p2pnet - rss feed: Steve Jobs’ DRM master-stroke
p2pnet.net news:- Steve Jobs has done it again, and even his most virulent critics (p2pnet high among them) will have to admit he’s pulled off a master-stroke in opening premium corporate product to the masses.
Through iTunes, of course.
Apple has struck a deal with EMI and where EMI goes, its cartel brethren, Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), must inevitably follow to one degree or another.
It’s a quantum leap forward and it’s guaranteed to be reflected in what’s happening with corporate music downloads, perhaps even serving as the start of a real, as opposed to hyped, corporate online music scene.
It’ll allow the major labels to use Apple and, ultimately, other corporate back and supported services, to an extent compete with the independent sites and services by supplying songs unshackled by DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control.
Steve Jobs has even figured out a way to make a profit out of DRM’s disappearance.
Here’s Apple’s announcement:
Apple today announced that EMI Music’s entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29 per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions when available.
‘We are going to give iTunes customers a choice—the current versions of our songs for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of interoperability for just 30 cents more,’ said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. ‘We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year.’
‘EMI and iTunes are once again teaming up to move the digital music industry forward by giving music fans higher quality audio that is virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings, with no usage restrictions on the music they love from their favorite artists,’ said Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group.
With DRM-free music from the EMI catalog, iTunes customers will have the ability to download tracks from their favorite EMI artists without any usage restrictions that limit the types of devices or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on. DRM-free songs purchased from the iTunes Store will be encoded in AAC at 256 kbps, twice the current bit rate of 128 kbps, and will play on all iPods, Mac or Windows computers, Apple TVs and soon iPhones, as well as many other digital music players.
iTunes will also offer customers a simple, one-click option to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free format for 30 cents a song. All EMI music videos will also be available in DRM-free format with no change in price.
Now all the labels have to do to bring the wheel around almost full circle is to stop trying to sue people into buying their downloads, and significantly reduce their wholesale prices to allow online retailers, including Apple, to charge reasonable prices.
Because while iTunes aficionados are willing to pay a dollar a go, they’re the tiny tip of a huge iceberg of music lovers who’ll never pay that much for a download, even if it is of a higher quality than previously, and not while a while vast new supply of original, non-formulaic music is only just starting to appear online, if not offline.
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UPDATE: 10:35 am PST
Meanwhile, “This is the kind of bullshit pussyfooting that got the labels into hot water to begin with,” says Bob Lefsetz, continuing:
If anything, tracks should cost LESS!
Oh, if you buy the complete album, you get the old price. But who the fuck wants a complete album of dreck by lame acts like the Good, the Bad & the Ugly that played this press conference?
You want to sell more tracks at the iTunes Store? Make them a quarter. Or fifteen cents or a dime. Then watch sales go through the roof.
Do you see cell phone prices rising? Do you see T-Mobile canceling family plans or making you include every last living relative to get them?
You don’t make half steps. You go all the way, or not at all. If you’re not willing to bet the company, then you’re not willing to win.
He goes on this movie started unspooling in 1999 and ——–
———– CD sales have dropped since the turn of the decade. Now they’re in free-fall and you RAISE THE PRICE??? Shit, if you’re gonna buy the whole album you might as well purchase the CD, you can rip it at ANY BIT RATE YOU WANT, and there’s NO copy protection!
Unbelievable bullshit. EMI deserves to go out of business. As for its lame competitors, they’re so paralyzed that they won’t even make a move. Edgar Bronfman, Jr. wants higher prices WITH the DRM. And Sony BMG is just trying to stay afloat, with an internal war aflame, with the Sony half fighting for its life. And Universal is so arrogant, it somehow believes since it’s got the largest market share with the biggest selling acts, it’s somehow immune. RIDICULOUS!
And —————
————– wake up to the future and realize more people want more music at a cheaper price and sell it to them this way. In quantity. Probably as licensed P2P. But not track by track, even album by album, this is even LESS than the labels had before.
Record labels? Your business model has changed forever. Why don’t you wake up and acknowledge this. If you don’t give the people what they want at what THEY feel is a fair price, they’re just gonna continue to steal. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
Like the iTunes Store is working. When Steve Jobs HIMSELF says that less than three percent of songs on iPods are purchased at the iTunes Store. I would have at least said this was a step in the right direction if the price had stayed the same. But really, this is no different from these lame-ass labels adding a track or two to a CD a fan already bought to entice some casual buyer to purchase it months down the line. The labels have fucked their customers for years, and they’re now paying the price. Half-measures like this will not solve their problems.
Stay tuned.
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April 2nd, 2007 at 11:58 am
Now they just need to do the same with video content.
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:21 pm
hmm … no comment yet … still waiting
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Before today:
Cost of the song + Cost of DRM + Profit = $0.99
After today:
Cost of the song + Profit = $1.99
…anyone else smell another price fixing scandal?
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
NO! They need to KEEP THE PRICE THE SAME or lower! This BS about giving the consumer a song with no DRM at a profit…when they should not have had it on there to begin with….. is simply stupid!
But hey, at least it is a start…..but they still have a long way to go before they even BEGIN to compete with free p2p services!
April 2nd, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Most people do not know how to “rip” a cd onto their computer. iTunes is a convenience service targed to people who have jobs or at least iTunes gift cards.
I pay more for convenience often, I bit more for gas here rather then driving miles to the cheapest gas station, I pay others to change my car oil for me when I could do that myself (and get all dirty), and I am predisposed to paying for a song rather then going through the trouble of pirating it.
When I was in high school I pirated everything but now as an adult my time is worth too much to mess around for hours finding what I want.
April 2nd, 2007 at 6:10 pm
but only that… a step. theres miles to go yet.
When they sell drm free tracks for less than £0.50 they might have me interested, provided the majority of that finds its way to the artist.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
And there we have it ladies and gentlemen, the way that the pay music sites can compete with free p2p.
Searching for a track or album or artist on p2p can take ages and comes with the frustration of either fake releases or crappy versions of releases. If there was a pay service that you could search all music ever released by album, by genre, by artist, by producer, by release date etc etc etc etc, the millions of time poor would flock to it. People are willing to pay for convenience, there are entire businesses built around this concept.
The only thing standing in the way of this is of course the muzakbigbiz. Put their entire back catalogues online and use a service that charges nonimal amounts to cover the bandwidth, hosting costs etc and a reasonable profit? (Note i said REASONABLE!!!) LOL as if! That’s way too logical for the muzakbigbiz.