Kudos To Steve Jobs

I've said a few unsavory things on this blog about Apple and it's lock on digital music. I won't buy music on iTunes. I buy CDs from Amazon and mp3s from eMusic. I thought Jobs was using DRM to build a monopoly on digital music. Either I was wrong or Jobs has changed his mind. Doesn't matter.

Read his "Thoughts on Music". He nails the issue and I sure hope the music industry wakes up and smells the coffee.

Comments

[Ethan Bauley]

Well there you have it. Did anyone in their right mind think it was "evil" Apple that was requiring all this DRM?

It will be interesting to see if this opens the floodgates.

Just another step towards paying $25/mo for more mp3's than you could ever listen to.

The only thing that matters is filters, peeps. Courtney Love called all this in her Salon article back in 2000 or 2001.

[Sean Garrett]

Then why not allow indie labels to opt-out of FairPlay now?

[Ethan Bauley]

Allowing indies to "opt-out" is a little besides the point [since the DRM doesn't really work anyways].

I've published plenty of music on iTunes and although I think DRM is ridiculous, being able to sell unprotected music through iTunes doesn't really add any value.

Anyone can sell standard mp3's direct from a label/band website at a better margin, so those that a) are tech-savvy enough to shop at iTunes and b) care can take that route.

Also, anyone that likes the music enough to buy it will surf to the band/label's website at one point or another. It is a bit of added friction but not that big of a deal.

The bigger issue here is that getting the RIAA peeps to start selling non copy-protected mp3's will open the floodgates for business models that can make money from SHARING music, since that is the most valuable benefit of non-DRM'd music.

For consumers, this means: filters. For publishers, this means: metadata

[Michael]

It should have been pretty plain all along that DRM was a RIAA requirement, not an Apple digital-media-monopoly device.

If it had been the latter, Apple wouldn't have made it so easy to burn (DRM-less) CDs (and then re-rip the tracks to MP3, if so desired).

Maybe it comes from my experience in both the music industry and the computer industry, so I may have a unique understanding, but it always made me sort of angry that people somehow blamed Apple for DRM.

[Altay]

Um, call me a pessimist, but all this hype is pretty difficult to swallow, Fred!

It's not like we were wrong all along, and it turns out Apple doesn't benefit from DRM. Steve Jobs can say 3%, but it still equals billions of songs that only play on iPods. And his reasons for not licensing FairPlay are straight-up bullshit.

Apple rode the DRM-ignorance wave as long as they could. Now the anti-DRM wave is picking up speed, and they have to shift their strategy accordingly.

And hey, everyone knows those major labels are evil. So Apple's got a pretty convenient scapegoat. (We've all forgotten that the majors started murmuring "no more DRM" weeks ago... they probably should've trumpeted "consumer rights!" to the WSJ while they had the chance.)

Don't get me wrong -- this certainly portends a huge shift away from DRM in the very near future, which is incredibly exciting for a number of reasons. But I don't think it's grounds for saying "you know, maybe that Stevie's a pretty great guy after all." There is cool calculation behind every word that comes out of Apple Inc. -- Steve Jobs is a master of manipulation.

And it's working!! This blog post and comments are proof positive.

[Gerald Buckley]

Wouldn't it be cool if Apple Inc and Apple Corp throw down/out the DRM gauntlet when the Beatles collection comes to iTunes!? That would so totally p.o. the other labels and set the tone for things to come (as painted in Mr. J's wishful eulogy of DRM).

[Jay]

Your error is that you didn't understand Apple's business model... which is selling iPods, and then Macs... not selling music. Its never been about selling music.

Its ok to misread the business model... but what's really pathetic is the people who think Apple was exploiting DRM and trying to build an evil DRM monopoly because Apple is evil.

Apple moved into music with "Rip Mix Burn" commercials-- exhorting its users to rip their CDs. And then released a great program in iTunes to do it-- a year before the iTunes store (or was it more?) and before the ipod too.

Yet all the idiot haters out there still say Apple is evil for forcing people to use DRM. Pure ignorance. After apple forced the record companies to keep prices low, and sell individual tracks and allow them on 5 devices, and Burn CDs from them, and allow them on unlimited ipods, etc. etc.

The only reasonable conclusion is that the apple haters are simply people of low integrity-- liars and scum... who are even now claiming that DRM was apple's idea.

This was viable back in the days when MS's fud held sway on everyone (including every VC I talked to in the 1990s who passed on deals after hearing that Microsoft *might* get into the space-- every single time, MS never released a product).... but now days, you gotta be some kinda fool to think Apple is the evil entity in this business.

