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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.
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.
"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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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...)
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.
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.
>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...
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.
I think that a few anecdotal cases are no more useful, and possibly less useful than statistics in this case. Sure, some guy may have bought 30k worth of music, but it hardly seems reasonable for any company to base any sort of business decision on the actions of one guy like that, when the averages are closer to $2-3 per person.
Are there people with investments in iTMS who probably feel locked in? Undoubtedly yes. I'd guess that if you asked Steve Jobs that question flat-out, he'd likely say yes as well. But does that mean that that's Apple's motivation for including DRM? According to Jobs, it's not. Would both the iPod and iTMS store continue to do well with DRM removed? Jobs seems to think so.
I'm not naive enough to automatically believe word for word anything that someone I don't even know says, but Steve Jobs has felt comfortable putting himself into a position where Apple may have the opportunity to drop the DRM, and the PR that would form around that opportunity would almost force Apple to do it.
Here's a guy who's one of the big names in the industry, and he's publicly announcing the position of Apple Inc., and it just so happens that this position includes a whole lot of what the anti-DRM people have been saying all along. What is the problem with that? If you're expecting Apple to suddenly just drop all the DRM and tell the record labels to go screw themselves, then your mind is wandering outside the realm of reality, which doesn't help your cause.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
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.
Maybe DVD Jon is just worried he will be out of a job. Didn't he work for months and even years to break Fairplay just so he could sell it to rival music stores? Regradless he also has his own interests that must be recognized, he is not simply a champion of free information.
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
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
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
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.
You're incredibly naive if your really believe that. I've had to explain to my girlfriend on three separate occasions that her music will only work on iTunes or an iPod, and that I can't play it on my Linux computer. I had to convince her sister that if she bought a Creative mp3 player, her music from iTunes wouldn't work on it. Apple makes it easy for people to play their music and transfer it to their iPod. Unless somebody has bought a music player other than an iPod and tried to transfer music, tried to burn an mp3 cd, or tried to use Linux, most likely they're only loosely aware that there are some things they can't do with their iTunes music. Apple's DRM is not nearly as restrictive as it could be. If nothing else just burn a regular CD and rip it back. You may care about quality, but the difference isn't enough for most users to care.
Again, you have no idea what you're talking about. The artist often gets a very minimal cut of sales on iTunes, and only complies because otherwise they could lose other contracts. I'd hardly call it greedy to try and keep your job. The listener has a choice between driving to the store and buying a CD, downloading something illegally (the greediest option), or downloading it from iTunes. Then they have as many choices as they have with a CD, because they can in fact burn the music to a CD. There are two groups that could be construed as particularly greedy. The publisher, who chose DRM in an attempt to prevent piracy, would go under if everyone shared digital music freely. Then there's Apple, the distributor, who seems to have the most to gain by locking people to a platform. But Apple is saying that decision lies with the distributors.
As far as why Apple doesn't sell some tracks without DRM, I don't think its so much a matter of confusion as not wanting to advertise DRM. As I've stated, there are iTunes users out there who don't realize there are restrictions on their music. If the music store didn't distinguish between DRM free tracks and tracks with DRM, users would never know for sure what they're getting until they'd bought it. But if they put anything to indicate that some tracks have DRM and some tracks don't, it would call attention to DRM, and users would begin to realize their music had restrictions on them. Whether you'll admit it or not, right now most iTMS customers are blissfully ignorant towards DRM, and the only way Apple is going to make sure every user knows about DRM is going to be in the context that the iTMS is now DRM Free.
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.
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...
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.
They could threaten to pull their distribution contract on the sly, but that would be awfully shady by itself. I wouldn't be surprised that Apple is bending to such 'off-the-books' demands and simply doesn't want to rock the lucrative boat. But it can't be a literal contract term.Why? Microsoft will already license PlaysForSure to anyone - Wal*Mart just launched their video service with it.
And as far as the Zune's DRM goes... no-one's mentioning that worthless hunk of plastic and its ten users because they're a non-issue. We're just talking about Fairplay because it's 99% of the market.
If you wanted to broaden the call to all DRM to be licensed, I doubt anyone would change their position.
CSS was digital DRM for DVDs, licensed to anyone. Sure, it sucked but so does PlaysforSure and Fairplay and the rest. They never work - proprietary or not - so there's no reason to avoid fair licensing as an interim solution.Firstly, that's not even remotely what Jobs' said. He presented a hypothetical business case, where DRM would be removed from iTunes if the big labels asked. That's more like saying iTunes will be DRM-free 'when pigs fly'. His whole letter was a FUD defense against licensing Fairplay, and the bit about DRM-free utopia was his attempt to redirect ill-will toward the major labels.
Secondly, DRM dying is the best solution, but so long as the entrenched players (RIAA+Apple) are pushing DRM, the best we can do is call for an end to anticompetitive practices.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
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.
There has been speculation that his Big 4 contract forbids this. If this is the case he needs to come clean on that stipulation.
Assuming that the contract does not have one of those, "You can not reveal the terms of the contract' terms.
Given the way the RIAA work, do you honestly think it does not have one ?
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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.