The future of DRM protected music is increasingly in doubt. Not only have independent music specialists such as eMusic been offering MP3 downloads for a significant time, mainstream music is beginning to become available in the universal format through stores such as 7Digital, Amazon (which launched in the UK earlier this month) and Tesco Digital.
What makes things better though is when a big artist appears to come out in favour of MP3 downloads. In this case it's Sir Paul McCartney who, using the band name "The Fireman", has released an album online not only through digital retailers in the MP3 format but through his own website and it's the latter where one can really see how digital music sales should really be.
The MP3 format is not the only digital format available. For those who can make use of it, FLAC is also available at no extra charge and with the MP3 files included too. For the benefit of Apple users, they can download the album in Apple Lossless and again the MP3 files are part of the package. But not only does one obtain the music, but the album cover is included as a JPG image and the insert as a PDF document meaning not one aspect of owning the physical copy is lost in this digital purchase (except for having a physical product).
The benefit of offering lossless audio should be pretty obvious. The quality will be identical to that of a purchased CD even if it is burnt to a CD-R as CD Audio, and later re-ripped back to FLAC. There is no degredation and the impression I get from comments made on internet message boards is that quality is a big reason putting people off delving into downloads.
I'd love to see FLAC being taken up as an option by retailers. Download speeds are fast, and storage space is cheap so end users shouldn't suffer from the larger file sizes. Understandably, the retailers themselves may be doubtful. Afterall, 4 million songs in FLAC format could cause storage problems compared to MP3 and the bandwidth bill for the retailer could take a hit. My solution is to simply offer FLAC as a choice alongside MP3 and to charge a small amount extra for the privilege for a larger, better quality file.
What makes things better though is when a big artist appears to come out in favour of MP3 downloads. In this case it's Sir Paul McCartney who, using the band name "The Fireman", has released an album online not only through digital retailers in the MP3 format but through his own website and it's the latter where one can really see how digital music sales should really be.
The MP3 format is not the only digital format available. For those who can make use of it, FLAC is also available at no extra charge and with the MP3 files included too. For the benefit of Apple users, they can download the album in Apple Lossless and again the MP3 files are part of the package. But not only does one obtain the music, but the album cover is included as a JPG image and the insert as a PDF document meaning not one aspect of owning the physical copy is lost in this digital purchase (except for having a physical product).
The benefit of offering lossless audio should be pretty obvious. The quality will be identical to that of a purchased CD even if it is burnt to a CD-R as CD Audio, and later re-ripped back to FLAC. There is no degredation and the impression I get from comments made on internet message boards is that quality is a big reason putting people off delving into downloads.
I'd love to see FLAC being taken up as an option by retailers. Download speeds are fast, and storage space is cheap so end users shouldn't suffer from the larger file sizes. Understandably, the retailers themselves may be doubtful. Afterall, 4 million songs in FLAC format could cause storage problems compared to MP3 and the bandwidth bill for the retailer could take a hit. My solution is to simply offer FLAC as a choice alongside MP3 and to charge a small amount extra for the privilege for a larger, better quality file.