rare pattern thoughts in a blog

So says Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business and US sales for Sony BMG. That's right, the company that betrayed such contempt for the consumer by deliberately infecting its music CDs with its Rootkit, before stopping when it faced major PR and legal backlash, still has plenty of contempt for the consumer.

The article on the Forbes website -- itself littered with interstitial and numerous pop-up ads that make you just want to hurry back and experience more -- covers how music industry executives are fretting over life in the digital age.

“No intellectual property business is going to cross the digital divide without figuring out how to protect its content and to ensure that transactions are associated with the acquisition of content,’’ Nash said. “The music industry simply has to solve the content security problem or risk the obsolescence of its business model.’’

So says Warner's senior vice president of digital strategy and business development. In other words, the world must conform to their business model, not the other way around.

At issue is that people who buy and download music might do what they have been able to do for decades: copy it and share it, which is something you still can do if you buy a CD.

Says MacDailyNews:

The horse left the barn decades ago when the music industry opened the doors wide and began selling billions of Compact Discs without DRM. Hence, most of the music sold today is already without DRM and, we can get any new release for free - just like being in a college dorm - on the day of release via P2P. Don't steal music.

Lastly, it doesn't matter what the music labels' agendas are, the only agenda that really matters is Steve Jobs' - and his seems focused like a laser on DRM-free music sales.

DRM-free music is already here via CDs and P2P. There is no logical reason to try to restrict legal online downloads with DRM - all you are doing is turning people towards pirating music and/or turning them off from using legal online stores like Apple's iTunes Store.

It never fails to amazes us how some people in the music industry don't understand the absolute basics of their business model.

We're all criminals. Especially those of us in college. That seems to be the message from the executives. How's that for "business development" strategy?

MacNN reports:

The special event to be held by EMI tomorrow (with Apple as guest) will be focused on dropping DRM restrictions from music, according to sources speaking with the Wall Street Journal. The financial paper claims that EMI will sell at least some of its music without any copy protection through the iTunes Store and potentially other outlets. Previous reports had at first suggested that the press gathering would see the launch of The Beatles' music online.

Such an announcement appears to confirm earlier reports that the music label was actively investigating the removal of DRM from some of its catalog. A particular reason for the decision has not been given but is likely to stem from a belief that rights management has so far curbed the growth of online music sales, restricting interoperability between devices and music stores.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs' personal involvement in the presentation would also reflect the assertions made in his "Thoughts on Music" open letter, where he argued that the only practical alternative to FairPlay and other protection methods was to derestrict online music sales entirely.

This is good news indeed. I may even start buying some music online. Goodness knows it's getting almost impossible to find anything of value on CD anymore.