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glad that I'm working on a Mac and using Google Apps for everything. Guess I should mention Basecamp and Freshbooks. 1 day ago

DRM Free iTunes

1 year, 4 months ago
in General
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iTunes launched their iTunes plus today and it looks like that DRM Free music is being tagged with your name. Not a surprise not a big deal since this would only matter to the people who like to share illegally. For those few I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to change that name to something 1337.

Viewing 28 Comments

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    does jared have to eat his shoe now or something?
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    I don't think so. It's interesting that they bumped up the quality AND charged extra, so that they can claim that the price increase is for the better quality as opposed to the lack of DRM.

    The pricing reminds me of the "touch tone" fee that the phone companies used to charge when touch tone phones first came on the market. If you wanted to use a touch tone phone (as opposed to rotary/pulse dialing), you would be billed an extra fee every month, even though the tones were generated by your phone and their equipment was already capable of handling them, so they would have to program the switches to block them for your phone line if you hadn't paid the fee. So the bottom line is you had to pay them to not prevent you from doing something that you would freely be able to do by default, just like you now have to pay Apple extra to not encrypt your music.

    The real question now (for me, at least) is will they allow independent artist to sell DRM free tunes? As far as I know, they still don't, and I'm not sure why. IF they do, I'll also be curious to see whether they will force the price difference if the content owners don't want it.

    If Jobs is really into allowing people to choose whether they want DRM or not, lets see Apple release an app to strip the DRM off of tunes you already bought. Such applications are out there, and are actually one of the driving forces behind the frequent iTunes updates, because they keep trying to make the DRM more difficult to crack.

    We've gone over this before, but Apple is still very much behind the DRM approach, and I'd add that in my opinion it's part of their lock-in strategy. Like I've said before, it's easy for Steve to say that he'd prefer not to use DRM, because most of the other record companies will continue to "force" him to.

    It'd be interesting to see if they all came out like EMI and said no more DRM, whether Apple would finally and truly make the iTunes store non-DRM friendly for everyone. My guess is they'd stick with their current half-hearted offering of a 30% markup for the "service" of not restricting your files, and in doing so, continue to steer people towards DRM.
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    as an "independent artist," i'd let you know about the drm thing, except we requested extra drm on prospiscience.
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    Again, Jared proving that he isn't wrong with speculative comments. He'll never eat his shoe because he'll later say, "No, that's not what I said or meant. By the way look over there." :)

    The touch tone thing is funny but not similar at all.
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    I don't remember ever saying that Apple would never sell EMI music without DRM, but maybe I'm forgetting something. I would certainly admit it if I were wrong in the past.

    The touch tone thing is very similar, because they're charging you money for not doing work - namely putting DRM on the music files. If you don't pay extra, they actually have to do work that they wouldn't have to do if you paid the extra fee, just like the touch tone fee. Admittedly, it's a very small amount of extra work (just like the touch tone blocking), but it still illustrates how silly the fee actually is.

    The main point is that they're charging an extra $.30 in order to discourage people from choosing the non-DRM'd music. There's no other good reason for this.

    Like I suggested, it's "convenient" that the non-DRM'd files are also higher bitrate, so that they can claim that as the reason for the extra cost, but that doesn't fly either. It doesn't really cost them any extra for that either, other than maybe the additional bandwidth to serve the larger files.

    But even that excuse would be bogus, because then the question still remains, why don't they unbundle the quality choice from the DRM choice. The only reason that I can see for them to NOT offer non-DRM'd files at the same quality for the same price is that they'd rather people buy the DRM'd files; simple as that. I'm open to another explanation for that though, if anyone wants to speculate.
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    Have you ever thought that EMI is requiring them to charge more?

    It sounds more logical that EMI is taking an extra fee as extra insurance since they their mentality is profits will be cut by the files being uploaded and shared especially if they are DRM free. No matter how screwed that logic really is.


    The RIAA and record companies have already said sales are hurt by file sharing.

    Steve Jobs has publicly stated that he doesn’t want to sell DRM music.


    And you still believe Apple is manipulating this?


    Let’s rewind:



    Personally, I believe that they would still do it even if the record companies didn’t force them too, but that’s a mute point and speculation because it will never happen, so it would be very easy for Steve or any MS representative to say that they would love to sell DRM free music.




    My point / speculation about them DRMing the music even if the record companies didn’t force them to was just that: speculation. Like I said above, that may or may not be true, and it’s impossible to prove because the labels DO demand DRM. It’s like me saying “If I had 100 million dollars, I’d give it all to charity”; it’s a very easy statement for me to make since I know I won’t have to prove it. Same with Steve or Bill or anyone else who says “we’d love to sell you DRM free music if the record companies would only let us”; easy to say because they know that the record companies will not let them.



    I really like this part,



    That was only one small point of the article, though. I certainly could be wrong, and in a perfect world the record companies would say “OK, get rid of the DRM” and Apple and MS would comply. That would be totally fine by me, and I would be very happy to be proven wrong in that regard.



    By your definition above, eat some shoe.

