About a year ago, Yahoo Music GM David Goldberg stunned attendees of the Music 2.0 conference by urging major labels to abandon DRM and give unrestricted MP3 sales a try. The biggest side effect of DRM, he said, was that it tended to lock users into a single service and a single device – not something that made them happy.
A lot has changed in the last year. Physical CD sales continue to drop, and labels seem to be more willing than ever to try anything that might help increase digital music sales and make up at least some of the difference. Suddenly eMusic’s model of selling non-DRM’d music seems to make a lot of sense, and others are experimenting as well. Amazon is rumored to be considering a MP3-only music download store. MySpace sells no-DRM music. Yahoo has experimented with no-DRM downloads. And so on. Even Bill Gates admits DRM is a deeply flawed solution.
I spoke to Goldberg and Yahoo Music VP of Product Development Ian Rogers last week about their views on DRM today and going forward. While they won’t say DRM is dead, they do provide valuable insights as music industry insiders on what we can expect in the future. Including, possibly, side by side sales of DRM and non-DRM music, with a discount for customers who can stomach the DRM. We also talk briefly about the proposed music tax in Europe to replace DRM entirely.
I’ll be writing more at TechCrunch about my own views on DRM as well.
Time: 40:07 Minutes
Size: 9.18 MB
[apologies, this was mis-posted to techcrunch article accidentally]
Wow, the timing of this interview is a bummer.
It will be very interesting to hear what Goldberg has to say now, after the announcement of the “jesusphone”
It “should” be possible to stream Yahoo music to the new iphone (too bad it’s on Cingular/Edge)
The big question is whether or not it will be possible to play WMA-DRM’d tracks (anybody know if it is currently possible on a Mac? could Apple block this?) Did Goldberg already get wind of what Apple was up to? Is that what he was coyly alluding to near the end of the podcast?
I suspect that Yahoo arguing against DRM is a red herring.
The subtext of the whole interview is that itunes owns the market and any other player’s (including Yahoo) only shot of making it in the space is if the studios drop DRM.
I don’t doubt that Goldberg is sincere when he argues that dropping DRM is in the Studios’ best interest (ceteris paribus), but even better for the Studios would be if Apple launched a subscription service (perhaps Yahoo is trying to get out in front of that)
My suggestion- One of the big subscription services should just give a bunch of drm ONLY players away and/or charge 1cent per play w/a $15/month cap (not sure if this is yet possible w/current state of DRM). This is also premised on the major assumption that limiting to just one player would overcome many of the technical problems that Yahoo bemoans regarding handling DRM (seems to be working for Apple).
Disclaimer: I tried to get a PM job at Yahoo Launch 2 years ago and was rebuffed (still not over it), but I honestly think Goldberg has been the smartest guy in this space since day one (Jobs was just lucky that his competition is so slow and sucks so bad)
MA,
Hey what is the name of the application you use for your podcast player? I’ve been looking for one just like it. Thx. art
This makes it interesting when some of the big players even hint at breaking ranks with DRM.