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Labels Push for a Unified DRM Standard
thejoelpatrol writes "Bad news for Apple fanatics but good news for all the crazy slashdotters who want an iPod but feel dirty using Apple's DRM: the labels are getting together and insisting that online stores standardize their DRM methods. Being the providers of the music, the labels clearly wield a lot of power, but so does Apple: without iTunes, the online music business is next to nothing. Will Apple give in? Not if they can help it -- they're on top of the world. Before anyone messes it up, AAC is an open format, while the Fairplay DRM standard is not."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Even though I do understand that content creators wish to protect themselves I believe that no DRM is the way to go.
The main thing is to focus on having a well working and simple delivery model, and to make sure the content isn't over-priced. DRM ultimately pretty useless, since it can always be broken eventually. If it's simpler to buy the content from a reputable store than getting it over P2P the model will work.
Tim O'Reilly wrote and excellent piece on the subject in 2002, and it still applies today: Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution
PS. I'm sure a lot of you will disagree, but at least I can claim to be a content creator myself...
.: Max Romantschuk
Actually its more the other way round. If the content providers are not happy they will tell Apple to fuck off and deal with MS or some other distributor to the exclusion of Apple. Hell they can even launch their own online distribution channels if they feel like it.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
The labels can go fuck themselves.
Apparently there are some photos circulating the net demonstrating how that can be done, I hear.
This should be interesing, Apple is very good at being independent and wanting to be different, but this looks like that strategy won't work out. They must keep the studios happy or the studios will happily take away the music.
Personally I wonder how this would affect older devices (like iPods) that might not be able to play the standardized DRM. The article makes no mention of this, and while I can't see Apple in particular (and other digital music player makers) wanting to make their older products incompatible, I really would not be surprised if the studios could care less if that were to occur. If it does there will be quite a few incredibly angry folks out there!
From the article (emphasis mine)
But Mr Berman said it was vital for the industry to establish a single digital rights management technology as part of a strategy to popularise legal downloads among consumers.
and
While Apple has been widely praised for bringing online music into the mainstream market, some labels have complained it has priced tracks too low, making it difficult for them to make a profit from them.
If a single format will allow for competition between online music stores and at the same time increase the user base, I would expect the prices to drop. But given the second statement, I suspect they would like us to pay more.
This can only happen when the DRM-scheme they will be proposing is more restrictive then Apple DRM. So this has nothing to do with interoperability. It's about standardizing to a format they have more control over.
Do they ever learn?
Not at all. Do you honestly believe that the labels are doing this for your (the customer's) good, to enable you to choose the mediaplayer and format you want? Then you're truly naive. Labels are greedy, greedy and greedy, in that order. The only reason that they are banding together on DRM now is that they are afraid that they will lose control (=revenue) over their digital music offerings to Apple, Microsoft or some other digital content provider. Which would serve them right.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
Records labels are doing a very good thing here. Thank god Real Networks saw this, and acted. All any of these 3 out of 4 companies haft to do, is license one and others DRM schemes, then develop software that allows them to decrypt the others DRM scheme into pure PCM and then convert the song with the others DRM.
OpenMG to Helix
Helix to OpenMG
OpenMG to WMA/Janus DRM
Helix to FairPlay
FairPlay to Helix
WMA to OpenMG
WMA to Helix.
OpenMG to FairPlay
FairPlay to OpenMG
WMA to FairPlay
FairPlay to OpenMG
WMA to FairPlay
FairPlay to WMA
OpenMG to Helix
Sony, Microsoft, Apple, and Real actually working together, WOW!!!
What's hard about this concept?
before the record labels are sued as being a monopoly? I imagine the indy labels all rising up in a class action suit, but I mean seriously, it's been 5 years of announcements like this on an average of once a week or more, I want my music, I want it free (of restrictions) I'll pay a resonable price for decent music I enjoy listening to, and if I want to buy something on CD I'll go to a used CD store. I'm not just on music burnout, I'm afraid I've burned up all the fuel I've used to burn the pyre of hatred for the acts of RIAA and MPAA.... someone help, I need a transfusion.
It's interesting that the media industry, commonly accussed of not "getting it", does see the light on the issue of standards. This might even lead to DRMed content to be usable on open platforms! I think this is a Good Thing.
And before anyone starts "but the DRM will be used for all kinds of draconical restrictions": remember that you don't _have_ to use any particular product. If you think it's worth it, use it and don't bitch. If you think it's not worth it, use a different product and don't bitch. You make the choice, you get the pros and cons.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
"While Apple has been widely praised for bringing online music into the mainstream market, some labels have complained it has priced tracks too low, making it difficult for them to make a profit from them."
But they are making a profit. My question is, how much? Just once, I wish I could see a quote like this backed-up by a statistic (one that makes sense, mind you).
It may sound like I'm splitting hairs, but to me it seems like Apple could get around having to go standard. It's kind of like the fact that most of the stuff in my iBook is industry standard, ie the hd, the RAM, Firwire, etc, but I can't run OS X if the proprietary ROM isn't there
Actually, I think I would feel dirty using ANY kind of DRM, so I can't say that I care too much.
They should use Creative Commons for part of a standardised DRM scheme. The whole concept of having XML data describe different licensing methods so that they can be understood by software would be the way to go.
If we can't get the different Browser makers to get the hint, what makes the labels think their going to accomplish such a feat? Sure, Apple and others like MS may jump on the label's wagon, but not everyone is going to play along with this. It's just going to be yet another lame battlefront the labels are going to waste their resources, and our patience on.
I don't know what "open" means in this case, but AAC is patent-encumbered. If you want to distribute an encoder or a decoder you have to license those patents:
So, in a way, the submitter already messed it up.
The rest should follow the leader.....
After that Apple should open up their DRM to others.
They made this mistake before an lost to the pc....don't make the same mistake twice.
if your pants fit well, it's not only because of the pants
"We shall all rejoice!"
YEah!!! Only one technology to crack!
"Derp de derp."
One thing is clear, because Apple's iTunes Music Store has been successful, Apple has a great deal of clout during negotiations. If the music industry can make on line music a commodity with uniform standards, the music industry would be back in complete control.
