So, the Amazon MP3 store has been open for awhile now. I didn't mention it, because I'm getting bored with the trickle of new sources for DRM-free music, and I wasn't in the market for any music not available from my usual sources. But I did finally make a few purchases recently from Amazon, downloading the two tracks on the Pipettes' American debut that weren't on the original album I downloaded from eMusic, when it was available from them in the States, and also purchasing the new Nellie McKay album, Obligatory Villagers. If you want my opinion, the Amazon store is pretty nice, but nothing immediately game-changing. One-click shopping works fine, but I would prefer the option of a shopping cart; for instance, I would have liked to purchase the two Pipettes tracks in one transaction, and I would like to select my payment method without having to change my default settings. But the price is right, at least when it comes to albums. I think the Amazon MP3 store will be successful, but for online sales to really take off, they need to offer a complete, or nearly complete, catalog. Bring on the celestial jukebox!

As for the music itself, one could live a full and complete life without hearing the two new songs on the Pipettes album (the less said about "Dance and Boogie," the better). As for McKay's album, I've only listened to it once, so I can't pass definitive judgement. I will say, her politics can get a bit tiresome, due to her tendency to create straw men arguments to attack in her lyrics (the fact that I share her politics only makes it more aggravating). But other than that, it's a very interesting album, and musically is quite compelling, obviously influenced from her experience on stage as Polly Peachum. Like her first album, it will no doubt take me many listens to digest. But it's quite an improvement from her last album (though to be fair, I only heard the leaked version, not what was ultimately released). I recommend it (and for those unfamiliar with her, I highly recommend Get Away From Me).

Universal to sell DRM-free music. According to this article, Universal's "test" of DRM-free music downloads begins August 21st, and Amazon will be among the vendors selling the files; I guess this means the Amazon music store launches this month.

The one merchant excluded from this new DRM-free product is iTunes. Which seems silly to me. People will go to Amazon or the Universal website if they're looking to buy music by a major artist (advertising will let people know that 50 Cent, for instance, is available DRM-free at Universal's website), but for back-catalog stuff, I don't see people flocking to a new online merchant to buy songs. If something pops into my head, and I want to buy some music, I first check eMusic, then I check iTunes; if I knew the artist recorded on Universal, I would check the Universal site, but who knows on what label an artist records? Thanks to eMusic, I'm more aware of indie labels, but except for a few huge acts, I don't know one major label from another. If people don't find it DRM-free on iTunes (or at all; if I was Apple, I'd consider pulling Universal's catalog, to make them rethink their stance), they'll download it illegally (or, if they're like me, hit up their local library).

To be fair, though, I should thank Universal for keeping the price at 99 cents. Which is actually an odd decision; iTunes Plus has given the labels the variable pricing they've been begging for, sort of, and now the largest label is throwing the gesture right back in Apple's face.

I bashed mTraks the other day, and mTraks still has potential to turn things around, so it's only fair I also share my opinions of a site I think is pretty much doomed: Lala. You may have heard of Lala from its days of facilitating the trading of compact discs, or you may have seen the news stories last week about the latest addition to their business offerings: Unlimited free streaming music, with the hope of selling you DRM-free music downloads, sent directly to your iPod.

I must admit, I was intrigued, and excited, when I first heard this news. Warner Bros. is said to be prepared to start selling DRM-free tracks on Lala in a matter of weeks. And the music locker and online streaming aspects of the new service were interesting, too (in a nutshell, you upload your music to Lala, and can stream that music as much as you want, and can also stream any music from music labels that have an agreement with Lala). My first disappointment came on learning that transferring songs from Lala directly to your iPod isn't an optional service, but a requirement; songs purchased are sent directly to your iPod, and cannot be stored locally on your PC. This I don't like. In multiple interviews, Lala's founder, Bill Nguyen, points out that customers like to own their music, rather then rent it. Call me crazy, but one part of ownership of an mp3 file is the concept that I can put it on my computer. Yes, I can still hear it, in streaming form, through Lala, but I wish to listen to all the music I own through iTunes; why should I have to change my listening habits to fit your business model?

My aggravation at the inability to download files to my computer is but one aspect of the main problem with Lala: They brag that they are iPod-compatible, but they are making you give up the iPod/iTunes link to use their service. To transfer purchased music to your iPod, you have to use their software. Seeing as the free iTunes for Windows software was an integral part of Apple's marketing push for the iPod, letting Windows users like myself experience the joy of iTunes (iTunes sold me on the iPod), why does Lala think most iTunes users would willingly give up what is, for the most part, a fantastic music player for whatever they've come up with? I've found their plug-in software works okay for streaming music from their website, but once I try to access my music locker, my computer system slows to a crawl and becomes rather unstable. After first reviewing their new way of selling music downloads, I thought I might buy songs from them, then use one of the many available iPod-hacking computer programs to get the songs onto my computer. But now that I've experienced their software a bit, I can say with confidence there's no way in hell they're getting anywhere near my iPod. Indeed, the knowledge that they want to get their grubby mitts on my iPod encourages me to not even use their streaming music offering.

