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Microsoft Set to Unlock EMI Songs, Too
linumax writes "Microsoft has stated that it may be close to reaching a deal with EMI to sell songs without anti-piracy protection via the Zune platform. This, from comments made by head of marketing for Zune Jason Reindorp. They come hard on the heels of EMI's announcement that a deal with Apple to sell songs without DRM protection through the iTunes Music Store has been struck. Mr Reindorp said: 'We've been saying for a while that we are aware that consumers want to have unprotected content. This does open things up a little bit. It potentially makes the competition more of a device-to-device or service-to-service basis, and will force the various services to really innovate.'"
Not only that but they innovated the idea before Apple ever did !!
davecb5620@gmail.com
would they have do so even if Apple didn't convince EMI to drop DRM?
I think not.
So there are a few directions this could take, here's the ones i can think of:
1) They unlock certain songs, and shortly thereafter, claim these songs are now more-heavily pirated, and use it for justification to sell more DRM to recording agencies
2) Same as #1, except they claim the songs are not selling better, and declare that DRM isn't an obstruction
3) they still include some kind of DRM but call it something else
4) They've actually seen the light, and are now going to try to innovate instead of regulate.
Did I miss any?
P.S. I don't have a lot of confidence in 4).
It probably goes without saying, but this isn't some initiative on MS' part. It's riding Jobs' coattails, crying "me too!, me too!", as if MS is some kind of crusader for consumers' rights around music and DRM.
Interesting how MS plays this as "opening up" things for the consumer. We'll see. I wonder how much progress MS has really made unencumbering consumers' music.
I don't hold my breath waiting for MS to do anything for me. I cringe they are jumping on this as a potential PR windfall for them and their Zune. Fortunately, the Zune was pretty much issued DOA, and this doesn't make a whit of difference.
What about "squirting" device-to-device? I didn't see anything about this in the article, but then again I didn't read it very carefully (this is /., after all...) I can only assume that because the Zune DRM-izes just about every song on your device when sharing, even those that you recorded yourself, EMI songs will probably still suffer from the 3-days/3-plays restriction...though I suppose MS could just argue that lifting the restriction would just encourage piracy.
Still, I don't think it's fair to call this DRM-free until all the digital rights management restrictions have been lifted.
I left my wallet in El Sigundo!
If I'm not mistaken, Bill Gates has paraded around in recent times saying that "customers want [DRM]"? It's ok to say you're wrong, Bill.
Of course they're aware that that's what consumers want. I think it's also pretty obvious that they don't like it, though, because it goes against their traditional strategy of vendor lockin.
'We've been saying for a while that we are aware that consumers want to have unprotected content.'
Since when? As far as I know, what they are trying is to provide the ultimate protection to content, from the file format to the media player software to the output hardware.
...are done rejoicing, can we appropriately tag this article as irrelevant and slownewsday?
Hi, i'd like to welcome you all to our monthly bussiness strategy meeting. The agenda of this months meeting is basically the same as last month:
1. What has Apple been doing this month?
2. What has Google been doing this month?
3. Are there other interesting things to copy?
If I can buy uncrippled, high quality media files, I will. ~256K VBR mp3 is about the lowest I'll consider. Yes, I can hear the difference, consistently. Apple's 256K AAC should meet this spec, though I haven't listened to much AAC.
Now, it's time to optimize the price. I'm aware that the actual costs of distribution over the net is very low, and I don't care about marketing costs, because virtually nothing I listen to is marketed at all. I don't like being ripped off. $1/song is still a ripoff, but for uncrippled content I'll probably buy a few albums I've been wanting, just to encourage them.
But. At $.50/song and $5.00/album, I'd buy 100 albums today. I've got a five year backlog to catch up on. Probably be good for another 10/month, too.
Come on, music labels. Talk to your artists, see who's willing to experiment with the prices. Healthy industries with real competition experiment with prices to find the most profitable price points. You're pricing like a monopoly, but you're forgetting that we do have alternatives: Free legal music, free illegal music, boycott, video, games, books, etc. I suspect you'd make a lot more money if you weren't so greedy, scared, contemptuous and contemptible. Why not find out?
I think that this is just more evidence that Apple's success with iTunes with respect to market share really put the record companies over a barrel. They've wanted to raise the price of tracks from 99 cents for a long time now, but apparently didn't have the leverage over Apple to make them do it. Without higher per track prices on iTunes, there was no way they could get it at any competitors, who were already at a huge disadvantage anyway.
So when Jobs started talking about removing DRM, probably not just a coincidence, it set the stage for EMI to offer DRM free tracks, but at a higher price per track. It looks as if stripping DRM was the price of raising the price per track. Perhaps the record companies are realizing that removing DRM is the only way in the near term of loosening Apple's grip on the digital music market. Of course it is interesting to note that the DRM-less tracks from iTunes will be in AAC format which, while other players can support it, will tend to keep most people in the iPod fold since converting to other formats like MP3 is a hassle most consumers would prefer not to be bothered with. So I would look for growth in the number of AAC supporting players.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
While i do object to microsoft's use of a proprietary format even for DRM free music... I don't object to Apple's, since AAC is a standard format, the only non standard component Apple used was the DRM, without that AAC is simply a newer and improved version of MP3.