Already, the music industry is getting full of itself with the success of iTMS. $.99 per track is no longer enough money for them. Rather than looking at the success of $.99 tracks, the music industry sees the success as a chance to raise prices, but Apple managed to stave them off. They don't want that to happen again.
I guess the problem is that the ignorant media are saying that Apple's DRM is "proprietary" (which it is) but implying that other online stores are not (because they use WMA-DRM).
Of course the labels want a standard - a standard they control. they want to be able to raise the price when they want and sue anyone who breaks it. Sadly it's exactly this sort of promise that Ms will make for them.
So, AAC is open but patent-encumbered. Not a problem. The file format doesn't really matter anyway, the issue is the DRM. And by it's nature it's going to bug people whatever happens.
In my case, I'm not worried. I can use Apple's DRM'ed files and I don't need to worry about it. Definitely a case of "I'm all right, Jack"
M
.. you don't pay any taxes, bend over for "the man" or worry about silly patent issues. Plus you get a good nights sleep after having a good laugh at the RIAA or whoever is the butt licker for the Record companies in your area.
DRM systems do not work.
Record labels have nothing to lose here. Revenues they get from Apple are laughable.
Apple, however, can't:
1. Make tracks more expensive - nobody's gonna buy them
2. Share the DRM format - bye bye iTunes revnues
3. Implement stronger DRM - nobody will buy tracks
4. Tell the record labels to fuck off - where are they gonna get the music then?
I think they're royally fucked.
"Guess what my ass is a provider of?"
I'm impressed you can type so legibly with your own butt.
"Derp de derp."
But this way we only need to break one DRM scheme.
Shhhh!!
Get used to it.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Peace
If the article had been related to the "Free iPod" idea, the parent would probably've been modded +1 Insightful rather than -1 Offtopic. But then again, not posting as AC might've had the same effect.
Just goes to show. Real Estate may be "location, location, location," but with slashdot it's "timing, timing, timing"!
This is the best thing that could happen really. If everyone uses the same standard, it only has to be cracked once.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's Apple! Apple can do no wrong!
I for one am a Magnatune customer and find that this is all music I need. Creative Commons doesn't mean it does suck. The fine folks over at Blender chose one Magnatune artist for their SIGGRAPH demo reel. The rest ain't shabby either.
Try Cargo Cult, Curl, Brad Sucks or their shoutcasts for starters.
If you chose to buy, you set the price. Money is evenly divided between artist and label. Download options include wav, flac, vorbis and mp3.
Sure, I still buy the odd CD. But I only do this after a concert right out of the hands of the performers. Prefer my media handsigned and not watermarked, thank you.
I haven't listened to the radio in years.
20 minutes into the future
.at least that is the impression I get from reading your replies.
For example, I bought Deep Purple on vynil, several times cos they got fucked at parties, then I bought it several times on cassette, cos the tapes got chewed, then I bought it on an indestructible cd, and it died, then mp3 came along.
The music industry have NEVER EVER EVER been about selling music.
What they have ALWAYS sold and we have ALWAYS bought was the MEDIUM, eg vinyl, cassette, cd red book, whatever.
In the new digital age there is essentially no medium, only the data itself.
DRM in ALL ITS FORMS is quite simply nothing other than a DESPERATE (for failure = bankruptcy) attempt by these companies to impose pseudo medium characteristics onto medium free digital data.
I don't know why nobody gets this.
It's not just the RIAA, it is all big media business, hollywood as well as music biz as well as publishers as well as anyone who'se stuff can be distributed as digital data.
Talk of this version of drm vs that version of encoding versus this methods of copyright protection is all bullshit, because it is missing the point.
NOTHING LESS than imposing pseudo physical properties (the scratched vinyl, the chewed cassette, the skipped cd) onto digital media will satisfy these bastards.
Because anything less means their revenue stream crashes, permanently.
Wake up, this is essentially an American Big Media Corporation tea party vs the rest of the world and its consumers, you cannot afford to give these bastards even a nanometer.
America will end up as a digital cultural backwater, with everything inside its borders DRM'ed up the wazoo, and everyone outside the borders sticking 2 fingers up.
And this shit less than 24 hours after a post about the BBC (or rather hackers at the beeb before their bosses get tech savvy and twig) pushing for a open source codec in the community which by definition is not going to meet the needs of those who seek to make a fat living selling copy after copy after copy of the same thing to you, claiming to be selling you the media, but in fact merely peddling the medium itself.
wake up FFS
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Unified Rights Management, or everything similar to it, has ALWAYS been shitty. Look at the past. The Ill fated DIVX debacle is a prime example. The DIVX dvds always looked shittier than their regular dvd counterparts and always lacked special features due to the overhead of the extra DRM built in. Just look at the copy protection on some dvds, it actually degrades the quality of the music in a lot of cases. I don't really care about DRM, as long as they come up with some way of not A) screwing the consumer and B) doing something about the DRM affecting the quality.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
America will end up as a digital cultural backwater, with everything inside its borders DRM'ed up the wazoo, and everyone outside the borders sticking 2 fingers up.
That would probably be the best result, actually, because after a few years of that the laws enforcing DRM will go the way of the ITAR restrictions on encryption, and in the meantime we'll get a massive infusion of new international music and films through the grey market.
More likely, though, Europe will roll over. They're trying to roll over on software patents and those are an even dumber idea with less money behind them. Then the rest of the world will follow.
Thats exactly what I was thinking. One standard means less targets to... well... target. It also means, providing that the standard is open an un-patent encumbered (I know, big dreams...) more OS's can be more compatible with less work.
Just what I wanted to hear. Although, what I really wanted to hear is that DRM would dissapear of the face of the earth, but this is the next best thing.
Regards,
Chris.
If one service ever got popular enough, major artists could sign directly to Apple and sell their music WITHOUT signing to a major label!
And they think they're going to stop that from happening by cutting the heads off the tall poppies?
Once online distribution gets big enough, all you'll need is *one* non-major label contracting with a significant fraction of the online distributors and that label will *be* a major.
The only way the music industry could pull themselves out of this is to start their own services and refuse to contract with any independents like Apple. And if they do that, it doesn't matter whether Apple uses "industry standard DRM" or not: they have to fuck Apple, AOL, Real, the whole shooting match or lose.
