I've been working hard on breaking the locks of Itunes' dastardly .m4p files and converting them to .m4a's or .mp3's, but I may have met my match. I thought I'd found the key with Noteburner, which works perfectly until it doesn't actually work at all. Also, the free trial only allows you to convert 3 minutes worth of a song. Hey, it would've worked for Leonard Cohen's "Chelsea Hotel No. 2."
What is DRM, you ask? DRM stands for digital rights management. It's why you can only play Itunes-purchased songs on five different machines (or give them to five different friends). I've always been prone to buying cds even though I simply planned to upload them to my computer. But this Itunes debacle with Kate's music (she buys lots off of Itunes) has really cemented by love for buying music on cds. But never fear, Steve Jobs of Apple as well as EMI have announced plans to sell DRM-free music starting in May.
So hold off until May to buy your music from Itunes and tune into our show tomorrow.
EDIT: Exciting new comment from Rachel, a real person that isn't even obligated by friendship to read the blog! She posted a link to a really illuminating article that explains the Apple/EMI change. Read it here. I've got a lot to learn.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Dastardly DRM
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1 comment:
You don't have to hold off -- you will be able to upgrade the songs that you have already purchased, for the difference in price.
Of course, this only works for EMI songs.
I'm happy songs are going to be DRM-free, but this probably won't help the music companies much. They need something new -- such as a way to capitalize on the music that is used in user-generated content.
There's a good essay about this up on Media 3.0 -- Did We Miss the Memo?
One thing is for sure -- they need something new.
- Rachel
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