Enrico
Photo credit: Travelin Librarian
Consumers don’t care for Digital Rights Management (DRM), they just care for Music.
DRM technology has been cracked many times and has prooven not to be the holy barrier it was meant.
Recent cases against consumers infringing copyright issues are turning to be short victories for the major labels.
EMI and Universal Music are selling unprotected music on Amazon and Wall-Mart, Apple has started a new market by selling DRM tracks for less than a dollar and unprotected music for 30% more (iTunes Plus), Amazon is prooving to be on trask with its brand new music store by selling DRM free music.
What are creators doing? Radio Head started to sell their brand new album through its own website and at a pay-as-much-as-you-want price. And now more bands are following suit. They just launched a new campaign to give more power to music’ authors and performers (see our post here on )
Let’s face it: the music industry is changing at a very fast pace. And perhaps people that should have the closer view (music industry executives) are the only ones who still don’t understand this: how to invent, develop and exploit a new booming market. Ian Rogers, Yahoo! music general manager, told in a presentation before a group of music executives that they need to re think the copy protection system. And he is not alone.
At IP Faber we believe Ian Rogers went on target when he said “I won’t let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience… I can’t bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value…. I want to delight consumers, not bum them out.”
He urges the industry to focus on consumer and consumer’s experience, saying that anything else is off-target. Consumer is king. Content (music) is king.
If this is not yet a new vision, it is for sure the end of an era where old fashioned technology has translated into old fashioned control techniques. According to Rogers, we need “to move toward a new media experience and drive there as quickly as possible. We should not wasting time and efforts by stopping what is obvious today. We should be creating the tools of a Web and Media entertaining and intriguing experience and reward music-lovers for being a part of it”.
(IP Faber is at the forefront of open innovation and copyrighted works. Contact us))
