What is DRM? Why is it sometimes deducted from my sales net amount?

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management.

This technology was widely used in the 2000's to protect audio files and prevent piracy and unauthorized files exchange on networks.

Nowadays the trend is that the rules are being progressively relaxed in order to ease the end-customer experience on the digital retail services.

However, a few digital platforms, especially in the US, still use DRM on their service to protect the files delivered to the customers.

Unfortunately these platforms deduct a fee for covering their technical costs when applying DRM.

DRM costs/deductions are calculated as follows (on downloads only):
- fix amount: 0.0910$ for the first 3 minutes of a track
- variable amount:: 0.0175$ per minute from 3 minutes on

For album sales, DRM costs are applied on each track

To summarize, the longer the songs are, the more DRM fees are deducted.