Jobs to Labels- Lose the DRM & We'll Talk Price

eldavojohn writes "Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been talking smack about DRM and has recently issued a verbal offer to major music lables stating that if they are willing to lose the DRM, he'd be willing to raise his 99 cent price for those iTunes songs. These tracks (such as the recent EMI deal) would also have better sound quality & cost about 30 cents more."

Comments

Are consumers that dumb?

[seanadams.com]

While on the one hand it is nice to see this pressure to get rid of DRM for "purchased" tracks, it is pretty disappointing to see that the move will also come with an increase in price. They gave us something we didn't want in the first place, and now they're using the taking away of it to justify a higher price? WTF?

This is just a continuation of the trend towards higher prices for music, in spite of plummeting costs for media and distribution. Wax cylinders -> Lps -> tapes -> Cds -> downloads - it just gets easier to move the data, but the price never goes down!

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[neoform]

two things:

A) He needs to entice them to move forward with technology since the various RIAA labels are clearly run by dinosaurs.

B) Want to point out when in the past century you could buy a single song (without DRM) for $1.29 (keeping inflation in mind)?

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[Kjella]

Jobs is pushing them to give away something they're not really competing on (DRM) to something they really are competing on (price). I'm sure he's seen that with DRMless songs, the iTunes store will take more sales from regular CDs. That's his game, now looking to see if the big labels will bite.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

"it just gets easier to move the data, but the price never goes down!"

Yeah, because the data is what costs the most. Sure.

I've worked in the industry off and on for most of my life in various capacities (of which, playing in a bar or recording your next door neighbors demo was not one of these roles). I know my rates have gone up, and I know my colleagues rates have gone up. And I know there are several more of us working on any specific project than every before.

Equipment prices have dropped precipitously, data requirements have dropped. Its the people that cost the money in this area...and by and far, most listeners want that overly slick pop sound that only comes from experience and having the right people. Personally, I could give or take it and just as happy listening to a three piece perform on a badly recorded bootleg. That isn't what most people are after, nor is it what the radio stations want to play (though it is argued that what the radio stations want to play is not what people want to hear...still, if they didn't, they wouldn't be listening would they).

Beyond all of this, prices are staying the same for ALBUMS. Buy a DRM free album at higher rates, it is still going to cost the same as it ever did. There has been a downward trend of buying albums towards single songs, and this is a HUGE factor in the reasons the recording industry isn't taking home what it use to. I know as a kid I bought 45s for like $1 each and personally that was my favorite means of pop drivel. This was a major reason these went away -- they could sell the same content as the whole. As an adult, I prefer music that benefits from a complete listening and rarely buy singles.

If you want to buy the albums, its $9.99. Singles $1.30 (with the option of upgrading to the full album for the difference in price at a later point...errr...within 6 months).

But back to the point, you are sooooo wrong for various reasons that it isn't even funny. I love when geeks try to distill work down to the ones and zeros as if this makes it all right...

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[oboeaaron]

This is just a continuation of the trend towards higher prices for music, in spite of plummeting costs for media and distribution. Wax cylinders -> Lps -> tapes -> Cds -> downloads - it just gets easier to move the data, but the price never goes down!

Wax cylinders were comparitively much more expensive than the modern equivalents. Two-minute Edison cylinders sold for $1 around 1900-1910, which was a good portion of a typical employee's weekly salary. Cylinders cannot be pressed like discs, so each one had to be inscribed by a pantograph from a master cylinder which wore out after only 20-100 copies had been made. Very labor intensive, and expensive.

I can't speak to more recent pricing schemes, but prices have certainly gone down since the cylinder days.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[AndersOSU]

Does no one listen to CDs in their car anymore?

The one and only reason I still buy CDs is to fill my 6-disc changer with new music. Yes I can, and have, burned CDs to listen to, but most of the time I prefer a coherent work, otherwise I'd be listening to my iPod, FM, or subscribing to satellite.

In fact, if I had a little more tin-foil lying around I might suggest that the main reason cars still don't come standard with 1/8'' line-in is to sell more CDs.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a single DRM for CDs that actually works? I mean, I accidentally bought two cds that were DRM infested: "Contraband" by Velvet Revolver and "Broken Valley" by Life of Agony. I actually didn't notice they were DRM infested until after I read about it online weeks later. By that time I already successfully ripped them to mp3's on my Linux computer and had burned copies for the car. Grip (I now use kAudioCreator) had no problems at all with either one.

I had a few problems with DVD drm, though. About a year ago I borrowed Hostel from a friend and tried to watch it on my dvd player. It wouldn't play. After looking online I found out there were problems due to it's "ARccOS" drm. DVD Fab Decryptor had no problems at all with ripping it which allowed me to watch it. Still, with this situation the drm prevented me from watching the damn movie without having to break the drm first. So, lets see. The only thing the DRM prevented me from doing was watching the movie. It had no effect on copying.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[iwoof]

While on the one hand it is nice to see this pressure to get rid of DRM for "purchased" tracks, it is pretty disappointing to see that the move will also come with an increase in price.

