Jobs to Labels- Lose the DRM & We'll Talk Price 459
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."
Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
No DRM + higher quality audio = possibly worth a 30% increase in price
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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But also, I don't remember reading/hearing that the higher quality will not be CD quality. It is, in fact, possible, they could have higher quality.
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to my knowledge, there are no real audio CDs with DRM.
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A CD starts with a certain bit rate and frequency sample rate (I think I'm using the right terms, but probably not in the case of the latter). As such, if you start with something much higher quality, and compress it lossey, same quality, then you in effect, and in certain regards, have better quality (and simultaneously worse quality as well!)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies [wikipedia.org]
Lower frequency music is going to have harmonics or whatever that go above that, but it means that even crappy old CD audio is sampling typical musical tones quite a lot more than 10 times
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most recording studios these days use, at the very least, 24bit audio at between 96-196+ khz. While I agree with you that most people won't hear a difference, audiophiles will hear a difference. My mother can't tell the difference between a hissy cassette tape and a CD, but that doesn't mean there isn't one.
The interesting point here is that online music sales could potentially supply consumers with higher quality audio than currently is available with CD. Changing the way CD's play audio would take years. Whereas many people already have good quality sound cards capable of delivering higher quality audio.
The obstacle is obviously file sharing. People sharing sub-CD quality audio is one thing, having them sharing studio-master audio is a completely different thing.
Jobs is playing the PR game, trying to unalign Apple from DRM. That said, any move away from DRM, PR motivated or not, is to be lauded.
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
Recording studios don't do 24bit 196kHz because they "hear a difference". They do it for the same purpose that Photoshop (for ex.) supports 48-bit images: when you're going to edit this material (filter, change dynamics, amplify, process, speed up/down, remix etc etc), you need extra precision, since from all the twisting and processing, deffects on a 44khz/16-bit piece start to show much sooner than with 24-bit 196kHz.
For studios, the flexibility to tweak the material endlessly without perceptible loss is important, since recording in a proper isolated room with all the proper technicians, musicians, singers, equipment, isn't cheap (cheaper than before, but not cheap).
Audophiles are in the majority losers who can be convinced that 900kHz sounds much better than 800kHz, even if you actually played the same thing to them, but with two different labels. Quality at those levels is subjective, and people's senses are unwillingly manipulated by what they're told.
It's basically the same reason why some people admire paintings like this one [donnabellas.com]. they don't all pretend they understand/like it.
Some are convinced they see something incredible, maybe the author is also convinced he thought of something incredible, thing is, I can put my 5 year old kid and it'll draw the same in 2 minutes and they won't be able to tell the difference and admire just the same.
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [geocities.com] / german [heise.de]. Let me quote from the summary:
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Informative)
The 44,100 hz/16 bit sampling rate isn't bad. It's just not optimal.
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
The physical medium is pretty worthless to me. Maybe even negative value since they create more waste and pollution than an additional file download does.
There are occasions where the packaging is nice, but not very often for me. Most of it's just sitting in the garbage or in a drawer where I'd tossed all my CD cases. How much more would you be willing to pay on every CD for the inserts and such? 50 cents? $1.50?
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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.
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Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:4, Interesting)
"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.
Soundbite society (Score:5, Insightful)
OF COURSE some CDs have DRM. MOST DON'T. This in contrast to the subject at hand, being songs downloaded from iTunes, which practically all DO have DRM.
Re:Soundbite society (Score:5, Informative)
OF COURSE no Compact Disc Digital Audio disks have DRM [wikipedia.org]. There are a few non-audio discs that contain some audio information that may be so infected, but it's impossible for a CDDA disc to be ruined that way.
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Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Can we also get a +1 ironic sig moderation?
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Informative)
there are half-assed attempts to make a PC not read them, which are in fact NOT DRM.
So the OP is actually right, you are the one that is mistaken.
And I agree with him, I'll pay less for far higher quality on CD without paying anything to the RIAA.
I buy all Cd's used
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
On a more serious note, track-by-track purchases are a good thing for the music market. Bands who fill their discs with junk and rely on their hit single to sell records will no longer be able to get away with it. I think that means we'll see some talented acts picking up the spotlight instead of the industry-created fluff of recent years. I just hope that artists don't abandon the idea of the album as a cohesive whole - when you're in the mood for something a little deeper than top 40, nothing beats putting on a well-executed musical journey from one of your favorite bands.
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Interesting)
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)?
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I even remember when they were "78's"...
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Funny)
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Because they are worth more (arguably...)
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're giving you something you do want at a (higher) price they think it's worth. The lower price you never paid for something you didn't want is irrelevant.
