Digital music sales continue to gain popularity, but digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on downloaded music has left some music listeners frustrated. To help get headlines and please music listeners, London, U.K.-based 7digital is the first digital music service to offer DRM-free music.
“Consumers see DRM as somewhat of a hindrance when purchasing legal digital music. The availability of all of the big four music labels in high-quality MP3 is fantastic news for the UK music fan – everything they now buy from us they can be sure will work on all their devices. We’ve seen a huge increase in sales since making MP3 downloads available on 7digital.com.”
7digital’s music catalog is already above four million songs, and customers are free to copy the music to their MP3 players or phones, including the Apple iPod or iPhone, without worry of DRM copyright issues. SonyBMG, EMI, Universal and Warner Music Group all have provided DRM-free music to the legal sharing service, in an effort to help get people to legally acquire music with any freedoms they like.
7digital is now the only online music distributor operating in Europe with no DRM restrictions. Up to 80 percent of its customer service calls were from 7digital shoppers who had trouble transferring their downloaded music from one portable device to another.
To help boost digital music sales as CD sales continue, 7digital will offer select new albums for £5 and sell older albums for £2 or £3 each. According to Ben Drury, 7digital co-founder, album sales have increased as the pricing scheme for entire albums has lowered in cost — and the trend should only continue.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other music industry trade groups have been reluctant to push aside DRM, but they’ve been forced to open music up because of online music piracy.
Apple iTunes has sold more than 5 billion songs since it launched, but DRM restrictions have left some listeners displeased.
2 Comments
The popularity of iTunes is tied directly to the fact that there are millions of people running around with an iPod, and you have to use iTunes to transfer music over to the bloody thing. I honestly don't like the DRM, and would prefer to be able to do what I please with the music I purchase.
- guest
- Posts: 15288
- Posted on: 21 Sep 08 04:00
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