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Kazaa is back in business and it's now legit. It uses a new all-you-can-eat model, for $19.98 per month, you get access to over a million premium tracks.
So far so good, but then you find that the music you download is infested with DRM and will only work on PCs, not your portable music player. And only 3 PCs can be used to play the music. This seriously affects the usability of the service, considering how the music industry in general has abandoned the usage of DRM already.
This may be just the industry's way of testing the waters in terms of an all-you-can-eat service. My thinking is that people would much rather prefer to pay and get legal music, as long as the price is fair (and $19.98/m is quite fair, if the available music library is extensive enough). You don't need DRM and everything because people will pay (the average teenager already pays way more probably in terms of cell phone charges). The industry is still cautious though, so you can think of DRM as the industry's floaties, and it will take a while before they realise the water is only a foot deep.
More:
Kazaa:
So far so good, but then you find that the music you download is infested with DRM and will only work on PCs, not your portable music player. And only 3 PCs can be used to play the music. This seriously affects the usability of the service, considering how the music industry in general has abandoned the usage of DRM already.
This may be just the industry's way of testing the waters in terms of an all-you-can-eat service. My thinking is that people would much rather prefer to pay and get legal music, as long as the price is fair (and $19.98/m is quite fair, if the available music library is extensive enough). You don't need DRM and everything because people will pay (the average teenager already pays way more probably in terms of cell phone charges). The industry is still cautious though, so you can think of DRM as the industry's floaties, and it will take a while before they realise the water is only a foot deep.
More:
Kazaa:
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