Music on the move: music downloads and DRM

 

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 12 Aug 2005 at 17:27

In the first of a two part series on digital music on the move, we look at the controversial issue of digital rights management (DRM) and consider to what extent - if at all - users are discouraged from using legitimate download services.

The music downloads market is becoming ever more crowded - Amazon and Panasonic are only two of the most recent entrants - as illegal file swapping via peer-to-peer networks come under increasing legal pressure and broadband connections increase. So how successful have these services been in meeting the needs of users? Specifically, to what extent have the systems designed to control access to these services deterred or frustrated users who have paid money for legitimate access to the music tracks?

Downloads at your service

We asked you tell us your thoughts about music on the move and the impact of DRM (digital rights management) on legitimate music download services...

But first of all, thank you to all the respondents who took the time to take part in the survey - all 1,085. This is a good sample that was evenly split (50.5% versus 49.5%) between those who had never paid to download a music track and those that had.

The first question we asked was: Which services have you used to pay for and download music?

Unsurprisingly, given its early dominance of the download market, Apple's iTunes Music Store was the most popular service, recording 43.7 per cent of respondents who had used a legitimate service. But it doesn't have things all its own way. Napster and MSN Music Club weren't too far behind, with 21.0 and 13.4 per cent respectively, followed by my Coke Music on 8.38 per cent.

The Wanadoo and Virgin.net ISPs registered 7.4 and 6.7 per cent respectively for their music offerings. And then came familiar High Street-based services: HMV (6.0 per cent), Tesco (6.6 per cent) and Woolworths (4.6 per cent). Others to note are Tiscali's offering (4.2 per cent), e-music (2.9 per cent) and the Russian website allofMP3 (2.2 per cent).

We should expect the Virgin service to push on, when it re-launches its Virgin Digital online store in September. Also interesting is the strength of the familiar shopping brands - the likes of Tesco and Woolworth should figure even larger once music downloads achieve wider acceptance among the general public.

An attraction of the allofMP3 site is its absence of DRM controls. It represents a safe harbour for those who wish artists to receive some remuneration but don't accept any imposed control over the content they have purchased.

Destination of downloads

We also asked: On which device(s) do you play the downloaded music on? MP3 players accounted for 73.6 per cent - a third of which were specifically iPods - and the Windows platform (PC or notebook) registered 71.9 per cent, as against 2.6 per cent for a Macintosh computer or notebook. Linux was virtually under the radar with 1.69 per cent.

What was interesting was the amount of people already using their phones as a music platform - 12.6 per cent have played downloaded music on their mobile.

DRM

When content is digital and designed for mobile devices - who can control how that content is accessed and copied? This is the question we investigated in the DRM (digital rights management) section of the survey. It is a vital question for the music industry when more and more people use the Internet and mobile digital audio devices to download and play digital music increase in capacity and functionality.