Microsoft abandons the PlaysForSure strategy in favor of a more Apple-esque approach with the Zune player tightly tied to the Zune Marketplace. Steve Jobs announces that Apple has 88% of the legal US music download market-still locked under DRM. The eMusic subscription service, which sells songs DRM-free, becomes the second-largest digital music service, though with an 11% market share to iTunes' 67%. ( Read a timeline of the Sony rootkit story.) Removing it leaves some forced to reinstall Windows. Yahoo! Music offers unlimited music as a rebrand of LAUNCH Media at the Open Music Model's recommended $5 subscription price point, but using DRM.Ĭonsumers of Sony CDs discover the Sony rootkit in its SecuROM DRM. Microsoft begins certifying devices and providers with the PlaysForSure mark, noting that they had been tested and certified for compatibility with files encrypted with Windows Media DRM. RealNetworks announces sale of DRM-restricted music in the RealPlayer Music Store.
Apple does not license its encryption, so only Apple devices can play iTunes music.įairPlay is cracked by Jon Lech Johansen ("DVD Jon"), previously known for his part in the DeCSS software, which was released four years earlier for decrypting DVDs.
It restricts users to accessing songs from only three (later five) computers and making no more than ten (later seven) copies of a CD playlist. One week later, the iTunes store launches with its songs encrypted with FairPlay DRM. RealNetworks (known for RealAudio, RealVideo and RealPlayer) acquires, owner of Rhapsody and offers streaming downloads for a monthly fee. It requires open file sharing, open file formats, open membership, open payment, and open competition. Shuman Ghosemajumder proposes the Open Music Model, which states that subscription services free of DRM are the only successful model to beat piracy. I want to make a point with this software, and if you use it for purposes of violating copyrights, the message stands a very good chance of getting lost."
If you try to take away our current rights, and dictate to us what we may or may not do, you're going to get a lot of resistance." To users he writes, "Please respect the uses I have intended this software for. In his message, he writes to music companies, "Give us more options, not fewer.
"Beale Screamer" cracks the Microsoft Windows Media DRM and posts a how-to on the sci-crypt Usenet board along with code for stripping the DRM from Windows Media files. Rhapsody unlimited music streaming subscription service launches with songs restricted by the company's Helix DRM. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes DRM circumvention and circumvention tools illegal. The following is a brief history of the rise and fall of DRM in music services. Unfortunately, the side effect in this less-than-successful attempt to fight piracy is the hours it takes users to retrieve, rip, and back up their music when a services shuts down, is sold, or simply decides DRM wasn't the right way to go (sometimes in as little as five months). Instead DRM helps big business stifle innovation and competition by making it easy to quash "unauthorized" uses of media and technology. But there's no evidence that DRM helps fight either of those.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation summarizes the battle:Ĭorporations claim that DRM is necessary to fight copyright infringement online and keep consumers safe from viruses.
Rhapsody just had the next in a line of DRM music services to go-this week the company told its users than anyone with RAX files has unil November 7 to back them up in another format or lose them the next time they upgrade their systems. But the easiest way to explain to a consumer why DRM doesn't work is to put it in terms he understands: "What happens to the music you paid for if that company changes its mind?" It was one thing when it was a theoretical question. There are more than a few reasons digital rights management (DRM) has been largely unsuccessful.