January Surprise: Sony BMG Could Drop DRM on Music Tracks

Fri Jan 4, 2008 11:29AM EST

See Comments (5)

And here I was predicting it would take all year for Sony to come to its senses. BusinessWeek is reporting that Sony BMG is on the cusp of joining the no-DRM party and is now "finalizing plans" to sell songs without copy protection. Sony's withdrawal from the DRM world would mark an end to copy protection on music as we know it.

Nothing is official yet. BusinessWeek cites anonymous sources "familiar with the matter" and a timeline that stretches to "some time in the first quarter." But I'm hopeful that the information is legitimate and that this all pans out.

EMI and Universal dropped DRM in 2007. Warner Music followed suit a few weeks ago.

Assuming the news is true, a big question remains on how Sony might sell these DRM-free tracks. Universal and Warner sell their DRM-free tracks only at Amazon. Songs sold on iTunes are still encumbered with copy protection. Sony may follow suit, or it may try selling DRM-free tracks on its own, exclusively. Sony's CONNECT service is still kicking around, and the company might decide to try to give it a kick-start by selling the unencumbered tracks only at connect.com. Foolish? Yes, but don't forget: Sony's the company that is responsible for the CD rootkit debacle in 2005. It doesn't like to let go of its music without a fight.

Stay tuned for more details as they develop.

LINK: Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM

Comments on January Surprise: Sony BMG Could Drop DRM on Music Tracks

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  • 1 Posted by agustin2489 on Fri Jan 4, 2008 2:07PM EST Report Abuse

    I'm still on the fence about this but DRM-free tracks from each of the Big 4 sounds nice. I'll still buy CDs for now though. Also, typo: doens't. It's at the end of the article.

  • 2 Posted by nolo_8 on Fri Jan 4, 2008 2:23PM EST Report Abuse

    I still say sharing isnt stealing. RIAA is a horrible thing.

  • 3 Posted by rogueist on Fri Jan 4, 2008 2:45PM EST Report Abuse

    They need to sell the DRM free stuff thru iTunes and stop removing stuff from iTunes. The Amazon service / software is horrible. I will never buy any more music or videos through their service.

  • 4 Posted by wmtyrancz on Sun Jan 6, 2008 12:04PM EST Report Abuse

    I have to disagree with rogueist. Who sounds like an apple fanboy. Amazon's service is going to take over itunes top spot after this. Itunes has become a service that alot of people are sick of. And not everyone owns an ipod. I'm sure you find that hard to believe but its true. The only way itunes is going to recover is to open its software to all mp3 players. But knowing what we know about apple,this will never happen. Amazon will come out on top because it works with any player. And i've been using it for awhile now and its flawless and easy to setup. All the music i buy goes into a custom desktop folder and i just drag and drop into my player. It doesn't get any easier than that.

  • 5 Posted by hocketime on Wed Jan 9, 2008 2:53PM EST Report Abuse

    iTunes is a rip off just download your songs for free.

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