Wow, where are my hip waders? A friend of mine is VP of artist development at a record label. He seemed to feel that if they could sell CD's for five dollars each without producing the CD media, in his words, "We'd be rolling in money."
Using 12 tracks as an average for most CD's at a dollar a track makes it already hugely profitable for record companies and the first thing they want to do is try to squeeze you for even more. Okay, figure most people don't download whole CD's, they buy single tracks. They're still making a ton of money.
Amazing that it never seems to be enough for them. Then to come out and lie about their profit margin so brazenly just astounds me.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Apple wields no such clout as to what you purport here... true they might have about 50% marketshare or so, but as this [http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/8407] article (Your 99c per iTunes download belong to the RIAA) explains, Jobs admitted that Apple makes no revenue from the online download service they provide... so that the only real benefit Apple directly makes out of the service is it market's their ipods... the second point is the fact that apple commands no real clout when it comes to negotiations with the recording industry... as this article [http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/8514] clearly explains, "it would appear that they could negotiate better royalty rates with labels, but as the Music industry is composed of thousands of publishers and five major record labels, it still makes it difficult to get them all to agree"... and nobody wants DRM anyway... as says ballmer: "the most common format of music on the ipod is 'stolen'." [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/07/ballmer_d oesnt_get_it/ ]... of course, that's M$ and fud... what ballmer really wants to say is "people still download their music from elsewhere"... so that itunes is really just a facade to sell ipods
And what's so funny about it is that O'Reilly *still* does not sell unbundled, non-DRM'ed, digital downloads.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
The labels better get off their high horse and greed.
Apple saved their ass because they showed a lot of people are willing to "play the fair game" and pay for their music for the artists sake.
Call all iPod users "thieves" like Steve Ballmer did and give us the only option of a strict DRM?
I'll go to All of MP3.com or similar services, even P2P networks.
Right now I'm 100% paid for every song, but I'll get very clever in hiding my new stolen music.
The RIAA is back to square one and the artists gets screwed again. How quickly they forget the past.
popularise legal downloads among consumers
Most of my downloads have no DRM at all, but they're perfectly legal. They're in MP3 format direct from the artists.
some labels have complained [Apple] has priced tracks too low, making it difficult for them to make a profit
Most of the 99c I pay to iTunes goes to the label, and their marginal cost for that purchase is zero. As near as I can tell, the only people making a profit from iTMS are the labels. And it's not at all certain that they'd make more profit at a higher price: they may make more money at a lower price, and they must know it... they're smart enough to have learned basic economics.
So, yes, it's all about control... but it's not necessarily about making more money directly from music sales. They want to make sure they are the ones pulling the strings so that online music distribution doesn't give artists a way to bypass the labels, and keep most of the 99c you pay iTMS for themselves.
All DRM as applied to the current market of devices are just security through obscurity. The "labels" can't have their cake and eat it too. You make a standard and whoops, you no longer control what happens to the content. DRM is a pipe dream. It's fundamentally flawed to think you can ultimately protect something from being copied while it can still be played. They should keep quiet and be happy that the more seperate obscure formats can delay the eventual open-source-then-soon-made-dmca-contraband release of each. The only way to have a "standard" drm is to delegate some government bureau as the authority to sell a propietary playback component to a select few very large tech corporations, which make the then only legal playback devices. And I only said it would be standard, not effective. We saw for how long that idea worked for dvds' css decoding keys. The only possible effective DRM method would require such a central bereau to issue UUIDs of some sort to the large enough online media retailer companies, with which the downloads of such a SocSecNum tracked sale will be permuted at the highest threshold of the digtal media format's quality level (wasting some bits that the codec could be using in order to sell you an inferior quality recording) so they could ultimately catch someone by finding an illegal copy and being able to reference when exactly who sold that track to whom. Of course this isn't necessarily effective DRM its just makes infraction prosecutable. Of course, to copy, people would have to lower the quality to below the threshold that the fingerprint can be identified or mix enough legit copies to obscure the fingerprints. And of course since anyone in the legal supply chain is a potential for corruption or leaks, each link in such chain would have to be fingerprinted in order to be effective, so as to compound the compromising of the quality.
At this moment in time apple seem to be focusing on getting labels to contribute.
presumably any label which isn't on Itunes will be because they demanded unfair terms from apple.
which implies they are a bunch of greedy shit heads who put the money ahead of the music and not being on itunes will negatively effect thier music sales.
the next step has to be apple offering a standard contract to anyone who wants to sell thier music directly through Itunes.
I would be tempted to sell these at 90 or 98 cents as a symbolic difference that the artist gets paid not the leeches.
now the labels are hooked it is time for the artists to avoid the labels
and put control of the music back to the artists and cut out the middleman
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
The industry HATES Apple's $0.99 price point. If they could charge more, they would.
Of course, the industry could license Apple's DRM! And the license fees would likely be very very inexpensive. But Apple isn't likely to license their DRM without a stipulation that songs must be less than $1.00.
Yay Apple! I'm no Apple fan, but this is the GOOD THING FOR ALL... even if you're NOT an iPod owner!
This might even lead to DRMed content to be usable on open platforms!
DRMed content is already as compatible with open platforms (I assume you mean something like "open systems" or "open source operating systems") as it will ever be.
The essence of open systems is open interfaces and protocols. If the interfaces and protocols are standardised or publically documented, you can implement your own version of an application that interfaces with them, open source, closed source, or something in between, that doesn't matter.
What does this mean for DRM?
Right off, this means you can't have an open-source DRM-capable application, because if the end-user can get the source code to the application they can modify it to save the output from the decryption process in a non-encrypted form.
It also means that you can't use all but the weakest DRM under an open-source operating system, because the operating system mediates the application's access to the hardware, so you can intercept the decoded output from the application and save it.
The only way to have strong DRM and an open-systems environment is to have a sealed media translator in the audio and video hardware. Then the A/V hardware performs the decryption. In which case it doesn't matter what platform you're on, all the media player application does is provide a storage service for a dedicated music or video player that's embedded in the A/V card.
