James Delahunty
2 Feb 2005 13:02
Lindows founder and former MP3.com CEO, Michael Robertson, is going to announce a new, DRM-less online music store next week called MP3tunes. The advantages of a music store selling DRM free MP3 files include the customers not having to download special music players to play the format and also have no restrictions on copying the files or burning them to CD etc... But could such a music store actually work? The major record labels would seem the most unlikely to license their music to a service that uses no DRM protection on their files.
Robertson is also no stranger to legal troubles, being the founder of MP3.com and recently involved in a legal mess with Microsoft over the "Lindows" operating system. He accuses the other major online music services such as iTunes, Napster and Sony Connect or attempting to push consumers away from the MP3 format and toward proprietary systems, which force consumers to only use certain music players to play the files. While a DRM free online music store does sound more appealing than iTunes or Napster, it will be interesting to see if the service can build a big enough database of music to compete.
Source:
Ars technica