Which is probably fine by Lala, I doubt they want another freeloader running up their licensing fees, with no intention of purchasing anything. But I'm sure some people will be interested in their streaming audio offering, so let's take a look at it. I've availed myself of MP3tunes' music locker (formerly called Oboe, though they seem to have dropped that name), and when I reviewed Lala's similar offering, I wondered if the struggling company was doomed. I don't think MP3tunes has to worry. Both services allow you to stream music you own on any computer, but MP3tunes requires you to upload each and every file, while Lala only requires you to upload songs if the song isn't already in their database. This should be a huge advantage to Lala, as it took about two weeks of intermittent uploading to get all my music into my MP3tunes locker. But in practice, Lala's uploader doesn't work much better. I don't know how many of my songs were already on Lala, but it took about 15 hours to upload the music that wasn't found, and yet somehow less than half my music ultimately made it to Lala. No idea why that is.

So uploading is a hassle, and while I'm willing to put up with the hassle for MP3tunes, which primarily serves as a backup service (for me, at least, the streaming aspect is incidental), I'm not willing to deal with the trouble just to listen to streaming music (with mediocre fidelity) through Lala. And I don't think too many others will, either. Which might be good news for Lala, which has forecast owing $140 million in royalties over the next two years. If the service bombs, maybe they'll lose less money. But who can say? If they manage to make deals with more record labels, so that the whole uploading thing becomes irrelevant, maybe they truly can lose $140 million. But when losing $140 million is the upside, I'd say your business plan has problems.

Pink Martini released their new CD, Hey Eugene! on May 14th. I was, of course, quite eager to give it a listen, but having trouble finding the CD for much below $15. Which I would gladly pay, but knowing the album is $9.99 on iTunes, I didn't want to pay that much of a premium to get the album in a non-optimal format (I'd much rather download music than rip it from CDs, though Pink Martini is one of those increasingly rare instances when I would have liked to have something physical to embrace). And iTunes has yet to roll out iTunes Plus for indie record labels, so Hey Eugene! still comes with DRM. And knowing that it would most likely be available in the future without DRM for the same price, I decided I could wait. After all, I'd heard many of the songs performed live.

But after a little bit of searching, I discovered the album was available now, sans DRM, from mTraks, a new digital music store based right here in San Diego. The album was available for $9.99, or for the same price, you could subscribe, and get 30 download credits. As there was no commitment, I went ahead and subscribed, downloaded the album, and still had 18 credits available, for 18 more songs. I got the new Pink Martini album at an amazing price, and had a chance to try out a new DRM-free music store, so I could report on my experience here.

My judgment: mTraks could be a useful service in the future, but right now, I'd say it lacks any edge over the competition. The website isn't particularly easy to browse, and despite their supposed emphasis on community features, musical recommendations were essentially non-existent. Searching for specific artists is easier, but I was annoyed by "false positives," when an artist turns up in a search, yet further clicking reveals they are not available on the service. But without strong community features, finding artists any way other than direct searching is futile. The community aspect may improve when they have more users, but gaining that user base may be difficult when eMusic has them beat on pretty much every point. They may have an advantage in their hybrid model, as they sell individual tracks and albums as well as subscriptions, but with a subscription available for the price of an album, I assume most people will do what I do, subscribe, download, and cancel. Now, if they can offer a compelling reason not to cancel (I was open-minded), this might be an effective and less costly way of attracting customers than eMusic's free trials (which have led to allegations of creative accounting). But from what I've experienced, I see no incentive to stick around. The next time there's an indie album I would like, that's not on eMusic, I might check out mTraks. But I don't see myself becoming a regular customer.

But hey, it's a beta, things could improve. But given the singular lack of buzz, I don't give this one a huge chance of success. A Google blog search on "mTraks" only gets 119 hits. Half of these hits are variations on mTraks' press release (excluding the perfectly natural and not-at-all-PR-talk phrase "killer social music community" brings the hits down to 60), and I haven't really been able to find any blog posts with paying customers discussing their experiences. And I'm afraid this post won't win them any awards.

Which wasn't really my intention. I didn't set out to bash mTraks, just discuss my experience (actually, I intended to discuss the new Pink Martini album, but I've digressed enough that I think I'll save that for another post). If you're looking for something eMusic doesn't have and mTraks does, mTraks is probably your best bet for buying said product. And if you're into the music released by the labels that created mTraks, Cafeteria Records and Naked Jain records, which I believe focus on punk music (feel free to correct me on that), then you should have no trouble finding music here. But in its current beta state, their press release's claim of being a "killer social music community" isn't backed up, and I see no reason not to stick with eMusic.

