You’ve probably heard the term DRM used quite a bit in association with digital content. DRM stands for digital rights management. It basically refers to the technology or protection on the music that prevents people from copying the music onto other players. This usually means that you can download it to your PC then transfer it to your music player.
Now here’s the thing: there are two well known protection formats in use. One protects iTunes so that the music (aac files) will only work on an iPod. The other protects window files (wma) so that they will not play on iPods. Its a competition among the producers that is very customer unfriendly. People want to be able to play their music anytime, anywhere on any available gadget they’ve got. The manufacturers on the other hand want to drive people into their enclosures – makes one think of sheep being herded into pens; only instead of dogs they use your preferred music to get you in there.
Thankfully, there are some sensible people out there. Once in a while they release a song or tune without DRM. Early this year they did that with a Jessica Simpson song. Now they have a track from Norah Jones’ upcoming album available for download without DRM. You can download her single “Thinking About You” from yahoo. The album is set for release next month.
The Grammy award winner’s record label, Blue Note, says that this is by way of an experiment. They feel that since her fan base is mainly adult that are likely to be more responsible and not pirate her music.
Hopefully there will be more music DRM free soon.
[tags] download,legal,Norah Jones, DRM [/tags]