A few days ago when Apple/EMI non-DRM’ed music was the hot story of the day, CNBC’s Power Lunch ran a clip about it. After the clip ran, Bill Griffeth wondered aloud about how that couldn’t be good for their business, because those files would surely appear on the peer-to-peer networks.
I’m guessing Bill hasn’t logged on to any of those networks lately. Approximately .2 seconds after a CD hits store shelves, there are thousands of DRM-free copies of those songs on the networks. Half of the time, those albums have somehow “slipped out” of the studios hands onto the networks several weeks before the official release.
Until the studios can plug the CD-to-P2P network hole, releasing DRM-free songs and getting paid for them is a no-brainer.