So unless you're using a Creative Audigy it doesn't matter what your operating system is, you won't be able to play WMA++ files. And pretty soon, you'll need a monitor with a DRM-enabled digital video input and digital speakers that exchange keys with the A/V card to play DRM media.
Then Microsoft will come out with the Palladium scheme again, and you'll be able to play your music and videos under Windows Media Player Trusted Edition on Trusted Hardware, and Creative will start selling cheaper WinAudio cards that don't need the expensive sealed and boobytrapped DRM module, but they only work with Windows... and then they'll quit selling regular DRM modules because there's not enough market...
And we'll be back where we are now, except that it'll be even harder to convince people they can switch to open source operating systems, because open source DRM can't ever be trusted so open source operating systems will be even less able to play DRMed media than they are now.
First of all, anything that is made for consumption by the human eye or ear can be recorded by camera or microphone and encoded in a truly DRM-free format. There may be a small loss of quality but the point is that DRM is useless for the recording industry and nothing more than a nuisance.
We can all contribute to a DRM-free future by emailing our senators and congressmen that we oppose DRM and buying only products from companies that do not support DRM.
only outlaws will have backup.
I can't believe I posted that, sorry.
Then dont use apple's DRM. MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF do not have DRM and play on the iPod just fine.
While this is a strange development and I cannot predict what will happen, Apple still has the ability to use veiled threats and coercion. Apple has made it extremely easy for any band/group to record their own music, it would be simple for Apple to work directly with bands and handle publicity, this could ultimately cut the labels out completely. With the digital market moving the way it is actual distribution of cds is going to falter. Apple could probably very easily distribute songs in multiple formats. 128kbps and Apple Loss-less for people who want the extra "ummmfff." I personally like AAC very much, and see the need for cd quality digital tracks as well. Apple should fight this tooth and nail. Or the labels should recognize a format built by people who understand sound (dolby labs) over WMA which is utter shite
Abandon all hope ye who enter here...
Here's what happened:
Microsoft, whispering into RIAA's ear..
"You know that Apple DRM has been hacked, and blah blah closed system, blah blah, doesn't support artist's rights, blah blah, Windows Media Miracle Solution!"
RIAA:
"Good point."
Dead iPod
Microsoft: Profit!
Go shove it. As soon as they try to screw us out of affordable/iPodable online music sales, we'll go back to stealing.
... but the good news is that, once this "unified DRM" is put into place it only has to get cracked once, which will make Rip, Mix, Burn almost as convenient has having no DRM at all. If the RIAA were as smart as they think they are, they'd push for as many wildly different encryption schemes as they could. Even if each particular scheme isn't particularly secure, by using a bunch of them it would make life more complicated for people wanting to listen to their own music, I mean, steal intellectual property. Heck, the DVD was released with a "unified DRM" system: it worked very well until the teenaged DVD Jon cracked the thing. Now look where they are ... DVDs for download all over the place. If the RIAA wants to repeat one of the MPAA's biggest mistakes that's fine: it won't have much impact on the quantity of online copyright infringement.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
what planet do you come frome? DRM sucks, it's a way to get prices as high as possible.
Why is the recording industry overlooking the obvious solution? Dont' use DRM at all!
Seriously. No form of DRM that allows you to listen to the music will prevent it from being digitized. Everything is already available in unencumbered formats through file sharing networks.
Get it free and unencumbered online, or pay to get an inferior product that you can only listen to on a handful of platforms, and that can disappear at will. And they're wondering why people still trade files online?
All DRM does is punish the honest users. I'd buy music online if it wasn't DRMed.
I recorded a CD and released it online. I also allow some of the tracks to be downloaded for free at MacIdol. And here's what I've found...
As I have made more tracks available for free downloading, CD sales have INCREASED. I think I know at least one reason. We all can recall an artist that we sorta liked on first listening, but then liked more and more as we listened more and more. When you allow several songs to be downloaded for free, you increase your chances of this happening. If people dig the music enough, they might order the CD. If they don't, then you've lost nothing. But they still have your "free" songs out there and they have friends, and you never know.
And instead of releasing the worst songs from the disc for free, I released what I thought were the best songs. I wish big artists would do this.
I'm in line to get the CD into iTunes, but the waiting list to get in is long, so it can take months for a little guy to get in. But I just see iTunes as another way to get exposure. Once the CD is on iTunes, I will still allow free downloading of some songs, because I really believe it will help, not hurt, CD sales. My freely downloadable songs are located at:
http://www.macidol.com/jamroom/bands/999/music.php
Music - www.richardmac.com
"good news for all the crazy slashdotters who want an iPod but feel dirty using Apple's DRM"
What part of "I don't pay money for DRM" don't you understand? I don't care where in the equation the DRM came from, I will not pay money for either DRM software or the DRM hardware required to run it.
The only "exception" I have to this rule is with DVDs: I'll buy a DVD so long as it's not published by a member of the MPAA, and even then I play it on a region-free DVD player.
When I was reading 1984 I always wondered how they could instantly change all the newspapers and constantly rewrite history and make it up to date. Since all the newspapers would have already been distributed. There would be traces left.
A combined Hardware and software DRM seems to allow this. Since you are giving material to people without actually giving it to them, you can always change it. And distribution systems will definitely favor DRM instead of physical media because it is so much more 'convenient'. If a license to temporarily view something with various restrictions becomes the dominant form of ownership, freedom is definitely going down the tubes. It wouldnt be so much a dictatorship but the replacement of personal artifacts and memory by a culturally/centrally owned artifacts and memories. We wouldnt have a license to remember what we forgot. Pretty isn't it?
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
--from Nineteen Eighty-Four
Why do you hate rights? Do you want to give up your rights for the good of everyone else?
You argue that the labels are greedy because they want to protect their rights. I say you are greedy because you want to violate the labels' rights.
Think about it.
>> Bad news for Apple fanatics but good news for all the crazy slashdotters who want an iPod but feel dirty using Apple's DRM: the labels are getting together and insisting that online stores standardize their DRM methods.
/K
Um, how is this good news? Apple's DRM is actually fairly innocuous in practice. I don't feel the least bit dirty using it. Do you honestly believe that something foisted on us by the labels will be more end-user friendly and less proprietary?