If your player doesnt support it, there's nothing to stop you converting the file, although you will suffer a slight drop in quality due to transcoding and MP3 being an inferior format. Alternatively, you can wait for more players to support AAC, or buy an ipod which already does.
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Every time someone does something cool, Microsoft always has to chime in. It's like the annoying little brother who is always following you around; whenever you say anything, he always says "Me too!" and then goes on to explain how what he did is even better. For anyone who didn't have a younger sibling growing up, it's hard to overstate the annoyance factor.
Netscape revolutionizes the Web -- MS creates free Internet Explorer. OSX introduces Expose, the Dock, and Widgets -- four years later Vista "innovates" with duplicate features. Apple rakes in millions with the iPod -- Microsoft creates poo-colored, squirting Zune. Google goes IPO -- MS announces "all-new, improved, better-than-ever" MSN search. Apple announces DRM-free music -- you guessed it: Me too! Me too! Me too!
I don't hate Microsoft (though sometimes it seems like they work awfully hard to make people hate them) but I'm not buying their "We want to eliminate DRM too" PR either. Microsoft's media file format, software, hardware player, and store are all strong arguments that that's a load of monkey excrement.
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Like all Microsoft products, it will blow chunks until 3.0 so keep waiting.
... but it was $69, has a gig of flash, equalizer, supports MTP and MSC protocols, supports drag and drop from Windows (doesn't need a proprietary application, which was important to me), has an FM radio and a nice GUI, works as a flash drive and a voice recorder, and so far has played everything I've thrown at it. The thing runs for over twenty hours on a single AAA and I haven't managed to scratch it yet.
I agree, although I would be more inclined to say that, like the vast majority of Microsoft products, it will always blow chunks. Worse, because Microsoft is kow-towing to the media companies, it will probably always be more restricted than competitive products.
It has nothing significant to offer over iPods, let alone 90% of the more recent non-Apple players.
Dead on. As a "recent non-Apple player" owner, I have a SanDisk Sansa. Is it as polished as a Nano, say? No, not even close
So somebody tell me again why I need a Zune? Or an iPod? I suppose if I were interested in portable video I'd feel differently, but as it happens I'm not. I just want to tuck the thing in a pocket and listen to my music.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If I'm not mistaken
But you are (well, at least the real picture is a bit more muddled)
I can't help but wonder when the first RIAA lawsuit is brought forth against Apple or MS for "Enabling Filesharing" by "Failing to protect copyrighted content". And then going after the HDD manufacturers for making access to the files so easy.
I'm having a hard time believing it, but apparently it's true....
Yes, I guess they are still selling Zunes.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Give us lossless FLAK or WAVs and I'm sold. Enough of this lossy compression crap.
That's completely untrue.
Word blew chunks until 6.0
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Apple was the first company that ever offered DRM-free downloads, right?
Some facts to accompany your quip:
Coldplay's album "X&Y" is an EMI release.
Full album from iTunes Store = $11.99
Full album from Amazon = $11.97 + S&H
Full album from Best Buy = $13.99 in store
Full album from Caiman via Amazon Used & New = $11.93 with shipping
Sure iTunes isn't the absolute cheapest way to get it, but the tradeoff of price/convenience seems reasonable to me. Get it within minutes from iTunes, or pay $2.00 more and pick it up at Best Buy, or save $0.06 and get it in a few days from Caiman. I never thought the cost of the physical media was ever a big factor in the price of music.
AlpineR
No, and if they were $100/album, I wouldn't buy 5 albums and one more every two months. I think that the field of economics has a term for this phenomenon. Maybe you could look that up. Or you could read my original post. This time see if you can't manage to glance at every sentence.
Because apple/google(or $random_company) have never been guilty of copying something other companies are doing. Shouldnt that be the secondary focus of EVERY company? What is the competition doing and how can we do it better?
iTunes will indeed convert unprotected .wma files to your choice of AAC or MP3, using the quality levels you set for CD ripping. There's also a number of conversion utilities around that will do the job as well.
I'll be shocked if Microsoft abandons their PlaysForShit scheme altogether. If that happens it might have a cascade effect and cause all but the monthly fee setups (such as Napster and Rhapsody) to follow suit -- after all, who wants to see their sales go completely to shit because nobody wants to buy DRM crippled tracks?
It could also be good for eMusic. It might make more labels willing to license their catalogs through them. I wouldn't be surprised to see eMusic add a new level, if that's the case, where specific albums command a higher price point, while the majority of back catalog travels under their current (raised) pricing.
I think you're missing something. Not everyone can really hear the difference. It may be obvious to you, but not to everyone else. Just be happy you have good hearing. Or feel cursed because only you and a few other % of the population qualify as "audiophiles" that would notice.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
This might get modded "Redundant," but I've seen so many arguments below about who copied whose idea, who's pretending to innovate, who is good, and who is evil, that I thought it would be helpful to point out:
EMI approached Apple.
They also said they would be fine with other stores doing it. Chances are pretty high that they also approached Microsoft, probably simultaneously, and that the details just took longer to hammer out and MS didn't want Apple to take all of the credit. Note the "may be close to signing a deal" language -- it takes a long time for big companies to get a deal signed.
-snarkbot
p.s. It is possible MS saw Apple doing it before they considered it, but that's a pretty damned quick turnaround time for a deal like this.