Some Progress on Music Front, Unless You are Apple

Warner Music has decided to offer its complete catalog, free of digital rights management, through Amazon's new MP3 store. EMI, Universal, and Warner now offer their catalogs in DRM-free digital formats, leaving Sony BMG the lone major music giant still clinging to the DRM approach. Amazon now claims to offer for than 2.9 million songs in MP3 format from over 33,000 unique labels.

Now, with the move to MP3, the labels that have chosen to open their music have a way to encourage multiple download services to flourish, keeping labels safe from being dominated by any single digital distributor, namely iTunes.

Amazon to Sell Some Warner Music Without Encryption

Warner Music is making its entire back catalog, free of copying restrictions, available for purchase through the Amazon MP3 store. New releases won't be part of the deal.

Amazon therefore will be able to sell 2.9 million songs in encryption-free MP3 format. Music copyright holders obviously don't like the MP3 format. As a user, I wouldn't buy any music that isn't in MP3 format. Let them flail around some more. No MP3, no sale. That simple.

Many music industry executives probably still are kicking themselves for not "getting" digital distribution, then not "getting" iTunes.

Making War on Your Customers a Mistake. Duh!

Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music CEO, says mobile service providers should not make the mistake the music industry did. "We used to fool ourselves,' he says. "We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was."

"We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding," he says. "And of course we were wrong."

"We inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won," he says.

Mobile operators risk making the same mistake with their music services, he says.

"The sad truth is that most of what consumers are being offered today on the mobile platform is boring, banal and basic," Bronfman says. "People want a more interesting form of mobile music content."

"They want it to be easy to buy with a single click," he adds. "And they want access to it, quickly and easily, wherever they are, 24/7."