DailySpotlight

In 2007, Steve jobs, the Apple CEO, wrote an open letter about the record industry issues (Thoughts on music, February 6, 2007). His conclusion was pragmatic and rather audacious at this time. To struggle efficiently piracy and sustain the growth of online music sales it's necessary to "abolish DRM entirely".

This prophetic statement has been followed (some months after) with the lauching of iTunes Plus consists in selling songs from EMI's catalog (one of the big 4 labels) without any DRM. This first step was a real success and had to make the other big labels think more again about a necessary new strategy.

This year the dream of a "world where every online store sells DRM-free" is about to come true. Indeed, all the big four (WARNER, UNIVERSAL, EMI and very recently SONY-BMG) have decided to abolish gradually the technical restrictions which bother the digital & legal music market.

However this (r)evolution is going to achieve without the visionary Steve Jobs and his famous iTunes store. Probably bored by the arrogant leadership of Apple on the digital music market, three of the big four labels (Warner, Universal & EMI - to a lesser extent) have decided to go without iTunes store to experiment the sale of DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats (MP3).

So, they choose an iTunes challenger to launch their new strategy, the first real competitor which would able to threaten its share market. Its name is : Amazon Mp3. So, after so many attempts, 2008 could be the year when the Apple iTunes store could lose its monopoly. The famous entertainment online store (high tech and media store) has got almost everything to manage to shatter the music business of Apple.

3 millions songs without DRM in its catalog (when iTunes offers 6 millions songs but "only" 2 millions DRM-free), encoded in MP3, the most popular digital audio format compatible with all music players (whereas Apple has chosen AAC ; better audio quality but "almost" only compatible with the iPod), at a very competitive prices : from 89 cents a song and from $5.99 to $9.99 for most albums. Isn't interesting?

Update : Amazon Mp3 starts to sell songs from Sony-BMG this month. Bad time for iTunes, but this is an excellent thing for customers.

If you want discover other online shops which sell DRM-free music at good prices or even totally free, take a look to the following challengers :

Airtist

E-music

7 digital

Death of DRM Could Weaken iTunes, Boost iPod

Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM

Sony official press release

Itunes Store : La concurrence s'organise

Created by a French developper :-), Liveplasma is really a great concept which deserves to be known. Introduced as a discover engine, this website allows you to discover new songs, artists, movies, drectors, etc... basing on your own tastes in a quick and smart way. Just type the title of your favourite artist in the search bar, and the search engine will display a visual universe of artists who are considered more or less closed to your favourite. As said the developper of Liveplasma, Frederic Vavrille, "the closer a artist or a band is closed to your favourite the greater the chances are that you will like it." In addition, "The halo around a band represents its popularity ; the wider it is, the more popular or representative of a certain style of music it is".

Moreover, Liveplasma is also linked to the entertainment on-line shop, Amazon, since for each result research you will find a list of products corresponding to what you probably like. So, by the way you will able to buy directly albums and DVDs from the "map" generated by Liveplasma according to your penchants. Liveplasma has also many other features. The best you have to do : try it.

Simple, free and ingenious, Liveplasma is definitively a very good idea and can help you to find a Christmas present for your friends and your family which will trully be able to please them.

Liveplasma : music, movies, search engine and discovery engine

Each year since 2002, when music sales began to drop, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) have released pessimistic and unsurprising reports about the state of the « recording union » industry. This group, which formed in 1952 to represent the interests of the recording industry in the United States, consists of a large number of record labels and distributors who produce and distribute about 90 % of recorded music sold in the US (source Wikipedia).

Unfortunately it has become unpopular, due to its current « witch hunt » against piracy which caused more than twenty thousand lawsuits in these last years, the RIAA has argued that P-2-P is the principal reason why music sales decline and considers most web surfers as potential pirates. This institution is also one of the most active pro-DRM lobbies. However this digital rights management dramatically limits the use and enjoyment of digital songs, and therefore is clearly the main cause to why the legal downloading services don't manage to reach the growth they deserve.

To my mind and not only mine, The RIAA like most other entities which defend their national record industry, go the wrong way in their struggle with the music industry crisis. They seem to misunderstand the new trends which shatter the world music industry and certainly go after the wrong person.