Warner Bros. Records is releasing the debut CD from young Ohio band the Sun in September — except for one thing: Warner Bros. isn't releasing it on CD.In what is believed to be a major-label first, the Sun's album will not be available in the CD format but only as a DVD (with a video for each of the 14 songs).
[...]
The DVD will, though, include music-only WAV files that can be transferred to a computer and even burned onto a CD-R if desired.
... from calendarlive.com
The article indicates a believe by the record company that "kids these days just rip the CD to the computer/iPod and ignore the original media (the shiny plastic thingy in the plastic thingy) from then on".
My first thought was that the record company thinks they're adding something by providing videos, but all I can see is deliberate frustration of their market. They admit that kids are used to ripping CDs when they buy them. You're taking that step away from them, making turning their music into an MP3 that little bit harder.
Although... they're providing WAV files. That's a pretty huge step. You no longer need to rip the CD. Ripping a CD is always risky and may introduce minute errors that accumulate over various generations of CDr. Providing WAV files provides an absolutely perfect digital copy of the music, completely DRM free. I find it very very hard to believe. It feels like they're giving up.
Although it's good to see them at least attempting to play with the market, to break out of their rut.
I'd put a million dollars on a bet the WAV files have some kind of watermarking.
On topic thought: A big arguement I often hear about internet music piracy is that "those people that do it are still the minority". That is, most people aren't computery enough to do it. Is the same true for teenage kids. How many kids could you find these days who didn't know how to rip a CD or unencrypt a DVD?
I also find it sad that these days we're seeing prime time adverts for bands music... that is advertising not the album or the single, but the frigging ringtone. It staggers me that people will happily spend $5 for a poxy version of their favourite song but avoid paying the same price for a single. And I'm not just talking about that darn frog (cute little fella). I'm talking Black Eyed Peas and other "current big things".