OpenIDBuyMusic, the latest sharecropper on the block
As seen on Blogzilla and Ordinary Life, BuyMusic are content to exist as a sharecropper. It looks like the restriction is due to their use of Windows Media as the format for their DRM protected files (BuyMusic is the Windows poor relative to Apple’s iTunes). Unfortunately, this could become common place in the next few years as the music industry tries to find ways of surviving in the digital age. After all, with more than 90% of PCs running Windows there’s no doubting that’s where most of the money is. I guess the music industry are happy to be sharecroppers, and anyone who choses non-Microsoft software will have to get used to being treated as second-class citizens.
I'll say one thing for them though: they're customer services guys are fast. I sent a message informing them that I would not be using their service because they didn't support my browser, and got an emailed response back 5 minutes later! It's a form letter, but it does confiorm my suspicions:
So in fact it's because of an Active-X control. Here's looking forward to iTunes on the PC (although the chances of a Linux version are pretty slim).
Simon Willison - 22nd July 2003 19:56 - #
This is the new lock-in by Microsoft. They are losing the lock-in strategy with more and more cross-platform applications. No longer will their customers be forced to stay with them because all their software works only on Windows. It's the same strategy applied to a different object: their customers won't be able to switch platforms because their investments in music, videos, etc will be lost.
Jim Dabell - 22nd July 2003 21:58 - #
Lach - 23rd July 2003 04:24 - #
Ars Technica has a small article about the DRM involved in BuyMusic.com. It seems that while Apple went with the line "you get the same deal as everybody or no deal", leading to uniform DRM, the BuyMusic model not only has prices that vary per song, but rights that can vary per song as well. You apparently don't own the track, but it is "sublicensed" to you.
I think that what we see here with BuyMusic is the sort of music industry paranoia that the industry, sadly, will attempt to back and I predict that it will fail. BuyMusic and the Industry's backing of it smacks of a system that puts its users down. It's better than the subscription models, but it's still reeks of the distrust that the RIAA and the MPAA and associated associations place on the consumer. I can understand them wanting to protect their product. But come on - after buying a DVD player, I had to spend extra money on an RF modulator and a switch to get video into my old TV because I couldn't go through the VCR (previously my only line in because it could take RCA ins and the TV couldn't) because of the consumer mistrust. Regionalized DVD's? What's up with that? Anyone who enjoys imported music would enjoy it a lot less if they couldn't play their british or japanese import in their CD player. I think that Apple made some decent compromises on their DRM, but I like most that (at present) they say that "it's the same deal for everybody." We'll have to see how this plays out in the future (there's speculation that iTunes 5 could somehow mark audio CD's burned with purchased music as not being re-importable to MP3/AAC, but it's just speculation at this point). Here's hoping that Apple and iTunes Music Store for Windows can keep the faith up.
The music industry's response against shared music is a legitimate claim (you don't share your car stereo, or furniture, or even computer in the same way you share data bits, right?), but their execution and prosecution of users has been wholly wrong. Apple tried to find the right compromise. BuyMusic looks like a bad imitation (and their commercials and attitude don't help. And their buy-in to the Windows Media architecture which has some frightening DRM power built in is just scary. Nothing sucks more than having a computer crash and not being able to re-authorize items you actually purchased whose registration data was lost in the crash, even though the other bits are still alive).
J.Shell - 23rd July 2003 05:42 - #