Universal to sell DRM free songs

It's happening as predicted. Since the announcement by that Apple would be selling non-drm music in iTunes from EMI other major labels are slowly falling in line.

The New York Times is reporting that the Universal Music Group is going to be selling part of its catalog sans DRM for the next few months to gauge consumer interest. This is great, but the only catch is that these DRM free songs won't be available via iTunes. Universal, in an effort to lessen Apple's dominance of the digital music market, will be offering up the DRM free music via Amazon, Google, RealNetworks, and Wal-Mart for $.99 a song (a price many accredit Apple to pioneering).

From: Universal to sell DRM free songs, but not on iTunes - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Also

You might recall that Universal recently decided not to renew their contract with Apple to sell music in iTunes, and switched their commitment to a month by month basis. What does all this mean? I am betting that this experiment will succeed, and that Universal will reverse their decision and sell DRM free tracks via iTunes, why not sell your wares on the top online music store?

Boingboing.net has a good take on universal's inevitable move to selling non-drm music too.

The original article is on NYTimes

Amazon to launch music store with DRM free music

As predicted it's happening, the wall is crumbling. Now that apple has announced DRM free music offerings in their music store on EMI we knew soon others would follow. Amazon was as predicted the next, also partnering with EMI to sell EMI's catalogue DRM free.

Jeff Bezos puts it very clearly in the amazon press release.

"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. "We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone."

To paraphrase, "MP3-only mean it will play on any device." That's something everyday ordinary people who don't spend all day obsessing about their music can not only understand, but always have understood. The market wants MP3 and always has. It's just taken the music labels 8+ years to listen to them.

That's two major stores and one label down. About four more major labels to go.

My prediction is this holiday season will pay big rewards for Apple, Amazon, EMI and others selling DRM free music. Putting a serious haste in the step of anyone still not selling mp3's. By this time next year nearly all the major labels will be selling non-DRM music and there will be over two dozen major online music stores like Apple, Amazon and other early players like the wonderful emusic, CDbaby and innovators like ArtistShare.

Users will once again have choice, as to where they want to buy, what hardware they want to use and where they want to listen. This combined with podcasting will put an end to things like satelite radio, win and real media, digital music stores like napster that sell DRM music, and whole industry of middle players that have sprung up to serve this inequity in the market. This includes the P2P black market. Well may actually start seeing a slow down in it's explosive growth, though any decline in p2p's popularity will take years.

It occurs to me that in as little as 3-5 years time that people won't even remember what "DRM" was in the first place... that most people won't even know this battle was fought to keep the future of music, media, culture and innovation open. It's a silent fight mostly, one the majority of the public doesn't really even fully understand let alone will most realize this battle has taken nearly *10 years*, and cost billions in lost revenue. We'll be taking it for granted again in no time. In five years time music mainstream artists profits will be at an all time high and the music market will have realized it's explosion not only in profits by the major labels, but in the breadth of new music and artists in the market.

The market is correcting itself

It's happening. Since the announcement by Apple and EMI to sell non-drm songs the long predicted shift to DRM free music is starting.

Microsoft changes tune on selling DRM-free songs

When the tracks actually start selling we should see market forces move the market quicker and quicker to non-DRM music.

8+ years of digital culture prohibition is starting to come to an end and I couldn't be happier. :)

Youtube coming soon to an iPod near you!

So, in the last couple days I've come to the realization that Google Video has started putting iPod and PSP compatible MP4 videos in their RSS feeds. Google has always had downloadable MP4 videos for free content though they haven't always put them in their feeds.

This is no minor thing. In fact it's pretty amazing what you can aggregate directly to your iTunes, iPod, PSP or media center.

For example, you can get compatible RSS feed of the highest rated documentaries (RSS feed / google page) or the latest Machinima videos (RSS feed / google page).

In fact why don't you try and pop the below RSS feed into iTunes now.

http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&q=duration%3Along
+is%3Afree+genre%3ADOCUMENTARY&so=3&num=100&output=rss

*Please make sure to turn off "auto downloading" in your iTunes podcasting preferences so you don't swamp google or your computer with multiple downloads.

If this is still not *digg worthy* enough for you, don't worry there's more.

You can also access MP4 feeds on pretty much all youtube users.

That's right, let me say it again... you can get iTunes/ iPod / PSP compatible RSS video feeds for pretty much ALL youtube users.

So for example here's the latest youtube videos from spectacular comedian Mark Day.

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=MarkDayComedy

And here's the corresponding ipod/PSP compatible RSS feed from google video.

http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&
q=MarkDayComedy&so=1&num=20&output=rss

Note the syntax. All I did was pop Mark's username from youtube, "MarkDayComedy", into the google query url.

