Full of sound and furry
Speculation says EMI to sell un-DRMed music on iTunes.
Sincerely,
Steve Jobs
ADDED: Michael Gartenberg writes:
It is a good step forward for consumers but more importantly, it showed Apple at the forefront of acting as “champion” for consumer interests. After all, it wasn’t Rob Glaser or Bill Gates up there with EMI.
Indeed. Which is why Doctorow owes Jobs and Apple an apology. Haven’t seen it yet.
Beatles on iTunes? Tomorrow?
Beatles and iTunes talk growing
I need somebody
EMI is to hold a media event on Monday with Apple boss Steve Jobs as special guest, prompting speculation that Beatles songs will finally go online.
Help!
Not just anybody
There will also be a “special live performance” at the London event by an unnamed artist or band.
Help!
You know I need someone
Last week at a mobile industry conference, EMI chief executive Eric Nicoli praised Apple for the simplicity of the iPod and iTunes.
He told the industry that it should learn from Apple.
Heeeeeeeelp!
(Tip o’ the antlers to Daring Fireball. To Mr. Gruber’s questions the Macalope would add, will the performance be downloadable from iTunes?)
Some response to Cory Doctorow’s piece in Salon.
Cory Doctorow takes his cardboard sign that says “DRM-ER, REPENT!” to Salon today to harangue you mindless sheeple who continue to buy iPods.
Tsk. You idiots.
Doctorow doesn’t believe Steve Jobs when he says he’d drop DRM in a hearbeat if the recording companies would let him, saying Apple is enjoying the benefits of locking customers into iTunes. If Jobs is serious, he asks, why won’t Apple sell songs from artists who own their own music and want it to be sold DRM-free? Why are some podcasts DRMed and some DRM-free? Why has Apple always sold Pixar movies with DRM? Why was Apple’s first pitch to the music companies to sell DRM-free music?
Whoops, he didn’t say that last one.
To be sure, though, Jobs is only talking about music. No one is under any illusions that the movie business is going to budge one inch. The Macalope will stipulate that there is a bizarre inconsistency in the treatment of the two media. One’s DRM is under attack, the other’s is not.
Mr. Gruber has opined here on whether or not Apple would offer both DRMed and DRM-free music and the Macalope agrees with his analysis – it’s going to take some critical mass to get Apple to do it (not just a smattering of indy bands), but if one of the companies says “OK”, Apple better come through.
As for podcasts being offered both ways, it is an inconsistency, but consumers of podcasts are almost certainly more aware of what the heck DRM is in the first place.
Doctorow does make some good points but, as usual for him with this subject, he’s so wound up about it that he keeps heading off into la-la-koo-koo crazy-bananas land to make sure you know how bad DRM is.
Apple may have created a successful “Switch” campaign by reverse-engineering Microsoft products like PowerPoint to make Keynote, an Apple program that lets you run old PowerPoint decks on your Mac, but Microsoft can’t create a “Switch to the Zune” campaign that offers you the ability to play your iTunes Store songs on a Zune, Microsoft’s latest abortive iPod-killer.
What? Apple’s “Switch” campaign is based on getting PowerPoint files to open in Keynote? Since when? Apple’s own “Get A Mac” ads actually reference the Mac version of Microsoft Office, not iWork.
The Macalope knows Doctorow is trying to compare Microsoft’s lock on office applications to Apple’s lock on digital music, but it’s a rather tortured comparison. Even MP3s are not editable in the way a PowerPoint presentation is.
Not only won’t your iTunes Store music play on those devices, it’s illegal to try to get it to play on those devices.
Doctorow doesn’t say it explicitely, but he seems to be implying that even burning an audio CD of your iTunes Store purchases and re-ripping them as MP3s is illegal under the DCMA. The Macalope has never heard that before and is inclined to think that’s not true, but he wouldn’t be completely surprised to find out it is. You would have to re-enter all the metadata and for a large number of tracks that’s going to be a huge pain in the ass.
Doctorow then plays his Apple street cred card again.
I’m a lifelong Apple fan boy — I have an actual Mac tattoo…
That’s cute. As long as we’re whipping it out and comparing sizes here, the Macalope feels compelled to point out that he has a head actually shaped like a Mac.
So… you know…
Beeeotch…
If you rip your own CDs and load them onto your iPod, you’ll notice something curious.
The iPod is a roach motel: Songs check in, but they don’t check out. Once you put music on your iPod, you can’t get it off again with Apple’s software. No recovering your music collection off your iPod if your hard drive crashes.
So now the complaint is that the iPod isn’t an archival device? Well, it’s probably good you’ve got the CDs, then.
The Macalope thinks the real concern would be your iTunes-purchased music and those files can be copied off your iPod and onto another machine. Frankly, the Macalope doesn’t understand why Apple restricts this feature to iTunes-purchased songs. Probably at the behest of the recording industry which assumes any MP3s you have on your iPod must have been stolen in the first place.
