So Sony have announced that they’re following the crowd by launching an online music store. There’s not been too much to be overwhelmed by with the competition, but Sony have really made an effort this time – and have come up with the brain-deadest of all brain-dead online music store ideas. Look at this for a list of crap ideas:
- the download format is their own proprietary ATRAC-3, rather than an open standard
- they can only be transferred onto “secure Sony portable audio products” – ie their minidisk players
- the tracks are DRM’d with MagicGate rights-restriction
- it’ll only work using their own SonicStage jukebox
- you won’t be able to burn to CD using any other software
- you’ll need a new version anyway in order to be able to use the store
- there’s no mention of how many times (if at all) the tracks can be burned or copied.
If someone had sat down with a blank sheet of paper and asked themselves “How can we make sure that this is a complete failure”, I don’t think the list could have been any more comprehensive.
