UK digital music retailer 7digital.com this week released figures which confirm a huge increase in sales following the company’s first to market move to offer music for sale online free of DRM.
The company’s fourth quarter sales grew over 260 per cent on strength of it offering tracks in high-quality MP3 format, free of restrictive DRM.
Given the extent of repeated rumours in the run-up to Christmas, it’s no great surprise that fresh reports this morning claim Apple could announce a fully DRM-free iTunes Store as soon as today.
The report claims Apple has also given agreement to flexible pricing on music, so labels will be able to charge slightly more for in vogue hits, though the cost of older tracks will fall to 79-cents in the US.
Joining the list of online music services making seasonal offers, ad-supported music service We7 has become an ad-free service for the Christmas season.
The company will remove all audio advertising from its music tracks for the festive period (between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve), so music fans can listen online to as many full tracks and albums as they want for free, completely uninterrupted by ads.
We7 CEO, Steve Purdham, said, “2008 has been a sea change year for digital music, with positive support and action coming from the music industry and great growth and acceptance for We7.”
Nokia launched its ‘Comes With Music’ service in the UK in a fanfare of publicity, promising access to a huge host of music tracks along with free permanent downloads for a year – but now it looks like the company’s facing an unexpected problem – the DRM it uses to limit use of music acquired using the service has been cracked….
Electric Pig informs Nokia has chosen a Microsoft standard for its service, and new software called Tunebite can eliminate the DRM shrouded across Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ tracks.
You’ve been waiting for DRM-free music from all the major labels through iTunes, right? We reported on a “blink-and-you-miss-it” moment when tracks from majors blipped briefly in Apple’s iTunes Plus line-up? Just WTF is going down?
Negotiations may be narrowing toward closure – though at this point nothing is certain – will the labels join in or not? It’s late-night stone-faced deal make/break hardball, we reckon…
Out on the perimeter, reports are now coming in which explain just why the majors haven’t crossed the ‘T’s and dotted the ‘i’s just yet – and, it seems, each label is hard-faced on closing the deal on different points….
Amazon’s move to introduce its DRM-free MP3 download store in the UK is beginning to generate reactions from within the UK music industry, with competing online music service, 7Digital’s CEO Ben Drury noting his company went DRM-free first in the UK.
“We’d like to congratulate Amazon UK for finally entering the MP3 market albeit a little late,” he said. “We announced on September 16th that we were the first in Europe to achieve this. It’s great that general retailers like Amazon clearly recognise the importance of digital music for consumers and the MP3 universal music format which works on all devices.
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Amazon opened up its iTunes competitor, the Amazon MP3 Store
Marking the launch of the store the company has launched a wave of aggressive price cuts on new albums from artists including Take That, Kings of Leon and Coldplay, making albums available for just £3.
The store, which offers music in the MP3 format free of stifling DRM, also offers flexible pricing – long a bone of contention between Apple and the music labels.
Paul McCartney yesterday said that he “doesn’t mind” illegal downloading, though he does have some problems understanding the concept.
He explained that while he doesn’t download illegally himself, he was tempted to buy Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ for a penny, but only so he could tell his mates he’d paid much more.
The artist was speaking at a London media event for the launch of his latest The Fireman album, ‘Electric Arguments’, recorded with Youth.
The long-standing duel between Apple and three major labels, Universal, Warners and Sony BMG may be coming to an end, with tracks from these majors now showing up within the iTunes Plus music upgrade service.
There’s been strong rumours claiming negotiations between Apple and the labels to offer music at high quality free of restrictive DRM have intensified in recent weeks. Sony BMG is already thought to be uploading tracks to make available through iTunes Plus.
More signs of a developing relationship between Sony and Apple this morning.
Sony Pictures Television has reached another interesting deal with iTunes, offering its all-new legal drama, ‘Canterbury’s Law’ for purchase through the UK arm of the service.
It’s not the first television series the company has introduced into the UK market in this way – both Damages and Rescue Me (the first episode of the latter was made available free) also reached these shores through iTunes.