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The Economist, DVD Jon On Apple's DRM Stand
We have two followups this morning to Tuesday's story on Steve Jobs's call to do away with DRM for music. The first is an editorial in The Economist sent in by reader redelm, who notes that as "arguably the world's leading business newspaper/magazine" that publication is in a position to influence legal and political decision-makers who may never have heard of DRM. The Economist says: "Mr Jobs's argument, in short, is transparently self-serving. It also happens to be right." Next, Whiney Mac Fanboy sends pointers to two blog entries by "DVD Jon" Johansen. In the first Johansen questions Jobs's misuse of statistics in attempting to prove that consumers aren't tied to iPods through ITMS: "Many iPod owners have never bought anything from the iTunes Store. Some have bought hundreds of songs. Some have bought thousands. At the 2004 Macworld Expo, Steve revealed that one customer had bought $29,500 worth of music." Johansen's second post questions Jobs's "DRM-free in a heartbeat" claim: "There are... many Indie artists who would love to sell DRM-free music on iTunes, but Apple will not allow them... It should not take Apple's iTunes team more than 2-3 days to implement a solution for not wrapping content with FairPlay when the content owner does not mandate DRM. This could be done in a completely transparent way and would not be confusing to the users."
Update: 02/08 16:28 GMT by KD : Added missing links.
Update: 02/08 16:28 GMT by KD : Added missing links.
get rid of DRM. maybe others will follow...
It's very possible that Apple's contract bans them from selling non-DRMed music alongside DRMed music. This explains why groups like Nettwerk haven't been given the option to sell their music DRM-free. Apple's got the best deal of all the music stores, they must have given up something to get it, and "all music must be DRMed" sounds very cartel-ish and would fit getting the good prices.
The Economist on removing DRMc fm?story_id=8660389
http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
Maybe I'm new here, but shouldn't there be links to both the Economist article and DVD Jon's second article?
Why doesn't Steve open up the iTunes store to indies?
Chris Anderson's Long Tail research makes it clear that more tunes means more iPod usage, even when those tunes are from the most obscure artists.
Anderson's thesis arises because "digital music is no longer subject to the artificial barrier of finite shelf space."
Or at least, that would be the case if stores like iTunes were more accessible.
C'mon Steve, open wide. Let the long tail wag.
"Many iPod owners have never bought anything from the iTunes Store. Some have bought hundreds of songs. Some have bought thousands" Sounds like common sense to me. As an iPod owner, I've never bought anything from iTunes. I personally believe that others have probably bought hundreds or thousands of songs. So what's the problem? And no, I can't be bothered to RTFA. DVD Jon should do what he does best, crack DRM.
He knows what average means. His point is that using an average is misleading, because of the extremes.
I have worked on my church's podcasts and know that podcasts on iTunes can be DRM-free. Maybe the rules for music are different on the iT(M)S. Then again, individuals can submit pocasts but my indie band friend had to submit her albums through an intermediary.
Like Bruce Schneier, here we have a dude who's opinion apparently is notable. I don't agree in that big deal he was part of the deCSS group. Whoopy. There are many FLOSS contributors out there that have distinct political and civil ideas, yet we don't seem to want to listen to them or give them attention. I guess the media makes the "star", not because of actual merit but because they need a star to sell print [or get ad impressions].
As for DRM, I'm glad that corporations, er, the leaders of corporations are starting to smarten up a smidge. DRM is nothing but a huge gaping waste of effort. It costs the customers money, and takes away their rights to fair use.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
"It should not take Apple's iTunes team more than 2-3 days to implement a solution for not wrapping content with FairPlay when the content owner does not mandate DRM. This could be done in a completely transparent way and would not be confusing to the users."
Yeah, right. Tell that to the vast majority of non-tech savvy iTunes users, who don't understand why they can't make an MP3 CD of their purchased music. I have a friend who likes to make "Mix" CD's for other friends, and they keep getting frustrated when iTunes tells them some of their tracks can't be converted to MP3. I've tried explaining DRM to them, but for the typical layperson, it goes right over their heads.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
But the extremes just don't matter that much. The argument Jobs is trying to refute is this idea that there's a huge mass of iPod owners out there who are locked in due to iTMS DRM. The extreme cases certainly exist, but that doesn't demonstrate that this lock-in actually affects most users.
With the number of iPod/iTunes users out there, the extremes aren't important - the average user is. When businesses start catering to the extremes of their user-base, they run themselves out of business.
He knows what average means, he's just saying that average is not the right figure. The distribution is very important. A 22-song average would imply at first glance that only 1-2% of people are locked in, but if the distribution was a third the listeners with 66 songs and two thirds with none, then it would follow that a third are rather locked in (they take a $60 hit by going elsewhere for their DAP needs)
Also, DVD Jon was pointing out that Jobs's iPod figure reflected all iPods sold, not all that are functional or in use (a number that no one knows). People have been replacing iPods as they break, and have been upgrading as new ones get released. Additionally, music might be on more than one iPod, as a family might authorize everyone's computers to play everyone else's music, so that Bro and Sis can share songs on their iPods.
If we take Jobs' stats to be accurate, then it does make sense to stop using DRM. Personally, I just don't have the confidence that the record labels will admit to it. I hope I'm proven wrong!
Getting distribution on iTunes is not as hard as was suggested.
/ viewAlbum?playListId=202470955
If you produce a CD and follow the instructions to have your disc sold on CDBaby.com, they will submit your music to iTunes. In the case of music I've submitted, there was a delay of about six weeks; then we got word that we were live on iTunes.
This is not the full ticket to Hollywood. It's not a huge hurdle either. It's one of many small cumulative things that you do to get your music out there.
Notably there was no contractual lock-in with CDBaby or with iTunes. They own nothing, we retain our copyrights and our ability to distribute in any other channel we like. The whole thing has been artist-friendly.
Our R&B artist on iTunes:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa
Our other music (ambient & progressive rock) http://www.workshopmusic.com/streams.html
When the largest distributor of DRM says that DRM is a failure, then we know we are winning. Now lets make Jobs live up to his word. He must allow independent artists who distribute their music through iTunes to do so without DRM. He also says he supports free formats, so lets make that OGG then.
Wow, it's pretty obvious who the idiot is, especially when Jon makes such an excellent point. Another thing that makes Jobs' "we'd welcome openness" comment appear so facetious is the fact that they have done everything in their power to tie iTunes and the iPod closely together, and never the twain shall part. That has nothing to do with DRM but everything with tying the user to a specific (delivery/music/etc.) platform.
Not to mention that, if you are one of those extremes who's spent $30k on iTunes music, you probably don't care that it locks you into the iPod as your portable player. You're probably ok with that.
Jobs also came out strongly in favor of:
* Ponies for everyone - who doesn't love ponies?
* Rainbows everyday - wouldn't the world be just that much better?
* Love - it doesn't have to be just for dirty hippies
You gotta hand it to Jobs and his bold stance of anti-DRM and pro ponies, love, and rainbows. Let's all go out and buy incremental upgrades to our iPods!
He knows what average means, and he knows that Steve was specifically referring to the arithmetic mean, because 20 billion songs/ 90 million ipods is the ~22 songs/ipod in question.
He's just saying that using this figure is misleading. Like talking about average fuel economy by dividing all the car miles ever by total gasoline production for the last 110 years. Sure it's the average, but it doesn't really tell you anything about current mileage. Most of those cars are scrap by now, just like many of the ipods sold in the last few years.
I am not a crackpot.
World + dog will inevitably weigh in on this subject so near and dear to /.er hearts on several levels.
Firstly, add me to the list of those calling for the end of DRMed/crippled music.
Second, however, without knowing the details of the record labels' agreement with Apple to sell their music on the iTMS, there's no way to know if Apple CAN treat the indie labels music differently. If not prohibited, then the clever folks at Apple ought to be able to create a workable non-DRMed channel for such sales. If this is prohibited to them, they should say so to remove the doubt.
The calls to license FairPlay are rather disingenuous and unfair I think, unless ALL companies (yes, pointing at you, Microsoft) are required to do the same. I don't think such a thing would prove workable anyway unless the DRM standard(s) itself was placed under the control of an international standards body rather than a single company. Even then there are multiple problems with it.
Steve Jobs was right on. The simplest solution here is the best. DRM must die. Try trusting people to do the right thing for once. Enough of them will probably do it to keep you pigopolists from having to actually work for a living after all.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
Which average do you want? mean mode or median?
The 22 per ipod is the mean - often the most useful and the one that is frequently implies with the more ambiguous word "average" however in this case its the most useless.
The mode usually requires wider boundries than single elements to be useful (eg 0, 1-5, 6-10, etc) but I would tend to say that the mode or perhaps the median would be the more useful average when tailoring a service to your main user base.
Despite these figures not being announced you can bet that apple have them and almost certainly use them internally - they probably just dont sound as good to the average non mathematical person
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
Okay, but on the other hand, not all owned songs are used in iPods (or used) at all, either. Personally, I've got a couple gigs of music that I don't really listen to, and aren't on my iPod. For example, I have the soundtracks of some video games, which are great when I'm in the mood (read: free time), but generally I listen to my iPod when I'm walking to class. For another example, I've bought one or two CD's for a really good song or two, but I think the rest is terrible. (I'm lookin' at you, Demon Days...)
first with the current music Apple probably has a short list of people it has to do transactions with. They are also probably granted some indeminity from problems arising from music they sell provided its from the labels.
with indie music comes a lot of questions.
how much can Apple charge before they are considered to be exploiting?
how much does Apple spend on bandwidth per song, this figures into #1.
who does Apple contract with for payment should the artist want money?
How much will it cost to maintain all those contracts, because thats essentially what they are.
who guarantees to Apple the music they sell is really the property of the artist selling it?
there are many risks and costs associated with indie music. it would probably take a middleman to make it viable to Apple. Someone like an RIAA that isn't evil for the Indie's could make the presence of this music on iTunes much more likely
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
He's also an idiot because he thinks Apple can suddenly license DRM-free music from a bunch of indie labels and not have the Big Four give them a steel toe-cap beatdown.
On everage, every human has one testicle and one breast. You have to learn when the average is meaningless (hint: start with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation)
These numbers also don't take into account people like me.
People that have purchased songs from iTunes and don't own an iPod.
That makes the average number of songs per iPod even lower.
Steve Jobs may SAY he hates DRM, but only because he has nothing to lose by saying that. He knows the studios aren't going to cave on DRM, so he gets to keep DRM (and, hence, his iTunes-iPod monopoly) while simultaneously portraying himself as some sort of anti-DRM crusader.
