The four major labels have turned away from DRM over the past year as they try new business strategies for digital music distribution. They have supported online music stores in offering DRM-free content to consumers. Naspter, Amazon, iTunes Plus and Rhapsody are among some of the places you can get DRM-free music purchases from the four major music labels. The music industry is concerned with satisfying consumer demand for online access to music. There is no cost to the consumer for digitally encoded MP3 songs obtained illegally.
The paid digital download medium scarcely existed five years ago and now it's the biggest growth area in the music business. (It may be the only growth area in the music business.) Billboard reports that album sales in the first half of 2008 totaled 204.6 million, down slightly from 229.8 million in the first half of 2007. Digital track sales for the same period totaled 542.7 million, up substantially from 417.3 million
(Grein).
Only three albums topped 1 million copies in sales (CDs and digital downloads combined) in the first six months of 2008, the lowest total since Nielsen/SoundScan set up shop in 1991. Six albums sold 1 million copies in the first six months of 2007. Fully 16 albums hit the million mark in the first half of 2006. (The business hit its peak in 2001 when a whopping 37 albums reached the 1 million mark in the first 26 weeks of the year.) (Grein).
What does all these figures and numbers mean? Digital music distribution is going strong even though sales of physical music items are dwindling. Today the record label have created a viable and large user base for digital music distribution. Revenue streams from a digital subscription model are substantial. Apple iTunes has been able to maintain a competitive advantage by being a the leading distributor of online music infrastructure
We can therefore conclude that the music industry has found ways to successfully invest in digital infrastructure keeping in mind the many capabilities, drawbacks and implications of digital standards and distribution. However, there is no standard digital music format with MP3 being the dominant and preferred format. I will examine this point in a later post.
A very hot Topic now is the digitizing of TV and film content. This is a growing area and companies are working to add security to their digital video formats. Expect much heated discussion and a war over prospective digital video standards. Entertainment executives want to stay away from creating a Apple iTunes power house in the video and movie industry, so that they can sell or distribute their content widely and have more control over the cost to consumers.
Related Blogs
Somewhere in the middle of preparing this blog, I thought to myself, that there must be a tons of similar blogs out there that offer insight on DRM. The answer is definitely yes. There are many blogs that entirely focus on or touch upon one or two of the topics and issues that are being discussed in this blog. For instance, just try using Google Blog search and type in any of the terms or headings in the search and you'll see the many return results that cover a wide arrange of topics. My blog does not even come up in the top 20 search results.
Noteworthy blogs include the Recording Industry vs The People that documents various instances where the RIAA has pursued cases against ordinary people.
Digital Restrictions Management (a play on DRM which stands for Digital Rights Management) offers you everything you need to know about Digital Restrictions Management.
There are a thousand of other blogs out there, waiting to be read. As I mentioned in my first post, I have added the news feed section to display updated new stories as they are published.
References:
DRM.info. (2008). Retreived July 3rd from http://drm.info/
Grein, Paul. Week Ending June 29, 2008: Viva La Download Or Death And All His CDs. Yahoo Music Blog. Retrieved July 3rd from http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/chart_watch/9716/week-ending-june-29-2008-viva-la-download-or-death-and-all-his-cds
Kahney, Leander. How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything. WIRED MAGAZINE: 16.04. 03.18.08
Recording Industry vs The People. (2008). Retreived July 3rd from http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/
Rose, Frank. (2008). Dear Hollywood Studios: Let My Video Go. WIRED MAGAZINE: 16.03
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