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General
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Written by Daniel
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Monday, 22 January 2007 07:31 |
For Real, DRM no cure for music biz blues
Fine for subs, bad for downloads
By Andrew Orlowski in Cannes
Published Monday 22nd January 2007 14:42 GMT
The Register!
MidemNet Real Networks' CEO Rob Glaser summed up the music business' ambivalence towards DRM this weekend, and said digital music needed the shackles taken off.
Glaser predicted that the first year of DRM-free downloads would be the first year digital overtook physical. And only with DRM-free music would customers get the flexibility they deserved, he added.
"We need to move to a trust model," he said.
Glaser said he expected a "transactional watermark" to supersede DRM within "one to five years".
He still said DRM had a place on subscription services, such as...Real's Rhapsody service.
To get access to a "jukebox in the sky" said Glaser, DRM was reasonable, otherwise people would just pocket the jukebox and never come back.
But then he would say that, wouldn't he?
The tepid adoption of "legal" downloads hasn't matched the fall in physical sales. Illegal downloads still outnumber legals by 40 to 1, according to the big label representatives, although insiders put the figure as high as 100 to 1.... MORE
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