If you want to see how Jobs *REALLY* feels about DRM, just look at how Apple treats indie artists and studios that specifically DON'T want their music DRM'ed. While companies like eMusic sell these same songs without DRM, Apple FORCES them to take DRM. Apple knows damn well that DRM is in their best interests. Jobs is just posturing.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
We each own an iPod (30 GB Video), and we both have quite a lot of music on them. We each ripped the CD's out of our collection that we wanted to our respective computer, using iTunes (we both have Macs, although I use my Linux computer more), and we independently sync our iPods with that music. Neither of us has even one song that we didn't either purchase on CD or through iTMS, and neither one of us would even think of "borrowing" a CD from someone else, with the intent to rip the tracks for our own use.
I really don't get the piracy thing. If you are going to listen to the music, then you should pay for it, whether that be from purchasing the CDs, or through a legitimate on-line music service. I also don't care to hear arguments against this, because those that argue the loudest are usually the ones with the most non-purchased music in their library. They are being just as self-serving as Mr. Jobs.
Personally, I wish we could do away with DRM, because it is quite difficult to play the songs I legally purchased off of iTMS on my Linux computer. I think that is a load of crap, and that it severely cuts into my fair-use rights, which nobody seems to care about.
No matter where you go... there you are.
That's the problem - we're not talking about an average user. We're talking about an average (mean) number of protected songs per iPod, which isn't the same thing at all.
Which is what Jon was saying - the average number of protected songs per iPod is totally useless. For that figure to mean anything, you need the distribution. It's entirely possible that 80% of all iPod owners have around 22 songs, but equally you could have half of all iPod owners having no protected songs, and the other half having 44 songs.
There is a major difference between those two scenarios. In the first, the cost of changing to another player (the cost of DRM lock-in) is $22, with an 80% probability. In the second, it's either $0, or $44, with a 50% probability of being either one.
A numerical average is not the same as this mythical "average" person. That concept is more similar to the mathematical concept of the mode - the most frequent.
You completly missed the point : The point is not that buying a new iPod will be hard for this guy but that he will never use a non-Apple MP3 player because he would be stuck with 29500$ worth of music he cant listen anymore. Hence he is locked in : he will always buy a new iPod when his own fails.
it's not a technical matter, it's a business matter.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Linking to wikipedia doesn't make you smart. I think we all know what a mean is, it's just that some of us realize how meaningless it can be (pun intended).
They are not confused, DRM simply sucks. Explaining the details is as pointless and asinine as a hide tanning lecture while someone is whipped. DRM is the ultimate non free expression, secrets created to dominate and abuse. The greed of the artist, the publisher and the listener are all played to create a dishonest deal in which none have real choices. Free and honest sales work better for everyone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
When devising our digital store (www.roughtrade.com), we didn't for one moment consider having DRM catalogue included. Contrary to it being a marketing issue of differentiation against would-be digital competitors, us opting to sell only DRM-free MP3's has been moral stance informed by three decades of selling music. We consider it morally wrong to impose one set of ownership rights (on the same album) to those customers preferring to buy one format and not another - instead, we treat all our customers the same, whatever format they decide to purchase. To do otherwise would be disrespectful to our customers accrued over thirty years. As it currently stands, major labels have ignored our long-standing retail support and that of our customers (arguably the roots of their prosperity) in favour of imposing DRM and thereby propagating an uncompetitive digital retail market, whereby retailers such as ourselves are unfairly discriminated against to the continued advantage of an effective monopoly. For Rough Trade, music is not a content driver, music is a passion shared with like-minded people over a counter or website. The more music retailers that uphold this value, the more prosperous our industry would surely become. The sooner DRM is scrapped by major labels, the sooner we can present our long-established customer base a consistent offer, whether they visit our London stores, buy online at our mail-order website, or download MP3 from our digital store website. The end result being we can compete on a level playing field, allowing music lovers to choose their digital retailer based on 'music lover' factors such as the retailers ability to recommend exciting new music, and not uncompetitive, discriminating terms of format availability.
"This could be done in a completely transparent way and would not be confusing to the users." Who even wants it to be transparent? I would want complete segregation of DRM and non-DRM. As it is I've never used ITMS because DRM just sounded like a bad deal to me from the very start, even before this blu-ray/Vista nonsense really heated up. The whole thing reminded me of Circuit City's Divx rental format from back in the day. But I might actually use ITMS, if I could buy straight up uncrippled mp3s, and they'd do well to advertise that fact prominently. Then again 99 cents a song was always a rip-off.
>It should not take Apple's iTunes team more than 2-3 days to implement a solution for not wrapping content with FairPlay...
Yes, but that doesn't include the six months needed to design the new icons...
So would you suggest that the people keeping iTunes in business are the ones that buy 22 songs?
Additionally, it doesn't matter what fraction of iPod owners or iTunes customers are locked in. What matters is the amount of people locked in, and what moving to another brand would cost them. The sum of lock-in is the gross revenue of the iTunes store. Every DRM:d song is worthless when you want a non-Apple mp3 player.
if you are one of those extremes who's spent $30k on iTunes music, you probably don't care that it locks you into the iPod as your portable player.
Such wealthy people include Apple executives... Hmm.
Steve Jobs is absolutely right when he says that most music is ripped from CD. I have 1318 songs on my ipod and only 69 of those are from iTunes. So I paid $69 for DRM music? Ehh no. About 40 of em were from those Pepsi 1 free song giveaways the last few years. Also to note, I have paid for 26 TV show episodes & 5 ipod games. My real beef with iTunes isn't the DRM since it doesn't bother me at all. What does bother me is the low bitrate music songs that it offers. I literally pay upwards of $30-$40 per CD for some decent Japanese music that I am absolutely addicted to. Anything less than Apple Lossless would be a crime for the price that I paid for that music. I feel it's excellent quality music so therefore 128 kbs protected ACC encoding seems completely inferior than what I'm used to listening to. That and the fact the Japanese version of iTunes ain't got jack shit on it. :/
Oh and LOL, I am paying $30 per CD like the RIAA wants me to. Stupid Japanese music prices. :(
I doubt it. Anyone who would by $30K of music from an online store probably has enough money that they could easily afford to buy it again.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Yes, but the average human has less that 2.0 legs. (Seen on /.)
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Mod parent up! DVD Jon may be a cult-hero around here (I know I like him), but he certainly isn't privy to the negotiations that Apple has had with the major labels. He's smart, not omnipotent. It would not surprise me in the least to find out that Apple's agreement with at least one of the major labels includes a prohibition on Apple selling any unprotected music.
:)
Jon is not an idiot, though, Mr. Parent.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Upon reading your post all I could think about is how funny it would have been had you said "He knows what mean means".
A major player is calling for the abolishment of DRM! Rejoice! DRM should be abolish. His opinion holds more weight in public circles (entertainment, politics, technology) than the thousands that post here daily. Who cares what his reason is? Let's see if Bill gates or Steve Balmer make a similar self-serving statement.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
...but...if Apple's remotely like most other big companies...that means they also than need a few weeks or months to assure (with See Jane Run style powerpoints) the middle management that they're not losing any of their rice bowls, whiffle ball bat the DRM-opt-out concept into the heads of the sales and marketing teams, and then crowbar the code into the release cycle thats already been planned out months ahead.
just this morning, i read this (Hollywood Takes Its Concerns About Piracy and Taxes to Washington):
i have a feeling that the prime mover and shaker in the wars for/ against drm will be fought mainly along this battlefront. so either hardware manufacturers, by ignoring content creators, will drag content creators kicking and screaming into reality, or content creators will probably, as a mode of attack, simply buy hardware manufacturers, and silence them via business channels
some, like sony, are both hardware and content creators. internal battles on the issue within sony might be revelatory for what our future holds
i'm actually pretty upbeat about the future in this regard though. people like jobs show that hardware manufacturers are just as willing to dream about bullying around content creators as visa versa. it was the content creators dithering and denial on the subject of downloadability that allowed jobs to create iTunes and lead us into the future, so to say. from an obvious business perspective in terms of natural fit, content creators should have been the ones offering a download storefront on the internet, but they didn't out of their fear and panic about what the internet meant to their existence. along came a hardware manufacturer, with nothing to lose on the content front, and therefore no fear, and filled the natural void of consumer want/ need that wasn't being filled as it should have naturally been filled by the content creators. and for dithering as they did, now content creators are in a deeper hole because they have to deal with a formidable opponent, jobs, with nothing to lose and no reason not to defy content creators. he is now in charge of the largest growing revenue stream for the content creators, not one of their own stooges. good for the consumer
and besides, even if all of american hardware and content creators were consolidated business-wise against the interests of us, the consumers, there is always hardware manufacturers in china, or russia, or india, or europe, who would be all too happy to steal the lions share of the marketplace from consumers sick of the ridiculous 1984-style limitations on their hardware that would obviously result from collusion between hardware and content creators
in other words, i don't think content creators have enough business muscle AND international clout to completely limit the range of drm-free options we as consumers will be able to access hardware-wise. and therefore, content creators and their dreams of completely controlling how we access our own culture is doomed
an odious intrusion, simply because they want to preserve their antiquated pre-internet business model. no, i have a better option: why don't you just fade away and die, movie/ music conglomerates? you need us. we don't need you. welcome to the future: the internet has rendered old style media distribution models, where you could easily put up your tolls, archaic. in the future, artists will reach consumers directly
in short, you're history
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So who's that? Sure seems like the vast majority is perfectly happy buying iPods, and then buying more iPods.
You know the salesmen that ring on your doorbell to sell you the latest in water-filtered dust hoovers, or the TN infomercials selling you those ultrasharp, lifetime guarantee knife set?
Steve's no different, except he's a very rich, and smarter salesman. He believes that if you mix: "cool" + "easy" + "hype", he has the sale secured. He won't mind bending some facts to tell you his story, and of all facts, by far the easiest to bend are the statistics, of course. A baby can do it, as he'd say.
I would comment when the original articles was posted, the problem is, this is far too transparent for most people his essay is directed to.
Not that I really believe Steve Jobs will care to read this post or even less take advice from a random commenter, but: Steve, keep the salesman tactics for your next product pitch to the consumers. When you talk to serious people, you better have serious arguments.
I applaud Jon for his words. TheRegister.com also ran a story about the Norwegian official complaining RE: Steve Job's "passing the buck" style attitude. It can be found here.
Apple isa hardware company, Apple is a hardware company, APlle is a HARD-Fucking-WARE company.
They compete on the HARDWARE not the music.
Otherwise it wouldn't be trivial to get around the DRM by design.