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate monopolies, personally, but in this case it takes Apple's virtual monopoly in this space to fight the other monopolies (I know they are really a group of companies controlling everything, but you understand what I'm saying) in the media space. So I'll stand next to Apple on this one; for the time being.
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
You want the word "monopsony" rather than "monopoly", in the sense you used it (a single buyer, or in this case broker, exerting pressure on sellers).
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's iPod and iTunes both handle two INDUSTRY standards for encoding, and ONE proprietary DRM feature, a DRM feature they (via Jobs) are trying to remove.
I never got the gripe of you Anti-Apple whiners. Go, use Rio, or Zune, or whatever else is out there for playing MP3s and WMA (proprietary format) nobody is holding a gun to your head. Go, Use allofMP3 and any other source for Downloading Music. Hopefully you don't have to be a technical genius to get it all to work right, because if you do, then you're obviously missing the point of iTunes, iPod, iTMS and the whole integration thing. It Just Works (TM).
I gave my wife an iPod last year for her birthday, she didn't even know what it was! The she picked up and used it, and started Ripping her CDs to the iPod right away. It just works for her, and it is "easy" for her. Which is the whole point, isn't it? Point Click Rip Sync.
We got it hooked into the car, the iHome in the kitchen, the Main Whole House Stereo system, because "It Just Works(TM)".
If you want to call that a Monopoly, fine, go ahead. I call it building a better mousetrap, and Apple has done a great job in making a Music Player Experience that is pleasant. Sorry if it doesn't support Ogg or Linux or whatever else you think it ought to. It does support MP3 and ACC, both open formats, and can rip, burn CDs quickly and easily, and support from many third party add-ons, and works both on Mac and Windows.
So, I don't know what the beef is all about. It isn't the monopoly you think it is.
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft's Internet Explorer, MS Offfice and Windows handle many INDUSTRY standards, and ONE proprietary data format (*.doc).
I never got the gripe of you Anti-Microsoft whiners. Go, use Apple, or Linux, or whatever else is out there for operating your computer, nobody is holding a gun to your head. Go, Use Firefox, Open Office and any other source for editing documents and surfing the web. Hopefully you don't have to be a technical genius to get it all to work right, because if you do, then you're obviously missing the point of Windows, IE, Office and the whole integration thing. It Just Works (TM).
I gave my wife Windows last year for her birthday, she didn't even know what it was! The she picked up and used it, and started Surfing the web and editing documents right away. It just works for her, and it is "easy" for her. Which is the whole point, isn't it?
We got it hooked into the Media Center in the kitchen, the Main Whole House Stereo system, because "It Just Works(TM)".
If you want to call that a Monopoly, fine, go ahead. I call it building a better mousetrap, and Microsoft has done a great job in making an Operating System Experience that is pleasant. Sorry if it doesn't support Ogg or Linux or whatever else you think it ought to. It does support MP3 and ACC, both open formats, and can rip, burn CDs quickly and easily, and support from many third party add-ons, and IE and Office works both on Mac and Windows.
So, I don't know what the beef is all about. It isn't the monopoly you think it is.
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, not sure I can explain it to you in a way that you can understand. But heck, let me try, in baby terms you might understand.
Okay there is this Sandbox, made by SoftyMicro and there are a whole bunch of toys one can play with in the sandbox. Except that SoftyMicro has made the sandbox in such a way that it's own toys compete with all the other sandbox toys, and those other toys sometimes don't work right because SoftyMicro keeps changing the configuration of the sandbox. Then there was the case where SoftyMicro didn't actually have this certain kind of toy that Sandscape was making for the sandbox. After a while, it figured out that the Sandscape toy was a "threat" to all the other toys, and even the sandbox itself, and decided to compete with Sandscape's toy, and give the toy away to ANYONE buying the sandbox.
Now the Sandscape company is only an example of this philosophy, and there are many other toys that SoftyMicro makes that it gives away so that others, even though they aren't really part of the sandbox.
Along comes this company Peaches that has built this neat little toy called tToy, that plays in the sandbox, and even works on Peaches own Monkey Bars play area. This toy just is fun to play with, and has all sorts of interesting options and configurations. Additionally, some of those options are only available from Peaches tToyStore, but also has accessories and options available from many other places.
There are also other toys very similar to Peaches tToy, some are less expensive, have some more features, but not nearly the same playing experience that tToy has.
Now there is a group of kids who don't like the sandbox (too sandy), nor the Monkey Bars, and they play on the Swings. They complain about tToys "monopoly" (not related to the board game) because tToy and all the options are hard to get working while playing on the swings.
