Warner Music yesterday announced it had terminated its agreement with a new digital music website almost as soon as it had launched, because the major was seemingly unaware the service would be essentially a DRM-free download platform.
The service is called AnywhereCD and is really rather interesting. It has been founded by Michael Robertson, the man behind one of the early and controversial digital music services MP3.com. The new website sells physical CDs of mainstream releases like other online mail order operations, but once you have ordered a CD it also allows you to download the tracks off the album you have ordered as non-DRM protected MP3 files, presumably following the logic that once a consumer has bought a CD they can rip the music off it as MP3 anyway, so there is no reason not to make those MP3 files available via a download.
It is not clear which labels have licenced albums to the new service, but much of the big name artist content we can see on there does seem to come from Warner's catalogue. It seems that while the major had entered into a deal with Robertson's new company, there was some confusion as to what they were signing up to, and as the service went live the major announced it had ordered its content to be removed from the website.
It is unclear how Warner expected the new service to work when agreeing to participate. Some reports suggest that on launch AnywhereCD offered an option whereby users could save the postage and packaging costs by just buying the MP3s and not a physical CD - something which would alter the proposition considerably from Warner's point of view. But it is unclear if it is that functionality Warner object to, or the entire concept of allowing users to download MP3s at all - it is possible the major thought AnywhereCD would simply offer a tool that simplified the process for user's to rip MP3s off their physical CD once it had arrived in the mail.
Either way, the major, which has been a proactive supporter of DRM technology, even following EMI's announcement it was moving away from a DRM-only policy, told reporters yesterday that the AnywhereCD service "flagrantly violates" their agreement with the company and that: "Accordingly, we have sent them a notice of termination and they are required to immediately remove all of our content from their site".
We're assuming there is no controversy surrounding the other digital content deal Warner announced this week. This one is with Joost, that new web TV service we've so far failed to report on. Warner will make videos available to the service in return for a cut of ad revenues generated by the content - in something akin to the other YouTube style deals (though with no equity as a sweetener in this case).
Confirming this deal, Warner's Senior VP Digital, Michael Nash, said these here words: "The creators of Joost have done a brilliant job of including all the key players involved in distributing video content on the internet, and we are excited to be a part of the development of this new platform. Partnering with them gives us a great opportunity to capitalize on the momentum of video-based content distribution and offer consumers the breadth and depth of our music video catalog as well as exciting new video content created for the platform. As we continue to transform Warner Music Group into a more dynamic, interactive provider of music-based multi-media content, this partnership helps us offer new and broader audiences more of our artists' content, while benefiting our artists and protecting copyrights".