Why are they picking on Apple's proprietary DRM and open format? Microsoft uses a proprietary DRM AND proprietary format. So does Sony. And there's no other major DRMed formats other than those three. AAC is the least of the three evils, since it's the only one with an open format! (WMA, Sony's format that I forgot the name of, and AAC) Why not pick on Microsoft FIRST, or Sony, then Apple? Why single out Apple?
Most music stores are WMA- one is AAC- and they pick on the AAC one? Did Microsoft bribe them or something?
Flamebait? It's less flamebait than the submission was.
I agree with cockroach2 on this one. If you feel dirty using Apple's DRM, then chances are either a) a rabid anti-Apple person (and really shouldn't be complaining about their DRM, since you probably wouldn't use an iPod anyways) or b) you'd feel dirty using any DRM, as you feel it removes the rights you have with regards toa product you have purchased.
It is extremely important that the music industry standardizes on one DRM,preferably investing lots of time money and reputations. This will save a lot of work and time in the long run....... ;) think about it
I've been using allofmp3.com, a music download site in Russia. You pay $.01 per megabyte. You can preview all their music (in very low quality) before you download to see if you like something or not.
Most of their collection also gives you the ability to choose a custom encoding, such as MP3, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, WMV, and maybe some others (I just go with OGG). You can select the bitrates of your own choosing to give you a comprimise between quality and size (since they charge per megabyte).
Why would anyone want to use any other download service? Its legal (although frowned upon by the RIAA) and has no anti-consumer DRM restrictions.
They even take PayPal!
Previous engines were external combustion engines, namely the steam engine were the fire was outside and the force of the fire through steam was put inside the engine.
So someone thought Hmmm wouldn't it save a lot of trouble if we could remove all the steam and hot water and boiler and get the fire inside the engine.
The various ways in wich this has been done have been patented, giving the inventor of the way to do the idea several years protection BUT the idea itself could not be patented.
That is the original idea behind patents. To allow inventors a small amount of time to recoup their investment while at the same time making sure the invention would soon be available to the entire world. We now think that 1 year is a long time but when patents were tought up people thought in decades.
of course since then the patent system has gone to hell with ideas now being patented but that is because it is being abused.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think we should get away from actually believing that a 15-year-old boy in Norway sat down and decoded the media industry DVD Content Scrambling System.
A technician from Xing Corporation passed the confidential trade-secret information for descrambling the signal to 'DVD Jon' who wrote a front-end interface in Linux for this information and uploaded his program to a Linux distribution site.
If you think that a 15-year-old could just sit down and decode an industry encryption standard, then you should go work for National Public Radio and not spend so much time on Slashdot.
What I am really hoping for is DRM being controlled from only 1 company who has a financial interest to use it to maintain a monopoly and lock out competitors. That would be awesome!
Only then when a company dictates a future rather than the people can standards finally be ready to take over. Ask any PHB or CIO?
http://saveie6.com/
hold on now, Apple is trying to battle RIAA? Apple gets the music it sells from major record companies. It's those major record companies that RIAA represents. So it's the record companies just as much as RIAA. If Apple just gives the big FU to RIAA then the record companies will not sign another contract with Apple. does no one else see this?
RIAA and the record companies that give apple the music to sell and one and the same.
sheesh
You're right, we should apply this "centralized, standardized decision making" to other aspects of our lives as well. How about health care and agriculture for starters, then we can move on to employment and travel... oh wait that's all been tried huh. Oh well.
How about they all unify on one certain DRM standard, that will be absolutely interoperable among all players, without any key-distribution headaches, extra bandwidth, or market friction: NONE. It's backwards compatible!
--
make install -not war
You are right. As with software patents, they're trying to treat this 'new' stuff as if it's essentially the same as 'old' stuff, when it's not. And, because this 'new' digital stuff is not the same, they're having to work against the very nature of this digital stuff - and that means they've got that digital nature working against them!
Far better it is to seek a way to work with the nature of the stuff. That's the essential strength of Open Source. (The openness, peer-reviewability of code, etc, all follows easily and readily from the basic nature of bits.) And, when you're working with the nature of the stuff, you've got the nature of the stuff working with you!
This is the real digital revolution. So often, those who spout that phrase, 'digital revolution', just don't understand it, and do not realise the true magnitude of it. Far from having arrived, the digital revolution hasn't even begun to reach it's end. If anything, we are only now beginning to witness the end of the beginning. And it is a revolution that has been decades in the brewing.
This slight quaking of the music industry is just an example of the tremors preceeding the full revolution. Tensions are growing, and these precursory tremors are not enough to relieve the growing pressure. Instead, they are steps towards the main event.
The changes that the true ground-breakers are seeking to introduce will prove to be of orders of magnitude greater than those imagined - even feared - by the music industry and the like. Even the biggest changes being contemplated by the current music industry chiefs are small compared to the changes they will have to face and accept. In comparison, things like online music retailing will seem so small and pathetic.
As with Open Source, musicians will find themselves liberated from the current, distrusted system, and they will turn their world upside-down. Instead of going on promotional tours to boost record sales, the recordings will become promotional and live performances will be the real product.
In these earthquakes, in the music industry and beyond, artificial scarcity gives way to natural scarcity. You can copy a digital recording many, many times, and distribute those copies cheaply and easily. But there are only so many concerts you can give, and only so many people who can fit in the venues to hear and see you.
Up the revolution!
Freedom of expression includes the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas expressed in software form.
I've long suspected the IP cartels of insincerity in their supposed efforts to push towards "legal downloads". The "hammer & anvil" approach of lawsuits and ponderous DRM seems geared towards keeping consumers away from any sort of downloading, and keeping them in the retail world buying physical product. I don't see any sort of palatable framework being constructed - and what does exist as far as that goes, outside of the RIAA's construction, only gets attacked by same.
If I were a complete cynic, I'd probably assume that the true purpose of the hammer & anvil method is to delegitimize "downloading" with the hammer, and depopularize it with the anvil. After all... why should large, monied groups of companies - who have made the supermajority of their profits through the equivalent of embezzeling using distributor-privilege - want to remove their nets from that very profitable chokepoint where they're currently cast? What benefit is it to them if online music distribution takes off?
The ironic thing is that that's insightful.
