December 28, 2007 8:53 AM
Amazon Will Sell DRM Free Warner Music
Followers of Digital Rights Management (DRM) restricted music may have suffered yet another blow into their cause when Warner Music announced that it would be making available digital music sans the DRM software through Amazon's music store. By unrestricting its music Warner is hereby embracing the widely popular MP3 format.
NYT is reporting that Warner Music which has in its roster, musical talents such as Josh Groban and Matchbox Twenty, made a decision to drop the music anti-piracy restrictions four months after music industry's biggest player, Universal Music Group announced that it will be selling digital music without copyright restrictions.
Warner Music's chairman, Edgar Bronfman was reluctant at first in making Warner's music available without the copyright restriction, even saying that it was “completely without logic or merit”. This statement came after Apple's top honcho, Steve Jobs called on major music industry players to abandon D.R.M.
Warner argued back then that Apple has been dominating the digital music market with its products such as the iPods and iTunes and as such should license its copy protection software to its rival companies. But this was rejected by Jobs saying that it will pose a threat to its proprietary technology.
Warner's digital music will be made available on various digital stores run by Wal-Mart, Real Networks and Amazon. And you guess it right, Warner's music will not be available in iTunes. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.
This may be an understable decision by Warner Music but hopefully it will include iTunes sometime soon as iTunes userbase – proud owners of iPods are the major consumers of digital music on the web.
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