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Barenaked Ladies' big risk

October 24, 2006 › Sandy McMurray | comment

Barenaked Ladies Are Me The new album from Barenaked Ladies is available on CD, in record stores, as usual. You can also buy it from the iTunes store if you're so inclined.

But wait! There's more! There's an old school vinyl version of the record. (Yes, I said "record.")

And there are two new digital formats: unprotected mp3, and FLAC audio.

What's the big deal?

The big deal is the idea of releasing new music in digital format without including any kind of copy-protection. Since it's so easy to make a copy of a digital song, conventional wisdom says commercial music needs some kind of digital rights management (DRM) technology to prevent theft.

So how is this little social experiment going?

Early reports are good. Ladies fans are not stealing the album, they're buying it -- to the tune of nearly a million dollars so far, in the first week of sales!

Score one for honest music fans. And score one for the band that trusts its fans to be honest and support good music.

October 24, 2006 › Sandy McMurray | comment on this item