Sony may still be attempting to atone for their DRM rootkit blunder, but both Sony and Yahoo have the diversity and the dollars to take risks that go against the mold.
Yahoo claims that the increased price is based on the song's customizable nature - the ability to select a version with a particular name in the lyrics. However, depending on the results of this social experiment, record labels and distributors alike may discover that there is a market for DRM-free media for which customers would gladly pay extra. We've said before on www.DRMBlog.com that we'd pay even retail CD-level prices just to be able to download and own DRM-free files, especially if we could choose the bit-rate. We're not the only ones who would choose to pay higher prices for convenience, quality, and the confidence of being able to play their files on any device.
I don't expect digital rights management to disappear overnight. However, the market is shaped by the language of public opinion. Music labels and DRM-vendors are fighting a losing war against the public image that digital rights management has made for itself. Customers hate invasions of privacy and technology that makes their purchasing decisions more complicated, which is the only thing that DRM actually accomplishes. The lawsuits initiated by the RIAA have made martyrs of casual downloaders while Sony's rootkit debacle made DRM not just a household word, but a detested one. Each mistake that the recording industry has made over the last couple years has brought more and more negative attention to digital rights management. Each miscalculation had led us to this one experiment conducted by Yahoo and Sony and Jessica Simpson.
The name of Jessica Simpson has never had the ability to part the folds of my wallet, but tonight, I will surrender my dollars to her to support Yahoo, to support Sony, and to support non-DRM alternatives. Join me.
Author — Ginger Cox
After much cajoling, Yahoo Music has convinced Sony to release one digital single without the accompanying digital rights management. Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair" will sell for $1.99 (compared to the standard price of $0.99). Pro-DRM companies such as Jupiter Research have been quick to dismiss the news as a short-term gimmick that will have little to no effect on the long-term online music market.
I disagree.
As online music distributors (alternatives to iTunes Music Store) get stronger, so too grows their ability to influence the market and thus music labels. Yahoo has expressed their DRM-free preference before. General manager Dave Goldberg spoke at Music 2.0 conference in Los Angeles in February and implored music labels to decrease their demand for and usage of digital rights management, "DRM is not a consumer value proposition, it's a consumer cost. It creates a nice barrier of entry for the tech companies, rather than something that's beneficial to labels, artists or consumers." This sentiment was mirrored with the words of product management director Ian Rogers who wrote on the Yahoo Blog, "Our position is simple: DRM doesn't add value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day — the Compact Disc) or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform."
Obviously Yahoo had the market presence to convince Sony to release "A Public Affair" without DRM. Sony may still be attempting to atone for their DRM rootkit blunder, but both Sony and Yahoo have the diversity and the dollars to take risks that go against the mold.
Yahoo claims that the increased price is based on the song's customizable nature - the ability to select a version with a particular name in the lyrics. However, depending on the results of this social experiment, record labels and distributors alike may discover that there is a market for DRM-free media for which customers would gladly pay extra. We've said before on www.DRMBlog.com that we'd pay even retail CD-level prices just to be able to download and own DRM-free files, especially if we could choose the bit-rate. We're not the only ones who would choose to pay higher prices for convenience, quality, and the confidence of being able to play their files on any device.
I don't expect digital rights management to disappear overnight. However, the market is shaped by the language of public opinion. Music labels and DRM-vendors are fighting a losing war against the public image that digital rights management has made for itself. Customers hate invasions of privacy and technology that makes their purchasing decisions more complicated, which is the only thing that DRM actually accomplishes. The lawsuits initiated by the RIAA have made martyrs of casual downloaders while Sony's rootkit debacle made DRM not just a household word, but a detested one. Each mistake that the recording industry has made over the last couple years has brought more and more negative attention to digital rights management. Each miscalculation had led us to this one experiment conducted by Yahoo and Sony and Jessica Simpson.
The name of Jessica Simpson has never had the ability to part the folds of my wallet, but tonight, I will surrender my dollars to her to support Yahoo, to support Sony, and to support non-DRM alternatives. Join me.
Author — Ginger Cox
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