Music stream sites drop DRM

Posted on 18 Aug 2008 at 14:00

Two of the leading music streaming sites have abandoned DRM, a sure sign, say digital rights campaigners, that record companies increasingly accept that there is no business case for usage restriction on digital music.

Imeem and LaLa are now providing their free, ad-supported streams which include music licensed from the four major record companies in the unrestricted MP3 format.

That is not to say that users can simply hook up to the stream and download endless amounts of music. Both employ a degree of obfuscation to prevent that. LaLa relies on a web page header that instructs the browser not to cache the content, while iMeem uses the popular method of wrapping the track inside a Flash file.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the switch to MP3 means that DRM-advocates can no longer argue that it is necessary for streamed subscription services.

“This is yet another example of why there is no legitimate business case for DRM on music — it doesn’t prevent piracy and it’s not necessary to enable ‘new business models’ like subscription or ad-supported music,” said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney.

Author: Simon Aughton

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