I can put any mp3 I wan't on the iPod no matter where I got it from. If they wanet lockin it would only play AAC files. Guess what? that wouldn't sell many iPods, which is what they want because they are a hardware company.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There are... many Indie artists who would love to sell DRM-free music on iTunes, but Apple will not allow them
I'm all for allowing Indie artists access. My question is how would you implement this, and not end up with every American Idol reject? How would the typical user be able to sift through it all to find talent vs. a bunch of basement bands? Sure a rating system would be helpful, but if I'm searching by song names could still end up with long lists of remakes. There needs to be some sort of minimum standard, otherwise the system will get unwieldy.
Just another day in Paradise
Submit away!
a /apply
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZLabel.woa/w
Yes, that was a bit harsh, but I dislike people who get praise for some thing they have done, and then spout off like they're suddenly an authority on everything.
From yesterday's Wall Street Journal, entitled "Is Jobs Playing A New Tune?" Article not available for free online, but the important comment is:
"To BusinessWeek, Mr. Jobs has gone "from controversy to PR coup in a matter of words" with a "dramatic about-face that could recast Apple's role" in the debate over copyright protection. But "Thoughts on Music" may to some sound less like a true cry for change than a part of Apple's long-running and successful campaign to cast itself as one of the good guys -- by adopting an already ascendant idea"
Very arguably indeed. The Economist has hijacked its title - it exists purely to promote a particular free market economics, and therefore you cannot expect any kind of reasoned debate on its pages. It's about as independent and academically respectable as the "Cato Foundation". It's likely that, taking the world as a whole, the majority of economists do not accept the baseline belief of "The Economist".
Pining for the fjords
The numbers are misleading, but in another way.
A vast number of those iPod owners have bought zero songs from iTunes. They rely on CD rips, or in some cases, non-protected downloads. Then there are a few who might have bought one or two, but found the restrictions too great, and given up. So, how many people have bought more than 100 songs? Because every single one of them has an effective additional cost of $100 on any other mp3 player. So, how many? A million? 5 million? Most of these people will want to upgrade to the newest iPod at some time. I'm sure those 5 million extra sales aren't going to hurt.
I think it would be confusing and that's why Apple never went for the different-rights-for-different-songs route as some of the others. They want all or nothing so that the customers know exactly what they get.
Plus I think it would weaken their stand against the major labels. First they will have to get them to open up their catalog drm-free and then the smaller labels will follow.
For median, extreme would play little role if any at all (if you change the extreme at either end, there won't be a change in the median.
For mode, that's where most people having a same segment of values, extreme ends wouldn't matter either.
Only mean is effected by extreme ends, but all get effected by other kind of extreme (like extreme in data dispersion, where average has little value).
This Jon guy really needs to think again about what he said, and even should go publicly declared his argument invalid. He tried to prove Steve misuse statistics, but he's the one that misuse it.
I also like to point out that there's conflict of interest here if someone say Steve did it for himself. If there's no DRM, there's no Jon.
I like none-DRM product. However, I also see a point of DRM. Jobs didn't point out that it's much easier and convenient to transfer/copy computer musics than CDs. Also the quality is also preserved (versus convert from wav files to mp3 file for example).
Why convenience is important, for many if not most, little convenient is all it take to stay on some thing (like MS windows for example). That's part of ignorant, fear, uninformed, etc.
People know that house locks does not work. And this I mean in the same sense as DRM. People can still open your door. Do you advocate not to use house lock at all? So the does not work argument also is flaw.
For those that doesn't like DRM, let me tell you, I came from a country that does not enforce copyright, and musics and similar intellectual property industry doesn't develop well like in the US because of rampant copy of stuffs. So, if DRM can help protect things as much it can do as possible, let it be. And I emphasize on "as much as possible".
To be fair, I see a good argument against DRM too. For example, I want to play HDCP content with a high def monitor without HDCP. This is a technical problem that they should have resolved before implement it. By this, I mean DRM has to consider the fair use and similar scenarios.
and i have never pruchased a song online
since 1999, my musical tastes have grown eclectic, and my musical collection has grown huge and varied and rich
what piracy has enabled me to do is to "grow up" outside of american pop music and embrace music from the world. to download trance music from the netherlands, bhangra from india, soca from trinidad, wierd love ballads from japan, and strange slow ditties from the philippines
the existence of the rich esoterica easy at my fingertips would have been impossible in a world of music conglomerate tolls
in other words, i do have a valid argument for music piracy, simply because i don't download lindsey lohan or justin timberlake, so before you rail at me for stealing form starving third world artists:
if it weren't for piracy, i would never have been exposed to the artists i am listening too in the first place
it's a catch-22 position: i couldn't "steal" from the artists i listen to if piracy (via looking at the musical collections of others who have a track or two that i like) didn't exist
music piracy is the best thing that has ever happened to my musical tastes and my musical experience. it expanded my mind. and i'm not stealing from anyone. i am an audience for the artists i listen to that wouldn't exist in a world where priacy didn't exist
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Commenting that Apple could easily sell music that contains no DRM makes two assumptions:
1) Apple's contract with the major labels will allow the company to sell files that are not protected. This is an assumption I'd be loath to make. I can easily imagine Sony, Warner, Universal, et all insisting that all music be protected
2) Consumers would react favorably to a store that sells both protected an unprotected music. Having spent a goodly part of my life in retail I can attest to three things: a large number of customers are rude, stupid, and unreasonably demanding. Having a store with one price for all tracks and everything protected makes it easy for everyone involved.
Nor does the average matter. The statistic that would matter is this. . . what percentage of iPod owners have at least one track on their iPod that they purchased through the iTunes store? Because any iPod owner who has a single song from iTunes is "locked in" in the sense that they can't switch to a different device without giving up music they have already paid for.
Everything else is just a measure of how severely they are locked in, how much already-paid-for music it would cost them to switch. But even if the switching cost is to give up just one track that you already paid for -- lock in is lock in.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
Why is this creating such a commotion, or better yet, why are people arguing against Jobs? I'm no apologist, but his stance made 100% perfect sense to me.
DRM:
Look, if you are required by some companies to use DRM, what are you going to do? 1., use it or 2., don't and don't sell their music. I think DRM is a sham, but it's pretty clear what the companies want that own the music they license out to iTunes.
iPod:
Again, I agree with Jobs here. The iPod plays MP3 and AAC, which can both be considered 'standards'. The only thing missing, of course, is Ogg. But this is pretty good. I don't see anyone bitching much about the Zune which has THE WORST DRM imaginable on a player. Not only is your DRM-free songs wrapped in DRM, but when you share (or squirt - jesus..) these with the social - this is ANY track mind you - it's wrapped in DRM and the receiver can only listen to it 3 times and/or it expires automagically in something like three days. I can't begin to say how unbelievably lame this is for the consumer, but makes perfect sense to the record companies. Where's the uproar against the worlds largest software company regarding that?
iTS:
Yes, it does not sell all indie labels (some tho) and yes, Apple probably could roll in something to allow non-DRM stuff to work perfectly with DRM stuff. But again, without having priviledged access to the project/source, who's to say how that could be done. I'm sure it could be though. I still think Apple does a pretty good job with the iTS. I mean how many other music stores out there fight with the record cartel to keep prices low? If it was Bill G or Ballmer or whoever else, you know they wouldn't give a shit about $.99 price and kowtow to the labels every wish. This is a FACT.
Licensing FairPlay:
I'm with Jobs on this one. M$ tried it with the 'Plays For Sure' and look where they are now, copying iTS/iPod. For a company providing a product, NOT a socially beneficial service, it makes sense to keep it small and in control. Doesn't mean I support FairPlay, but from a practical product standpoint, Jobs is right and the real goal is to get RID of FairPlay, not expand it to more vendors.
In the end, again, I don't know what all the fuss is about. Of course the Microsoft club is gonna slam everything Jobs does - cuz they're not #1 in that area, so they'll naturally hate everything else. But the Econ calling the article 'self serving'? I dunno, I guess, but how is taking the labels to task so self serving? When did Ballmer last call for the labels to drop DRM? Or any other big computer/electronics exec? I think Gates went as far as mentioning at one point that DRM "won't work" but, that falls very short compared to Jobs speech.
I also don't look at the iPod as some big monopolistic, lock in mechanism. I can play all the formats I use on it except, again, Ogg. And for indie artists, there's always eMusic or CDs. The Econ article, and many others, cite lock-in as a argument the EU is using, but seriously, why would someone jump ship to a player from M$ or Sony? Plus, what does Jobs really have to lose if the EU rules iTS/iPod illegal? Fine, worst case, don't sell to them. And then what DRM will the EU run to? M$? Sony? Or will they spend years and years coming up with some 'standard' that then fades away when the labels finally cave in to unprotected tracks, but only because consumers demanded it from them? The EU may sue or whatever, but Apple dropping FairPlay is not going to happen and again, music players are not computers, so the 'lock-in' will fade.
I think, if anything, more people should be backing Jobs. What other high profile hardware maker is saying the same? M$? Sony? Creative? Sandisk? His stance on having the EU look at EMI and Universal is dead on. I've been in the music industry and they ARE the culprit in this case. 100%. If anyone opened up an online music store tomorrow and wanted major label music, it w
Jon's position reminds me of an old joke:
A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"
The man below says, "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."
"You must be an engineer", says the balloonist.
"I am", replies the man. "How did you know?"
"Well", says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's of no use to anyone."
Technically, since Apple doesn't do the encryption until after download, it would be trivial to implement.
The problem isn't implementing it, the problem is that unless the Big Four labels go along with it there's a huge risk and no benefit. One of Apple's "lines in the sand" for the iTunes Music Store right from the start was that all music would be available on the same terms: you can play ALL the songs in the store on 5 computers, you can burn them ALL to disc, they ALL cost the same. Making an exception for a few small labels, or even a lot of them, may violate their existing contract with the big four and would certainly hurt them when they have to renegotiate.
And there's no need: eMusic.com already fills that market, and it's cheaper than the iTunes store!
But wait, there's more! Let's complete the joke:
The man below says, "You must be in management."
"I am", replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault. "
Nah, Jon, I'm in the same position I was before, and it's not a problem, so it's nobody's fault. See, I'm one of the people who's supposed to be locked in to the iPod.
I've bought 286 tracks from the iTunes Music Store, plus a dozen TV shows. That's over $300, and I'm not locked in at all. I've played this music on an iPod Shuffle, an HP Pocket PC, and a cheap Magic Star MP3 player. I have done this using nothing but Apple's own software, unmodified, using instructions provided by Apple on their website.
Yes, technically, I've lost a fraction of the sound quality by remixing their old ad campaign into "mix, burn, rip", but who cares? Buying music where absolute fidelity matters from the iTMS is daft... you've accepted a loss in quality just by buying it in lossy-compressed format to begin with. I buy classical music on CD, and I don't listen to it in a noisy office through tiny earbuds.