Can you see the difference now?
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Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
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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 g
Re:Are consumers that dumb? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Here are some figures (Score:3, Insightful)
Jobs is just using the store to promote his iPod and always has. He gets little profits from music sales. If you want music to cost less, break the RIAA first. That's your only choice.
Re:Here are some figures (Score:5, Informative)
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Well, lots of sellers like to justify an increase in price, whether by touting better features or cost increases. What I like, if we ignore the quality issue of the pricing, is that the labels' allowing non-DRM'd songs to be sold for a higher price is admitting that DRM causes the product to be crippled.
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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
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Defeats the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Album deal (Score:2)
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Re:Defeats the point (Score:5, Informative)
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The combo meal may be a better deal than ordering each item separately, but all I want is the burger.
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Loose? (Score:3, Insightful)
loose? I don't normally point out spelling or grammar errors in comments, but come on, this is the article summary. Isn't an editor supposed to at least read these?
As for the rest of this, is this supposed to be something new? He already made statements that said he'd offer all comers the same deal as EMI. I'm pretty sure the price was implied to be part of that deal.
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obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
Raise it from 99 cents? (Score:2)
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(For the record, I've spend $15 so far this year, and that was for a physical two-CD compilation that also came with all the band's music videos on a dual DVD. I also "bought" one free CD download at Magnatune using a gift card they handed out at SXSW.)
No DRM cool, higher price not so much. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
But but but .... (Score:3, Funny)
We of the RIAA will resist this thing called "progress" until our lawsuits make us hated more than rush hour traffic. *cough*
Marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it is more than marketing (Score:2)
If jobs said to the record labels "either drop/relax the DRM, or we're going to pull your music from the store" then we might actually see something happen.
Sure, Jobs could tell them to drop the DRM "or else," but if he made a threat like that, he'd have to back it up. We're talking about the music industry, which has been effectively a cartel for decades. The EMI move was the first time any of the major labels stopped playing along with the rest of them, and that only happened because EMI is having a t
Two words (Score:3, Interesting)
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 ce
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The normal way is that you buy music, either on CD or through a download, then you move it to other media that you own, like from CD to your computer, or from your computer (downloaded) to a CD, to an iPod, to a different player, etc. And there are legitimate uses where DRM gets into the way, that's why people complain about it and that's why I am glad that EMI is getting r
Re:Marketing (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Marketing (Score:4, Funny)
You own three cds and 6 mp3s from iTunes and you bought an iPod? Let me guess, you also bought two books once and then built a library to keep them in.
No! (Score:5, Funny)
We want them to lose the DRM.
Attribution? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Jobs, where are Disney's DRM-free movies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Jobs, where are Disney's DRM-free movies? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Jobs, where are Disney's DRM-free movies? (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple of months ago when he published his DRM views, it was "yeah, right. Until you start selling DRM-free tunes on iTunes, you have no credibility." Now, it's "gimme DRM-free Video from a public company where you're a tiny (a few percent) shareholder, NOW!"
What the hell is it with you people? He's used his influence and control (which everybody constantly complains about) to engineer the largest single rollback of existing DRM in history - can you see Bill Gates doing that? Cut him some fucking slack.
I'll stick with my emusic account (Score:3, Informative)
Still a cheaper option. (Score:3, Interesting)
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If you're going to break the law anyway, why not save $.50 to $1.00 and borrow the CD or download it from P2pServiceOfYourChoiceSter?
Talking smack (Score:2)
The answer is obvious... (Score:2, Insightful)
ringtones anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
These songs will sell fine.
Lose vs Loose (Score:5, Funny)
Geez!
Re:Lose vs Loose (Score:5, Funny)
Salsdhot: Folklore edtied by ilitterates.
b
Sounds great. (Score:5, Insightful)
A/V heading in opposite directions? (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Re:A/V heading in opposite directions? (Score:5, Insightful)
You haven't seen much improvement in book tech over the last 100 years, and those improvements have been incremental. The same thing is happening to audio and video; once you've made things as nice as people can perceive, there isn't much more to be done.
Where are the EMI songs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Do these actually exist, or is this just a plan with an unspecified future implementation date?
Re:Where are the EMI songs? (Score:5, Informative)
Music is a commodity and should be treated as such (Score:3, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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Free markets people, it's not rocketscience (Score:5, Insightful)
When labels open up and start making their catalogs available in non-DRM versions, the barrier of entry to the business will drop significantly, since a music store will no longer need to own a hardwareplatform and maintain a quirky DRM system. This will create more actors on the marketplace, and the price will drop. At first the price will be $1.29, but soon someplace will come along and sell the tracks at $1.20, maybe even $.99. That will force Apple to match this, and in turn, there will be pressure on the labels to lower thier prices.
