Universal Music Releasing Entire Catalog For Free Over The Internet
Posted by Tyler Kinch on August 29th, 2006
Well it looks like Universal will be offering its entire catalog for free at a website called Spiral Frog by the end of the year. One catch though, you have to watch advertisements before downloading.
I like the concept. I think people will use this as it is legal (no guilty feeling) and safer (No viruses, etc.)
It does have DRM though, and won’t be compatible with the iPod. Quite pointless in my opinion, as it seems like almost everyone and their dog has one these days. Those people will just continue with iTunes Music Store or they will just download them illegally.
At least they are sort of embracing the internet.
Edited to add:
It looks like this is even worse than it sounds. The service is not just ad supported but ad enforced:
Spiral Frog will offer a desktop downloader for Windows Media Files (no iPods!) that can be listened to on one PC and two portable devices. Here’s the kicker - you must log in to the Spiral Frog service at least once per month, and see their ads, or your files will stop playing! The details aren’t fully set in stone, but it will be something like that. There will be links to third party sites of the record labels’ choosing if you’d like to buy your freedom to at least skip the ads.
Looks like they still can’t get anything right. Just ruining good ideas with more restrictions and less freedom.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:39 am
If it uses WMA 10 or 11, the DRM is stripable now at least using a new Fairplayfor WMA.