The real lock-in for iPods isn't the music, it's the accessories. Apple's changed the iPod form factor and connectors far less often than their competitors, so there's easily a dozen times as many accessories available for the iPod as for any other MP3 player... probably than all the others put together.
Right now, I don't have an MP3 player. My daughter's iPod Mini broke, so I gave her my shuffle. I'm looking at new MP3 players now, and right now I'm inclined to get something other than an iPod. The new shuffle looks sweet, but I don't like the click-wheel on the higher end iPods. If I decide to stick with a flash based player I'll probably get an iPod Shuffle, but the Toshiba Gigabeat (the real thing, not Microsoft's rebadged "Zune") looks pretty good.
iTunes DRM is trivial to circumvent, and I don't understand all these claims about not being able to do as you wish with your music. Buy tracks, burn a regular (non-mp3) CD, and then rip the CD using another application (hey, iTunes sez you need to back up your purchases, and this conveniently does it). Of the 10 albums I've bought from iTunes (unfortunately not available elsehwere cheaper, or I wouldn't have used iTunes--try buying used cds on Amazon marketplace), this is what I did to get them on my Zen. Considering how easy this process is, I don't understand how the Majors have been hoodwinked into thinking iTunes provides any protection.
If you want to distribute your music DRM-free, don't use iTunes, use soundclick (www.soundclick.com). You can upload the music yourself, choose the price yourself, and I'd bet you get to keep more of the money.
It's no different from how Monsanto doesn't want to have hormone-free milk sold next to normal milk: People see there's a distinction and will lean toward either the more natural/less restrictive option.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
iTMS is open to indies. CDBaby, for example, puts all of its artists on iTMS.
The problem with indies is, obviously, that you've never heard of them. They don't end up on the front page because that's incredibly valuable real estate, and only the majors can afford it. (I don't know if they actually pay for it or not, but I suspect they do.)
They'll show up in the recommendation engine, but the problem with the Long Tail is that there are only a few people rating each indie artist, and many rating the big famous ones.
The Long Tail theory does not predict that indies will one day take over from the majors. The mass of the curve may shift somewhat to the right, but the hump will always be on the left. Maybe a few hits will break out of the long tail, but the theory is a lot better for customers (who have a chance to find what they want) than for artists (who are still doomed to obscurity in the tail). Just because they can find you doesn't mean that a lot of people will.
And his 20 friends who haven't bought anything from iTunes are theoretically free to buy any other player. But, for some reason, they all seem to keep buying iPods... Mr. 29.5k probably owns so much because he's so happy with his iPod and iTunes. If his dies, why would he *want* to switch?
It's pretty clear to me that Jobs is just practicing the ancient art of Noshitonmi. He's bouncing the blame off of him and saying that the devil made him do it.
Mafiaa legions already trolling for "examples" already makes them the bad guy. With Europe stacking up on him, Jobs is just assuming the classic Noshitonmi stance to deflect all negative energy towards the Mafiaa.
Quite brilliant, actually.
He better start stretching, though. Those new Noshitonmi poses he's going to need for SEC investigations are gonna require special foo.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I wouln't call it lock in when you just have to 1> burn the tracks to cd. 2> import to format of choice, perhaps even a lossless format.
It's more of a "the door is closed, just turn the handle to get out" than a lock in.
Right, but in this case the "extreme" is bounded by zero on the low end, so the extremes on the upper end push actually the average number of songs *higher* than what is the case for the typical iPod owner. The median number of songs would give a better picture of the typical iPod. In this case, the median number of songs is most certainly less than 22, so Jobs point is even stronger.
Think of it this way. Bill Gates walks into a stadium full of people who have no money, and each person is very wealthy according to the average level of wealth. The median person, however, has no money. On a less extreme scale, the average number of songs overstates the extent to which a typical person is locked into iTMS music.
DVDJ's second point may not hold up. I would be willing to bet that the major labels have mandated that all music be sold with FairPlay, and that Jobs gave them a lock on content. Jobs couldn't destroy their entire business model in one fell swoop; allowing unrestricted competition from the Indies would have gone to far (in the eyes of the labels). But don't worry, I think its coming. Jobs doesn't care about the music business's model; he just wants to sell more iPods.
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
There are independant labels/bands that want their music DRM free on iTunes but they are ignored.
If jobs really wants to follow words with meaningful action. He needs to create a DRM free zone on iTunes.
There has been speculation that his Big 4 contract forbids this. If this is the case he needs to come clean on that stipulation.
The other supporting argument is that it would be too confusing. That doesn't wash IMO. Create a separate section: "iTunes Unlimited" that groups the DRM free tunes together and explains the implications.
Otherwise, Apple disallowing bands/labels to choose to be DRM free, completely undermines his statement.
This is like Gates and windows: encourage piracy in the early days to promote the growth of a huge market base, and then tighten the screws once established. Eliminating DRM now makes online distribution more attractive and CDs obsolete (except for the minority of consumers concerned with encoding quality). This drives more business towards Jobs. Once firmly established, it makes more sense to introduce something like DRM to recapture the value eroded by piracy.
The average slashdotter is not the average consumer. What you just described is WAY too complicated for say, my sister. If you want to talk about those of us that know what we're doing, why even burn to a CD? Just visit the Hymn project and and download the appropriate tools.
But for most iPod owners, these things are arcane mysteries.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
According to that logic, then, I'm still "locked in" to cassette tapes.
Or maybe consumers eat the loss and move on to a format they feel is better/cheaper/more convenient.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Thats considering a ipod model that holds 1000 songs.What about people like me who have 1GB Nano that hold only 240 songs? In that case that 22 songs is 9% of my music is locked.
Indies are perfectly free (individually or co-operatively) get a paypal account and a website and sell their own DRM-free music. Maybe there will be fewer sales, but the profit margins should be rather better. I listen to one group that bankrolls the production of each new album by asking fans to pay for it in advance (currently CDs, though - but its prog, so not very download friendly anyway).
There seems to be a circular argument here that iTMS is the only game in town. The whole point about internet sales is that its easy(er) for little guys to sell to the world. If you want a lock-in then I'm pretty sure that if most indies could only get some fricking airplay then enough people would google for their webshop.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
...is to make it possible to exist without it. Lots of indie artists and smaller labels would love to sell non-DRM tracks through iTunes. (another issue is bitrate, but that's a seperate issue).
Then you could label them with some catchy name for non-DRM and/or higher bitrate. The majors would be too scared of to use this, but the smaller players would jump at it. The result would be a way for those smaller players to compete. I can spend a buck and buy an inconvenient, crappy sounding major label song, or I can buy a better sounding indie song that doesn't have all that confusing DRM.
I bet the majors would follow...but that's the point. Major labels don't innovate, they print money using their artificial monopolies and cartel powers. Major labels follow. If they did innovate, iTunes wouldn't even be around. If Jobs is serious, then he needs to step up to the plate and use his power to back up his words.
It's great to hear someone as influential as Jobs talking the good talk, I'd like to see him fight the good fight.
The median number of songs would give a better picture of the typical iPod. In this case, the median number of songs is most certainly less than 22, so Jobs point is even stronger.
well, if there are more than twice as many iPod users as iTunes users (and I think there are), then I'd guess about zero. But I've realised the number of songs per iPod is probably the wrong argument. Nobody is suggesting that iPod in general users are locked into the iPOod, or that they're locked into iTunes. What they are suggesting is that iTunes users are locked to the iPod.
So, what proportion of iTunes users have an iPod? What is the average number of songs per iTunes user. Should we be counting people who have only a couple of songs as iTunes users? Only a minority of iPod users are affected. Maybe a moinority of iTunes users are also affected. But is it enough to be concerned over?
Abso-freaking-lutely correct. Hell, I'm still locked in to 45's! And all the turntables under $200 are utter crap, but no one can blame Apple or Microsoft for it, so no one on Slashdot gives a shit.
Exactly. iTunes is pretty good jukebox software, and the seamlessness with which iPods integrates with iTunes is unmatched. Period.
I've got approx 80 Gb of music that I'm managing with iTunes, but I haven't bought a single track from ITMS. (FWIW, if you can stand the monthly subscription model, emusic.com is a pretty good service -- DRM free MP3s that you download and keep).
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
Whether you agree or not with the article, it was not "an editorial in the Economist," it was a letter to the Editor, wasn't it? Not fair to attribute it to the Economist.
Currently hooked on AMP
That's a half-good point, and I'm gonna tip my hat (half way) and give you half of a "touche'" for it.
But it still isn't quite the same situation. When we used cassette tapes, we could play them in any cassette player we wanted, regardless of who manufactured it. A cassette was a cassette was a cassette. Our tapes became obsolete because technology changed, and offered us benefits that convinced us to switch to something newer -- cds gave us track by track access and an order of magnitude better quality -- and for a time the manufacturers all put out stereos that could play your cassettes or cds.
In the case of digital audio, the iTunes DRM songs can only be played in the player(s) produced by a single manufacturer, and are incompatible with any other. There is no fundamental difference in technology between a protected iTunes track and a track encoded with mp3, ogg, or whatever. The issue of whose device you can play it on is the only significant difference between a DRMed track and a non-DRMed one).
In short, your point about cassettes has to do with format lock-in. The issue with Apple's DRM is more about vendor lock in.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
If you buy a cellphone and service with a carrier and download ringtones from the carrier's ringtone store (or another store even), or buy whole songs from the carrier can you:
A) Move those songs and ringtones to a new phone with the same carrier?
B) Movie those songs and ringtones to a new phone on a different carrier?
I looked at a bunch of FAQs and the Cingular and Sony music websites and the answer was NO in BOTH cases. To me, the lock in seems much, much worse with cellphones (which are trying to be the new walkman/ipod) and yet everyone wants to jump on Apple. I would think much more of these Euro countries if they had blasted all the gadgets instead of just one popular one.
-- I browse at +5 with stripped sigs
"So, what proportion of iTunes users have an iPod? What is the average number of songs per iTunes user. Should we be counting people who have only a couple of songs as iTunes users? Only a minority of iPod users are affected. Maybe a moinority of iTunes users are also affected. But is it enough to be concerned over?"
Good questions. I'd just point out that the higher the *average* number of songs per iTMS customer, the greater the proportion of iPod owners who either do not use iTMS at all or barely use it.
I have 14898 songs a couple of which were downloaded for free from band sites, we'll say three. Zero were purchased from ITMS, due specifically to the DRM, and slightly to the 128 bit rate.
