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Jobs Says People Don't Want to 'Rent' Music
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Apr 27, 2007 05:52 PM
from the money-can-be-exchanged-for-good-and-services dept.
from the money-can-be-exchanged-for-good-and-services dept.
eldavojohn writes "PhysOrg is running a piece on a recent speech by Apple CEO Steve Jobs about DRM free music. While we know that Jobs is a self proclaimed proponent of DRM free music who's not all talk, he's now said that 'by the end of this year, over half of the songs we offer on iTunes we believe will be in DRM-free versions. I think we're going to achieve that.' Jobs pointed out what's obvious to us, the consumers, but isn't obvious to the music industry — 'People want to own their music.' He also dismissed subscription based music as a failure, and claimed a lot of other music labels are intrigued by the EMI deal."
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Another anonymous reader tips an essay by Steve Jobs on the Apple site about DRM, iTunes, and the iPod. Perhaps it was prompted by the uncomfortable pressure the EU has been putting on Apple to open up the iPod. Jobs places the blame for the existence and continuing reliance on DRM squarely on the music companies. Quoting: "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. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."
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News: Steve Jobs Announces (some) DRM-free iTunes 838 comments
Fjan11 writes "Steve Jobs just announced that starting next month on you can buy higher quality 256Kbps AAC encoded DRM-free versions of iTunes songs for $1.29. Upgrades to songs you've already bought will be available at the $0.30 price difference. Currently EMI is the only publisher participating, accounting for about 20% of the songs available." There's also reports from Reuters and ABC News. The deal excludes the Beatles. You can also read the official press release from Apple if you still think this a late joke; this story confirms earlier speculation.
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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."
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Memo (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Memo (Score:5, Funny)
My money is on the fact that Amazon has a patent on sensible sales models.
Parent
He's Right (Score:3, Insightful)
Renting in general (Score:5, Insightful)
In many cases, people must resort to renting because they can't afford to buy. This is hardly the case when it comes to music.
Like Jobs says, consumers want to own shit and do what they want with it. 'Renting' and 'subscription' are associated with control, red tape, limitations, etc. Buying a DRM-free song or album is a single transaction with no strings attached.
Re:Renting in general (Score:5, Insightful)
In most cases, buying a house is a better deal than renting a house. Hell, my mortgage payment is $300 less than renting the equivelent home (and that's before accounting for taxes). Buying is a no-brainer.
Music isn't as clear cut
Parent
Re:Renting in general (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, but it's more complicated than that. I've been a Rhapsody subscriber since... oh... 2003. I went that route for a few reasons. 1.) I can always go find new music. If a friend says 'this song is good', I'm listening to it 20 seconds later. 2.) I'm near an internet-connected computer most of my waking life. I also work across 3 different machines. Work, home, laptop. Because I use a subscription service, I don't have to have gigs of backups or situations where I have some music on one computer and different music on another. I used to do that, and man it's a headache. Hard drive failures, for example, used to be rather stressful. 3.) I go through music. I have a few songs on my playlist that I had back in 03, but not many. I keep finding new stuff and listening to it. 4.) $10 a month is a lot less than I used to spend on music. 5.) I can still buy the music if I like. I've never done that, but even if I did, there's always iTunes. 6.) I rarely like a song the first time I hear it. I certainly don't find much use in hearing a 30 second clip. The subscription service allows me to plop a few songs in and see how I like them over time. I may not represent the majority, here, but I've found a number of songs that I had to 'get into'. Subscription makes perfect sense to me. I seriously doubt I'm in some minor niche, considering all the CableTV subscribers out there.
Frankly, I think Jobs is both right and wrong. I don't think many people care about subscription music. I also think that's because they haven't been exposed to it. If what I've seen from Slashdot postings is any indication, I don't think most people even get it. "But I don't own it!" Okay, fine, think of it is access to a huge database of music. Find what you want, go buy the copies you really want to keep. Paying a few bucks a month to listen to this music may turn some people off, but I don't think blindly buying music makes much more economic sense. Unless you've heard the song you're buying, you're basically just opening your mouth and closing your eyes. At least with a subscription model like Rhapsody's, you're getting the whole song along with access to thousands of others.