What’s more, Apple prevents copying indiscriminately. You can’t copy any music off your iPod.
Not technically true as you can sync your purchases to another authorized machine. But, yes, you can’t copy them off individually.
Apple even applies the no-copying measure to audio released under a Creative Commons license (for example, my own podcasts), which prohibits adding DRM. The Creative Commons situation is inexcusable; because Creative Commons licenses are machine-readable, iTunes could automatically find the C.C.-licensed works and make them available for copying back to your computer.
Apple has “locked” the iPod so you can’t copy any non-DRMed content synced with iTunes off of it, but the files themselves have not been DRMed. You can copy them from machine to machine a variety of other ways, including using the iPod as a hard drive. It’s a rather stupid encumberance, but it’s not exactly keeping people from copying Creative Commons works. It’s really just saying you can’t use iTunes to do it and if you want to play it and copy it, you have to put it on there twice.
Stupid, yes. Evil? Only if you’re incredibly pedantic about DRM.
Videos you buy from the iTunes Store can only be watched on Apple’s products. So every movie you buy from Apple is a tax down the line of switching from Apple to a competing product.
The Macalope’s got to go with him here. This is a piss-poor situation engendered by the recording industry’s ability years ago to control how DVDs and DVD players were designed. The least the industry and Apple could do is allow customers to burn them to a fixed number of DVDs.
Conceptually, spyware and DRM have the same goals: to do something to your computer that you don’t want to happen.
Oh, please. It’s crap like this that makes Doctorow so unbearable on this issue. Does the Macalope need to point out the difference between consensual sex — albeit with someone who you fear may end up being too clingy but, hey, they’re right there and they’re willing and you wouldn’t even have to get up off of the couch or possibly even move — and, well, getting raped?
At the end of the day, DRM is the biggest impediment to a legitimate music market. Apple doesn’t sell music because of DRM — it sells music in spite of DRM.
Indeed.
Doctorow’s strident war against DRM certainly has a goal the Macalope agrees with. But while the horny one is not naive about the motivations behind Jobs’ statement, he also doesn’t think Doctorow helps his own case by stretching the truth to try to scare the kiddies about Apple’s DRM.
Link to a less than well thought out post on the Apple Blog.
Maybe there’s another explanation for it.
Like…
Dope-fueled paranoia?
The Macalope’s just thinking out loud.
Fortune’s Deirdre Terry baffles the Macalope.
Fortune’s Deirdre Terry asks some questions about Jobs’ DRM statement that no one’s thought of:
So yes, it would be more convenient for everyone if all digital files could be played by any player or any other digital device. But where’s the customer clamor?
…
Could Jobs’ eloquent plea on behalf of consumers all be a gambit to force Apple’s content suppliers to renegotiate their deals and make it possible to download music and video directly onto the iPhone?
Unfortunately for Terry, the reason no one’s thought of them is probably because they’re so blindingly ignorant.
While customers aren’t exactly in revolt over FairPlay (Doctorow’s not a customer anymore), there is ample outcry for DRM-free music and plenty of evidence that DRM is what’s holding back the online music business.
But it’s her main point that’s so eye-poppingly bizarre. There’s absolutely nothing the Macalope knows of from a licensing perspective that would stop Apple from allowing someone to directly buy and download FairPlay-protected music from iTunes on an iPhone. He certainly wouldn’t want to try it using Cingular’s crappy EDGE data transfer speeds and wouldn’t want to try syncing on a regular basis on anything short of 802.11n [Edited for clarity as the Macalope was thinking “syncing” by not typing it. Damn these hooves!]. That’s probably why the iPhone — right now — seems to require USB docking to iTunes to transfer music.
It’s a rather baffling why Terry seems to think that Apple’s deal with the recording companies prevents FairPlay-protected songs from being transmitted over 802.11. That’s obviously not true as you can share your library over a network and stream it to an Airport base station.
Does Fortune pay for analysis like this? And how much?
Why can’t Apple set some of your music free right now?
Cory Doctorow says, OK, you want to offer DRM-free music? Do it. There are numerous artists that would love to sell their music DRM-free on iTunes.
But Apple has been saying for years that DRM on iTunes is all or nothing (see the third comment, and a tip o’ the old antlers to Hack the Planet).
That’s clearly a business decision — there’s no technical reason Apple couldn’t offer both DRM-ed and DRM-free songs. But it could easily be contractual. Apple’s agreement with the big four may say they can’t offer DRM-free music as the recording industry executives might fear that the great communist scourge of uncontrolled music files would eat their lunch and make love to their women better than they can.
Jobs has many reasons for challenging the labels — mostly due to Apple’s legal issues in Europe — but that doesn’t make his statement any less significant and Doctorow’s persnickety response doesn’t give it enough credit.
