Quote:
Originally Posted by TallMomof2
Amazon was selling DRM free mp3 music before Apple so I don't see how Apple broke music DRM's back.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham
Exactly. Amazon DRM-free from January 2008, Apple DRM-free from January 2009, Napster DRM-free from June 2009.
I wonder if there's any sign at all of it happening in the eBook world? Who might lead the way?
Graham |
History lesson time:
Apple pushed hard for DRM-free music from the very beginning of the iTunes store. The big labels wouldn't permit it. Eventually, Apple got one label (EMI, I think) to go along with DRM-free tunes. Around the same time, the other big labels grew concerned that Apple had too much clout in the market for digital sales of music. In an attempt to reduce Apple's influence, they permitted Amazon and several other vendors —
but not Apple — to sell DRM-free music. This choice by (all-but-one) of the big record labels is the
entire reason why other stores had DRM-free music first.
Further, the N-1 big labels used their power to refuse DRM-free tunes as a negotiating point to push Apple into something the labels had wanted all along—variable pricing in the iTunes store. Which is why so much music now sells at higher prices than pre-DRM-free. So much for the label's claims that "only the newest and most popular" releases would be priced at the higher rate, and that their long tail of older music would be at the $0.69 per track lower price.
Xenophon