To each is own, but I completely agree with your comment about consumers wanting what gives them the best deal. The only thing I'd add to that is consumers need convincing. I don't think Jobs has tried the subscription service. I think that if he did, Apple could brainstorm a really interesting way to work that out. In other words, Apple could make it work, if they could just see past their own rationalizations. Heck, it was that sort of thinking that got iTunes off the ground despite the *AA's misgivings about it.
If you ask me, Jobs is being really short-sighted. Unfortunately we'll never know until Apple actually tries.
Parent
That makes no sense (Score:5, Insightful)
The reasons for subscription music services revolve largely around variety and choice. For $20 a month I can access MILLIONS, MILLIONS of songs. On top of that, your music "collection" is always up to date, new music being added all the time.
This is like saying "Nobody would want to SUBSCRIBE to cable television. You don't want to RENT your shows, you want to OWN them, JUST LIKE A HOUSE"
Let's not forget that Jobs has a vested interest here. He's not just speaking as a concerned observer. It just so happens that a subscription model is not terribly compatible with the iPod in its current incarnation.
For $20 a month, I can buy, what, 240 songs a year? Why is is a better deal to pay $240 for 240 songs when I can pay $240 for millions of songs, available to me via any internet connection, and easily sharable with trusted friends or family? If I cancel my subscription I don't have any songs. Who cares? For $20 more I can have access for another month to millions of songs again.
This isn't exactly a new model. If people were so concerned about "owning" content they wouldn't be going to libraries, they wouldn't be subscribing to Satellite Radio, and they wouldn't be subscribing to Cable TV.
Parent
Re:That makes no sense (Score:5, Insightful)
I do. I have music that is 30+ years old. I don't want to be paying 20 dollars a month to listen to a few songs.
Besides that fact that you can't listen to a million songs, so having access to a million songs is really an illogical point.
How many unique songs will you listen to a year? That's the number you need to be using.
If you rent 1 song, you have to pay 20 a month just to hear the 1 song.
Parent
10 Points for Stating the Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
One can only hope (Score:5, Insightful)
It *is* obvious to the music industry (Score:5, Interesting)
Depends on Their Purpose (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I certainly wouldn't want to use the subscription service as my only source of music... primarily due to the limited selection, mediocre encoding quality and limitations of where I can listen. However, I'd say its worth its worth the $10 to be able to audition full albums of most stuff without trying to track them down on some p2p system.
Jobs' Perspective in Context (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, iTunes DRM is not designed for a subscription model. Re-engineering would be required, including firmware updates for older iPods, to enforce the subscriptions.
Moreover, not all songs are typically available via the subscription model. Jobs continues to make an issue about variable pricing for songs, with the DRM-free option being the one exception. Yet, consider how they are planning to implement this: by a preference in which the user selects which kind of music s/he prefers to buy.
Some have said a subscription model would require a whole new iTunes Store -- a separate store, with rentable tracks. This is not really true -- users could be presented with a "Buy Song" or "Rent Song" button where applicable.
A subscription service is "not out of the question," he says, but it doesn't look like it's in Apple's interests -- they would bear the price of increasing download costs, unlike the record companies.
DRM-free music, on the other hand, allows for seamlessness. Users can download music, copy it between iPods, computers, and friends' computers without a hassle. Rentable tracks would lend themselves to the opposite kind of experience.
The ultimate hypocrite? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mr. Jobs, stop misleading us (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Mr. Jobs, stop misleading us (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike protected tunes, there is no way Apple can take away any of my "rights" for this music after I've bought it from them.
From my perspective, that sure as hell makes it look like I will own the DRM-free music I will purchase from iTunes.