And a final note: What the hell is this? It's the first page that comes up on Google Blog Search when searching for mTraks. It's the mTraks press release, but with a byline and author bio, clearly trying to fool someone into thinking it's a news story, not a press release. How does this work? Did mTraks pay them to promote their press release in this misleading manner, or does this California Newswire site just reprint press releases to develop cheap content and sell ads? I call shenanigans on whoever's responsible. Oh, and now I see the second hit is a link to another website in the same family, same text, but now, instead of Cindy Holden, the author (excuse me, the site explains the name is the "editor/author") has become Jesse JJ Jame. How about that? I'm guessing from the Neotrope Interactive Network's home page that this is just some lame promotional tool for companies that can't generate real buzz. The desperation doesn't bode well for mTraks' chances.

iTunes launched their DRM-free iTunes Plus service today. A nice milestone on the road leading to the death of DRM, though in actuality it was a little underwhelming. According to Apple's "upgrade to iTunes Plus" page, I actually only bought two albums from EMI: One by Lily Allen (don't you judge me!) and one by the Little Willies (a Norah Jones country side-project). I bought a handful of singles as well. I did go ahead and upgrade what I owned to iTunes Plus, though I was disappointed to see there was not an option to upgrade on a song-by-song basis. The upgrade was actually a good value to me, as I lost a few files from a hard drive crash awhile back, and was able to replace them in the process. And other then the site moving as slow as molasses, I didn't have much trouble upgrading. But I was disappointed to learn that I would have to pay a 30% surcharge to upgrade full albums I'd purchased, even though the DRM-free albums cost the same as the protected albums (an effort to encourage consumers to purchase full albums--a smart move, methinks). But I have a large credit balance at iTunes currently (Best Buy had a "$60 in gift cards for $45" sale recently), so didn't begrudge them the $7.50 or so I spent to upgrade.

One concern that I have about this experiment in DRM-free music is that it might, in fact, lead to a small up-tick in piracy. Much of the reportage about this new development describes the change as involving selling music free from usage restrictions. Not true. Copyright is a usage restriction. Just because a file is free from technological protection from copying doesn't mean that any and all copying of said file is legal. That's one reason why I think the thirty-cent surcharge for DRM-free files is a bad idea; it will confuse consumers, who think they are paying for the privilege to copy a file freely, without regard to copyright law. But I can offer one warning to those planning to share their iTunes Plus songs on P2P networks: Your iTunes account information and e-mail address is encoded within your iTunes-purchased music files. Though, as that article notes, I doubt this information is being used to track down pirates.

If you're anything like me, you've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of DRM-free tracks at iTunes, which we were told would arrive in May, which will soon be over. But fear not, as sources say the May deadline will be met. No assurances the infrastructure will be in place for new-music Tuesday, but I suppose waiting another 48 hours or so won't kill me. Besides, it's not like there's a ton of EMI artists I've been dying to purchase, it's more the symbolism of the moment.

As promised, I signed up for We7, and downloaded the sample songs being offered. The current offerings are intended as a tech demo, and it would be unfair to judge them from the selection being offered currently. But when the best track available is by Hall and Oats, that's not the best sign. Some nice jazz tunes were available, the best of those being Rick Guard's swinging "The Truth About Love" (though that file sounded a bit muddled to me, at least in the bass). Currently, each file is affixed with a very brief commercial for We7 itself, much like a radio station I.D. spot. Not too annoying, but not particularly interesting. The files have no DRM, as advertised, and as one would imagine, skipping the commercials is quite easy.

I was satisfied enough with this taste of the We7 service that I will be keeping an eye on it, and will put it through its paces when it goes live. I'm highly skeptical of its business model, but I wish them the best. I suppose most people will listen to the ads the first time they play a song, if only to see how long the ad is so they can tell iTunes how far ahead to skip in subsequent playings. So advertisers are paying a dollar or so for every ad impression. Seems high to me, but I suppose the market will decide.

Peter Gabriel has opened We7, an online music store that will give away free music tracks, DRM-free, with ten-second commercials attached. After four weeks, you can re-download the track, but without the commercial. While I'm not wildly crazy about the idea, it's not terrible. If it has a good selection (which I doubt it will), or at least a good interface that helps you find good music amongst the obscure offerings, it might be a nice, free way to discover new artists. I just can't imagine the ad revenue will be substantial enough to make this worth the time of any working musicians. Especially since it would be pretty easy to remove or bypass the commercial from a DRM-free file. Just tell iTunes to start playing the file at the ten-second mark; you don't even need to edit the file. But if the commercial's not obnoxious, and you have a commercial-free file coming in a few weeks, maybe users won't bother to skip it. I'm skeptical this will work out as a viable business, but I'll give it a shot when it goes live.

