Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders

A Record Label Succeeds With DRM-Free Sales

Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on October 1, 2007

 
 A Record Label Succeeds With DRM-Free Downloads [19:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you would like to learn how the leading classical music record label is benefiting from DRM-free music download sales, this interview is for you.

Our guest today is Klaus Heymann who is the Founder of Naxos which is the World’s leading classical music record label. In the United States last year the company generated 20% of its income from digital downloads and services as compared to only 8% in the prior year.

Twenty years after its formation,

Naxos has become the World’s leading classical music record label. Despite consistent messages from the major labels that classical music is in decline,

Naxos is setting new sales records.

Although the Internet is impacting their business,

Naxos responded in such a way as to benefit. For example, their entire catalogue is available at eMusic for DRM-free downloads in the MP3 format. As a result,

Naxos has become the largest selling label on eMusic and eMusic is second only to Apple’s iTunes music store in digital download sales.

Essentially,

Naxos concluded that the gain in digital sales from DRM-free distribution is greater than whatever offsetting piracy losses might occur. In sum, the CEO concludes that all major record labels will reconcile themselves to DRM-free distribution within two years.

Length: This audio interview is about 20 minutes long.
 

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