If they remove just the DRM yet keep the existing encoding in place, then it would become easy to break the decryption scheme on all the existing DRM'd tracks. One would have both the "cipher" and "plain text" for a song, and so the encryption scheme would be weakened.

Thus they need to change the encoding, and so they made it higher quality. In addition, Apple is offering to upgrade all existing purchases to the higher quality format for only the difference in price. If they didn't switch to higher quality encoding, there would be no ability to charge for "removing" the DRM--something many of us feel THEY should pay for.

So by using a higher quality encoding, Apple creates both perceived difference in value, as well as protects their existing cyphers

--Woof!

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[shark72]

"And yet CDs, which are DRM free, have the highest quality audio and will cost about the same, offer a physical medium, and packaging as opposed to what will be available online."

I guess the lesson that we can learn from the success of the iTunes store is that people will pay extra for convenience, even if it means that they'll get a little less.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[Kjella]

While I agree with you that most people won't hear a difference, audiophiles will believe they hear a difference.

There, fixed that for you. I've read double-blind studies all the way back to c't in 2000, which said that twelve audiophiles and one sound master at a record company couldn't tell CDs and 256kbps MP3s apart. english / german. Let me quote from the summary:

In plain language, this means that our musically trained test listeners could reliably distinguish the poorer quality MP3s at 128 kbps quite accurately from either of the other higher-quality samples. But when deciding between 256 kbps encoded MP3s and the original CD, no difference could be determined, on average, for all the pieces. The testers took the 256 kbps samples for the CD just as often as they took the original CD samples themselves.
(...)
This article will not end the ongoing debate of whether the use of MP3 compression is a reasonable or unreasonable procedure. Audiophile fans that concern themselves with brand names and are status conscious will never listen to MP3s, no matter how many tests may prove that the sound experience is equivalent in both cases. Skeptics (They are all sissies at ct; I would certainly have heard the difference) should get encoders and CD burners and then submit themselves perhaps even using the same pieces and under similar conditions to their own Pepsi-Test.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

[drinkypoo]

Having only one "good" song on an album is something normally only seen with crappy pop music.

In any given CD of sonatas, symphonies, et cetera, I will typically like one or two tracks.

Then again, that was popular music when it was released. Just like everything else (unless it's a period piece.)

This is all anecdotal and entirely subjective. For example I'm sure most people would tell you that all Queensryche's albums suck. It wouldn't make it true, it's only an opinion. And so is your belief about one good song on an album, because "good" is in the ear of the listener.

Defeats the point

[RockoTDF]

Thing is, if the price is raised above 99 cents, then you get into the $1+ range, at which point you might as well go out and buy the CD, defeating the point of iTunes if you want to buy entire albums/singles instead of just individual songs. Personally I'd rather pay 99 cents for a DRMed song and do the old burn/re-rip switcheroo and waste a 10 cent CD than pay extra for no DRM.

Re:Defeats the point

[larkost]

I think they are well aware of it... they have just gotten used to the idea that they can dictate demand through control of the advertising avenues (radio playtime, etc), and thus feel hurt when the game somehow eludes their control.

obvious

[User 956]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been talking smack about DRM

Of course he is. He doesn't want to be caught sideways when Amazon unveils their DRM-free music service (which should be coming out this spring/summer)

No DRM cool, higher price not so much.

[dcskier]

Can we still have the option of DRM w/ the lower price? I'm all for getting rid of the DRM on iTunes, but not for the expense of another $.30 a song. Plus the sound quality is fine for me right now, I'm not a audiophile and I'm sure those who are weren't using iTunes in the first place. This just kinda feels like when the cable company adds new features or channels and then feels free to raise your rates since they're making 'improvements' to your service that you didn't ask for.

I thank Jobs for a step in the right direction, but it still has strings attached. Why should I have to pay a premium to own my music, errrr sorry I meant the RIAA's music.

Attribution?

[Infonaut]

How do we know Jobs verbally stated that he'd drop the 99 cent pricing restriction? There's no attribution in the article to such a statement. Is this from an anonymous source? Was the writer there when the statement was made? The AP usually does better than this.

Two words

[geekoid]

Contractual obligations.

Now for some more words.
WHat is it with you people? SUre Apple fanboys are annoying, but to keep saying stuff like this in the face of what has been going on is just stupid.

Jobs told the Music industry that there is no way DRM can work.
In order to gte those contracts for the music, he ahd to agree to a bunch of stipulation.
Now he is moving tracks like crazy. Billions of tracks.

Now that the industry sees that people will pay for music, Jobs has a carrot to wave under their noses.
30 cents more a song. Looking at the history, that would be over 800,000,000 dollars that they would have earned.

Steve Jobs is playing the game very well. In the end, DRM will no longer be needed.
WIll it be because a bunch of people whined on /.? will it be because a few people didn't buy 'major label' music? no. It wil be because they can make more moebyt without it. It will be because of good business, and it will be because of the tireless efforts of the people cracking DRM.

So, to Steve Jobs, and to all the people who crack DRM: Thank you very much.