"Master of manipulation" yeah, starting to sound like Bill Gates in recent interviews where he can't come up with anything new about Vista, so he makes up lies about the Mac ("Security violation every day".)

The tide has turned.

[Shelley]

This isn't really about the evil empire. But it is about honesty and Steve is not being very honest or authentic when trying so hard to convince us that he was the unwary victim of the big labels. He was brilliant and has pulled the wool over the eyes of many (maybe most) journalists, bloggers, consumers and artists. Yes, the tide has turned. But it turned way before Steve Jobs tried to catch this wave. Whats it gonna take for people (like those of us who read this and other intelligent blogs) to wake up and challenge not only the beast (Microsoft) but also the beauty (Apple)? And anyone else who tries to convince us it is "for our own good" (like MySpace who goes on about why Rupert should make money from free streaming but the artist shouldn't). DRM-free is good because freedom is good for consmers. Free music is not what is in question. Pirates will always be pirates. Many pirates would however, be converted to pilots and would pay if they could drive their own entertainment experience. Steve wasn't looking for pilots, he was looking for drones, those he could convince to just bend over.

[toddsavage]

Steve Jobs is the master of spin, and this is a brilliant PR move. He is now taken the pressure off of Apple and applied it to the Music industry. It's a win-win for him either way.

This is one of the best PR moves I have seen in a long time - I would just be cautious about interpreting this as "Steve Jobs for the Consumer" kind of play. Trust me, there is something in it for Apple, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[Ted]

I stated in previous comments on this site that there was no way that the RIAA would allow non-DRMmusic for current releases. However, this belies the model of eMusic. Now, to be sure, eMusic certainly does not have the catalog that a iTMS has, they are not as slow on indie releases as people think.

The DRM-model was a symbiotic relationship that facilitated the growth of Apple over the last 5-6 years. While it is true that the original iPod came well before the iTMS, Apple, as we all know, initially banks on cutting edge technology and then figures a way to exploit it. The original iPod was pioneering in terms of ease of use and GUI. However, when it started to boom, Jobs capitalized on the opportunity to create an empire, which he did amazingly. Now that people look to Apple with baited breath for every single new product, their status is presumed secure. Thus, the timing was right now to paint the RIAA as the pariah (which they are). Gives Apple even more good-will, whether justified or not.

To the responder who indicated that this is a diversionary tactic to remove focus on the "options scandal"- 99% of all consumers could care less.

I am a Mac user and I admire the company and its products. However, I refuse to drink its Kool-Aid. Companies are motivated by the bottom line. Period. This has obviously been analyzed and figured into their business plan, whether misguided or not. A man a shrewd as Jobs would not have made such a strategic blunder. My hunch is that it was planned years ago and now they have something else up their sleeve.

Regardless, all of this makes me ponder the fate of music as we know it. While sites like Pandora and Last.Fm have created a huge market for indie music; is this actually transferring to the artists? Certainly not by album sales. As the recent Wired article pointed out, the whole industry needs to do a quick reprogramming. Touring is the name of the game. I have seen more concerts because of Last.Fm than I had in years (even in the heyday of Napster). To me the money spent on tickets is going to the people who matter most- the artists!

[David G]

Phew - finally apple wakes up to the fact that they've been horribly misunderstood in this space. Maybe we have the French to thank for that?

Fred, please keep up the fight but now aim your critique at the record labels where it belongs. Let's please also start to call out the artists who support DRM -- they're the people with the most leverage over the labels -- it's time people started boycotting Dave Matthews Band and any other artists that have campaigned for this ridiculous technology.

[matt graves]

Over here at Rhapsody, we've got two views on DRM, views that differ depending which segment of the online music market you're talking about -- subscriptions vs. paid downloads.

In the world of paid music downloads, we think selling DRM-wrapped files makes zero sense. It means that digital retailers like us are forced to offer a digital product that's inferior to its physical counterpart. And yes, the word is "forced" -- we can't offer the major labels' music for sale sans DRM.

That said, we're big believers in DRM when the technology is the catalyst for new business models and more importantly when it doesn't get in the way of the consumer experience. Without DRM, for example, there would be no Rhapsody. In that situation, DRM is a door-opener and not a door-closer.

I think it's important to make a distinction between the 2 segments. We've been advocating privately for some time for the labels to drop DRM on paid downloads. It's good to see other people (including Steve Jobs) come around to that point of view.