...
NO DRM scheme can ever work, so long as we retain control of our computers. You cannot simultaneously grant people access to the work and yet preclude it. And if we control our computers and are given any access to the work, it is merely a matter of expending the effort to extract that work in some form.
It's nothing but an artificial restriction, which is hardly unusual in the realm of intellectual "property," and it's why they need the DMCA to marginalize those who are able to free the works from society by making them "criminals"
download drm'd aac songs, export them to cd audio, then rip the new cd. no drm. lossless. sounds great to me. downloaded digital music is not going to be the absolutely highest quality. it takes $1000 stereo system to hear a tiny difference in quality of a $0.99 song. holy crap. apple's drm is the least invasive and lest restrictive. would you rather microsoft's drm?
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Well, if they're going to have DRM, they might has well have open-source DRM. On top of Ogg, no less.
I could live with that standard.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
I mean to say, Apple Computers should buy Apple Records (the one the Beatles started, the one that sued them a couple of times) so they can start publishing and marketing for indie labels and individual artists. I think they would do pretty well, and they could take or leave the big companies' stuff.
The only reason the big music guys want total control over distribution is so they can guarantee a return on the monstrous investment in marketing that their hit-based model demands. Niches are totally beyond their business logic, but a service like iTunes could really clean up with a diverse and deep library.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
yeah, snicker. Manning press (bias note -I'm one of their authors) do do DRM free PDFs, which is great; I have my book on lots of machines, share copies with others, and have quite a few copies of other books up and coming. There is nothing like having 20+ PDF of currents books on a laptop when you need to do a keyword search for a topic.
After years in the doldrums, Apple has gained some clout by creating great products.
And now of course the labels (and Real) want to horn in on a piece of the pie.
Well tough titty!
If Apple has to give up their DRM, then Microsoft should give away the source code to Office, Real should give away all their formats and best of all, the labels should freely give away their music.
NOTE: I am not a Mac user or even an iPod owner. I just can't stand this blatant hypocrisy.
Well, they sort of tried this on their own a few years back with SDMI. When was the last time you heard anything about SDMI?
Now that they've failed to deliver their own industry standard DRM they want tech companies to deliver one on their behalf? Given the failure of the SDMI working group it seems highly unlikely that an outsider will ever produce a scheme the labels can buy into.
Like it or not, iTunes is the closest anyone has come to this.
It seems the greed factor is running just as high as ever in the music industry, even in the face of a radically changing environment. These guys seem to think that it's their God-given right to continue to make more and more money while providing less and less value to customers.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Labels don't want a unified DRM, what they want is *any* DRM that they can use to directly sell to consumers themselves. They can't use Fairplay, which rules out iPods. So unless they're going to go the Doomed to Fail Sony route of providing a whole soup to nuts system, they *need* an open DRM so they can bypass Apple and Microsoft and sell directly to consumers. I would rather have the labels die a quicker death.
An industry standard DRM would be great. Then I'd only have to download one circumvention device instead of multiply for different schemes.
No sig for you!!
Only one type of DRM to defeat instead of many!
Devise, Repair, Solve, Build
n/t
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I'm first of all going to ignore the fact that you said a vinyl fucked at a party since the images conjured up by that are disturbing....
now, about "the medium" argument you have, its flawed. You see, the medium is the file format. What the music industry would want ideally is to be able to every few years release a new, better, higher quality, old devices wont play it, format. So you see, in the digital world there is still a medium (oh, the players themselves count too)
cheers,
Aaron
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
I was under the impression that it was artists who are "the providers of music". Why would we wish to stand for the labels, who only want to continue to suck wealth out of both artists and the public using out-moded business models, to decide what the rules and infrastructure of ther rules (DRM) are for us to acquire and listen to our favorite artists? These are the same folks that would like to close down and have acted to actively poison P2P.
Just say NO.
Because after all that transcoding all you'll hear is white noise.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
There are lots of problems with this, especially privacy and some fair-use problems, but at least it technically is possible:
There is a sealed decoder chip in the playback device. It must not be software (though Microsoft will scream and cry and try to convince you otherwise). Ideally it is attached rather well to the digital to analog portion and cannot be seperated without destroying it. The chip has a PK decryption key burned into it at manufacture. Nobody knows this key. The chip also can report the matching PK encryption key.
Anybody can access the encryption key and encrypt music (or whatever data) to a form where only this chip can decrypt it and play it back. The resulting encrypted data does not have to be protected at all because it is useless without the matching chip.
You would buy music by sending the PK encryption key to the music distributor, who will encrypt the music and send it back. The file is useless except on the target device.
Notes:
If somebody does extract and publish a decryption key, this will probably be noticed soon and publishers can refuse to encrypt to that key.
It's not impossible to transfer your music to another device. You may be able to prove to the publisher that you bought the music by showing them your old key and checksums of the files you bought, then they will re-encrypt the music for a new key. Now of course you may have copied that music and key, but the fact that the files are useless without talking to the publisher, and they can compare the submitted keys from different sites, makes this seem like it would work.
To prevent software from pretending to be the chip and submitting encryption keys that the decryption is known for, the chip manufacturers would keep a database of all assigned encryption keys and publishers could check this for legality. If the majority of the large ones do this it will still protect small publishers that don't pay for the system by discouraging development of such software.
Advantages of this system:
1. It will work with open source. In fact it is highly recommended that the chip interface be entirely documented, as this increases insurance that there is no loophole and it cannot be broken. This is the primary reason Microsoft will fight this tooth and nail and currently throws all kinds of smokescreens up to discourage any discussion of a hardware solution without secret software.
2. Anybody can use it to copy-protect their data, since the encryption key is available. If DRM is actually a benefit this does not limit it to only rich media companies who can buy a license for it.
3. Nothing special needs to be done with the files to "protect" them, they can be stored with any other data on any backup medium.
Disadvantages:
Yes there are a lot of problems with this system! However most of them apply to any DRM system.
1. Privacy concerns because that encryption key is a system-id. Maybe the chips could have a whole lot of them, hundreds, so different ones can be used at random.
