Universal Music Group (UMG) has announced a agreement with SpiralFrog to make UMG’s extensive catalog available for legal downloading in the US and Canada via SpiralFrog’s advertising-supported service.

SpiralFrog will offer users of its no-cost web-based service the ability to legally download music by many of the world’s most popular and award-winning artists.

“Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling,” said Robin Kent, SpiralFrog’s CEO. “SpiralFrog will offer those consumers a better experience and environment than they can get from any pirate site.”

Kent highlighted some key factors - legal digital files with no viruses or spyware in a controlled client-server architecture, quick downloading, and songs and music videos by popular artists as among the primary benefits users will gain.

The service will be built around digital rights management technology, offering users limited use in exchange for viewing or listening to advertisements.
Continue reading ‘Hell Freezes Over? Major Label Backing Free Music Initiative’

A new French law that recently went into effect is causing brain farts through out the media.

A French law that was passed June 30th, sometimes known as the “iTunes law”, went into effect today, and some pundits are arguing that it will make Apple open its proprietary formats so that anyone could play iTunes Music Store purchases on any device.

Currently, songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store can only be played on iPods. Unless, of course, you can read the giant “Burn Disk” icon that is built into iTunes.
Continue reading ‘French iTunes Causes Media Brain Farts’

DefectiveByDesign, one of those organizations that tries to get people riled up because they can’t download The Eagles’ Greatest Hits without DRM, is trying to get Bono to join their crusade.
They are looking to get your email address as a signature on their petition and…..they are looking to get your email address.

The text of their petition folllows.

Continue reading ‘DefectiveByDesign Lays RIAA-Style Thumbscrews on Bono’

Wired is on the DRM-sucks kick again with their article Consumers Don’t Want Flexible DRM.

Buy music from iTunes and your only portable playback option is the iPod. Buy it from Napster, and it’ll only play on certain Microsoft-approved devices. Although you can circumvent these restrictions by burning and re-ripping audio CD-Rs, it’s a poor substitute for real music interoperability.

DRM sucks. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. A company called Navio has made lots of waves with its plan to make DRM suck a little bit less, giving content owners the ability to sell the right to play media directly to consumers using any popular DRM scheme. If you’re a record label, the main attraction here is probably the prospect of selling secure songs directly to iPod owners without forking over a percentage of each sale to the iTunes Music Store.

The problem for tech analysts is that most people have no idea what DRM is and appear to be happy to buy billions of DRM’d tracks off of iTunes.

Wired - if you don’t like DRM’d tracks, learn how to burn a CD or how to download some of the jillions of Creative Commons tracks that are available on the Web - but don’t gripe because you downloaded Eagle’s Greatest Hits from iTunes and you can’t burn 10 copies.

The RIAA, the company that people seem to love to hate, is claiming that it’s “contained” the issue of P2P song sharing.

“The problem has not been eliminated,” said association CEO Mitch Bainwol. “But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat.”

Bainwol’s statement has been widely criticized, with some going so far as to compare it to President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” Iraq photo op.

Nevertheless, the music industry has been surprisingly effective at controlling the digital distribution of mainstream music. After years of legal battles, cease and desist letters and lawsuits, many of most popular sites for P2P song downloading have been shut down, legitimate options are available and growing in popularity and no businesses have emerged that threaten the industry’s approach. Continue reading ‘RIAA Claims That It’s ‘Contained’ P2P Song Sharing’