Sony BMG, Warner Music Downloads Missing at Wal-Mart

Songs from a larger number of Sony BMG and Warner Music Group artists are now unavailable from Wal-Mart's online music store, potentially the result of a licensing impasse between the parties. One source tied into the situation pointed to show-stopping disagreements related to the licensing of DRM-free content. (Digital Music News)

Adobe Releases DRM for Flash Video Downloads

Adobe on Wednesday released Flash Media Rights Management Server, a DRM server for the Flash and H.264 video formats that works with Adobe's new AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) application development environment as well as the Adobe Media Player, a media player application for Windows and Mac OS that is currently in beta. (DRM Watch, PR)

LimeWire Launches DRM-Free Online Music Store

The developers of file sharing client LimeWire have launched a DRM-free digital music store that serves up 500,000 MP3s, many of them from indie bands, for as little as 27 cents apiece. Users of the application will eventually see "buy" links alongside options to download songs for free from other users using BitTorrent or Gnutella technology. At 256 Kbps, LimeWire's MP3s are relatively high-quality files, which could entice some to buy a given track rather than downloading a potentially inferior-sounding version for free. (Wired)

Download First For Iron Maiden Compilation

Heavy metal goliaths Iron Maiden will release an '80s best-of compilation "Somewhere Back In Time" as a free high-quality download. Available from the band's Web site, the PC-compatible 320 kbps WMA audio files will time-out after three listens, at which point the downloader will be prompted to buy the album as a DRM-free file. (Billboard)

Warner signs 7digital MP3 deal in Europe

Warner Music has signed a deal with digital media site 7digital.com to provide its catalogue in the MP3 format, which can be played on nearly all music devices. Its catalogue -- with hits from James Blunt and the Red Hot Chili Peppers -- would be available to 7digital.com customers in the UK, Ireland, Spain, France and Germany. The site is the first major European download store to offer Warner's tracks in the DRM-free MP3 format. (Reuters)

Canadian business coalition speaks out on copyright reform

The Conservative government's long-delayed Fair Copyright Facebook group has hit yet another roadblock, this time in the form of a powerful business coalition comprised of corporate giants such as Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. A lack of consultation at the business level, spurred one of Canada's biggest corporations, Rogers Communications, to sign on to the coalition. The proposed bill, entitled "An Act to amend the Copyright Act," has been compared to the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). (InterGovWorld)

DoubleTwist Launches DRM-Stripping Applications

DoubleTwist, the company founded by famed DRM hacker "DVD Jon" Lech Johansen and Monique Farantzos in late 2006, came out of the shadows this week with announcements of venture capital investment and of the launch of its first products: doubleTwist desktop, a personal media sharing application for PCs, and Twist Me! Both products are currently in beta. They enable sharing of media files in a variety of formats and DRM schemes, including Microsoft Windows Media as well as Apple's FairPlay for iTunes, and syncing of media among multiple devices. (DRM Watch)

DoubleTwist wins venture capital backing

A San Francisco start-up that helps Apple iTunes users to circumvent encryption and share their music more easily has won venture capital backing and launched its first products. DoubleTwist has the controversial “DVD Jon” as a co-founder. Jon Lech Johansen, 24, earned notoriety at the age of 15 for co-authoring software that unscrambled encryption on DVDs. He has also, over the past four years, reverse engineered Apple’s FairPlay digital rights management technology used in iTunes. His new venture will announce it has secured funding from Index Ventures, the European venture capital firm that has backed start-ups including Skype, Betfair and last.fm. (Financial Times, Cnet)

DRM-free or not DRM-free?

