Sony considers dropping DRM

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 4 Jan 2008 at 13:59

Sony BMG is readying plans to sell part of its music catalogue without copyright protection.

The report comes courtesy of Business Week, which claims Sony is looking at new avenues of online music sales potentially through social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, as well as through partnerships with retailers including Amazon.

Sony is expecting to release further details within the month, however, should the reports prove correct it would make Sony the last of the major labels to drop digital rights management (DRM) anti-piracy technology.

Warner Music Group announced in late December that it would sell DRM-free songs through Amazon's digital music store, while EMI and Vivendi's Universal Music Group announced their plans earlier in 2007.

Sony was accused of secretly embedding potentially damaging anti-piracy software in some of its CDs in 2006, a claim it later settled with the Federal Trade Commission.

Sony had not responded for comment at the time of going to press.

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