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So 2007 was the year of abandon ...

By Georgia Harper

... Abandoning DRM anyway. Warner's Entire Digital Music Catalog For Sale on Amazon as MP3s | Listening Post from Wired.com. With this announcement on Wired news, we learn that 3 of the 4 majors have now concluded that sales of mp3s (unprotected tracks) will likely expand the digital music business more effectively than DRMd tracks. Duh. Sony/BMG is still not so sure. What does it take? At the beginning of the year there were many signs of this potential. I blogged about it numerous times beginning on January 27, on February 6, April 2 (a day to remember, I noted) and sporadically over the rest of the year (pull up the DRM category from the sidebar to see these posts cumulated). It turned out to be just as big a watershed year as I had optimistically hoped. So, what's in store for 2008? I feel encouraged by a successful prediction. Maybe I'm turning into a seer. I do have a crystal ball -- it belonged to my Irish gypsy grandmother, Dorothea Genevieve. But I think it's easier to read the news than a crystal ball. This stuff was way overdue. What else is overdue? Well, I'm excited about the possibility of another watershed year. What about you? What do you think we'll see in the copyright world in 2008? Let's be realistic now: no saying that Congress will roll back the absurd CTEA or that MPAA will endorse such a roll-back (which is the only way it would happen), or that the US Trade Rep will stop pressuring Canada to adopt our own failed DRM strategies. But putting the really unlikely aside, what do you think we're likely to see in 2008? Come on; read some tea leaves; tell us what you think!

Full post as published by ©ollectanea on December 27, 2007 (boomark / email).