Sony BMG Confirms DRM Free Music, But Will Force Customers to Visit A Store To Buy It:
As we reported January 4, Sony BMG will become the last of the big four record companies to sell DRM free music, but with one very stupid catch. DRM free music from Sony BMG will be available from January 15 to those who purchase a plastic card called the "Platinum Music Pass" for the album they want from a retail store for $12.99. Buyers will then have to visit MusicPass.com and enter a code to download the DRM free album they selected in the store.
According to a USA Today report, Best Buy, Target and Fred"s will be first stores to offer the cards, with Winn-Dixie, Coconuts, FYE, Spec"s and Wherehouse to follow. When we first wrote about Sony BMG offering DRM free music we were positive on the move, and it still is a step forward, but forcing customers who want to buy digital music into a physical store where they will be forced to pick the album then and there, then go home to download it...WTF?. It"s nearly like Sony BMG is setting this up to fail, so they can then go back to only selling DRM infested music whilst saying that there wasn"t demand for DRM free music because this experiment failed.