“Real plans to develop its own DRM format”:http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060918-7767.html for “Rhapsody”:http://www.rhapsody.net.
Great, as if WMA wasn’t bad enough. I know they’re trying to copy the ‘closed ecosystem approach’, but it seems like it’s too little too late. Unless it’s somehow more ‘open’ the WMA (I’m not sure what that really means when you talk about DRM formats), I don’t understand how this isn’t going to create just more incompatibilities.
I hope they know what they’re doing… I can’t help but see it as an act of blind arrogance for them though.
They should save their engineering effort and work on a better UI, or work on getting more songs in their catalog. Or make changes to their service that.
Oh well, I guess if they really screw it up, I can switch to Napster or Zune, or just back to my iPod.
*Update*: Here’s something from “Wired”:http://blog.wired.com/music/index.blog?entry_id=1558918 on the same topic. I guess I underestimated the poor state of the PlaysForSure world was in. I suppose it would be a strict improvement if it meant that Rhapsody would work on devices when it didn’t before. As long as devices that work with Rhapsody DNA also work with WMA services as well, I can accept that this strategy won’t be a complete lock-in (I’m still skeptical of spending all the engineering resources to create a new DRM format though).
The worst end scenario is to have devices tied to services, and not being able to switch services because you’ve already dropped the cash on the device. I guess the iPod is already an example of this, but as long as you have some kind of DRM free format, you can always load your stuff onto it. I suppose just because a new DRM format arrives, there’s no incentive for device makers to be less compatible with existing formats.