ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_190307

DRM accounts for 75% of support calls

Deutsche Telekom's Musicload, one of the largest online music stores in Europe, is saying that 75% of all calls to their support line are due to DRM issues. This is costing them a lot of money, because the costs are entirely borne by the retailer, not the record company.

In addition they point out that non-DRM music sells better than DRM music:

Championing the "Comeback of MP3," Musicload said that artists choosing to drop DRM saw a 40 percent increase in sales since December, and that more artists and labels are showing interest.

Here's what rubs me: because of the way that piracy is counted as a "lost sale", the math goes all wrong. Even if you sell more without DRM, and end up with more money, the fear of increased "lost sales" is going to prevent the move to non-DRM music. And the fact is that most "lost sales" are completely made up. Of course, the numbers are made really big so that it looks like piracy is an important issue, but at the same time it causes this "lost sale" -fear, simly because the numbers are just so big. So everyone is trapped in the same mess.

(Via BoingBoing.)