2. If your hardware fails your files are useless. However this is true of most DRM systems.
3. Serious problems with fair use. But all other DRM has this. Maybe publishers will accept the id's of a number of devices rather than just one and files designed to be decodable with several chips at once (the pk is only used for a small header, the rest of the file can be shared by all of them).
4. Still has an analog hole, but so does all other DRM.
Here's my somewhat good idea :)
:) the 'user-owner-model' , or UOM.
The current situation:
-crippled paid legal downloads
-functional free illegal downloads
Notice that for the costumer there is little difference between 'free' and 'illegal'. What if we would change this to:
-functional paid legal downloads
-crippled free illegal downloads
Wether iTMS will do this or anyone else, is irrelevant. There could be a music service that lets you download and search music for free (usership) which can only be played for a limited time/1 pc. And at the same time it allows you to buy music once you like it (ownership). This music can then be burned on cd, transferred to iPod, used on multiple PC, whatever. In normal words: unDRM'd bought music, DRM'd free music.
I shall call this model (I'm not sure wether anyone made it up earlier than me so don't shoot me
I believe this model is a good idea, because not only does it make everybody happy, it also delivers more possibilities for both artists. labels and consumers.
I disagree. Apple's iTMS has been a great success among legal music download services, but legal music download services are only a very very tiny fraction of total music downloads. The labels have their eye on the big prize--the people who are not using any legal download services now. If they have to drop Apple to get a DRM standard that they think will be more attractive to that huge crowd, they will do it.
If you really don't want DRM-encumbered music then don't buy it. You can buy un-DRM-ed music on-line from Warp Records. If you're into electronica then check it out (it's not all they do, but it's their sock and trade).
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
I like many people here on /. hate DRM, but I also know the labels are going to require that online music stores use some form of DRM before they're (online music stores) allowed to make the music available. If they're going to use DRM it may as well be standardized. For example, the DVD video format has enjoyed a great deal of success due in no small part to a standard copy protection system. This standardization has removed computability concerns (that vast majority anyway *cough region codes *cough *cough) from the consumer. Without computability issues locking music from one store to a certain player or players the stores will have to compete with one another on price (offering temporary price cuts like Real did), selection, ease of use. Yes I am aware one could burn that music from say Napster to a CD and re-rip it to put in on your iPod, but that's more of hassle then it should be.
If doing this means making Apple and Steve Jobs upset than so be it.
The Microsoft WMA license contains some interesting items that might give Apple pause.
The licensee is required to submit products using WMA to Microsoft for certification prior to being able to ship the product. New iPod product with WMA? Microsoft gets to see it first, before it ships. iTunes with WMA playback shipping in a new OS? Microsoft gets to see it first, before it ships. New computer or other product with WMA playback? Microsoft gets to see it first.
Oh, and one more thing...
There is a clause in the license which bars licensees from any legal action against Microsoft over patent, copyright, or other intellectual property violations. (Microsoft has had to pull this clause in Japan, where it turns out to be illegal, but it's quite legal in the US.)
So, if Apple were to license WMA under the current terms, they'd be giving Microsoft early access and approval over new products, and would be unable to litigate if some technology from those products happened to somehow appear in a Microsoft product.
These great words of an unknown slashdotter deserve to be repeated:
DRM is a schizophrenic and fundamentally impossible task.
All they can do is hide the key obscurely inside the player and hope that no one makes the effort to look at it.
Why are "they" picking on Apple? Because Apple does not want to play fair (pun intended). They will not allow "Fair" play to be used by anyone else. They want to own the online music market to drive iPod sales. I am not a fan of MS, but at least with MS "if you pay you can play". MS _wants_ to license their DRM, they want the whole world to license it. Silly Apple is making another huge mistake that will eventually make iTunes a niche market like their other products. If they just allowed anyone to license "Fair" play, then they could not only make money from the sale of iPods, but also license fees for _every_ competing portable player out there.
The sad thing is that because of this dumb move by Apple, I bet MS's DRM will win out. That means MS DRM for MS OS'es only. MS will always lag with a Mac OS version and you can bet there will never be a Linux version. So all portable players out there suddenly become "MS only".
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Apple CAN tell the labels to go take a flying leap. Why? Because despite what the record companies say about not making much off of ITMS, there have been over 100 million songs sold and growing and they get around 3 cents a hare (or more). Which record company is going to be the first to turn off the money spigot and let that dry up? Who is going to take the heat for being the first one to abanodn the only profitible online music service and go back to taking P2P losses as the only viable means of online distribution?
The labels might have the music. But at this point Apple has a proven, growing distribution chain that works - and the record companies are not going to risk loosing that until they have a viable alternative.
So they can cry and cry all the like, and Apple (with the rest of us) can just laugh.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1 million * $.03 = $30,000, not enough to pay even one professional staff member over the time that money was made.
Also, "isn't" is a contraction for "is not", so it is necessary to include an apostrophe to represent the missing "o" in "not."
What if Apple and MPAA could not agree.
What if MPAA decided on the MS DRM format and MS opened up an online music store.
What if MPAA has an exclusive agreement with MS so that MPAA titles were only available to MS.
What if MS charged more then Apple did (say $1.50).
What would happen then? Would Apple sell non MPAA titles for a buck and if so would that be enough to drive a business?
evil is as evil does
You would think that the big record companies like BMG would just open their own online store instead. All the content, their own oppressive DRM, whatever they want.
http://www.rustyrazorblade.com
The DRM standard that will be more attractive to that huge crowd of people who are not using legal download services and using illegal ones instead?
So what DRM standard would that be? No DRM?
--
Daniel C. Slagle
Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ
But this way we only need to break one DRM scheme.
We always only need to break one DRM scheme, even if there are more of them. Having one DRM scheme is not any easier to brake it--quite to le countrairie--it is harder to break in if there is only one way, since security is a chain. When there are many different DRM schemes like right now, the pirait only has to break one scheme which is the weakest link in the security chain. Please keep in mind that security is a chain ans adding more links (even stronger ones, mind you!) does't improve security because the attacker doesn't have to break all of them, like would be the case in case of onion layers (e.g. the security of state borders). Please keep that in mind.
That's right, because he DIDN'T. He wrote a KERNEL for the operating system which has been already developed by tens of people FOR EIGHT YEARS. And have you used that kernel back in 1991? Please get your facts straight before you try to make a joke next time. Thanks.
