Sony BMG Music Entertainment will crack open the door to its music vaults on Jan. 15, taking the DRM copy-prevention wrapper off a limited selection of downloadable tracks.
The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM (digital rights management), from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada.
The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."
Napster Inc, one of the largest digital music retailers, said on Monday it would start selling downloads in the MP3 format from the second quarter of this year in the latest blow to copy protection for songs bought online.
Napster had sold songs protected with Microsoft Corp's Windows-based digital rights management (DRM) to prevent buyers from illegally making multiple copies or distributing songs to other users.
But the use of DRM, originally mandated by the world's largest music companies, has proved unpopular with consumers. Many have been frustrated to find that songs they buy can only be played on certain compatible digital players or could not be moved from one computer to another.
In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet, BusinessWeek.com has learned. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection available without so-called digital rights management, or DRM, software some time in the first quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.
Sony BMG would become the last of the top four music labels to drop DRM, following Warner Music Group (WMG), which in late December said it would sell DRM-free songs through Amazon.com's (AMZN) digital music store. EMI and Vivendi's Universal Music Group announced their plans for DRM-free downloads earlier in 2007.
SlySoft has released yet another version of its AnyDVD software. According to the change log, this beta features improved AI scanner performance and support for new copy protections.
6.3.0.6 2008 01 02 - Happy new year! - New (DVD): Added support for new copy protection, e.g. "Whisper", R2, Germany - New (DVD): Improved performance of the AI scanner. - Fix (DVD): AI Scanner missed one chapter of the full frame version on "Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)", R1, US - Fix (DVD): IFOTitles 2 error with some Macrovision RipGuard protected titles, e.g. "Funny Factory with Mickey - Volume 1", R1, US - Some minor fixes and improvements - Updated languages