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    They aren't charging an extra thirty cents to discourage people from buying it. They are charging that much because that's where they believe they'll maximize their profit. Consumers are willing to pay extra so the producers charge extra. Shockingly, that happens to be good for consumers.
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    Well, from those quotes above, I never said I'd "eat my shoe". Quite the opposite, in fact - I said I'd be "very happy to be proven wrong". If you consider what Apple has done as a satisfactory non-DRM offering (which I think is debatable, but a side issue), then I'll stand by my statement and "be happy".

    I do see this as a tiny step forward, but I can't give them full credit for the reasons I listed above. Whether it's EMI or Apple's decision to charge more is not disclosed to us, as far as I know, but it doesn't matter too much, because the point remains that if Steve really wants to sell non-DRM'd music without a 30% markup, there are lots of independent artists out there who would love for him to do so, but so far he hasn't even made the non-DRM option available to them (as far as I've seen). If / when he does it will be interesting to see whether they force the price markup on them.

    Nate, I do agree with you in so far as Apple is taking this approach to maximize their profits. That point is not being disputed, as far as I know. My disagreement is with their approach to maximizing their profits, which involves lock-in to the iPod platform (in my opinion). It's a very similar issue to the monopoly arguments thrown around about Microsoft years ago, many of which had validity.

    Most average consumers who own iPods and don't think about this sort of thing are going to choose a 99 cent song over one that costs them 30% more, and therefore be locked into Apple products (making Apple more money). For the ones that choose not to, they will charge up front for that privilege, since they are missing out on the lock-in opportunity.

    Even if their motivations are not as I've described them, the bottom line is that Steve's public position is that he would rather all their music not have DRM, and that's the part I still don't believe, based on the evidence available to us. If you don't consider the cost difference point as valid, there is still the issue of independents who want neither DRM nor higher prices, but are forced to accept DRM.

    Hopefully that will eventually change as well, and if so, I will again be "happy to be proven wrong". :)
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    I'm happy that you're proven wrong too.
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    But you said they're charging more to discourage sales. I guess so people will prefer the music with DRM music facilitates vendor lock in. But I think they're probably charging more for the music without DRM because the demand is greater and they can without hurting sales. I thinks there a difference there.
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    Although I'm not sure (and actually doubt) that the demand for non-DRM'd music is greater (I think most people don't care, unfortunately), if this was their reason for the extra charge, it would contradict Steve's previous statements, which is basically what I was trying to say,

    Dan, I'm glad my speculation being proven incorrect gives you joy. I don't think any of my reasoning was proven faulty, and I think I've made it clear all along when I'm assuming things about the motivations behind Apple's actions, etc.

    You may have noted in my comments above that there are still huge holes in Steve's story, the same ones I've pointed out many times before, but if you'd rather revel in my being wrong about one small aspect of the story rather than address those, feel free - it's a rare pleasure, so I understand the excitement. :)
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    Nate: When will you realize Jared is always right, except that "one small aspect".
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    Dan and Nathan, are you willing to pay thirty extra cents for non-DRM music?
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    Yes, I just bought the new Linkin Park off iTunes after looking for it at the higher rate. Also, I bought the album after I downloaded it off bittorent and listened to it for two weeks.
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    I didn't say I was always right. "Often" is probably a better word... :)

    Nate, I'm not exactly sure where you're going with that, but I don't know whether any of us involved in this discussion are valid representative samples of the general public when it comes to this matter, because I think we all value the freedom that DRM restricts.

    Whether most of the general public values (or even knows about) that freedom or not, and further whether they value it to the point of paying 30% more money to obtain it is what I would question.

    Perhaps there is a larger demand than I perceive [ yet again - "I could be wrong" :) ], but with ipods having the huge market lead in portable media players, the only difference most average consumers will see in the short term between the DRM files and the unrestricted ones will be that they cost them 30% more money.

    Of course, it would be logical to assume that there would be a greater demand for the "more free" format, but I think (especially in the software industry) that logic obviously does not tend to necessarily work out in terms of driving the market demand. For example, you might think that the predominant operating system would be one from the "free software" camp, for many reasons, one of which might be the cost, but in reality consumers (at least so far) tend to prefer the familiar product from Microsoft, even though it is more restrictive and costs them more money.
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    While Dan is in many ways extraordinary, I'd bet he's a pretty average iTunes customer.

    I'm trying to figure out how a comparison to free software make sense but I'm pretty sure it's not much.
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    One of the fundamental free software principles is to not restrict what you can do with the stuff you buy (or obtain freely), but the primary purpose of the illustration was to counter your assertion that the market will favor (and create more demand for) the non-DRM versions; just saying that's not necessarily true even though you'd think it would be.
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    But your comparing operating systems that have large differences in quality. With this music deal the only difference is there is added value.
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    i'm checking with my distributor and will let you know if itunes plus is available to me as an "independent" artist. although i will still request that they drm the shit out of our music. :-)

    i already do pay slightly more to buy my music in a drm-free, higher-quality format: compact discs. i don't even have an itunes account.
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    okay, i just heard back from the distributor. their entire catalog will be offered in itunes plus. it'll take some time because they have to resend everything, but it will be done. is it shoe eating time yet?
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