I have purchased somewhere around 1500 CDs which puts me in the same idiotic league; they now live in iTunes...
DRM decreases sales, in my biased opinion. And, my statistical average of zero proves it.
If iPod/iTunes represents 80% of the market then Apple need to look after that 80% of the market at a minimum. The average user isn't important in that sense. Sometimes the extremes can be very influential. For example they may buy more iPods on average and their word-of-mouth role in promoting iPods may be significant. With dealing with DRM trust is extremely important. Your best customers are the most vocal and the most loyal. If you can't hold onto them you'll start losing a lot of customers
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
i would not listen to the music i am listening too if it weren't free
more exposure = more income... concerts, exposure that translates into ad revenue, etc.
more exposure is only gotten by embracing free exposure
in other words, i'm not the enemy, i'm the friend, so STOP LECTURING ME
free as in "here, this is free" not free as in "this is free but i'm going to cop a holier than thou attitude and badger you until you're guilted into giving something"
in other words, your attitude is poison to any band you think you feel like needs support
because free is free. people are motivated by their own conscience
free is not free as in they are somehow going to be motivated by being badgered by someone who assumes some sort of holy aura of superiority because they give to street musicians. whatever gives you a hard on. don't assume you're better than me, or at least, go ahead and think you'r ebetter than me, but don't think by showing me how you think you are superior to me that you are going to shame me into compliance with your particualr life philosophy. no, all you;re going to do is make me think you're a smug asshole
frankly, when you give to the bands you like, you should give freely and for the sake of liking their music
but with your attitude, it almost seems like you give to the bands you like for smug sense of superiority
in other words, your attitude sucks
to be perfectly clear to you: i'd prefer a world of asshole companies strong arming me to buy then a bunch of smug self-righteous assholes shitting on me with their holier-than-thou attitudes to give in the name of smug self-righteousness
whatever cause you believe in, your attitude only hurts it
that's the truth
work on your people skills
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I've seen plenty of support forums describe how to do this. If she gets to the point of wanting to move off, she has a plethora of options available to help her. (hopefully including you telling her how to do it? as opposed to blindly pushing an agenda)
She's only locked in because she hasn't asked how to do it.
Just like a large percentage of the population has been locked in to blinking 12:00 on their VCRs for years.
That's why you can't buy from indie labels at a record store because the Big Four won't allow it. Right?
Any attempt at trying that by the Big Four would represent an anti-trust violation that would be a slam-dunk to prosecute.
Shouldn't a digital music store have *better* selection than what's available on CD media? (not worse, as it currently is on iTMS) When is stuff that is other wise out-of-print going to be available on iTMS? I'll take DRM in exchange for better selection.
Until then, it's emusic and amazon (if it isn't available on emusic) for me.
Quibbling about statistics is missing the significance of the statement from Jobs: Apple is publicly committed to sell DRM-less music if the labels will agree. People can say what they want about Jobs' motives, but at a very fundamental level he is right. The vast majority of music sold is sold without DRM. Making DRM "work" is complicated, and it becomes more complicated the greater the number of players involved. Consumers would all be better off if there were no DRM.
Many of those carping at Jobs and nitpicking about statistics oppose DRM. So what if we don't have the ideal statistics to measure iTMS lock-in. There will be absolutely no lock-in if music can be sold without DRM. THAT is the point. Why quibble? Just embrace the goal and build pressure on the labels.
If Jobs was serious about offering non-DRM music, he would have iTunes offer unencrypted music for artists that wanted it. Jobs essay was simply more rhetoric from his Reality Distortion Field , which, judging from the comments so far, Apple fanbois have swallowed whole. Apple has become just BS marketing and hype, trying to appear the good guys against the evil Microsoft empire. As someone with intelligence, I don't believe a word of it.
> I wouln't call it lock in when you just have t...
whats the point then?, its more of an annoyance for the consumer
Join forces and form a co-op, or co-ops, to negotiate standard deals with Amazon, Apple or other online music retailers. I would be for electronic publishing of the members music.
It would simplify things for the indies and the retailers, they could also help do copyright searches to insure no infringements occur.
Membership dues could be a flat $50-$100/yr and a percentage of sales. After payment of all bills + money set aside for future growth divedends could be returned to memembers.
All members would have voting rights and also could run for the board of directors.
I can almost hear the RIAA howling already....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Everyone in this debate, including the European governments in question, assumes that the reason the iPod was successful was its tie (or, as critics would say, lock-in) to the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) via FairPlay. Open iTMS or Fairplay, and you reduce the iPod's dominance. That's the theory.
This, however, isn't necessarily the case.
While the iPod and iTunes Music Store are promoted hand-in-hand, the technical (ie: you and me) know that you don't need to buy music from iTMS. The iPod is a wonderful music player; you can rip and/or load your music onto your pod in lossless or lossy formats, without DRM, if you so desire. The iTMS makes it easier to load music onto your iPod, but the iPod will play a whole bunch of formats, most of which are DRM-free.
So why the focus on FairPlay and iTMS? Because Steve Jobs is a sneaky guy.
The conventional wisdom is that the iTMS is a loss leader for iPods; its only reason for existence is to "trap" people into buying and keeping their iPods. It follows that if the people weren't locked into iTMS and Fairplay, they'd be free to buy other players. That's why everyone wants to force Apple to license FairPlay.
But what if the iTMS sold music in the WMA format? What if Apple licensed FairPlay? What if Apple supported WMA on the iPod? Would that increase the sales of other music players? Would that increase the traffic to alternative music stores?
When it's spelled out like this, the fallacy, and the answer is obvious: probably not.
By keeping the focus on DRM, Jobs is keeping the iPod safe. The iPod isn't successful because of its tie to iTMS. It's successful because it's a good product that people want to buy. DRM is a red herring, a bargaining chip that can be pulled or offered when the need arises. By keeping the focus on FairPlay, Apple is making sure that nobody in the business is focusing on what they should be doing, namely, making a device that's better than an iPod. It's unbelievable that after 5 years, there are no players that are qualitatively equal to or better than the iPod. Likewise, in 3 years there are no music stores that are qualitatively as good as or better than iTMS.
In the end, Apple may make more money from licensing FairPlay than from the iTMS. By being licensing FairPlay and charging a royalty per song and per device sold, Apple could take a piece of every device and song sold for the next decade or more...and they'd effectively be forced to do that by the music industry and the various misguided European governments. And as a bonus, there would be little to no impact on iPod sales. A serious win-win for Apple.
Look for third-party Fairplay licensees after the upcoming negotiations, and watch Apple get thrown right into the briar patch.
At the 2004 Macworld Expo, Steve revealed that one customer had bought $29,500 worth of music.
The only thing known about this customer is their email address: qa-018772@apple.com
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
It would surprise me. It'd be a serious anti-trust violation. Plus, Yahoo is able to sell unprotected music alongside DRMed music from the big 4 labels.
He's not alone. In particular, Hollywood is notorious for this. I can't believe how much people car about what Angelina Jolie has to say about things. And there's a huge trend towards shows with almost no content EXCEPT celebrities talking about everything, for example "The View". Wow, I mean, who watches this trash?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
If Jobs is sincere regarding a DRM-free world, let him, as the largest Disney shareholder, provide DRM-free Disney content:
Let all Disney BluRay discs be DRM-free.
Let all Disney DVDs be unprotected.
Let all Disney online content be DRM-free.
He can talk all he wants about DRM-free music, but let's see him make his own company's created content available in DRM-free form. Until then, his words regarding DRM-free music are simply a PR play, nothing more.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
>Just like a large percentage of the population has been locked in to blinking 12:00 on their VCRs for years.
VCR's have automatically set their clocks from broadcast signal for longer than they had existed when that joke started.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Am I the only one wondering what Apple (formally Apple Computers) has up their sleeves? If I remember correctly, the main thing that kept them from being a music label was a contract with Apple (of Beatles fame). Now that the two have made up (see yesterday's /. story), what is to stop Jobs from making good on what he thinks should happen? Typical Steve style, too, with hype before the announcement.
KAW
According to Jobs' article, Apple is prevented from selling songs that are not $.99 by the major record companies. If an indy company were to ask him to sell songs for $.49, they'd quit the iTunes store. Selling songs without DRM is similar. While it would provide benefit to the end user, he/she would be confused when the newest punk album from iTunes works on their zune, but Dark Side of the Moon via iTunes doesn't, and the record company would "look bad".
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Fair enough, though we still don't know for sure. DVD Jon still needs to consider other things - it wouldn't just be a technical solution. Apple would need to keep track of what songs do and do not receive protection. Even the simplest implementation of this - doing by label - would require someone to take this on as a job duty. In practice, labels would probably insist that this be done either per-artist or even per-song. That is a very large effort, and a lot of room for error.
In any event, it is fair to say that Jon should not assume that this is a technical restriction only. There are most likely legal, business (aside from marketing), and liability concerns as well.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
iTunes lets you burn your purchases to a CD in standard CD format, stripping off it's own DRM.
You can't take the sky from me...
Anti-trust, eh? Do you actually know what that means? Go and find out, and then explain to me exactly how an anti-trust case is even relevant, let alone have any chance of succesful prosecution.
Let me begin by saying that I agree wholeheartedly with the Jobster that the entire concept of DRM is ridiculous on its face. However, speaking to the issue of "Why can't some things, like indie music, be NON-DRM at the iTS?", I don't think that Apple feels they can SAFELY do that, for the following reason: Since the FairPlay DRM is actually added NOT at the iTS, but rather by the iTunes APPLICATION itself, it would probably open a gigantic, gaping, festering security hole in the entire scheme to have something as insubstantial as a "DRM flag" transmitted along with the song file during download. That sounds like JUST the thing that a "hacker" could leverage to defeat FairPlay on any subsequent downloaded music, as it downloads.
iTunes lets you remove DRM for the files you buy in it's store by burning them to standard CD audio. You can then play that CD in any non-apple CD player, re-rip them to any non-apple format, and upload them to any non-apple MP3 player.
You can't take the sky from me...
if the music wasn't free, i would never have been exposed to it
it's a perfect catch-22, it defeats all of your arguments
remember: i'm talking about world music, not justin timberlake
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It is no longer in Apple's best long term interests to promote DRM. In fact, DRM is likely to bite it to a point that its own platform may well no longer be viable within a few years.
This would be the case if anyone's DRM but Apple's was in widespread use.
But this is not the case. The most widely used DRM - for both music and video - is Apple's. And so Apple is really in the drivers seat as far as DRM affecting Apple. DRM has become irrelevant to Apple's long term success, and that will continue to be true as long as DRM is a lever working for them AND they support that DRM on Windows (in theory they could stop supporting Windows but that would also ease thier grip over DRM by letting other systems have the chance to flourish).
