eMusic Offers DRM-Free Audiobooks, While NBC Offers TV Shows Free for a Week September 20, 2007 By Bill Rosenblatt
eMusic.com announced
on Monday that it will be offering a number of audiobook titles from major
publishers on its service. As with all other content on eMusic, the
audiobooks will be in unencrypted MP3 format. However, they will contain
audio watermarks. It is unclear whether the watermarks will contain
identities of individual downloaders.
Meanwhile, NBC
announced yesterday that it will offer free downloads of some of its
television shows that can play on PCs for up to a week after the show airs.
These downloads will use Windows Media DRM.
eMusic is launching its audiobook service as separate from its core music
service. For a monthly subscription fee, subscribers get access to one
audiobook per month for US $10 or two for US $20; this is comparable to pricing
of audiobooks on iTunes and Audible.com, where they are in protected formats.
eMusic will add features such as book reviews licensed from leading periodicals.
No details are available
The major publishers involved in the deal -- which include Random House,
Penguin, and Hachette -- are treating this as a limited experiment, in much the
same way as Universal Music Group is
experimenting with
DRM-free content on music services other than iTunes. And as with
UMG's everyone-but-iTunes initiative, book publishers are likely to be
experimenting with alternative distribution channels in order to reduce Apple's
control over the market and leverage growth in the audiobook market -- one of
the brightest spots in book publishing today.
Meanwhile, NBC is using the free-for-a-week offer, which will begin next
month, as a means of attracting attention to a new online retail service for its
television content, called NBC Direct, that it will launch. NBC
pulled its content
from iTunes a few weeks ago and intends ultimately to compete with iTunes in
selling TV episodes. NBC's free downloads will include the network ads that were broadcast, which were not included on iTunes downloads.
Here is yet more evidence that DRM-free does not mean free of digital rights
technologies, and that free does not mean DRM-free. In one case, leading
book publishers are experimenting with different technologies (watermarking vs.
encryption), while in another case, a leading television network is
experimenting with value proposition (free for a week vs. paid permanent
ownership). As we've said before about
other free content
services with limited rights, may the experimentation continue.
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