FlipTunes: A Step In the Right Direction?

I just discovered Fliptunes: a local site that seeks to bring OPM (Original Pilipino Music) to the world.

Through Fliptunes, net-savvy music lovers overseas can now get their favorite (at least some of them) music and music videos in digital format. However, local net-savvy music lovers may not easily accept this service -- in order to download music or video from Fliptunes, one has to have access to bittorrent (not everyone here in the Philippines have enough bandwidth to use torrents) and the price for the music may be a bit too steep (a Parokya ni Edgar album costs Php 600++ while a CD version of it can be bought for considerably less, a track costs Php 40 and a music video costs around Php 80). Another probable stumbling block is that all videos and music sold through Fliptunes is "protected" with Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM) which alienates a vast majority of its market -- the iPod-using crowd. (factoid: iPods will **not** play music with Windows DRM)

Despite the high cost of media and its choice of DRM, Fliptunes is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction for the local music industry. They should start adapting to current technology in order to be competitive in the market.