JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum How the Sony DRM Works

If you would like to know exactly how the Sony DRM software worked, you may find the following paper quite interesting:

http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/pub/sonydrm-ext.pdf

It's an academic paper, but if you're someone who likes to understand the bits, bytes, and causes behind these things, it's a very thorough coverage of the entire topic.

DRM may sound like a subject that is only important for the big labels, but the truth is, as we indies sell music through digital music services, it affects us as well. I know that my band's music has been sold with DRM restrictions. And, in fact, one person lost his rights to our music when he left Napster and complained about it in his blog. (We sent him new DRM-Free copies ourselves.)

-Randy from Beatnik Turtle

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See the The Indie Band Survival Guide : Everything we've learned so far.

It's certainly a new world with the DRM.

But in terms of your fan that complained. Maybe he should have read his agreement better, and/or maybe you should think about something. Napster allows for streaming listening if I'm not mistaken. Their agreement clearly tells a user that they lose the right to listen to the music when they stop paying for the service. In fact all the streaming sites do this.

"*It is necessary to maintain a Napster subscription in order to continue access to songs downloaded through the Napster service. If you are joining a subscription plan with an installment billing option (e.g. 1 year billed monthly), Napster will charge you for each applicable installment without further notice."

That quote comes right off Napster's home page. So while it's cool of you to respond to a complaining fan by sending him a free copy of your stuff, he really got himself caught in his own problem and you set yourself up for a lot of people to come at you with the same complaint.

This is also a primary reason why iTunes is still the dominant force. You don't lose your purchase because it's not a subscription. It does require iTunes (which is free) to play it, but it will play. You can burn it on a CD, or back it up - its up to you.

Thanks for the information about Sony though.

Jody

p.s. - One thing I find really odd at the napster website is that all the quotes come from napster employees and not customers. Does anyone else think that's weird?

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Music That Makes Your Soul Happy!
www.jodywhitesides.com

Oh, there's no question that the service terms are clear. But Napster is not a pure "You give us money, and you can listen to everything" type of service either. You pay for albums and songs on that one, and you have to keep paying the service for continued access to your music.

When it came down to it, giving him the album was an easy decision. We really didn't want to be associated with the bad feelings that come from these kind of restrictions. You can read his blog entry yourself to see:

http://bassoonblog.blogspot.com/2005/07/drm-and-why-im-not-using-napster.html

He already had paid for the album, so I lose nothing by sending him a DRM-free version of it. Instead, we make a fan happy rather than make them feel that we think that they are a criminal. I have a feeling that he'll be more inclined to purchase our next album, since we reached out to him.

I have no regrets, and I'd do it again for others if they wrote and asked. The digital services are so impersonal anyway, and I love the opportunity to be able to talk directly with a fan.

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See the The Indie Band Survival Guide : Everything we've learned so far.

The terms of service are real clear. You even re-stated exactly what I quoted directly off the site. You lose the right to listen to the music you purchase as soon as you stop paying Napster. That is why it's a horrible deal.

I'm glad you made a fan happy. And you're right it's better to deal with them on a more personal basis. However, it's the fault of the end user for choosing a music service unwisely. I've yet to have a fan come at me saying they did this, so I don't know what I'd do in that situation. But, I'd also suggest to them in the future they use a service that isn't so restrictive.

Funny how all these other services aren't pulling in the numbers that iTunes is. Could it be their terms of use aren't very customer friendly?

Jody

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Music That Makes Your Soul Happy!
www.jodywhitesides.com

Oh, I don't think that there's any doubt that iTunes is one of the better ones. However it also has DRM which can at times be restrictive. Especially if you move computers too often. I actually promote the the non-DRM mp3tunes.com store, even though we get slightly less from it.

Regarding what to do in that situation, there's one more factor we haven't discussed. If he had lost a physical album, it would have cost us something to ship him a new copy, let alone the album duplication costs. Since I just sent him good quality MP3's from our website, it cost us nothing to replace his music. So perhaps that's a factor in favor of helping the guy out.

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See the The Indie Band Survival Guide : Everything we've learned so far.

Actually iTunes is very simple, even if you move computers. You get 5 computers to use it on. As long as you don't forget to deauthorize an old computer, then you probably won't ever run into an issue with iTunes. I don't know more than 2 people who actually need to own 5 computers that they use at the same time. Even if you do have an issue with "lost" authorizations with iTunes - there's a reasonable fix that Apple has and it's not hard to make use of. But you only get that use once a year.

True, if it was a physical copy that would be different. I guess its something a lot of us will have to deal with in the future. But this situation definitely makes me think why so few in the digital download game are actually turning a profit. I can only think of a few companies at the moment, some are the content providers, and of course the dominant leader of downloads.

