DRM Is Dead! (At Least For Music Anyways)

Sony BMG, the last DRM holdout of the big 4 major music labels, famous for the root-kit scandal, has finally caved! (but not completely) Sony will be offering at least part of its catalog DRM-free in the first quarter of this beautiful new year of ours. Again this is only for the Amazon store so far and only in the United States. With Macworld in a couple of weeks, we could be seeing a similar announcement for iTunes. But I would like to take a minute to talk about us Canadians. Too often are we pushed to the side because we are a relatively small market (32 million compared to 300 million) or treated as a nation of pirates because our copyright system hasn't been updated to deal with our new digital world. I don't mean to pontificate but here are a few facts:

• Digital music sales growth in Canada has surpassed that of the U.S. for the second year in a row. This year with 73% compared to 45%.
• Digital Album sales growth this year has been 93% for Canada and 53% in America.
• Album sales decline in the last year has been 9.5% in the U.S. of A. and, wait for it.... only 6.4% in Canada.

Give us a break already and be good neighbors!

D.E.

Source: Businessweek / Michael Geist's Blog

DRM on its Death Bed: Warner Finally Caves!

Ever since Steve Jobs called on the music labels to remove DRM from their digital music sales, the labels have been seeing the light and falling in line. Though it hasn't been amazing for the iTunes Music Store so far (cross your fingers for Macworld!), Amazon has greatly benefited from it, now receiving the entire Warner music catalog DRM-free. Warner Music Group representative said, "We believe that giving consumers the assurance that the music they purchase can be played on any device they own will only encourage more sales of music." Glad to see they're finally getting the picture! Warner's catalog combined with EMI's (in March) and Universal's (in August) catalogs, now puts the Amazon's store's repertoire at a total of 2.9 million DRM-free tracks. Not too shabby at all. Problem is, and this is probably due to the music labels, Amazon's DRM-free store is only available in the United States. When will they understand that these kinds of tactics only hurt those who actually purchase their music and not those who wish to pirate? And while I'm at it, I'll just add that Canada isn't a nation of pirates. I'll refer you to Michael Geist's little video for that argument. But then again, Amazon's store may just be a test shop. Here's hopin' there's more good news in the coming year...

D.E.

Source: Wired

Image Source: Greg Palmer on Flickr

"How do you know all of these things?"

I'm a tech geek. Have been since my dad brought home a 486x with Windows 3.1. So too often (and some of you will identify with me), I get teck-related questions and phone calls from family and friends. And let me tell you, I've got a pretty big family. But every so often, someone will ask me, "How do you know all of these things?" So to answer that question, I'm gonna list a few resources. The first requirement though, and I can't stress this enough because I've seen it in toooooooooo many cases: learn how to use your damn device! Learn to look around and explore!

OK...Now that I have that out of the way, great places on the net that can help you keep up with developments as well as learn something in the world of technology are news blogs like engadget. The great thing about blogs like these is that they get their information from a bunch of other sites, they produce a ton of articles everyday and they're usually entertaining to read. But if you're into being entertained and have ADD when it comes to anything literature, then you might want to look at podcasts like those on the TWiT network (audio) or on the Revision 3 network (video). They have a variety of shows that cover many of the areas in tech. Other web-based shows you might want to look at (and incidentally pretty ladies) are Webb Alert, GeekBrief, Mahalo Daily and Command N. Wikipedia is another great resource because chances are that watching these podcasts or reading these blogs, you're not going to understand everything they say. So hit pause and look it up! Another great resource for news, reviews, tips and tricks is CNET.

But lets say you're having a problem with one of your wily devices, chances are someone else has had that problem before you. To be honest, when someone calls me, I don't have the solution to all their problems right away. Sometimes it requires research. Tech forums are a great way to find solutions to problems from people helping each other out. You can try looking through those forums for someone with the same problem or you can type in a question into the ol' Google and chances are a forum will come up. If no one has your problem, you can always post a question on a forum and hopefully someone will get back to you very soon. So if any of you reading know me (you know who you are!), you'd better think twice before giving me a call next time you have a problem and try a few of these resources.

D.E.