02/08/2008, 1:10am, EST
Friday, February 8thfrom: www.electronista.com
US Dept. of Justice seeks inquiry into Total Music
Universal's Total Music service is the subject of Federal inquiry after the US Justice Department sent a letter to the Universal Music Group requesting information about the planned service. Yahoo News reports that this follows a similar letter obtained by Sony BMG – neither label would comment, and letters sent to the Justice Department went unanswered.
Total Music is an idea that Universal has been entertaining for a while, after increased friction with Apple over the sharing of profits and the proprietary DRM format the company uses to protect tracks. Universal chief Doug Morris referred to this sales model as being ensnared by "golden handcuffs".
In May of last year, Apple launched iTunes Plus, a DRM-free catalogue of music featuring select artists from EMI's talent roster. Universal passed up Apple's service in favor of Amazon, RealNetworks, and several other established online music retailers, offering a selection of DRM-free content over a six month trial period.
Filed under: industry
Other story tags: Universal, Sony BMG, labels, Total Music
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No, any player with AAC support (which still isn't high in numbers) would be able to play it.
And the record companies aren't preventing apple from licensing FairPlay. That's all Apple. They want to keep it close to the vest for as long as possible to make sure they keep their hold on both sets of users.
The playground is different with movies, everything from DVD to online has some sort of copy protection and Apple isn't treated differently.
Microshit and unReal put no effort at all in DRM-playback for osX so they don't have to whine about Play-Fair(!).
Apple will NOT license fairplay to ANYONE. There are no 'big' players vs. small ones here. The only people I know who've got anything 'fairplay' was the Fox deal of putting FairPlay content on the DVD. But this is meaningless. You still need a Mac or Windows machine with iTunes to get it, followed by an iPod as the only portable device to watch it.