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March 25, 2008

music

Sony mulls DRM drop

Posted Mar. 25, ’08, 8:42 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Music

sonybmg.jpgWell now, Sony, isn’t this a surprise. Word on the webstreets says that you’re considering a DRM-free music store of your own.

“The simplest option would be a flat rate under which a monthly payment would provide access to our entire music catalogue for all digital players, including Apple’s iPod,” said Sony BMG chief executive Rolf Schmidt-Holtz.
That’s an interesting theory. So, touting iPod compatibility suggests a lack of DRM—there’s no other way to get the files to play. But the monthly fee seems to indicate a subscription plan. And how exactly do you make a subscription plan effective without DRM?

Then again, this is Sony, we’re talking about. So perhaps they have something brilliantly asinine up their sleeves. Like distributing all of the music on wax cylinder or something.

This wouldn’t be the first time Sony’s tried selling digital music. The ill-fated Connect store was launched in 2005 and shuttered last year. Back in January, we heard whispers that Sony was considering dropping DRM, so maybe this is just Sony’s way of saying “Hey, we’re still here. Don’t forget about us! Hello? Hello?”


1 Comments

Paul said:

Or perhaps they'll try the eMusic model, where $10 gets you a 30 downloads per month ... although it would probably be closer to $30 gets you 30 downloads per month.

March 25, 2008 9:24 AM

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