Any music site/model that as a choice forces drm standards that are not open and that do not allow interoperability between existing mobile music players (ipod) are doomed to a quick failure.
All of the major media players support mp3. None of the major music players support the proprietary drm of any of the other players.
Today drm is not about protecting the rights of the artist; it is about selling hardware and software, as well preventing the disintermediation of old world distribution channels .
If any of the major software and hardware makers decided to release their drm formats to one another there would be no drm issues. If this scenario were played out it would not matter what format you choose or which player you purchased.
A unified drm solution puts the artist and the consumer in control of the distribution channel. If an artist has to go to a major media company to have there content distributed in the predominant drm format for the most popular player; who is in control of distribution. Certainly not the artist, and certainly not the consumer.
At this point choosing a drm format that cannot be played with the player with the highest market penetration rate would be a choice that would render your content un playable by most of the current market for music downloads.
One thing to understand is that even if an artist chooses to use any of the current drm standards, this will not prevent anyone from recording the music or from finding a way to crack the drm. Any protection that the artist perceives that they have is an illusion.
It is only a matter of time before there is an open, unified and real digital rights management system that allows all music to be played regardless of player (And this may mean that a new one needs to be created) or software. Once this point is reached artist and consumers will become the distribution channel.
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http://www.darmik.com
Commenting by HaloScan
