Its taken a while for the message to sink in but it looks like its hit home at last.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1bec8a08-96cd-11dc-b2da-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1Retailers are urging the music industry to drop piracy protection for online downloads after new figures showed the average Briton has bought fewer than three digital tracks in the past three years.
Incompatible proprietary technologies, aimed at defeating rampant piracy in the digital music era, are instead “stifling growth and working against the consumer interest”, said Kim Bayley, director-general of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).
She cited research this month that found consumers were almost four times as likely to choose an MP3 file as a DRM-protected track when the two were offered alongside each other.
The ERA, which represents high street retailers and online sites, said it was making the appeal now in the hope that music companies would drop DRM protections before the Christmas season and the January sales rise, when consumers load up the iPods they receive at Christmas
Its nice to hear the retailers repeat what the fileshareres have been telling them for ages, DRM most definitely drives folks away from legal downloading services.
Contrary to Cartel claims sites like this one do not encourage folks to breach copyright laws, most of the community have an amazingly diverse selection of files ranging from the good book to home made recordings and movies made for fun that they trade amongst each other, whatever happens in the "real" world to allow those wanting a "legal" copyrighted file download that can compete with the flexibility of a p2p download is good news for all.
