It seems kind of silly beyond a certain point to call Amazon's launching of an MP3 store news, but with about 2 million audio tracks available for 99 cents or less and reduced-price album downloads it's at least significant that major content vendors are beginning to offer what consumers have been creating themselves for years. The delay in both music publishers and content distributors accepting that cross-platform, DRM-free music distribution via the common MP3 file format was already the de facto standard of the music industry from a consumer's perspective has to be one of the most monumental strategic blunders in publishing history. After years of struggling against MP3s with lawsuits, DRM schemes and other ineffective techniques to persuade the marketplace otherwise it took Apple's proprietary lock on music distribution via its own DRM scheme to awaken at least some music publishers to the need to let consumers be customers and not just licensees.

The real enemy of the music industry is not music copying but consumer attention. With social media, games, mobile devices and online video capturing more of the music industry market's attention span it no longer pays to limit the ability of consumers to move their basic content to where it's valued the most. MP3s enable music and other audio to move quickly and efficiently into to social contexts that are most likely to create consumer enthusiasm for a product quickly when it first gains attention and popularity and enables "long tail" content to get the exposure that it needs to allow consumers to get enthusiasm that will lead to purchases. Amazon's recommendation system is ideal for such purchasers, enabling content that would otherwise be obscure to become immediately relevant to a browser turned on to an artist that they had not known previously. From that point on out it's up to music producers to become more intelligent about how they merchandise the talents and following of an artist to maximize revenues, but singles sales are a great starting point.

With Microsoft and others investigating audio watermarking capabilities it won't be too long before the ability to distribute audio content without DRM and with appropriate audit trails for copyright abuse becomes the industry standard across the board - a factor which should enable music companies to begin to take full advantage of the Web's radio-like ability to broadcast enthusiasm for artists effectively. As to whether the leaders in music publishing will remain the ususal suspects remains to be seen, but by adopting MP3s as a default distribution medium for radio-quality audio they stand a chance on reinventing themselves in time for the next generation of music lovers.

Labels: amazon, apple, DRM, MP3, music

Sometimes it seems as if Apple can't win when it comes to playing the media game. After having been roundly criticized by some for having too much control over pricing via its iPod-compatible DRM content packaging and moving towards a more open model for content access Apple let the NBC television network take a walk when it wanted both higher pricing and tighter DRM controls. Ars Technica reports that NBC has opted to go instead with Amazon's Unbox video ecommerce service to package its content for online, home entertainment and mobile distribution.
This will allow NBC to sell entire season series of their television shows at hefty prices - about 30 percent off of a per-episode purchase - and in doing to retain some sense of traditional syndication revenues as they move to online distribtion of video content.

It's the syndication picture more than anything else that's at issue in this move, with NBC doubtless having concern that an easily pierced DRM scheme would enable audiences to download episodes that would enable them to bypass both cable networks and affiliates to build their own libraries of shows. The fact that Amazon Unbox also enables access to their video content via TiVos also underscores NBC's desire to solve syndication revenues once and for all.

But in opting for the Unbox approach NBC has doomed their ability to reach growing mobile audiences with the latest and most appealing devices available. Unbox is locked into Microsoft's largely orphaned "Plays for Sure" DRM technology, which supports a dwindling pool of mostly also-ran mobile devices. Given Unbox's ability to support only two licensable devices per purchaser the chaotic environment for delivery platforms is not likely to enable audiences to ensure a smooth transition for their libraries from one platform to another - or to be able to switch to whatever device the rest of the family is not using at the moment to catch their favorite reruns.

As with other types of premium content Amazon is very happy to work with content producers who have long-established business models that they don't want to let go of in the rush for online profits. Video is a good target for these types of services as the delivery mechanism enables on-demand fulfillment with few in-between hassles with one of the most popular and well-managed online ecommerce services. And although Plays for Sure wound up being a good idea that few content and technology producers decided to support at least Amazon has a somewhat open mind to making cross-platform content access a reality. As Microsoft moves to a new generation of its DRM capabilities it could be that this deal is as much about moving to Microsoft as it is about moving to Unbox.

But while Amazon benefits by appealing to established content marketers and becoming a potential cross-platform haven for content producers the timidity of publishers and producers to move to new models will likely hamper Amazon's efforts to become a leader in new premium business models in the long run. The status quo on syndication revenues seems to be just fine for most traditional video content producers just now as they try to adjust to a rapidly shifting revenue mix, but hiding out in the Unbox is likely to create about as many problems as if they had tried to move to the platforms that consumers desire most. Other video producers more willing to work with those platforms will be likely to open up broader audiences for content syndication over time and have more access to market demand on the platforms that consumers want most.

