The SA music industry is happy to be able to sell digital rights management (DRM)-free music on Nokia's Ovi Store, say artists.
While it's too early to provide statistics, Nokia says anecdotal evidence has shown the move to digital DRM-free music to be a good one.
Nokia announced on 10 August that the music available on its Internet store, Ovi Music, would be offered in MP3 format, able to be played on as many devices as a user wished, without the use of a specific player, a move that came into place a month later, on 9 September.
DRM is a technology that limits the amount of devices a track, movie or piece of software can function on, and is used to prevent piracy.
Dr Tobias Schonwetter, of the University of Cape Town's Intellectual Property Research Unit, says while DRM protects copyright, it also causes frustration for legitimate users who wish to listen to their music outside of the device it was originally downloaded onto.
It is this user feedback that urged Nokia to make the change, according to Nokia head of music for the Middle East and Africa region Jake Larsen.
Larsen says one cannot stop piracy, only make it easier for users to purchase music legitimately. While Nokia has intended to offer music free of DRM for some time, he says the company needed to negotiate with artists first.
“The artists are key to our success; we wanted them to earn money,” he notes.
Local electronica and dance group Goldfish says all digital offerings should be DRM-free.
“We are competing with illegal downloads and sharing, which are DRM-free. This is the standard people expect especially if they pay for something. Why should you be restricted when you have actually bought the music to listen to?” says Goldfish member David Poole.
Alternative rock artist Sick-Leaves agrees that removing DRM from music is a good move by Nokia. “It would be doing the real fans and artists a disservice to not have the albums available on the Nokia store for the reason of it not being DRM protected.”
In terms of DRM preventing piracy, Sick-Leaves says: “People are perceiving music as free, which is sad given the amount of time, money and emotional investment spent creating the songs and albums. It is unfortunate, but is part of the evolving music industry and artists/those working with the artists have to adapt to this through other avenues available such as live, sync, etc.”
For the Middle East and Africa, the number of paid users of digital music is expected to grow to 58.4 million in 2014, as illegal file-sharing becomes more difficult and record companies become wiser about business models and distribution, according to Research and Markets.
Larsen believes that good service, an extensive catalogue and competitive prices will encourage people to buy music legitimately.
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