No DRM. A good thing?
I’ve been spending some time thinking about EMI and Apples announcement to offer the no DRM thing. On the surface it may seem like it’s a good thing, but is it? Let’s take a look at why it might not seem like the best possible thing for us.
Apple claims in their press release that the non-DRMed versions of the songs will be of CD quality. Well, they’ve claimed that before, but now the files are supposed to be offered at a higher quality. This is a good thing right? I mean I am a studio engineer and personally I almost feel as though all the work I’ve been doing is for nothing. It seems that sound quality is not as important as one might think. Recording music to go to mp3 seems rather ridiculous especially considering that we record our music through high quality studio mics, pre amps, and converters. Add to this the fact that we track at 96khz, 24bit. Who, however, is complaining about the sound quality of music downloaded either from iTunes or from other sites? Obviously considering the decline of CD sales and the increase in the amount of people receiving digital downloads, it would seem as though not very many people are complaining. It would seem, therefore, that no one truly cares about sound quality. In other words the current standard of data compression is “good enough.”
Along with the increase in sound quality, the “deluxe” non-DRMed versions of the songs would be presented at a higher price. In fact 30 cents higher. If you take into consideration that no one really cares about the sonic quality, how does this make sense? So basically they are doing less work by not having to add and research DRM, yet they are charging more for the songs?
It seems as though they are testing the waters, and that many other labels are watching closely to see how this thing is going to pan out. If we were to buy the non-DRM versions of the songs what would our message be to Apple and the RIAA? Would we be saying that we don’t like DRM or would we be saying that we are willing to pay more for the music? The upside of this is that I truly feel that DRM needs to be gotten rid of. If I want to archive my purchased music in whatever way I want to, I should be able to. Beyond that though, DRM or not, people will find a way to archive, copy, trade, or steal. Does this mean we should abolish laws just because people will break them anyway? No, but what I am saying is that the people who buy should not be punished, and no one should think that a DRMless song would encourage “pirates” to actually start purchasing.
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