Parent
Re:Mr. Jobs, stop misleading us (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because the license would be difficult to enforce doesn't mean you have a right to do what you want.
As an extreme example, If they wanted to, Apple and the record companies could introduce a subscription model without DRM, and as a subscriber you agree that if you stop paying that you will delete all the songs. Obviously it would be difficult for them to force you to do it. But that alone wouldn't give you the right to keep them.
Parent
Re:Mr. Jobs, stop misleading us (Score:5, Informative)
The First-sale doctrine [wikipedia.org], which is both case and codified law, says otherwise.
The first-sale doctrine has not been tested at the supreme court level in relation to downloaded music, but this is one case in which a conservative court is more likely to side against the record industry. The law says what it says; you'd have to be one of those so-called "activist" judges to read something into it other than what's on paper and side with the RIAA.
DRM-free purchased songs are "owned" under the law. Heck, so are DRM'd songs; you just can't legally break the DRM for resale purposes, making the first-sale doctrine moot.
Parent
Re:Mr. Jobs, stop misleading us (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Mr. Jobs, stop misleading us (Score:4, Informative)
No. People are just confused as to what the product is.
If I buy a CD, I own the CD. The actual CD. I can shred it, I can give it a friend (so long as I don't have any copies of it), I can sell it, etc. The same would apply to a downloaded song, though it is a bit of a harder stretch for some peoples' minds because of the difference between digital and physical goods.
In neither case did I buy the copyright. I don't control (re)distribution except of my own copy of the work, but I can transfer ownership so long as it is transfered in full.
Parent
Re:Just a note: Jobs' RDF (Score:4, Informative)
eMusic is considered to be the #2 player in the online music business, and they're subscription based. You can argue how much of eMusic's #2-ness is because of DRM backlash, or favoring independent labels, or whatever, but eMusic is proof that subscriptions are not a deal-breaker, and certainly not failures. And before anyone confuses the subject, subscription != rental. Once a credit goes towards a track on eMusic (citing them as that's what I'm familiar with), you get to download that from wherever you want, as many times as you want, and you can do whatever you want with the file.
Parent
Re:What we reallly want... (Score:5, Informative)
AAC as used by Apple is part of the MPEG-4 standard. [mp3-tech.org] Apple didn't invent it and doesn't own it.
All digital music, with the exception of purely synthesized stuff, has to pass through an analog-to-digital conversion process that throws away information (quantizing). So "uncompressed music" is still actually compressed -- and lossy-compressed at that -- if it's in digital form. The question has never been compressed vs. uncompressed, but rather what type and level of information loss you find acceptable.
I'm happy with a compression format that is not encumbered with lots of onerous license terms (i.e., that I could write and distribute an open-source player for if I felt like it) and that produces quality slightly better than the point at which I can hear the difference on a good stereo system. The "slightly better" simply so that if I get an even better stereo system later on, I still won't hear the difference. As long as that baseline is met, I want the format to take as few bytes per song as possible.
Does that make me not "people?"
Parent
Re:What we reallly want... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, if that's what you want (free, as in beer, music) come out and say it, and lets have a real debate over the underlying issue. But don't hide behind this BS "uncompressed music" argument. No commercially available completely uncompressed. Even most CD's are dynamically range compressed [wikipedia.org].
Parent
Re:Too expensive (Score:4, Informative)
There is still a distribution chain with iTunes. iTunes does not sign artists (yet), and it is not run by any labels. Therefore, it is distributing music from various labels, both major & indie. And the labels are themselves distribution mechanisms. We're not talking about music directly off some musician's webpage, unfortunately.
The major labels take a percentage of the price of an album or single. If they gouge at $0.99 and they gouge at $1.29, then they will gouge at $0.25. The less you pay at list, the less the artist will get paid. So we've a tricky economic problem here until someone stops the labels from gouging artists.
Parent