You may notice there are a few other youtube users videos in the query. These videos are responses from other users to Mark Day's videos. Many might consider this pretty cool. All the same I tried to find a way to filter them out but I cannot find a way to limit the query to a single youtube user. So... to bad I guess. Deal with it. ;)

This does bring to mind, the next big question.

Does this mean we'll see video podcast feeds on Youtube soon?

I certainly can't tell you that, but now that the question has been posed, maybe if enough people *digg it* or blog about it youtube will listen. :)

I can say this. There are really no legal implications, but there are some important business considerations for Youtube regarding video podcasting. Youtube's business model is predicated on adding value through distribution with it's very nice, but arguably very controlling, Flash based player. This added value includes such things as links back to youtube, links to related videos others have found interesting, and above all such "social networking" features as the ability to comment, blog about and email the video.

That said it would certainly appear all the content is already available through google video so does it really matter when youtube gets around to promoting their video podcasting feeds in the youtube interface? If you're reading this then you have everything you need to start using youtube with your favorite video aggregator, handheld video player, media center, set top box, or even cell phone today.

While I'd love to see youtube take some development initiative and take that final step for the sake of all youtube users... I'm not going to sit around and wait for it. I'm already plugging my favorite youtubers videos feeds into my favorite aggregators like iTunes, mefeedia.com, Fireant and Democracy Player.

While some aggregators and players do support youtube's Flash based video feeds there are certain obvious things you can't really do with flash videos.... like store them on your hard drive... play them back in preferred video players... or media players... and many more obvious things... like playing them on your iPod. While MP4 is a proprietary video format and is not freely licensed it is quickly evolving as the MP3 of the video world. Most new handheld video players, set top boxes, and many new cell phones (such as the Nokia N95) support MP4.

With the recent announcement by EMI and Apple to sell non-DRM mp3's the big question is will video based distribution evolve in a parallel open fashion as music with mp3's or does the overhead of video based distribution and production require such digital crutches and controls as Flash based players, or even DRM?

What I very much believe is that youtube doesn't need to use Flash like DRM to create an artificial "speed bump" around youtube to force youtube users to keep coming back. Quite the contrary, the use of only Flash is discouraging use of youtube and encouraging the creation of a cottage industry of tools for cracking youtube and alternative "open" solutions.

I think there's enough love of youtube that if they did open up and allow MP4 downloads and video podcasting... along with some improvements to their EULA... that the good graces will cement them in a favorable light with many of their users.

There is also TREMENDOUS opportunity around these features for users to start offering proverbial "pro level" services, and advanced demographics and statistical information, the removal of caps on video length and resolution (HD VIDEO!) and even offerings for video based advertising, and optional paid subscription offerings on video feeds.

This is to say nothing of the opportunity for youtube to create standards and promote partnerships with set top box manufacturers, cell phone, and other hardware makers to bring the entire videoblogging space beyond the desktop computer and out into the world. It's also important to note that these aims would correspond directly if not be complimentary to the aims of google video whom is already offering paid downloads, and the web based distribution of high quality and feature length content.

It's time for youtube to set the video free.

Some tips for the uber users.

As far as googles video podcast feeds you might also note the variable "num=20" this is the number of items in the feed. If you like you can easily increase that number to 50 or even 100 items. Just us this power sparingly or your hard drive and iPod will be full of videos, google will disable this feature and I'll have to come and personally kick your ass. ;)

So for example if you wanted to download ALL youtube user Mark Day's videos to your iPod you might change the variable "num=20" to "num=100".

http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&
q=MarkDayComedy&so=1&num=100&output=rss

Again... try turning off "auto downloads" in your podcast preferences in iTunes so as not to overload google or iTunes with multiple downloads and instead browse the podcasting tab in itunes and download ONLY those posts which you want on your iPod.

So what else can you do with this knowledge.

Well, to start with you can go look up your favorite youtube personality, and try putting their USERNAME into the following query. Disclaimer: results vary depending on the uniqueness of the username.

http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&
q=YOUTUBE_USERNAME&so=1&num=100&output=rss

Or... you could create any sort of complex query you like. For example... How about the last 50 machinima videos?

http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search
&q=MACHINIMA&so=1&num=100&output=rss

Or... how about using google's advanced video search to find THE highest rated documentaries (RSS feed). I highly recommend "Revolution OS" about the advent of GNU, open source and linux, it's right there in the top 10 highest rated documentaries on google video, and it's available in it's entirety at 1 hours 25 minutes, for FREE. I already own the DVD, but I appreciate it all the same. :)

Obviously not everything on google video is available as a freely downloadable mp4. In order make sure you only get freely downloadable MP4's a highly recommend selecting "is free" in the "price section" when using Googles's Advanced Video search settings or adding "+is%3Afree" to your query string.

http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&q=duration%3Along
+is%3Afree+genre%3ADOCUMENTARY&so=3&num=100&output=rss