Right now it really does seem that DRM-free music is coming to a Mac (and a PC) near your some time in the not too distant future. Customers want it, analysts want it, and now technology companies want it.
Jobs opines on DRM.
Steve Jobs provides his Thoughts on Music (tip o’ the antlers to BoingBoing) and specifically DRM.
Here are some key sections:
Apple was able to negotiate landmark usage rights at the time, which include allowing users to play their DRM protected music on up to 5 computers and on an unlimited number of iPods.
…
However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.
…
So far we have met our commitments to the music companies to protect their music, and we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music.
…
Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies.
…
Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.
…
Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.
…
Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free.
It’s an interesting read. Jobs also says that as only 3% of music on an iPod is FairPlay-protected, Apple doesn’t see it as a scheme to lock users in.
The part of Steve Jobs will be played by Charlton Heston. The part of Mitch Bainwol will be played by Yul Brynner (antler tip to Your Daily Dosage for the correction).
Rob Enderle, naturally.
In a snippet entitled “Apple’s Collapse” (scroll to the bottom), Rob Enderle shows that not only does he have trouble with comprehension — as we’ve long known — he’s also just a very slow reader. While he apparently hasn’t caught up with Thursday’s RSS feeds, he’s not letting that get in the way of stepping into the wrong side of a controversy.
Forrester has to be having a fun week hearing from the Apple fans after it announced that iTunes music sales had “collapsed,” dropping 65 percent.
Enderle then discusses the implications of this without pointing out the sample size or even noticing that it has been directly refuted by comScore and Piper Jaffray.
This would be outrageous if his word counted for anything but, well, it doesn’t.
The Enderle Group: providing last week’s analysis today.
Catching up on yesterday’s report that iTunes sales are surging.
The Macalope was indisposed yesterday so he was unable to post about Gene Munster and comScore’s retort saying that iTunes sales are doing just fine, thank you very much.
Soooooo…
…who’s got egg on their face?
Well, Andrew Orlowski, for starters, as Forrester called the Register out in particular, referring to it as “A UK outfit called The Register”. That’s shorthand for “I’ve never heard of these clowns before and now they’re wearing our research like a party hat and dancing around like Roberto Benigni.”
If you want more amusement, read Orlowski’s response to Forrester’s clarification which should be titled “No takebacks!”
Orlowski’s defense of over-hyping the Forrester numbers? He put “collapse” in quotes.
He then concludes:
It’s a pity today that beseiged by parties who have vested interests, and their own agendas, Forrester wants to downplay the implications of its valuable work – and instead it finds itself doing crisis management on behalf of Apple.
Yes. It’s also a pity that beseiged by the people who actually did the research, someone who jumped to conclusions about it continues to pimp his pet theory.
Orlowski even unironically chides Wall Street “gamblers” for misreading his story. He has yet to respond to Munster and comScore’s report of booming iTunes sales.
Looking for more egg, Nick Carr’s probably kind of wishing he hadn’t jumped on this one so quickly.
The Macalope found his response to a commenter who provided a link to Forrester’s addendum rather amusing.
Thomas,
Forrester has not retracted its study, so I assume it stands by its numbers and analysis, which I believe I reported accurately in this post.
I have to say that I’m really not sure how to interpret the Forrester statement you linked to.
Nick
Well, Nick, allow the Macalope to rephrase what Forrester is saying more succintly:
Stop trying to hump our numbers like a horny lap dog.
None of this is to say Forrester’s analysis isn’t problematic. You can read the blog summary and see if you don’t find what the Macalope did — that all the really good analysis is in the comments.
Looking back over the numbers, the Macalope notes that they represent a small sample size and don’t reflect all the ways you could buy stuff from iTunes. It also focuses on the supposed decline in sales over the first six months of 2006.
You know, this sounds awfully familiar. What was that other thing that had falling sales from January to June and some silly pundits were rushing to declare its demise?
Oh, that’s right. It was the iPod.
What a coincidence.
(That’s sarcasm in case you can’t tell.)
Now, the Macalope is giving Orlowski and Carr a hard time, but it’s important to note that ultimately their point that online sales of DRM-ed music is not a panacea for the music industry may be correct. It’s just that now it seems that their highly touted example is actually an exception.
Also, remember…
…who cares about iTunes sales?
ADDENDUM 12/19: Here’s a good post providing some data to back up the Macalope’s oblique assertion about the connection between iPod sales and iTunes downloads.
Quick link to Forrester’s response to some silly interpretations of their research.
iTunes sales not falling. The Register and Bloomberg took our data out of context. It’s not our fault, it’s Apple’s.
Yer all hopped up on goofballs. iTunes sales surged in the first half of 2006.
And can the Macalope just ask, who are the imbeciles who sold Apple based on the misinterpretation of Forrester’s report? Looking a little foolish now.
Disclaimer: the Macalope holds an insignificant number of Apple shares.