Tag: drm
iTunes drops price of DRM-free tracks in UK as well as US, adds more choons
A couple of days ago it was announced that Apple would be dropping the price of iTunes Plus DRM-free tracks on iTunes from $1.29 to just 99cents, matching nasty DRM-ridden tracks.
Only EMI tracks are sold as 256kbps, DRM-free AAC files, however starting today certain indie labels (Sub Pop!!!!) will be able to flog their wares in the same higher-quality format, in total two million…
Radiohead shuns iTunes in favour of 7digital
Finally, Thom Yorke’s miserable curmudgeonry has amounted to something. Well, excluding their six albums and his solo album, natch. But you must admit, he’s like a younger version of Morrissey, minus the dashing good looks.
You might be aware that after the Beatles, Radiohead are the last high-profile band to refuse to flog their tunes to Apple’s iTunes, as they apparently aren’t keen on Apple’s practise of selling individual tracks instead of full albums. Fair enough, when you consider an artist’s album…
Pink Floyd go DRM-free with 7digital
Hello, hello, is there anybody out there (still buying DRM-restricted music)? Pink Floyd is the latest band to have their back-catalogue knocked out as DRM-free digital tracks, thanks to a deal with UK etailer 7digital.
First hands-on impressions of the Nokia Music Store
At today’s Go Play event, Nokia announced its new Nokia Music Store service (see the earlier story and liveblog for full details). In the afternoon, I got hands on with the web and mobile versions, to see how they’re shaping up.
First, some factual info that didn’t come out in the earlier press conference:
– The DRM-protected tracks will be WMA files encoded at 192kbps. Initially, it’s using Microsoft’s old Windows Media DRM, but in the future, there’s scope to switch to the newer PlayReady system (you might remember, a couple of weeks ago, Nokia and Microsoft signed a deal to work together on the latter).
Google sees sense, offers proper refund for botched Google Video service – but you still can't keep vids forever
Google has had a change of heart on how it should have handled the Google Video shutdown fiasco.
In an apologetic blog post, Google says that it made a mistake with handling aggrieved Google Video members.
They’d always planned to give members at least a full refund, but, claiming they didn’t have correct addresses or the latest credit card information, were going to offer that in the form of Google Checkout credits.
Bad move.
Rolling Stones get DRM-free satisfaction with 7digital
Online music store 7digital has announced something of a coup: it’s selling more than 20 Rolling Stones albums as DRM-free 320kbps MP3 files for £5.49 per album. I repeat: £5.49 per album. And it includes all the classics (hello, Exile On Main Street and Sticky Fingers), not just their newer stuff and live compilations.
Daily Tech Hotlinks for 09-Aug-07: Xbox 360, Carlos Slim, Freakonomics, Flickr, Nokia DRM
– Xbox 360 gets first official price cut (Daily Tech)
– The world’s new richest man, Carlos Slim, to donate 250,000 laptops to children by 2008 (Engadget)…
2007 Tech Trends No. 9: DRM-free music
Talk to many companies in the music industry, and they’ll tell you DRM is woefully misunderstood. It’s not about stopping naughty file-sharing, they’ll say, it’s about enabling music fans to do Cool Stuff. Except that so far, that’s not true.