Jody

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Music That Makes Your Soul Happy!
www.jodywhitesides.com

I am curious as to what you guys are talking about. Isn't the service in question just a music club service that allows you to listen to any music you want in any quantity you want while you're a member? That means for a monthly fee (8 bucks on Virgin Digital, not sure the Napster price) folks can literally download thousands of songs and listen to them as much as they want as long as they are subscribers? I think that for the cost of 1 CD a month, having access to a library of millions of songs is an amazingly GOOD deal. The way you guys are discussing it, you make it sound like they bought a single song for a dollar and then couldn't access that single song after they stopped subscribing. It's a misleading argument for what the service is.

Anyone who uses the music club services I think will find it not only a great value, but a logical replacement for buying CD's. If you have Cable TV and stop paying the cable TV bill, you can no longer watch the Cable TV stations. The music service is really no different, expect in many ways it is far better than Cable because the entire catalog is On Demand, whereas cable only offers a tiny number of movies and shows on Demand and often those come with additional fees for new releases. So, for 96 dollars a year, you have the worlds largest music collection at your fingertips whenever you want it. You could only buy about 8 CD's for that same money a year. The subscription service is a WAY better deal.

It's also a great way to discover new music. With itunes you only get 30 seconds to determine whether you like something. With these subscription services, you can listen to every new release, ever old release, anything suggested by someone and in my case, you can hear some old songs that you really don't even want to pay to download, but you'd like to hear once or twice. You can download these catalogs to your offline devices so I just can't find the real downside. Sure, go ahead and buy CD's if you want, but you'll have to be happy with 8 CD's a year and no access to anything else.

Subscriptions are already the best thing going. And I bet they will only get better and more popular as time goes on.

Brian

Actually Brian, the point is that services like Napster also allow you to "purchase" songs or albums. But what you're allowed to do with them once they're purchased is in question. Obviously some customers feel that if they buy a song from a subscription service they should own it. However in reading the Terms of Service you'll usually find that's not the case.

I think their is a place for subscription services, and yes you can get a lot of music for very little money. But the mentality that you own something when you actually rent it seems to be common among a lot of people. I don't know why that is.

I'd be willing to bet that you will see iTunes add a subscription level to their service when their market dominance starts to erode. Just like we saw video capability being added to iPods, even though initially Apple said it wouldn't happen.

Jody

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Music That Makes Your Soul Happy!
www.jodywhitesides.com

Great post above, Jody.

I'd venture to guess that the answer to your question quoted above is that people have owned their music until this very point in time. There's 100 years of recorded music history behind this.

From a customer's standpoint, it's rather disconcerting to see that you're just leasing your music. Especially if the service isn't as flexible as you want them to be such as my band's customer felt. Or, even worse, they decide to change their policies to something that's overly constraining. What would happen if Napster decided to raise their subscription fee to $999.99 per month? Most people would quit, and lose their music.

I think that the largest irony is that the customer isn't paying a much different price than buying the actual album, and they're getting less for it. Again, another argument for services like iTunes and others which lets you own the song.

Brian: There certainly are other services that do let you just listen when you want to, as a subscription. And they are probably pretty good for the customer, but I don't prefer them as a band.

As I look through my band's sales list, the plays that I get from Rhapsody, MusicNet, and MusicNow are netting us between .01 and .02 per play. In comparison, I make the most, by far, on iTunes, which I get between .65 to .819 per song, and about $7 per album.

Based on this, I consider that the pay-to-own services are a better deal for both our fans, and ourselves as musicians. It takes a lot of plays at .01 a song to get to $7.


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See the The Indie Band Survival Guide : Everything we've learned so far.

[This message has been edited by beatnik_turtle (edited 02-20-2006).]

"From a customer's standpoint, it's rather disconcerting to see that you're just leasing your music. Especially if the service isn't as flexible as you want them to be such as my band's customer felt. Or, even worse, they decide to change their policies to something that's overly constraining. What would happen if Napster decided to raise their subscription fee to $999.99 per month? Most people would quit, and lose their music."

This is the problem. You were never "buying" the music in the first place. Do you REALLY think people think they are buying millions of songs for a 1 month subscription fee? Do people think that they now own movies they rent from Blockbuster or view on Cable TV?

The cost of music on a subscription service is microscopically small unless you are only listening to 1 CD worth of songs per month. If that is the case, then buying makes more sense. But if you are listening to a lot of music each month, the cost of buying versus a subscription is astronomically higher AND you don't get the freedom of selection or access to the variety that you are limited to by only getting the stuff you buy.

I think in the short term, most people will do both. They will subscribe to a service to listen casually to a huge variety of music, and then for the handful of albums or songs they really love, they buy a download copy and then burn it to CD or whatever else they want to do with it. I suggest signing up for one of the subscription services and really trying it out. It's addictive.

