James Delahunty
9 Feb 2005 8:17
As AfterDawn reported last week, former MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson announced an upcoming DRM-less MP3 music download service called MP3Tunes. MP3Tunes has opened its doors and has delivered exactly what it promised, DRM-free MP3 audio. This means that if you purchase a track there, technically you can do whatever you want with the file, including distributing it over P2P networks (which im sure is against the companies AUP) and storing it on portable MP3 players. Whilst major record labels are less likely to add their music to the store, it still opened with 300,000 tracks from smaller independent labels.
Not only has this store beaten its competitors by not using any DRM software, it also requires no extra software to download or play the music. It is completely compatible with all browsers and it sells single tracks for 88c (albums for $8.88) compared to iTunes, which sells tracks for 99c (albums for $9.99). The fact that major record labels are reluctant to license music to services that don't use any DRM protection hasn't bothered Robertson however.
"A consumer-friendly digital music store that provides true music ownership to paying customers can triple the digital music business almost overnight," Robertson argued. "MP3tunes gives the consumers more value because they can use the music on all their computers and MP3 players - whatever brand they may have." MP3Tunes tracks are recorded at 192kb/s. Robertson is convinced that any success with consumers will lead to major label interest.
Source:
Betanews