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News
Puretracks Music Service Dropping DRM
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 at 2:00 PM - by Jeff Gamet
The Canadian music download service Puretracks is throwing its support behind the anti-digital rights management movement by removing the copy protection in many of the MP3 tracks sold through its site. The service is starting with tracks from independent labels, and plans to add additional DRM-free songs from the rest of its library on a weekly basis, according to the Financial Post.
Puretracks expects that the move will increase its bottom line since the DRM-free songs will be playable on any MP3-compatible device, including Apple's iPod. Company CEO and president, Alistair Mitchell, commented "We wouldn't be offering this if we didn't think it would grow our revenues. We're going to help those label partners we're working with sell more of their music; that's the bottom line."
The Puretracks decision follows the open letter Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote denouncing DRM as ineffective. He also stated that Apple would drop DRM from tracks purchased at the iTunes Store if the record labels would allow it.
Not every label is happy with DRM. Ric Arboit, president of Nettwerk Music, said his label would prefer to sell copy protection-free songs, but the big labels control how tracks are sold online. He commented "We would have done it from day one if it was available to us, but when it came to the indies, that's what they had in place."
Puretracks may have a relatively small library at 1.3 million tracks, but it is sending a big message to the record labels. Mainstream record labels may start to feel the pressure of the anti-DRM movement now that music services and independent labels are starting to openly speak out against copy protection.
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