Jobs doesn't mind that - because he know that he owns the Walmart of musicplayers. Your one stop shop for anything that makes a sound. Therefore he will get the volume, everybody else will just be the long tail. It's much easier for him to be in the front of non-drm music, than to play catch-up after some bored european "consumer"(*)-organisations forces non-drm.
(*) They're all government-run, so it's not like consumers get to decide how, when or if they will be represented.
Re:Nice, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
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).
[sarcasm]Yes, because
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Buying/ripping CDs is starting to look like a good idea again.
It never stopped being a good idea, imho.
Many point out these advantages:
But these miss the biggest advantage of all, imho: Backup.
Yup, hard drives die. What happens when yours dies with all your MP3s (oggs, whatever)
Re:So... *More* than buying a CD? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So... *More* than buying a CD? (Score:5, Informative)
I say: Buy the album at the album price, not the tracks individually. Whether there are one track or twenty five on it, it will cost you less than the CD.
You say: iTunes will not let you mix and match an album worth of tracks for the price of an album.
I say: No one else will. Not Amazon. Not Best Buy. Nobody.
Oh, and by the way... if you already bought a couple tracks of an album and want to complete the album, iTunes will let you grab the rest of the album for the album price less the money you already paid toward the tracks you already have... even THOUGH as a portion of a full album the per track price is less than 99 cents, they're still letting you apply what you have paid thus far to an album price, rather than a prorated per-track album completion price. The same model will likely apply when the per track price is $1.30 and the album prices are still $9.99 even for the higher fidelity (as Apple has stated they plan to do).
Care to identify a single music retailer other than Apple who will do this?
The problem in your assumptions is that you think that the entire price of a product is associated only with the tangible materials that went into it. As if there are no other people to be paid other than those who work at the manufacturing plant, and as if there's no inherent market value to the INTANGIBLE content... (i.e. lyrics, music) in a musical work, and as if there are no costs to maintaining data centers with global load balancing that can serve millions of customers worldwide without crashing to a grinding halt.
Also, you're saying it starts to look worse and worse for individual singles. Do you remember when a single cost $1.49 to $3.49 just to buy it on a crappy analog cassette? I sure as hell do... and then you could only buy the singles that the studio released AS singles. You had no option of buying almost any track off an album, much less digital. It has only gotten better.
There is also a premium associated with the convenience of the iTunes model. Amazon will charge you shipping unless you want to wait an indefinite period for their SuperSaver shipping by which time you could have downloaded many times that amount of content from iTunes. Your time is worth money... how much? That's open to debate depending on the individual but I would imagine it's no fun to wait days on end just to get that one song you wanted... and when you do, Amazon won't let you have just that one song. It's got to be the entire album... one song you want, and a bunch you might not.
There is no direct analogy between what Amazon offers in terms of product and service, versus what Apple offers. And you are overlooking a very important competitive edge here because the ability to mix and match whatever tracks you want at a fair market price is one of the key attributes that makes iTunes so much more convenient and consequently hugely popular and still increasing in popularity.
The Apple business model can command a premium for the non-DRM tracks because of the limited alternatives to having their a-la carte purchasing options and the convenience of their user interface, search capabilities and purchasing system.
Re:Why hasn't anybody written a workaround for DRM (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.burningthumb.com/drmdumpster.html [burningthumb.com]
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
First, there is EMI's point of view: They don't want to sell their music without DRM for the same price as with DRM. I bet it was difficult enough to convince their management to sell DRM free music downloads at all, no way to do it for the same price.
So what is Apple to do in this situation? They were not willing to lose money on selling music without DRM (there is not much profit per song right now; with the increased wholesale price for music without DRM Apple would have lost money at $0.99 per song). If they sold the same product with DRM for $0.99 and without DRM for more, there would be an outcry, and rightfully so. So they had no choice but to improve the product in some other way to justify the price increase.
The better quality gives Apple a justification for the price increase. On the other hand, it is a genuine improvement. On the third hand, it might be possible that Apple makes more profit from $1.29 without DRM than with 0.99 with DRM. On the fourth hand, making money is what public companies are supposed to do.
I don't think price and copying are too strongly related. Could be the opposite: High price indicates high value which means copying it is really bad. Low price would mean low value; not worth buying, so it gets copied. It is all a complicated relationship between law, ethics, purchase power and psychology. I personally think there will be more EMI music sold and more EMI music copied, with everyone being better off in the end.