The digital rights management debate moved to the mobile space last week as delegates at the GSMA Mobile World Congress heard a RealNetworks senior executive call for DRM-free music to be made more widely available. "DRM remains important for subscription models, but the issue is when you buy (an a la carte) track from Verizon or Vodafone it's very difficult to get it to play on something else," Larry Moores, senior vp global product management at Real, said during the "Fight for the Right to Make Money" panel. "If you want to fully enjoy the experience (of that track), you have to buy it three times. Well, the market's voted (against that) by stealing music." (Hollywood Reporter)

News Corp. Working On Music ‘Hulu’ For MySpace

PaidContent has learned that News Corp. is pursuing a music joint venture for MySpace—similar to Hulu, its video joint venture with NBC Universal. MySpace would be the operator with the major music labels as content providers and equity partners. Music would be DRM-free and ad supported. No label has signed yet but a source familiar with the situation said that could change in a matter of weeks. (PaidContent)

Intertrust Announces Patent License Agreement with Motorola

Intertrust Technologies Corporation announced that they have signed a long-term patent license that grants Motorola global rights to practice Intertrust's broad inventions in trusted distributed computing and digital rights management. Motorola's license covers all products, including mobile and digital television devices. (PR)

Play.com beats Amazon to unrestricted music

Play.com yesterday beat Amazon to become the first big online entertainment retailer in Britain to offer unrestricted digital music downloads. The Jersey-based group is seeking to challenge the dominance of Apple with its PlayDigital service, which offers 1.3 million tracks free of the digital rights management (DRM) technology that limits the devices on which legitimately downloaded tracks can be played. (Times Online, Reuters)

Thoma Cressey Bravo to Acquire Macrovision's Software Business

Private equity investment firm Thoma Cressey Bravo (TCB) has entered into a definitive agreement with Macrovision Corporation to acquire Macrovision’s Software Business Unit in a cash transaction valued at approximately $200 million. Macrovision provides a broad set of solutions that enable businesses to protect, enhance and distribute their digital goods to consumers across multiple channels. (PR)

MWC Debates DRM

The digital rights management debate moved to the mobile space today, as delegates at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona heard Larry Moores, senior VP global product management for Real Networks, call for DRM-free music to be made more widely available. "DRM remains important for subscription models but the issue is when you buy [an a la carte] track from Verizon or Vodafone it's very difficult to get it to play on something else," said Moores, speaking during the "Fight for the right to make money" panel (Billboard)

Breaking Down Digital Barriers

What is ICT interoperability? What are the general benefits and drawbacks of ICT interoperability? How can we best achieve optimal levels and types of interoperability? DRM-protected Music Interoperability and eInnovation, Digital Identity Interoperability and eInnovation, Mashups Interoperability and eInnovation. (Berkman)

@ Midem: Orange Plans DRM-Free Music Rentals, Still Talking To Nokia

"Our intention definitely in 2008 is to drop DRM, so we can have a truly interoperable service linked with network access”, music product development director Brenda O’Connell told mocoNews.net. Orange UK launched converged music downloads using Windows Media for PC and AAC for mobile in November but: “The DRM ecosystem on the mobile and on the PC is fundamentally different; getting them to talk together to create a seamless experience was a huge amount of work.” (Moconews)

Amazon MP3 to Go International This Year

Amazon announced that its Amazon MP3 store will become internationally available starting this year, dealing making the Seattle-based company even more of a contender against Apple's iTunes. The company's press release is notably vague on how it defines "this year," making a point of giving no specific dates for any of its websites' international rollouts. (PC World, PR)

DRM-Free Music Spells Trouble

DRM haters say that DRM-free is the wave of the future. You don't restrict how people consume content. You can't block their right to take it with them on their music players or port it through their homes. I say we're on the road to ruin. It's one panic after another, and with each new stopgap plan, the music industry—really the entire digital content industry—digs itself in deeper. (PC Magazine)

Yahoo Eyeing Online Music Service

Yahoo Inc., is in early discussions with major record labels over offering unprotected MP3s either for sale or for free as part of an ad-supported service, two record company executives familiar with the talks said Wednesday. The talks, held as recently as last month, were preliminary because Yahoo is still working out the details, said the executives, who requested anonymity. Yahoo hopes to launch the service this year, they said. (Billboard)

Target Quietly Moves Into Digital Music, Finally; Sony BMG Deal

Target, the big-box retailer, is finally moving into digital music, with the low-key launch of a SonyBMG album. The new album from John Legend, ”Live From Philadelphia” launched exclusively in Target stores last week, and is also available in MP3 format through Target.com. This new promo also ties into Target’s deal with SonyBMG, where the music label is debuting DRM-free MP3 music cards. (Paidcontent)