The good news: a major band has released their latest album, in its entirety, as DRM-free MP3 files.
The bad news? It’s the Barenaked Ladies.
I kid because I love. And also because, as a Canadian of a certain age, I was practically force-fed BNL from their earliest days, whoring their self-produced tape release on MuchMusic (the nation’s music station, if you must know).
Mike “TechCrunch” Arrington says the album will be released through Amie Street, the digital download service where tracks start out free, becoming more expensive as they gain in popularity (capping out at around a buck, I think).
The songs will only be free through the first few downloads, and will start to rise after that. But even at full price, listeners are getting quality music, DRM-free. Let’s hope other labels follow Nettwerk shortly. Market driven prices and no DRM = Music Nirvana.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the major labels to follow suit, Mike.
As for Amie’s “market driven prices,” I beg to differ. Since there’s no scarcity (there’s an infinite number of copies of any digital track) there’s no market condition making these tracks more expensive as the demand increases. That happens when there’s more demand than there is supply. While I wish all success to any company trying to do something different in digital media retail, it bugs me when people refer to Amie Street’s pricing model as market based.
Source: Barenaked Ladies: New Album. Free. No DRM. Now.