La mayor parte de las tiendas de música online (ej: itunes) venden la música con sistemas de protección DRM para evitar su pirateo. Realmente este tipo de sistemas lo único que consiguen es putear al usuario legítimo imponiéndole una serie de limitaciones que le impiden disfrutar plenamente de la música que ha comprado. Por lo menos existen algunas compañías que no ven con buenos ojos poner sistemas DRM a sus clientes, eMusic es una compañía que vende canciones por internet, en mp3 de alta calidad y sin DRM. Esto la ha convertido en la segunda compañía que más música vende por Internet en Estados Unidos, justo por detrás de iTunes, sencillamente por hacerle las cosas fáciles a los usuarios y no tratándolos como ladrones a los que hay que poner restricciones
It sounds like such a simple idea, but in the context of the music business, this is radical, French Revolution-type stuff. What’s perhaps even more interesting is the fact that eMusic’s decision to offer unprotected MP3 files was not an ideological one; the idea made great business sense, and has established eMusic as the #2 retailer of downloadable music behind the iTunes Music Store. The fact that it opened the way for iPod compatibility was really just a bonus, since a couple of years back, it was much less clear that Apple would come to dominate the market in the way that it does today.
«It’s really not a philosophical decision; it’s a practical one,» says Pakman. «Early on, the belief was that we had to sell music in the only universally compatible format that existed. TiVo was just about to come out with MP3 playback on their machine and we didn’t know if that was going to be big. There were a bunch of MP3 players on the market, including the iPod, and that market was growing. There were MP3 car stereos happening. There weren’t any phones, but you can see that’s where it was going. Everyone was putting MP3 in their device, so why not sell in a format that works in all those places?»
Historia completa en: Ars Technica: Making money selling music without DRM: the rise of eMusic.
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