You mention you think Apple's hold on this area will end. But what makes you think that? The iPhone is about to come out, presuambly followed by other models later. There have been MP3 playing phones around for some time, but that has not stopped Apple from selling a lot of iPods and songs online. What is different other than Apple entering the phone market to ensure they remain the player of choice even for phone-only users?
As for Vista, the DRM is nice (for Microsoft) but irrelevant since the Apple DRM also works on that platform. Vista has no hold to try and have users switch to Microsoft's DRM, that leverage will all come from devices and Microsoft has nothing serious there, not even with the Zune.
So Apple would like DRM to end (to eliminate complexity) but they really don't need to care so much when, or even if, it happens.
I personally think the end of DRM is inevitable because studios will not be able to tolerate Apple's lock on online sales forever, to the point where even sellign DRM free music starts to look better to them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
1. he knows studios won't go no-DRM
2. so he says only way is no-DRM or Fairplay DRM monopoly
3. Fairplay DRM monopoly remains, he washes his hands
4. profit
5. dumbass Maczealots cheer their "hero"
Yeah, as much as /.ers and geeks in general like DVD Jon, he really isn't all that relevant in this case. The Norwegian Consumer Council's Senior Advisor's reply to Jobs' open letter, is far more important.
Basically, some bluster about exactly which part of the lock-in they're complaining about and what seems like an intentional misinterpretation of Jobs' letter as a sign of acceding to their demands aside, it says:
1) They're not interested in going after the big 4 record companies, since they don't sell directly to consumers; and thus any contractual obligations to the big 4 that prevent Apple from giving the Norwegian Consumer Council what they want are solely Apple's problem.
2) They know other companies are doing the exact same thing as Apple with regards to DRM, but 'everybody's doing it' is no excuse, and they're only going after Apple.
Honestly, to me, this is smelling more and more like the big 4 are using the Norwegians as a proxy to try to legally neuter Apple, so that they can retain sole control of the world's DRMed music for themselves.
It seems fairly obvious at this point that Apple will have to withdraw from Norway come October, and I for one will be interested to see what the Norwegians do then. If they go after Microsoft on the same grounds, trying to force them to license Zune's DRM to all comers, and license Plays4Sure for use with OSes other than Windows, then they'll be somewhat redeemed in my eyes. If they do nothing, or keep going after only Apple despite their withdrawal, then we'll all know in whose pocket the Norwegian Consumer Council resides.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
But it still isn't quite the same situation. When we used cassette tapes, we could play them in any cassette player we wanted, regardless of who manufactured it. A cassette was a cassette was a cassette.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
The whole point of lock-in is that you're happy with buying it but will regret it later, because of things you didn't foresee.
The 22 per ipod is the mean - often the most useful and the one that is frequently implies with the more ambiguous word "average" however in this case its the most useless.
The mode usually requires wider boundries than single elements to be useful (eg 0, 1-5, 6-10, etc) but I would tend to say that the mode or perhaps the median would be the more useful average when tailoring a service to your main user base.
Despite these figures not being announced you can bet that apple have them and almost certainly use them internally - they probably just dont sound as good to the average non mathematical person Oooh, I'm willing to bet the mode is 0 (unless you use something like 1-1000 songs as the second category). And the median is probably going to be lower than 22 too.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Am I right? The guy who spent $29,500 is now actually bankrupt, and he has split with his wife as a direct result of the downloading. Is that the story? Something like it.
:P
So, it's probably not the best example to use, Steve.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Oops, I meant very little trouble running my ipod without iTunes. Sorry... hit submit without proof-reading fully.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
And who does this?
Isn't is much cheaper to just put an MP3 on your phone and assign it as your ringtone. Heck, you could even buy it on iTMS, do the whole burn & rip thing, and stick it on your phone and it would still be worth the trouble for the money you save, plus the audio quality you get from a phone is typically crap, so it doesn't matter that you're re-encoding a compressed track.
I think the reason that we all care about iTMS and not ringtones is that consumers are accepting iTMS as a viable replacement for the coasters. No one was ever fooled into thinking they were adding a track to their permanent music collection at a reasonable price by downloading it onto their phone. They were simply paying for the convenience. It's just an impulse buy: an easy way for a fool and her money to be parted.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
There are... many Indie artists who would love to sell DRM-free music on iTunes, but Apple will not allow them... It should not take Apple's iTunes team more than 2-3 days to implement a solution for not wrapping content with FairPlay when the content owner does not mandate DRM.
OK, 2-3 days to get DRM-free content on iTunes. What about...
- Set up servers for artists to place their music.
- Implement a way for musicians to register as iTunes artists.
- How do you authenticate that an artist is who s/he says? Outsource the listening of each artist upload to hip kids in Bangalore?
- Implement way for musicians to upload and organize their music (cover art, etc.)
- Work out copyright issues. When dealing with labels, this is fairly straightforward. When dealing with beatles-cover-band@gmail.com, not so much.
- How to allocate fees. Allow the artist to set individual prices, or do they get $0.04 per download? Maybe $0.06?
- How to distribute money to artists. Paypal? Create iMoney? Print checks monthly? What about artists who make $0.15 in a month and cost more to support than they bring in?
- Get the right people on board at Apple to approve all this. (Of course, this has to happen first...)
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Just how long do you think it would take him (or someone just like him) to sniff out the flag and insert a filter to turn it off for all downloads by default. Answer: not long at all.
I'm sure that DVD Jon knows this fully well, so his "encouragement" to Apple is completely self serving. It has to be all or nothing, or hackers like DJ will rip the floor out from underneath them.
For those interested:
R IGHTED_MUSIC?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAU LT
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/APPLE_COPY
Frankly, I'm a little suspicious of the motives of the governments that are requiring Apple open its DRM to other stores and players. There are real examples of standardized copy protection (CSS, Blu-Ray / HD-DVD protection), and so far they haven't been too effective. It's clear from the article that the labels want some type of restrictions on their music. But if they want something that works, why would they ask that all their vendors can use the same technology? This hasn't worked in the past.
While the governments may be acting in the consumers' interest, the consumers haven't really been complaining that much. They want their iPods regardless of DRM / non-DRM. They'll buy their music from the iTMS because they can easily get it on their iPod. Even if their DRM is opened, Apple doesn't have to allow other vendors to sell music through iTunes. They have the brand name and a simple solution that people already use.
FairPlay does create vendor lock. The vendor lock, however, is between the record labels and Apple. The labels need access to the iPod to sell their digital music. They refuse to remove the DRM, thus they must play ball with Apple. This includes selling songs for no more than $.99, something they clearly want changed.
Didn't France start this whole debate? One of the big 4, Universal is owned in part by Vivendi. If they have influence on the French government that is anything close to what large corporations have on the government in the US, I'd suggest the government is probably acting in their interest more than that of consumers. With open DRM, corporations like Vivendi will have more options for who can sell their music. Other stores will be able to sell DRM'd music that will play on the iPod. And the labels will have more bargaining power when it comes to setting the price of their music. They've got to offset that 23.3 loss somehow, right?
I would be interested in knowing the average number of iTMS tracks owned^H^H^H^H^H lisenced by those with over a certain threshold, say, ten tracks, or perhaps an album's worth.
We all know Apple has this information, and I'm betting it's high. Probably over 50. There are a few different classes of iPod owners, and Jobs is intentionally lumping them all together in order to manipulate their meaining:
1) Those with zero: customers who like the iPod and iTunes, but do not want to be locked-in with DRM.
2) Those with very few: about an album's worth that they downloaded in order to try out the iTMS, but still wary of the lock-in.
3) Casual iTMS music buyers who own a few albums, plus some misc. tracks: they probably average around 50 tracks (a number that I just made up, but it seems reasonable).
4) iTMS feinds: they drank the Kool-Aid; they have an extensive collection of music bought from the iTMS store. The cost of a new iPod is less than the cost of re-purchasing all of their DRM'd tracks.
What I'm truly interested in is the individual statistical profiles of each of these classes of iTMS customers, as well as their prevalence. This is no doubt a closely guarded trade secret, but it's one for a very good reason: it tells Apple just how locked-in their customer base really is.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
It's not a moral stance - or anything to do with "free as in speech" - it's just the easiest way to get music, and if you look at the costs and benefits, even as a well paid professional person you're still paying less than you would for iTunes, even the cheapo Canadian store. If they legitimised allofmp3.com and doubled the prices I'd go legal, but they aren't going to do that.
Just buy a CD, copy it and give the CD-R away. 100% Digital, 100% perfect,
www.itjerk.com
The Big Four don't have to keep the indie labels out of the record store: the economics of deploying their CDs to such a large number of shelves prohibits the indie labels from doing so.
No such economic barrier exists online. It's called The Long Tail. Google it.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
good point
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Isn't it likely that Apple's contracts with the major labels specifically prohibits iTunes to offer DRM-free music from other parties?
is to live like mother teresa
not many of us do
we all Do Good (tm) at a rate we can, the best way we can, in the way we think we should
so for someone else to come over to me and claim they are doing good more than i am, simply reveals to me that your are motives aren't so pure after all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"And the reason you were locked into cassettes is that technology to rapidly transfer music between media was not available."
???
What would you call dual cassette decks, "mix tapes", even recording my albums to play into the car? The cassette was *all* about shifting my music around various mediums and between users.
Now, that being said, I'd love it if DRM went away tomorrow. The reason it's there is to impose artificial limits on the perceived value of music. The cost/benefit of most CD's WAY out of whack: 9/10's of my music I've listened to a max of 3 three times or so. $.99 for a lossless, DRM-free track via iTunes or whatever that's tagged with a unique watermarked ID that allows the copyright holders to chase down the people who break the law but doesn't affect people like me who respect copyright is where things need to be, IMO.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Well, congratulations! Alas, your ability to use the iPod sans iTunes is less a testament to Apple's magnanimity than to the resourcefulness of the people that made it possible. That software didn't write itself, and Apple didn't go out of their way to make it easy for these apps to be written. Not exactly hard, either, but the debate is about just how open Apple is, and I have to conclude that "not very."
"When we used cassette tapes, we could play them in any cassette player we wanted, regardless of who manufactured it."
:-)
In theory, yes. But if some handed me anything other than a Maxell II-S 90, I'd look at them like they just landed on the planet from Mars.
And speak to me not of the "quality" of cassettes the labels used.
Now, with iTunes, you're locked in only with regards to portable players. You want to take your tunes to the car? Burn a CD. Want to make a mix CD? No prob. Want to strip the DRM? Burn, rip.