UPDATE: Apparently, We7 expects to make about $1.20 per download in advertising fees. This number strikes me as absurd, but I don't pretend to be an expert in advertising. I also see that there are some sample songs already available, if you register for the site; when I get home, I'll download me some Coolio or Bananarama and let you know how the experience goes.

Report: Amazon set to debut online music service next month. If they launch such a service, I'm sure they will only do so in a DRM-free form (rumors swirrled a few weeks ago that Amazon was going to buy eMusic, but nothing came of it). I did think it interesting to read in one report of a rumored Universal/Amazon partnership that Amazon was considering launching a store based on Microsoft's Plays for Sure DRM, but abandoned it when Microsoft announced the Zune. It was widely noted at the time that the Zune was a real slap in the face for anyone who partnered with Microsoft on the DRM front, but this is the first I've heard of any serious ramifications from the whole Zune debacle.

As rumored, the Apple/EMI press conference was to announce that EMI was dropping DRM on iTunes. Good news. Higher-fidelity, DRM-free songs for an extra $0.30/song. I dislike having to pay extra to not receive a crippled product, but the enhanced sound eases the pain a bit (not that I've ever had a problem with the sound quality from the iTunes store). And in an effort to move consumers away from just purchasing singles, the wholesale price of albums will not change; I mostly buy full albums on iTunes, so this means I'll get improved sound quality and no DRM, and it will only cost me $0.30 on the infrequent occasions when I just download select tracks. I'd say this qualifies as good news, and hopefully the other major record labels will follow suit.

I do hope that the move away from DRM doesn't bring the majors to eMusic. I imagine the presence of major studios would drive the cost per song up quite a bit.

EMI and Apple plan to make a major announcement tomorrow. The early rumor was the arrival of the Beatles catalog on iTunes, which would be pretty sweet. But the Wall Street Journal reports (apparently, I got home from work before I heard this, and no longer have access to the Journal archives) that the real announcement is DRM-free music downloads from iTunes. Which makes more sense, considering the promise of a live musical performance at the press conference. Good news, in any case.

EMI exploring DRM-free downloads, but only if they can slip in a fatter profit margin, apparently. The most interesting point in this article is the observation that labels fear DRM-free music downloads might be too successful, and would cannibalize CD sales. So basically, DRM isn't about preventing piracy, it's just designed to be a pain in the ass so you'll skip iTunes and just buy the damn CD.

Of course, without rampant price fixing, CDs wouldn't have a higher profit margin. After all, delivering digital music to an online store involves virtually no overhead. But what strikes me as odd, from my personal experience, is that most CDs, if you shop around, are pretty close in price to digital downloads. In fact, while I generally prefer downloading songs (instant gratification, plus the fact that my CD-ROM sucks, and I often have to re-rip songs that have skips), I often find the CD is actually cheaper. I got the Dixie Chicks' new CD from Amazon for cheaper than iTunes, same with Lady Sovereign at Circuit City, and the other day I was planning to download an old Johnny Cash CD, and iTunes wanted $11.99, while I found it online for $9.99. Twelve bucks to download a thirty-minute album from fifty years ago? $0.99/song seems a fair price to me, and I can see tacking on a few bucks for a hot new album, but the amount of old albums fetching a premium price on iTunes is just bizarre, if the goal is to sell songs.

Steve Jobs thoughts on DRM. Nice to hear Apple's willingness to sell music without DRM, if they could, but I think his claim they would embrase it "wholeheartedly" is a bit questionable. They'd do it, but they're not thrilled about it; they're perfectly happy with the status quo, seeing as it helps cement the market dominance of the iPod/iTunes juggernaut. But perhaps they're confident that they've got the MP3 player market locked up, and maybe they figure a DRM-free store would be enough to kill off competition from Napster/Rhapsody and other subscription models (I don't think the music industry would allow unlimited downloading for a monthly fee without DRM).

The timing of this article is what I found interesting. Why would Steve Jobs post a rare open letter now? He is probably trying to deflect criticism from European governments for not licensing their FairPlay DRM technology. But I like to think that Steve Jobs has been paying attention to recent reports of a shift in the industry away from DRM, and thinks now is the time to jump on the anti-DRM bandwagon. Given Job's sense for the industry, I don't think he'd publish this letter if he didn't think there was a reasonable chance the industry would go along (maybe less than 50/50, but still a real chance). In any event, this letter makes me think that predictions that 2007 is the year the music industry ditches DRM might be plausible, after all.