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UK retailers losing sales battle to DRM

23 November 2007 18:34 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 4 comments

Responding to declining U.K. music sales, the Entertainment Retailers Association - an organization representing music retailers, is blaming digital copy protection for the slow pace at which consumers have embraced downloaded music.

ERA director Kim Bayley told the Financial Times this week that the copy protection mechanisms are "stifling growth and working against the consumer interest." Citing a recent study conducted in the UK which indicated that consumers overwhelmingly prefer music without copy protection mechanisms, Bayley says that DRM "puts consumers off."

According to an article in the Financial Times the music industry counts on fourth quarter sales for 40% of its annual revenue, but so far the slower than usual period leading up to the Christmas buying season have many retailers concerned that sales will be lower than anticipated this year.

Although it's questionable at how much DRM affects online music sales, it's clear that consumers have had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to DRM-free downloads, such as those pioneered by EMI. Maybe now it's time to ask why we have to settle for losslessly encoded files.

Source: Ars Technica

Permalink to this article

Black Friday DVD sales focused on older titles (1 December 2007)

EMI looking to cut back on RIAA funding (28 November 2007)

ZML offers cheap, DRM-free movies (15 November 2007)

Warner Music CEO believes DRM was a mistake (15 November 2007)

Consumers show preference for ditching DRM (11 November 2007)

Audiobook publisher backs out of DRM free distribution deal (22 October 2007)

Apple drops price of DRM-free tracks on iTunes Plus (16 October 2007)

Do DRM free downloads mean innovation in online music? (15 October 2007)

Viacom executive says DRM is the way of the future (2 October 2007)

Amazon opens its DRM-free music store (25 September 2007)

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Discuss this article!
ali2007 (Inactive) 26 November 2007 6:58
yup DRM sucks send the message out. [ + quote]
scorpNZ (Senior Member) 26 November 2007 21:33
What a bunch of dumbasses why waste time going to the shops when you can download it instead,if the retailers had any business sense then they'd offer downloadable content on their websites but i guess common sense is seriously lacking these days [ + quote]
Mez (Senior Member) 30 November 2007 7:41
scorpNZ they use all their mental powers trying to screw you. If they want to sell music they need to sell loseless unprotected music. [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 20 December 2007 5:33
This is old news people already know that this is the case and they have all this to have no drm at all. [ + quote]