I'd prefer no DRM, but I know the labels wouldn't. And Apple has to serve two masters here: The major labels, and the consumer. So far, as evidenced by their popularity, they've done a decent job of compromise between those two opposing forces. This statement by Jobs, though, along with the hardball he played re: pricing is an indication of which side of the argument he'd rather be on.
DRM is a broken system: Jobs knows that more than all of us. And his entire second career at Apple has been about fixing the things that he considers broken, be it music (iPod), software (OS X), presentations (Keynote) or phones (iPhone). Hopefully, he can break DRM in order to fix buying music online as well.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
On everage, every human has one testicle and one breast.
I do have one testicle and one breast, you insensitive clod!
Find free books.
You severely misunderstand the concept of "lock-in." It's not that there are no costs to switching, it's that the costs are *prohibitive.* Granted, what's prohibitive for one person may not be for another, but I think we can all agree that anyone who can afford an iPod would not find $22 (the average cost of iTunes music on an iPod) prohibitive.
>VCR's have automatically set their clocks from broadcast signal for longer than they had existed when that joke started.
Funny. I have a cheapie that I bought only a few months back, and while it does have that option, I couldn't get it to work. (different tech, but those self setting atomic clocks don't work in my house either)
Fortunately, I know how to set time on my various clocks.
Now, here's the kicker: As Johansen sees it, Jobs didn't follow through on this promise, so it's up to him to fix the system... Johansen has written [two] programs...: one that would let other companies sell copy-protected songs that play on the iPod, and another that would let other devices play iTunes songs."
Aha. If Steve makes good on his proise, and now he has a whole deal more power to actually do it, Jon's compay is fucked. Worthless.
Of course he's going to complain. Jeez.
When we used cassette tapes, we could play them in any cassette player we wanted, regardless of who manufactured it.
That's correct on the surface but lets extend that logic into what we're faced with today. The universe of recorded music during the cassette days include Compact-Cassettes (with various incompatible noise reduction), vinyl records (in 12" and 7" flavors), 8-track tapes, 4-track open reel tapes (in several speeds) and PlayTapes. Buy music in one format and it won't play in the other.
You were definitely "locked in" to a format but nobody griped to manufacturers or the government about the inability to stick a 45 RPM record into an 8-track slot. If you wanted a different format, your best hope was to copy one format to another and endure the losses - or buy a new copy. Same deal today. All of these arguments are reminiscent of the cassette fans yelling "8-tracks suck" and visa-versa.
These former choices are very analogous to what we have today except the consumer doesn't understand that these seemingly identical MP3 players are wildly different. The various formats (then and now) aren't about ease of use, sound quality or flexibility. They're all about collecting royalties through sales. The features of the format are designed to sell, the marketing hype is designed to glorify the features and the music is the hook.
That said, I agree that vendor lock-in is a very dangerous thing and format lock-in should be a thing of the past completely. However, follow the above logic of collecting royalties and that's exactly what's going on. It ain't about the music but that's what's being marketed. I believe that Apple should license FairPlay to two more manufacturers (Sony and Samsung?) and Apple will do just fine in the market place.
Most of the stuff on
How can they "have set their clocks for longer than they had existed"? How did they set their clocks before existing? It's not true for all VCRs, anyway. Mine doesn't do it (although he doesn't flash 12:00, but shows --:--). My older VCR did do it, but most of the people I know don't have VCRs that do it, and don't care about it, either.
...so obviously it's not a waste of effort from the POV of the labels.
In the case of digital audio, the iTunes DRM songs can only be played in the player(s) produced by a single manufacturer, and are incompatible with any other.
Wrong! Or, at best, right in the narrowest pedantic sense, but utterly misleading as a practical matter. Do you really not know that you can burn your iTunes DRM songs onto ordinary non-DRM redbook audio CDs using only documented iTunes commands? Look, I hate vendor lock-in as much as anybody, but this is a combination lock with the combination written on it.
OS X "fixed" software? Oh, Hawthorne01, thy name be fanboy.
Well... that's supposing where you live in has such a broadcast signal...
It's not easy being green.
Hardware companies sell products that are limited and cannot be easily duplicated by their customers. Their business model is safe until someone invents a cheap replicator.
Content companies sell products that can effortlessly copied and distributed by their customers, and the customers now want and expect to do it. Their business model is not safe, no matter how much legislation and enforcement they try to buy.
Over time the hardware companies are simply going to have more resources to wage this battle, because their customers are on their side, not opposed to them. Look to history--those seeking to limit popular new technologies always lose. Fighting it is like trying to eliminate speeding once and for all.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
In fact, the iPod is, objectively, not all that good. The vaunted click-wheel is like Apple's other user-interface gimmick, the one-button mouse. It's cute, slick, got a good cover story, people identify with the "independant" nature of it, but it causes all kinds of problems: you can't use it without knowing what "state" the iPod is, it's sensitive to the slightest touch so you have to have a mechanism to "lock" the user interface, and it's not at all intuitive. The one thing it's arguably best at... scrolling super-fast through a long playlist... is not a common operation and not generally the best way to select a song out of a long list in the first place.
I gave my iPod Mini to my daughter, and got an iPod Shuffle instead. The d-pad interface on the shuffle lets me do everything I need to do quickly... quickly... and it's stiff enough that I can shove the shuffle in my pocket without having my volume or track change every time I shift my weight. My previous MP3 player, a flash based on similar to the shuffle, wasn't as good... but it was still better than the iPod Mini in everyday use.
This would be relevent if we were talking about the situation right now, rather than the near future. However, we're not. What we're talking about here are the consequences of mobile phones developing further functionality, coupled with the further integration of DRM into Vista. The former is happening now. The latter is going to become an issue as 90% of computers become bundled with the Vista operating system.
And that might be relevant if many smart phones had not been able to play music for some time now. Or if Apple's DRM did not work as well on Vista as Vista's own. Apple's DRM is always a superset of other DRM's, one reason it is popular as Mac use grows.
Seriously, wake up. Your entire comment looks like a knee-jerk defense of Apple's future. Cellphones have obliterated the PDA market, they're already making in-roads on the digital camera front, and they're going to do the same for MP3 players. Steve Jobs "gets it". Not only does he know its going to happen, but he's getting Apple to ride that wave. And regardless of whether you agree with me, and agree with him, this is Apple's stance, so it's relevent to why Jobs wrote what he did. Back in July of last year, it even became their official position. To quote Peter Oppenheimer:
And your comment looks like a "the sky is falling! The sky is falling" panic attack with no basis or precedent. Windows has had DRM, Vista just continues to refine that like everything else in the OS. In fact in terms of music, Vista has absolutley nothing new whatsoever in regards to DRM! It changes the picture not at all.
Smartphones and other phones have been playing MP3's, and just like other, even better, dedicated MP3 players they have done nothing to stem the flow of iPods. How does that situation change at all except in Apple's favor with Apple introducing an iPhone that is also an iPod? It means phone companies have SIX MONTHS to deliver something tremendously better in terms of playing MP3's before the die-hard MP3 player market starts migrating up to a variety of models of iPhones from then forward.
Apple has shown a clear path to those who might be drawn to phones as primary MP3 players, even if someone could deliver one that didn't rather suck for everything, much less playing music.
So two things are going to happen: the most widespread DRM in the world will be Microsoft's, with users of other platforms (such as Macintosh) frozen out of an increasingly large amount of content; and Apple's lack of hardware marketshare will mean iTS will be all but irrelevent.
That's what's going to happen. That's what Steve Jobs is trying to deal with.
That's what would have happend, if Apple had not built a phone. But they are not idiots, that path is as obvious to them as everyone else, and they are in fact building phones (starting with the iPhone but there will be other models as well, at least according to Cingular...).
Again, if anything looked to move in and take over Apple's spot in the way of phones, smart or not, then I would totally agree there was cause to worry. But nothing on the market now, nothing even that looks to be coming out in a year, looks to be anywhere near something of the level of quality to pull people away from current iPods much less the iPhone.
I mean, give us an example of a phone you see coming that is one of these potential iPod killers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There has been speculation that his Big 4 contract forbids this. If this is the case he needs to come clean on that stipulation.
Correction, "there has been speculation that even if his big Four contract doesn't prohibit this, it would weaken his bargaining position with them".
Otherwise, Apple disallowing bands/labels to choose to be DRM free, completely undermines his statement.
Apple isn't doing any such thing. I just bought a dozen DRM-free tracks this morning, from eMusic. What, that's not on the iTunes store, you say? That's not Apple, you say? What, you're complaining because Apple's not a monopoly?
Problem solved in a limited sense, perhaps, for you. But as the article points out, the problem isn't solved for Apple. If the majority of the music publishers continue to demand DRM and continue to insist on their music being sold on terms that are not less attractive than those by which Apple sells indie music, then Apple continues to have to maintain that DRM against hackers. Even if the recording industry decides to tollerate DRM removal, most consumers will still not bother, and thus the music will have less value to them. That means fewer sales for Apple, and consequently probably means that consumers won't see any additional price break any time soon.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
"Apple isn't doing any such thing. I just bought a dozen DRM-free tracks this morning, from eMusic. What, that's not on the iTunes store, you say? That's not Apple, you say? What, you're complaining because Apple's not a monopoly?"
That is ludicrous. How does other people selling DRM free tunes let Apple off the hook for saying one thing and doing the opposite.
Jobs says: DRM is pointless. We want DRM free music, we are ready to embrace it whole heartedly.
Label says: We would like to sell our music on iTunes without DRM.
Apple response: Your music will only be sold with DRM on iTunes.
That behavior is not consistent with the stated position. To most, myself included, this is saying one thing and doing the exact opposite. Without at least an explanation it completely undermines the open letter.
If this a "it must be all or none" type thing when we know it will never be all, then it is complete bullshit maneuvering and Jobs is looking like a political word mincing weasel here.
A distribution model free from piracy? NEVER HAPPEN. Listen to the man, he's been telling you all along:
If you have ever taken the several HOURS it takes to read through a single, thin edition of the Economist (as opposed to the 45 minutes or so it takes to wade through the shallow waters of Newspeak(sic) or Time) you might realize that the Economist has some of the most even handed commentary and analysis of almost any news magazine out there.
The fact that they even look at other countries economic situations -even when they don't directly involve US or UK interests, or aren't the hotspot du jour separates them from the US rags whose focus is typically US isolationist.
I've been an avid reader for years (the captions alone are worth the subscription price) despite my left wing, liberal, libertarian background.
Unlike most business periodicals, which seem wholly reactionary, they seem to get the big picture about technology and world poitics and economy -and it is certainly not the IMF/WTO/Cato line despite what you seem to think.