I use a Russian music site - allofmp3.com - they offer an english language site and music from around the world. I download tracks with no DRM in M4A format that itunes/ipod use. Prices are at a per meg downloaded not per song. This makes most single tracks about .06 cents US and alblums around .75 to .80 cents US. Most of the music I download is Russian but they have a wide selection of US artist also. These tracks work seemlessly with itunes and ipods. They take Paypal so no Russian site every sees your CC#. I have over 400 Russian tracks and have yet to spend the $25US that I put on the account.
Most of my downloads have no DRM at all, but they're perfectly legal. They're in MP3 format direct from the artists.
What makes you think MP3 downloads from artists are "perfectly legal"? Even ignoring the patent issues, what about the copyrights that songwriters hold on the underlying musical works?
Following your analogy, you could eat at McDo and get kicked in the nuts, but if you go to that hippie place you can get a hamburger for less and not get kicked in the nuts. Only it won't be a McDo hamburger.
Except what if McDonald's has a submarine patent on a method of making hamburgers? Then it could sue the hippie place out of business. Likewise, the major music publishers hold submarine copyrights on melodies that they have every government-subsidized right to use against independents.
The GC being sans HD would make it tough to get OsX on there.
The iMac can netboot Mac OS X without a hard drive; I'm sure somebody could rig up something with Darwin, a GameCube, and the PSO loader. To get around the trademarked hardware condition, duct-tape an old Apple floppy drive under the Cube; then the Cube would be sitting "on" Apple hardware.
Four words: single point of failure
Secure protocols take years of careful design and years of peer review. Every standard out there was created behind closed doors with a tight deadline. None of them will last, and when they fail they will be replaced on an emergency basis.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Why are "they" picking on Apple? Because Apple does not want to play fair (pun intended). They will not allow "Fair" play to be used by anyone else. They want to own the online music market to drive iPod sales.
I think there's something else. That's too easy an answer.
Then there's the Alternative section. Folks who label themselves like that tend to be doing all their own work.
That's what they think. How can an independent singer-songwriter know for sure that he's not subconsciously copying an existing copyrighted song? George Harrison got in trouble for this.
Much as I enjoy iTMS, it will all be over for Apple tomorrow if the music industry finds another, more attractive suitor. And remember, love is blind.
Apple's market share is as a distributor. The position of a distributor is wholly dependent on a supplier, without whom there is no business. Unfortunately for Apple, the reverse is not true. Online music distributors, in fact, are a dime a dozen, with more coming onboard all the time.
Will the music biz desert Apple? Not immediately; not while the going is good at iTMS. But the DRM battle could go against Apple, which might find itself being compelled to adopt a competitors' technology or lose contracts with major labels. Remember: holding 50-70% of market share is nothing when the big meanie in pinstripes can easily take his music and go elsewhere.
It's not any easier to break, but once it's broken, everything is in the open. Now, we have many DRM schemes, and breaking one will break some things for you, but other material remains with an effective (for now) DRM scheme. If there is only one scheme, break it, and you can copy anything.
It's not any easier to break, but once it's broken, everything is in the open. Now, we have many DRM schemes, and breaking one will break some things for you, but other material remains with an effective (for now) DRM scheme. If there is only one scheme, break it, and you can copy anything.
It would be true if every single song or movie was available only in one format. Breaking it would give access only to those works that use it. In the real world however most of works are made available in as many formats as possible (for example if there is an on-line store by Mac and another one by Microsoft, most of artists would want their songs to be available on both, similarly every director wants his movie to be available in the cinema and on DVD and eventually on the TV-on-demand channel) and thus if any given song is available in more than one encrypted formats it is easier to break than only one because the attacker can choose the easiest target. It's like having many different ways to log into a server. It is less secure not only because it is harder to secure many things than one but also because only the security of the weakest link matters, and the attacker is the one who chooses what is easiest to attack for him.
If they went through this ridiculous makework they'd find that every song has themes or lyrics in common with hundreds of other songs.
Statistically, such accidental similarity is a certainty. Conspiracy theorists would bet that the incumbents already cross-license the themes that pop songs share, keeping them in a copyright pool analogous to major American auto makers' patent pools. Then they keep independents out by refusing to license the rights to pop music's melodic structure at anything less than extortionate rates, or they create an atmosphere of uncertainty to impose the transaction cost of copyright searching for each first publication of a new work. Compare to the software patent situation.
...the grandparent post was sarcasm.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Could this be why Balmer went into the zero brain cell zone and called all iPod users "music thieves" saying the main iPod format is "stolen".
/ faq.aspx
I guess Mr. Blamer has failed to notice the 0-day warez archives out there, but they do apologize good for him at Microsoft.
Here is my reply from Microsoft from an email I sent them telling them I do not liked being called a thief.
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Microsoft.com Customer Support and for getting in touch with us about this.
When Steve Ballmer implied that most of the music on iPods were stolen, he absolutely did not intend to single out iPod owners for criticism. In fact, given that they have access to their very own - and very popular - online music store, they are likely among the most law-abiding consumers of digital music. But the reality is that piracy remains high in terms of illegal downloads of music, and while online music services are getting better and better and winning more customers, piracy is still a major problem both on the PC and on devices.
Microsoft Windows Media digital rights management (DRM) is a great way to limit piracy, and the main point Steve was trying to convey was that it requires a coordinated effort among many industry partners to do it right. More information on this platform is found on this page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/drm
You know what this means, the labels want to force restrictive WMA DRM on everyone.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I can actually live with Apple's DRM. But what keeps me from downloading more music from iTunes is the fact that it is in a lossy format (AAC). I want my music in a CD-quality format. I feel a little cheated when I pay for music that has less quality than what I could get at a record store.
And unfortunately for iTunes, their prices don't provide room to allow for lossless music downloads without it costing more than the CD in the store.
The labels make $.68 on every track sale. Almost pure profit because they are just allowing Apple to repurpose a CD sale. This is much more per/unit profit then for each track in a store.
Apple is going to be fine. The labels can't leave a profit--they are incapable. The indies will take over. In a few years, most new artists will be "direct-to-web".
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"