Jobs, where are Disney's DRM-free movies?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Jobs is the single largest shareholder in Disney, and he goes on and on about DRM-free music, but doesn't push for Disney to release its movies on unprotcted DVDs, HD-DVDs, and/or BRs, nor DRM-free online web releases. When asked about it, he hemmed and hawed, "Um, well, you see, video is different than audio...". Bull. Jobs, stop grandstanding about music and start releasing your own company's movies in unprotected fashion. THEN you'll have some credibility on this issue.

Re:Jobs, where are Disney's DRM-free movies?

[r3m0t]

Video is different from audio.

In audio, the studios are selling CDs unprotected by the planeload, but - what's that? You want a convenient format? OK, buy it at the same price of a CD, but get it unusable in a variety of confusing ways! Alternatively, you could commit to paying us a monthly fee for the rest of your life!

In video, the studios have never sold unprotected videos. There has always been quality loss when copying a VCR tape, and DVDs (HD-DVDs, Blu-Rays, UMDs) have always had copy protection. Therefore, it's quite reasonable that their new non-physical format also has copy protection.

I want DRM-free video just as much as you, but I don't think Jobs is being in any way hypocritical.

Still a cheaper option.

[jbrandv]

We have a good used music store. Used CDs are $1-$2. I purchase the CD, RIP it to my media server then return the CD for ~1/2 of what I payed. So for .50-$1 I get ALL the songs on the Cd plus I can use OGG, MP3, AAC, etc. Why would I want to pay more than that for one song? Unless it's a ring-tone of course.

A/V heading in opposite directions?

[HockeyPuck]

Has anybody noticed that for the general public, audio and video quality is heading in opposite directions? Head down to your local "big box store" and you'll see that they're pushing products that have superior VIDEO quality:

digital/satellite cable, HDTV, LCD/plasma screens with 1080i/p.

However, when it comes to audio, the sources for audio (mp3s for the majority) are worse quality now, then at any other point. Records, tapes, even plain old CDs have better quality than some down sampled mp3.

Are we getting complacent with our audio quality? Or is it just that the jump to HDTV from non-HDTV video is so great that it's an easy sell? Walk over to the AudioDVD/SACD section and you'll see almost nothing. Companies push for you to buy a $2000 stereo system, and then feed it with 128kbps mp3s...

Where are the EMI songs?

[corby]

I still can't find any of these alleged DRM-free songs on ITMS. I have searched numerous EMI artists, and only have the option to buy the 99 cent tracks.

Do these actually exist, or is this just a plan with an unspecified future implementation date?

Re:Nice, but...

[UnknowingFool]

Again we see the same arguments against iTunes (and all other online music stores) as we've always seen. Now that they are raising the quality and the price, they are no more valid than they were before.

)) Pay as much or more than you would for the CD

A full album is still $9.99 which is higher than some albums but generally this is still cheaper than you can get at a big box retailer (not including sales discounts).

)) Lossy compression (maybe better quality, but still not as good)

[sarcasm]Yes, because everyone can tell the difference between lossless and compressed music. And everyone cares. I've seen three year olds throw tantrums when they realized their favorite Barney song was in 128kbps MP3 instead of FLAC. Man, the bloodcurling screams of "I want FLAC!" are unnerving.[/sarcasm]

)) No album art

As of iTunes 7.0 you can import album art. There's nothing like have the physical art, but it's a start.

Why am I paying _more_ for this? Hmm. Buying/ripping CDs is starting to look like a good idea again.

You are not paying more for an album in most cases. What iTunes gives you is convenience. You don't have to drive down to the store. You don't have to wait for it to be shipped from Amazon. You don't have to spend time ripping it. Also, iTunes (and all other online music stores) are not for audiophiles. They are for regular people. If you want to buy the CD and rip it yourself in FLAC, no one is stopping you.

Music is a commodity and should be treated as such

[pjviitas]

Everyone on here is talking like music is a durable good of some kind while it's not. It's more of a commodity than anything and should be priced according to it's demand.

MP3's have given the record companies the perfect medium for doing what they have been trying to do for years...commodify music. They just haven't been smart enough to realize it yet.

As far as CD's are concerned...leave those to the audiophiles who will pay top dollar for sound quality.

Just my 2 cents.

Hedghog

Audio Quality

[Swift2001]

I freely concede that CDs are more pure in sound that 128-bit AAC. Than 256-bit AAC? Not so clear, at least to my 60-year-old, rock-concert-damaged hearing.

However, a CD is 600 MB. If you buy one of those, for 9.99, say, you take a few hours to download it. Millions downloading CD-quality from iTunes? The price has to go up to cover the bandwidth.

I'd say, if you want pure fidelity, by DVD-Audio. CD is a compromise by itself.

In the future, when we all have a minimum of 10 Mb/s broadband, and iTunes will be free to use some variation of BitTorrent for its downloading, the price and time involved can come down. Until then, we're dealing with compromise.

How will they market this?

[guildmasterx]

If, hypothetically, Jobs succeeds in this endeavor, how will they market this (seemingly unnecessary) price change to regular consumers?

Sure we here on Slashdot may recognize the importance of DRM free music and increased quality, but will everyone else?