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As Emi recently did, few days ago Universal Music announced that its music library will be available online without DRM – Digital Rights Management from 21st August 2007 to 31st January 2008.
Universal Music has entered into a partnership with Amazon, Best Buy, Rhapsody by Realnetworks, Puretracks so that Internet users who will download pieces of music from such websites will be allowed to copy and play them several times through different devices.
The similar experiment – which was previously carried on by Emi – is obtaining positive results: recent figures of Emi sales have revealed an increase of 13 % during last months. Emi took this decision after british Terra Firma bought the company.
The above trend may be evaluated from different points of view. DRM often appear too weak to hackers’ attacks as well as too far from consumers’ needs. Last February Steve Jobs thoughts wake up the Majors, which converted these consumers’ needs in opportunities. The average consumer of fluid music accepts to pay a premium price for the same music track once it is free from DRM.
Apple started to sell DRM-free track few months ago, so that now it is possible to download from iTunes the song by John Lennon “Some Time in New York City” at 1.29 Euro, if DRM-free or, alternatively, at 0.99 Euro, with DRM.
(photo by Michele Pedrolli, from Flickr)
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