| Anyone doubt Amazon is serious about music downloads now?
Amazon announced Sunday that it plans an international rollout of its DRM-free MP3 music download service in a move that sets up a global scrap with Apple's iTunes service. Is Amazon's service an iTunes killer yet? Not really. But there's no doubt about Amazon's intentions. I've downloaded more than a few DRM-free tunes from Amazon in recent weeks–most because I got a warning about burning more than seven CDs for a 5 year old's birthday party (there was two songs purchased on iTunes). Without that little warning I probably wouldn't have tried Amazon's service. But the four big labels and thousands of independent ones convinced me to give it a try. Amazon's service is intuitive, easy and can compete with iTunes–even though Apple and Amazon have different takes on their service.
Internet Sony BMG Drops DRM for New MusicPass MP3 Service
Interestingly, Sony BMG has no plans to open similar stores in other countries, including Japan. Sony traditionally resisted DRM-free music, due to fears of widespread piracy and the influence of its music and movie publishing arms. For the CONNECT music store, Sony combined DRM with its proprietary ATRAC compression format, of which it has phased out. The move to DRM-free MP3 files will allow Sony to access the overwhelmingly large iPod userbase, which less than a year ago was almost exclusively limited to iTunes for most music. Meanwhile, an official press release was posted to www.musicpass.com, and it provides a detailed description of how Platinum MusicPass will work: retail stores will offer "a series of digital album cards" that will unlock a "high-quality" MP3 download of the album at the MusicPass web site.
CNBC Asia Podcasts for PC, iPod or MP3 player!
All you need is a RSS reader or aggregator installed on your PC or Mac. Examples of RSS readers include Sage that runs on Mozilla Firefox, Yahoo! Music, or iTunes. Most of these readers are free to download. So are CNBC Podcasts -- they are absolutely free! If you have an iPod or MP3 player, the next time you sync your device, your podcasts will be downloaded for listening on the go. Steps to get CNBC Asia feeds on your RSS reader: 1. Right click or option-click (for Mac) on the "Subscribe to Podcast" link for the feed you want. 2. Select "copy shortcut" from the dropdown menu (this will copy the Address or URL of the feed). 3. Look for the "Add new feed" menu in your RSS reader, and paste the shortcut. Some readers may allow you to simply drag-and-drop the new feeds. Alternatively, if you already have iTunes installed, click on "Subscribe with iTunes" to launch the feed directly in your iTunes.
The implosion of music DRM
I certainly wouldn't have expected that, within a year, most digital music would be legally available, DRM-free, from online download sites. That seems on track to happen, however, as Sony just announced it would be releasing its music in DRM-free MP3 format. It helps, of course, that DRM-free music on iTunes has been so well-received. Sales of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon were up 350% after its iTunes re-release without DRM. Consumers seem to favor the DRM-free variety of digital music, and have proven willing to pay for it…just as they did with CDs (which are, by nature, DRM-free). Other experiments in DRM-free digital music exist, such as those conducted by both Radiohead and Trent Reznor. Both recently released albums where consumers were given the option to download a free version.
Rumored: Apple Lossless Songs on iTunes?
This would be interesting: Songs sold on the iTunes Music Store in Apple Lossless format. As anyone who's into downloading FLAC, SHN and WAV files can tell you, lossless formats sound better than "lossy" formats like AAC and MP3. But they take up more space and as such take longer to download. Now an interesting rumor over at AppleInsider suggests that something around Apple Lossless format is happening. The big clue in all this is a new version of iTunes Producer that allows music to be encoded directly into Apple Lossless format. Though the format doesn't currently work with Fairplay, Apples digital rights management technology I don't see how that couldn't change. But here's an interesting idea: There's already an active community of music lovers who trade recorded concerts in lossless formats online — couldn't Apple do something in the area of concert downloads and use Apple Lossless to do it? Some concerts could even be free — there are dozens of acts that already allow fans to record their shows so long as they're traded without money changing hands.
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