The music industry as we once knew it is dead, long dead. It died from an overdose of Digital Rights Management (DRM). If you needed any confirmation of this, then yesterday the news broke (see Let the MP3 Price Wars Begin in The Street) that Amazon is about to offer more than 2 million songs free of DRM. Apparently, DRM-free music sells better (according to EMI). It certainly does if you’re selling to me. I noticed this the first time I visited iTunes and was offered the choice. I chose the DRM-free version for an extra 30 cents or so, almost without thinking.

The problem with DRM is the same as the problem with other security technology. It gets in the way. People – even those who have no intention of being dishonest – don’t like the hassle of DRM. DRM was the music industry’s knee jerk reaction to wide-scale music theft. Now they’ll have to live with theft, because it’s way too late to apply digital watermarks. The cat’s not only out of the bag, it’s escaped through the window and left the garden. The world’s back catalog of music – replicated illicitly thousands of times – is almost completely without watermarks.

The music business will have to restructure itself around the web and live music, with the sale of music being a less important revenue stream. Some musicians get the web but the music business doesn’t. The major labels will watch their business decline if they cannot find a web based business model. They need their own stores, don’t they?

This Web Site

Yesterday I added 30 pages to this web site. I added all the postings made so far in my AVID campaign. Click on campaigns (above) or here, if you want to see. I’m going to gradually add just about everything I’ve ever published on the web as time passes. Hopefully some of it will be a useful resource.

In the process of doing this, I’ve discovered some awesomely powerful capabilities in BBEdit – it’s a long time since I’ve been so impressed with a software product. I’ll do a review when I understand its full set of capabilities.

Apple Rumors

Rumors have started to emerge that Apple is working on a “PDA-sized tablet-like device.” They’ve probably rigged some prototypes up in the Apple labs – it would be surprising if they hadn’t. However there’s a strategic reason for believing that Apple may bring some product to market. The iPhone’s touch interface is competitive advantage writ big. Steve Jobs would be dumb not to make the most of it.

Gateway Gets PC Design

It looks like Gateway is the first significant PC vendor to (belatedly) follow Apple’s lead and actually design a PC (see here). They will not take business from Apple doing this, but they might take from the competition. Maybe Michael Dell should take a look.

We’re done here.