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Music is barenaked -- of DRM

Mathew Ingram, March 7, 2007 at 3:32 PM EDT

amiestreet

The Barenaked Ladies may be known for their whimsical pop songs, but the group is dead serious about the evils of "digital rights management" -- the copy-protection standard used by Microsoft, iTunes and other online music stores to control their content. Not only has singer Steven Page spoken out on the issue, but the band was also one of the founding members of the Canadian Music Creators' Coalition (CMCC), a group that is trying to counter the lobbying by large foreign record companies when it comes to copyright legislation.

The Ladies are also one of the bands that has put their music online free of any DRM controls, and has even allowed fans to take different tracks and "mash" them up into their own creations. And now the new album from the Barenaked Ladies is available from an online service called Amie Street, according to TechCrunch, thanks to a deal with the Ladies' record label, Nettwerk Music Group.

Amie Street has a somewhat unusual approach to the online music business: instead of charging a single price for its song downloads, the way that iTunes and others do, the service starts by offering new music (none of which has digital rights management controls) for free, and then gradually increases the price based on how popular the song is -- to a maximum of 98 cents per track.

Amie Street keeps 30 per cent of the revenue, and the rest goes to the band or their label. Members can also earn revenue by recommending a song that goes on to become popular. According to a previous feature from TechCrunch, the service launched last summer and was founded by three students from Providence, Rhode Island. But will a pricing system that is based on demand work for music?

Note: Although the Barenaked Ladies' songs started at free, they shot up to the maximum price of 98 cents relatively quickly, thanks to the publicity surrounding the service. The songs were available starting on Tuesday, March 6 and by the next day they had been listened to more than 14,000 times.

  1. Russell McOrmond from Ottawa, Canada writes: There are many other organizations opposed to the legalization and legal protection of "DRM". I'm the policy coordinator for CLUE, Canada's Association for Free/Libre and Open Source Software, and opposition to "DRM" is one of our key policies. DRM revokes the ability of computer owners to make their own software choices, and our industry is dependant not only on people being able to make their own choices, but that an increasing number of people will choose our software. http://cluecan.ca/policy I also host of a petition to the Canadian parliament to protect the property rights of Information Technology owners. http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/ The quote at the top clarifies the real issue behind so-called "DRM". "It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer. And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it's important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days." - Stewart Baker, US Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for policy, speaking to a group of copyright holders in 2005. While the acronym "DRM" was advertised to mean "Digital Rights Management" by its proponents, I think it is more honest to call it "Dishonest Relationship Misinformation" given it deliberately confuses consumers about who owns the hardware and whether people are purchasing or renting it. http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/3728
  2. priya panda from Toronto, Canada writes: Thanka for bringing light to this issue. As a musician and songwriter I don't think many of my peers are fully aware of the evils of the recording industry. I think many get blinded by the fact that they are getting recognition or exposure but are in turn trading their lifeblood and art for little to no return. Most are happy to provide their music for free or a nominal cost, but not at the risk of property appropriation by huge scary coporations. I wish somebody would talk about this a bit more!

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