Read about their takes on executive compensation and globalization and try to tell us that they are shills for capitalism.
-I'm just sayin'
How does other people selling DRM free tunes let Apple off the hook for saying one thing and doing the opposite.
:).
It doesn't, and I didn't claim it did. The first part of my message addressed that point. I didnt go into more detail because I really think I've already posted more than enough on that topic. The second part (the one you're quoting here) is a response to the claim that Apple is preventing artists and labels from releasing DRM-free music: they could only do that if they were a monopoly.
But since you insist on belaboring the first point, let's go back and address it again, in more detail:
Apple isn't under any obligation to provide every service that you want through the iTunes store.
If they don't provide a service, then there are several possible reasons for it.
With Apple, one of the common reasons for a restriction in one of their products is aesthetic or philosophical: a restriction that's there because it establishes Apple's "brand" or promotes their "style". Removing the user-interface to the customization hooks that that products like Kaleidoscope (in classic Mac OS) and Shapeshifter (in OS X) take advantage of is an example of this kind of restriction. Making the Mac desktop immediately recognisable through the "Aqua" theme and its successors is part of their product branding for Mac OS X.
The other reason is cost. They don't offer some feature of capability because they have decided it would cost more to provide it than it's worth. It seems likely that a generic OS X for arbitrary Intel platforms is one of those things.
It can be difficult in some cases to decide which of these is the real reason, and if you were to argue that Jobs occasionally tells whoppers about which of these two reasons Apple did or failed to do something, I could only agree. For example, Apple has said that they have esthetic objections to a generic OS X. They have said it would weaken the Apple brand. Butthey have also said they would never release a headless low-end Mac ("No ugly monitors on nice Macs", I beleieve, were Jobs' words), and of course their back-and-forth on Intel has always bemused me - I still have my copy of Rhapsody DR1 for generic Intel boxes
In this case - so far as I know - Jobs is not saying anything about this particular point so I'm free to speculate without fear of the Reality Distortion Field taking over my brain.
So...
The people making the argument that Steve Jobs is being hypocritical seem to be assuming that the lack of DRM-free music hosted on the iTunes Music Store is a philosophical restriction. that it reflects some kind of preference for DRM. Now... it's possible that this is the case.
It just doesn't seem likely to me. Steve Jobs has made the same point about DRM in the past, most notably in the 2003 Rolling Stone interview, so this is not a new "tactical" change of heart in response to the events in Europe... his position on DRM is the same now as it was when the iTMS was launched.
So that brings up the question of what the cost to creating a "DRM-free" zone in the iTMS would be.
Apple's business model for the iTunes store is for all music to be sold under identical conditions. Apple has repeatedly said that offering different licenses for different labels or for different classes of music is not on the table, at least in the major markets. So while they don't have an "iTMS Lite" for DRM-free music, they don't have an "iTMS Premium" for the labels to corral their 'hot' content into either.
Now, you may disagree with the importance of this "line in the sand", but the fact that you disagree with their priorities doesn't change the fact that this is one of their priorities. I disagree with a lot of Apple's policies, myself, so I'm not going to try and convince you that this priority is important. For the purposes of this argument, whether you or I agree with it is irrelevant.
The point is that it, by itself, is more than enough explanation for why Apple doesn't set aside a corral within the iTMS proper for non-DRMed content. It may not be, in your opinion, a good reason, but just because you disagree with someone that doesn't imply that you or they are lying. It just means that you disagree.
"Steve Jobs" is an Apple marketing "gimmick". He's just out their to make Apple look "good" and "friendly", while their legal team tightens their DRM and sues the pants of anyone remotely "infringing" on Apple's culture, ideas, interfaces, "looks"... Does anyone really believe Apple doesn't want to lock user's into their platform and hardware as much as possible? Puleeze....
thats the joy of statistics - you just make the first category 0-19 then even if the unitary mode is zero you can claim that "most people fall into the category of buying up to 1 CDs worth of tracks"
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
DVD Jon is right that it's trivial for Apple to make allowances for selling non-DRM'd indy music. The reason it doesn't is no mystery: Apple's making money. Pleasing the Big Four is the surest way to continue doing so. Jobs might wish things were different--and so the essay implies--but that is of no consequence to the bottom line.
Besides, the essay's real goal was to deflect anticompetitive talk from Apple. I only see Apple reforming itself if the iPod stops selling, the labels withdraw their catalogs or the courts and legislators force its hand. All three are possible, as Jobs knows.
Meanwhile, I've moved on. While once buying several dozen songs per year via iTunes, increasingly I buy from eMusic.com instead. DRM is partly why, but price, selection and bitrate are equal or greater reasons. In fact, my eMusic sub for 40 songs is about the price of one iTunes album. For that matter, I will often find used CDs on eBay for less (with shipping!) than if I bought the lower quality hobbled Apple files. Still waiting for the ideal scenario, though: lossless downloads at sub-CD prices.
Baroque and Gregorian chants are firmly entrenched in the Westerm Classical tradition.
Most World music can be pigeonholed elsewhere, it is just a lazy name for "anything foreigner we know nothing about".
As for folk music, it is clearly popular music, one could make an argument about it being part of pop which coule be subdivide in commercial and folk kinds.
In any case, the original point was well made. progressive metal is clearly a type of rock, as is rap and perhaps hip-hop, which could be pop.
Modenr musicians and popular culture critics create these unnecessary artificial descriptions based in minuscule differences of style.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This just seems like long winded rationalization of possible motives for the hypocrisy.
You are asserting that Jobs is being hypocritical. I am questioning that assertion. I'm not saying that Jobs is incapable of hypocrisy, I'm simply questioning your assertion that he is being hypocritical in this instance.
What does hypocrisy mean?
It means expressing a belief that one does not hold.
If you believe that Jobs is being hypocritical, that means you believe that Jobs is in favor of DRM. Jobs has consistently spoken out against DRM and argued that it doesn't work, and iTunes DRM is barely a token effort: not only does iTunes make no attempt to close the "analog hole", it doesn't even attempt to close the "digital hole" and even explicitly allows you to make perfect unprotected copies of the music you purchase on CD. His words and actions are consistent with the claim that the DRM in iTunes only exists because the owners of the overwhelming majority of the material you purchase through the iTunes store insist on it.
The only evidence you provide contrary to this is that there is no un-DRM-ed music directly available through the iTunes store, and that the timing of this statement is suspicious.
We can eliminate the timing right off the bat, because Jobs has been making the same argument, publicly, since at least 2003 - the year the iTunes music store opened. This isn't a sudden change of position in response to EU actions, it's simply another restatement of the same position he's held all along. There's no hypocrisy in saying what you believe when you're challenged on it.
So what does that leave? A gap in the offerings available from the iTunes store.
Even that might be suggestive of hypocrisy if there was no possible explanation other than Steve's desire to lock us in to Fairplay at all costs. But there are multiple reasons for it... some of which have been brought up by Jobs in other contexts, others that are simply speculation. Unless you've got more than repeated vehement assertions that they're "rationalizations", I suggest you examine your own motives before worring about Steve's.
The problem is, ALL music either is, or has been, popular. Why not just label all music "Popular music of the xx century" and leave it at that?
The descriptions represent the heritage or use of the music, and are not unnecessary or artificial. "Progressive metal" means that the music features electric guitar (metal) (or really loud electric guitar if it's a shortened form of heavy metal) and has matured from the original "metal" style music. If you called it "Rock", I might try listening to it when I was looking for something of a similar style to the Beatles. If you called it "Pop" I might try listening to it thinking it was something similar to music by Wham! or nSync. I personally like to have a feeling for what will be assaulting my ears before I have to listen to it.
"Contemporary" musicians (by the way, "Modern" does not mean contemporary, it was a specific era in each of the arts, including music, which is why there is also post-modern music) and popular culture critics have ALWAYS made distinctions between types of music; this is nothing new. It is a way of talking about music in a manner beyond that of "sound that has some formal modulation". You could also argue that colours could all be summed up as red, yellow, green and blue. This would lead to some interesting arguments over whether orange is red or yellow, and graphic artists and their critics would be at a loss for how to describe their works.
Actually, guys have 2 breasts too, so every human has on average 2 breasts (or some number slightly smaller than 2)
So where is the petition I can sign in support of Steve Jobs?
Why would a contract change peoples opinion? Apple may have decided not to sell DRM free music because of the wind direction that day or there may be an agreement with another company, either way, it was a decision that Apple has made. Having it in writing in the form of a contract with a third party is STILL the same final outcome and decision to not sell any unprotected music. Unless of course you think some sly lawyer slipped that clause in the contract at 23:59 and no one at Apple noticed.
I'm sure Apple's lawyers are very competent (except their options-granting lawyer). But it is entirely possible that they "decided" to sell no DRM-free music because the music companies made it a condition of selling their music. Apple's choice may very well have been to sell only DRM music or no major label music at all.
Then again, there might be no such restriction - but I am certain that DVD Jon doesn't know that, and so he should stick to commenting on matters which he knows something about.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
>How can they "have set their clocks for longer than they had existed"?
The joke about the clock dates back to the early 1980s, when you had to use a
tweaking tool and/or thumbwheels to set VCR clocks and timers. At that time,
the oldest consumer VCRs were a few years old. Since at *least* the early 1990s
it has been *easy*, if not automatic, to set VCR clocks.
If you live someplace that does not receive a PBS station, you probably don't need a clock anyway, and what do you need to record on a timer???
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I provided a reasonable definition of hypocrisy(reference.com) that included espousing one thing and doing the opposite in practice. You disagreeing with that definition doesn't invalidate it. So let us just say it is my opinion that the hypocrisy definition includes saying one thing and doing the opposite. Your opinion apparently does not. So on that we differ. It is a matter of opinion and semantics. A pointless pedantic argument. Let us agree to disagree. I will not argue the hypocrisy point any more.
I will simply say Jobs' letter is nothing but empty rhetoric without action. He could allow some labels to sell DRM free music to get the ball rolling. That it might cause some trifling inconvenience is beside the point. Instead he forces DRM on all whether they want it or not. Doing this while claiming a DRM free would would be wonderful, is just empty, hollow rhetoric.
Change requires effort, not merely words. Jobs is clearly unwilling to make even the most trivial effort that is within his control. Espousing that in a utopian world where everyone renounced DRM, he would embrace DRM freedom is meaningless in the real world.
The real world will never be 100% in any camp, to support freedom from DRM in the real world, the very least that should be done is accommodation of those who wish to sell their tunes without DRM.
You're the one making the accusation. You're responsible for backing it up. You're not doing it.
I hardly have to back up that actions count more than words. That should be self evident.