Simon Willison’s Weblog

BuyMusic, the latest sharecropper on the block

22nd July 2003

As seen on Blogzilla and Ordinary Life, BuyMusic are content to exist as a sharecropper. It looks like the restriction is due to their use of Windows Media as the format for their DRM protected files (BuyMusic is the Windows poor relative to Apple’s iTunes). Unfortunately, this could become common place in the next few years as the music industry tries to find ways of surviving in the digital age. After all, with more than 90% of PCs running Windows there’s no doubting that’s where most of the money is. I guess the music industry are happy to be sharecroppers, and anyone who choses non-Microsoft software will have to get used to being treated as second-class citizens.