At the end of the day this deal is a battle of the brands, with traditional content syndicators having a hard time adapting their brands to platform providers eager to create their own locks over premium content distribution. What's missing from this mix is a willingness from content producers to make some compromises that will enable them to adapt truly platform-agnostic content packaging that will allow them to meet today's revenue goals as well as tomorrow's as consumers shift rapidly from one type of technology to another. If content producers don't manage this well the value of their content in syndication is bound to diminish rapidly. For now consider NBC's move a noisy vote for here-and-now revenues - with the future of syndication left to other executives after the current batch has parachuted elsewhere.

Labels: apple, DRM, NBC Universal, syndication, video

These are not the salad days for many Digital Rights Management providers, with major music producers such as Universal eschewing proprietary copy protection in an effort to blunt efforts by Apple and others to control music distribution and pricing. But just because you are enabling open copying doesn't mean that you have to give up on copyright. PC World covers a new digital watermarking technology from Activated Content that enables music producers to track copying of music via standard audio file formats. The technology in Activated's watermarking algorithms is very powerful, but because it does not prevent access to the music itself there's very little motivation for the average music consumer to crack the code. This is very much along the lines of what we've been encouraging for some time, analogous in some ways to what Attributor is doing with hypertext-based digital content.

The key to success in digital content distribution in an era that values the context that content finds itself in as much as the content itself is to not use access control as a mechanism for copyright enforcement. For those such as movie producers who have not yet come up with effective contextual monetization models DRM will be with us for quite some time, though, as evidenced by the prevalence of Blu-ray format DVD discs driving HD video sales. When your focus is more on an uninterrupted performance with a high-level technology component DRM may still be able to carry the freight. But as contextual advertising makes its way into video distribution as well (pre-rolls as in move theatres today) we may begin to see some loosening of DRM for video also, especially as it will find itself competing more with increasingly ad-driven game content for audience attention. All content producers concerned about copyright in an era that increasingly values user-initiated content distribution need to consider how watermarking technologies may be able to help further revenue streams beyond their traditional models.

Labels: copyright, DRM, Trends, watermarking

When paidContent.org noted last December that the Weed file sharing rights management software had been licensed by Microsoft we were pretty excited about the potential for the future of this ground-breaking approach to making money from viral premium content distribution. The future may yet be bright for the IP that Weed licensed to Microsoft but it's rather dim for Weed itself. In a recent visit to the Weedshare.com site Weed's parent Shared Media Licensing , Inc. notes that it has suspended operations of Weed for the indefinite future. The FAQ page notes that the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Media Player no longer supports the Weed rights management capabilities. Hmm, so much for coopetition. Perhaps the Weed system makes its way into a more robust DRM for Microsoft's Zune platform, but with Apple pushing to eliminate DRM altogether for music distribution the future doesn't look bright for users sharing in the profits of premium music distribution.

Yet at the same time services such as TheNewsRoom are pushing forward with sharing ad revenues for virally distributed video, audio and text content from premium sources. It's interesting that major news and entertainment media companies are waking up to the potential for viral revenues even as Microsoft and the music companies fumble with the concept. Perhaps the idea of sharing revenues with audiences is just one more wrinkle in licensing that they're not ready to deal with - and yet it's the way in which independent content creators are most likely to be rewarded quickly and effectively from viral content distribution. Seeing Weed fall into the weeds is kind of a saddening and sobering lesson but I still believe that there is great potential for viral distribution of premium content - and for the users distributing it to benefit from helping that content to find its most valuable contexts.

Labels: DRM, Microsoft, TheNewsRoom, Trends, Weed

MIT Libraries reports on their cancellation of access to the Society of Automotive Engineers’ web-based database of technical papers, based on the SAE's insistence on using digital rights management controls on their content. MIT will instead be provided with an electronic index of documents that may be used to access print, CD-ROM or microfiche copies of papers. Professor Wai Cheng, SAE fellow and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, was amongst the figures pushing for the cancellation, intending to bring up the topic to the SAE's Publication Board.

This does not bode well for scholarly publishers who may be planning to use DRM controls as a way of managing electronic access. As generally implemented DRM controls make it difficult, if not impossible, to use premium content for collaboration, a key factor for research and engineering. Being able to manage content reuse is a key factor for scholarly publishers but it's doubtful that DRM will be able to satisfy many of their core audiences. Instead to insisting on reinforcing a print model that is increasingly incompatible with the productivity requirements of scientific and academic audiences scholarly publishers need to focus on how best to facilitate knowledge transfer. DRM does nothing to help facilitate knowledge transfer whatsoever. Hopefully the SAE and other societies and associations can work with their memberships to come up with more productive models for licensing content.

Labels: DRM, Licensing, MIT, SAE, scholarly publishing, Trends