And the idea is that far more people will listen when it doesn't cost anything to do so when you're searching for new music. The first digital service that does a good job of filtering all the indie music so they can make quality recommdendations (from small niche genres to simply pointing out popular tracks) will really take full advantage of the potential. So far none of the services has paid much attention to half their music inventory that comes from CD Baby and other indies.

Brian

In case I am still confused, perhaps you guys are saying that Sony's DRM prevents you from using stuff you paid full price for (i.e. 99 cents per song) if you don't keep paying them an additional fee. If that is the case, then it's a big problem. But I have to think you're talking about subscription services which are clearly different.

Brian

This is the problem. You were never "buying" the music in the first place. Do you REALLY think people think they are buying millions of songs for a 1 month subscription fee? Do people think that they now own movies they rent from Blockbuster or view on Cable TV?


Well, Napster seems to be the hybrid that breaks the rule, both charging you a fee to "lease" the song, and a general subscription fee. That's really not a good combination, as we've seen here.

The cost of music on a subscription service is microscopically small unless you are only listening to 1 CD worth of songs per month. If that is the case, then buying makes more sense. But if you are listening to a lot of music each month, the cost of buying versus a subscription is astronomically higher AND you don't get the freedom of selection or access to the variety that you are limited to by only getting the stuff you buy.

I think in the short term, most people will do both. They will subscribe to a service to listen casually to a huge variety of music, and then for the handful of albums or songs they really love, they buy a download copy and then burn it to CD or whatever else they want to do with it. I suggest signing up for one of the subscription services and really trying it out. It's addictive.

And the idea is that far more people will listen when it doesn't cost anything to do so when you're searching for new music. The first digital service that does a good job of filtering all the indie music so they can make quality recommdendations (from small niche genres to simply pointing out popular tracks) will really take full advantage of the potential. So far none of the services has paid much attention to half their music inventory that comes from CD Baby and other indies.

These are all excellent points. Of course, the problem with music is that there is a lot of it that, frankly, sucks. And advertising counts for a lot here, something that the indies can't easily compete with.

The story of the music busiess so far is that it's worth it to spend most of your time on the hits, since that's where the largest percentage of the revenues come from. So these services would tend to highlight the hits, and let the long tail take care of itself.

But most services also have just a search bar, so in that, our songs can come up. Still, if I was presented with a search bar, I'd end up searching for songs that I knew, since I have no idea who those new worthy indie bands are.

I have to admit, you've tempted me to join one of these subscription-based services. Not Napster, however. Do you recommend one over the others?

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See the The Indie Band Survival Guide : Everything we've learned so far.

In case I am still confused, perhaps you guys are saying that Sony's DRM prevents you from using stuff you paid full price for (i.e. 99 cents per song) if you don't keep paying them an additional fee. If that is the case, then it's a big problem. But I have to think you're talking about subscription services which are clearly different.

To clarify, the first item is what we're talking about here. The songs I have listed in my reimbursements from Napster are all between .60 and .80 cents. All of the charges from songs in the subscription-only services are between .01 and .02.

To make it more confusing, looking at the Napster page, I think that they changed their services to become a more traditional subscription OR price per song, so that's probably where there's a disconnect.



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See the The Indie Band Survival Guide : Everything we've learned so far.

The model I am familiar with is Virgin Digital because they are friends of JPF. They charge (last I checked) 8 bucks a month for their subscription service. The reason I haven't been hawking that everyone use them more openly is because they haven't added the "take it with you" feature that Listen/Rhapsody and Napster have. So for 8 bucks you simply get to listen on line or via your computer as long as you want. You can also purchase the music and you can burn a CD right from their player. They have a free 14 day trial period which you should all check out since it's free and if you have some time, you'll really enjoy it. My favorite thing to do is click the Reviews, Bios and the Tab for "Related Artists" and those will have all sorts of folks influenced by or who influenced the artist as well as people they have played in bands with etc.. and you can click their links to take you to a lot of music you've long since forgotten about. I can't tell you how many greats songs I had totally forgotten about I have found that way. Like Searching for Journey and finding The Baby's and then Bad English (all with Jonathan Cain) just from the related links and remembering how much I loved all those bands but had pretty much forgotten them.

They have all the newest releases too, in all genres so you can really see what the hoopla is about. I did that for the Grammy nominees and of course was pretty shocked by how bad some nominees really were, but also discovered some cool stuff I would never had heard otherwise.

I also regularly search for songs that win various awards in the indie community as a measuring stick to where our JPF nominees/winners stack up. (I think we do very well even compared to the Grammy winners in many genres).

So, check it out. I hope Virgin Digital is able to keep competiting with the gigantic companies out there because they actually are interested in supporting indie artists and have even talked to us about helping them out if the business grows enough to support it.

Brian