eMusic

DRM is dead. Finally somebody has admitted that. Actually it was Steve Jobs himself, in his open letter. What is it all about? Well it all started with the advent of writable CDs in 1990's. Before you could buy music only on CDs. And of course you could copy it to an analog cassette tape. While the music studios were not happy about that, the disadvantage was simple: your copy was an analog one, with much worse quality and it could not be used with much success as a master to make another copy, as the quality kept on degrading. Then we got CD burners allowing us to make exact digital copies of audio CDs (I use a CD burner myself to make copies of records for listening in my car). The music studios were upset by that fact, as they feared their earnings would drop as people will start burning and distributing music without paying the royalties. Well... at that time they probably did not see the MP3 and Internet revolution. Their problem at that time was nothing compared to what they face today, when potentially anybody can "share" their music collection with others over the wire. This is obviously illegal, but technically unstoppable, as an MP3 file is just a file, so you can make a copy and give that copy to somebody else. That is why various DRM technologies have been introduced.

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. While the concept itself is quite broad, it has become a synonym of various technologies preventing us to copy music. It reaches out to other digital media, such as video, but due to the size of the files, video is not yet at the stage when it is effortlessly distributed across the Internet (it still takes some time to download a movie, while music can be downloaded within seconds). While many efforts have been made to make DRM work (ie prevent us to copy music files), they all have failed. Failed, because they did not prevent the bad guys from finding successful workarounds - music and movies are still available on various peer to peer networks. Failed, because all the protection systems have been cracked (recently even the latest high definition video systems - HD-DVD and the BlueRay). And failed, because they make the lives of the good guys a nightmare. As Bob Cringley points out - "Digital Rights Management is really just an ecosystem for selling our own stuff to us again and again.". So true. You have an iPod. You buy a song from the iTunes store. The your iPod dies and you want to try "the other side" and you buy Microsoft Zune. What about the songs purchased from iTunes? They are still there, but you cannot move them to your new player. Hey, wait a minute! Have I paid for being able to place the song on the iPod or have I paid for the rights to listen to that song? So should I buy again? Well... this is the way DRM systems work today. Not stopping the bad guys while hurting the good guys. And there ain't a solution on the horizon.

Personally I hate DRMs. I hate when somebody tries to restrict my freedom. There is this notion of fair use. When I buy music (and I do a lot), I assume I buy the rights to listen to it anytime, anywhere, on any device. If I buy it on a CD, I expect to be able to make a copy to use in my car. CDs are expensive, and they wear out and scratch, so that is one reason why I use copies. And I do not want to carry the CDs I like the most with me all the time, to listen at home, in the car, at work and so on. I rip the CD and put it on my iPod. And the same ripped content goes to my Slimserver. Do not worry, dear Studios. I will not be listening to all of them at once. I have just one pair of ears, and cannot listen to multiple songs at the same time. I do not trust systems that try to restrict my freedom. Even if they say they will let me make five copies or so, I always fear this is not always the truth, there is some fine print saying I cannot do this or that. So I religiously use only open formats and open systems. Clean JPEGs for photos and clean MP3s for music.

For a couple of weeks now I have been using the emusic.com service. While it has not the greatest selection of songs, it has the best licence for what you download. According to their FAQ: "eMusic is the only major digital music service to deliver music in the universally compatible MP3 format, the most popular and versatile digital file format. eMusic is the only service that allows you to burn an unlimited number of CDs. You can also transfer music to any computer as well as any portable music player or digital device that supports MP3s (including the market leading iPod).". Hey, finally sounds like freedom! The basic idea behind the eMusic is fair price. For around 10 EUR a month (approximately the price of a single CD) I have 40 downloads. About 4 times cheaper, and that is without going to the shop, ripping the CD and so on. Just click and listen. 2007 will probably be the last year of buying regular CDs. The switch is coming. The Internet is in, the DRMs are out and fair price services will finally rule the world. Of course the only thing I lack is the integration with Pandora. I would love to have an option on my Squeezebox: "download this track from eMusic to my local Slimserver". Wonder if they would team one day or will Pandora enable downloads option? Will see...