Apple V Amazon in DRM Free Song Price War
Oct
17
Written by:
10/17/2007
Seven years ago Sound Waves attended a music industry convention in France where DRM was the buzzword de jour. Today, its all change as Apple and Amazon slug it out over song offerings without copy protection.
Variety reported on 16/10/2007 that Apple in the United States was cutting the price of songs it sold via i-tunes that did not have copy protection software (DRM) from $1.29 to $0.99 per song. Although Apple said this was not in response to Amazon's entry into the market in September 2007 with an offering where songs without DRM sell for $0.89 to $0.99 it does appear to the casual observer that the consumer is regaining some of their traditional fair use rights in relation to copyright material as a result of Amazon's entry and this is more significant than the just announced price drop which puts songs without DRM at the same price as those with DRM.