What DRM-free costs
April 6th 2008
Recent months have seen new DRM-free music stores--for sale and / or via ad-supported streams--announce themselves seemingly every few days. MySpace, SpiralFrog and others have all thrown their hats in the ring.
The perfect counterpoint to this trend has arrived.
After Dawn is running an article that, god bless their twisted souls, gets right to the point and lays out the premise without adornment:
In the growing market for digital music downloads and related services, the companies who can provide the tech have to pay huge sums of cash to get label support.
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So, what does this mean in terms you and I could possibly get our heads around? Try 30,000 benjamins just for the privilege of asking for a date.
SpiralFrog--a recent advertiser-supported, DRM-free addition to the iTunes wannabe list--paid $3 million to Universal Music (one. label.) before the service went live.
Wanna see that topped?
Try Imeem, which is rumored to have paid $20 million in advances (200,000 benjamins) and also gave the labels equity in the company.
"The deals are ... unrealistic. If you raise $15 million to start a business, and have to spend $12 million just to pay off the content companies, that leaves you with $3 million to run a company," EMI digital executive Ted Cohen is quoted as saying. "I don't know anybody able to do that."
Obviously, he needs to update his Rollodex.
Wondering why 100% DRM-free hasn't come to iTunes? Well, we now have an answer.
DRM-free streamed to you without cost? Think again...
What's your take?
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