Jobs to Labels- Lose the DRM & We'll Talk Price

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?

While on the one hand it is nice to see this pressure to get rid of DRM for "purchased" tracks, it is pretty disappointing to see that the move will also come with an increase in price. They gave us something we didn't want in the first place, and now they're using the taking away of it to justify a higher price? WTF?

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?

actually, from TFS, not just TFA, the higher prices will also come with higher quality audio.

No DRM + higher quality audio = possibly worth a 30% increase in price

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

No DRM + higher quality audio = possibly worth a 30% increase in price

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.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

Cd Audio is sampled at 44100 Hz, at 16 bits per sample. While sampling at a higher rate and bit depth than that will improve on the quality, the average pair of 25 year old ears will not be able to hear the difference.

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?

You can still improve, though, without using any more space. Sample at a faster rate and using more bits, then use standard audio compression methods to drop the least audible frequency components. Same file size, better quality. Basically, you're choosing that you want *all* frequencies up to 22,500 hz, *nothing* more than that, and all frequencies stored with equal bit resolution. By going with audio compression, you can avoid being so artificially limited; your algorithm can pick out the most important components to store.

The 44,100 hz/16 bit sampling rate isn't bad. It's just not optimal.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

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.

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?

While I agree with you that most people won't hear a difference, audiophiles will believe they hear a difference.

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:

In plain language, this means that our musically trained test listeners could reliably distinguish the poorer quality MP3s at 128 kbps quite accurately from either of the other higher-quality samples. But when deciding between 256 kbps encoded MP3s and the original CD, no difference could be determined, on average, for all the pieces. The testers took the 256 kbps samples for the CD just as often as they took the original CD samples themselves.
(...)
This article will not end the ongoing debate of whether the use of MP3 compression is a reasonable or unreasonable procedure. Audiophile fans that concern themselves with brand names and are status conscious will never listen to MP3s, no matter how many tests may prove that the sound experience is equivalent in both cases. Skeptics (They are all sissies at ct; I would certainly have heard the difference) should get encoders and CD burners and then submit themselves perhaps even using the same pieces and under similar conditions to their own Pepsi-Test.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

Most of my music, you can't tell at all. But with some of it, for example some Praga Khan, there is noticeable distortion at the very highest quality settings available, and with VBR, 320kbps fixed, Stereo, Joint Stereo, you name it. mp3 just doesn't manage to give acceptable results with some type of audio (the example in question is a fuzzed square wave on one of the "Breakfast In Vegas" singles.)

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

CDs force you to buy all 10/15/20 tracks though. I don't mind paying (CD price) / ( # of tracks) for an individual song assuming the other factors are constant or close to it. I like being able to pick these 6 songs and ignore the rest.

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?

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

As someone else pointed out; CDs usually come with 7/10 tracks that aren't worth listening to.

Good lord! What kind of shitty music are we talking about here? What kind of band has so little self-respect as to put seven filler tracks on an album?

So if you like the full CD, buy it. But if you like that one song on the radio--

Aah, that explains it. ;)

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?

"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

Gotta like how someone participating in a soundbite-oriented society (/.) will criticize another for not writing a comprehensive tome detailing the limits and degrees of a statement which is, for 99% of purposes of discussion, true in just a few words.

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

OF COURSE some CDs have DRM.

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.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

There is NO drm on the music on the Audio CD that can legally be called a Audio CD.

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 :-) and it upsets the RIAA more than the pirates.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

And if you do buy it from the RIAA, the artist gets about a tenth of a cent from your ten-dollar purchase. If you want to support the artist, go watch a live show.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

two things:

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)?

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

I could buy whole albums in the 99 cent bin at the local music store.

Mmm... yeah. Cheesy compilations of disco songs that have been "re-recorded to maintain quality [to save money more like, save me the weasel-ish excuse] by as many of the original group as possible", and a few obscure (reached #47 in 1986) non-hits!

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

They gave us something we didn't want in the first place, and now they're using the taking away of it to justify a higher price? WTF?

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?

Love or hate Apple, at least they are using their current power to apply pressure in the right direction; no DRM. I don't mind the increase in price as much, because eventually they will increase it anyways based on inflation; so the bone Jobs is throwing them isn't very valuable, but he'll sell it like it is.

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?

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.

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?

Apple doesn't have a "Monopoly" in any sense of the word. They have a complete vertical market solution, which is not the same as monopoly. You are free to choose other market options that are reasonably close facsimile of what Apple produces, but you'll be giving up the virtually seamless integration by doing so.

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?

Microsoft doesn't have a "Monopoly" in any sense of the word. They have a complete vertical market solution, which is not the same as monopoly. You are free to choose other market options that are reasonably close facsimile of what Microsoft produces, but you'll be giving up the virtually seamless integration by doing so.

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?

If you don't see the difference between a solution to a SINGLE issue (Mobile Music Player) and an Operating System. OS is general purpose, it doesn't "do" anything (and restricting which applications run, and competing with those very same applications)??

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?

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

Some of this crap isn't even worth $0.99. I get the higher quality encoding and dumping the DRM, but why pay a higher price?

Because, unlike when you buy a CD, you can just pick the good tracks and not pay for the crap.

Re:Are consumers that dumb?

Jobs is pushing them to give away something they're not really competing on (DRM) to something they really are competing on (price). I'm sure he's seen that with DRMless songs, the iTunes store will take more sales from regular CDs. That's his game, now looking to see if the big labels will bite.

Re:Here are some figures

The "30%" only applies to song purchase. Album purchases haven't changed in price when buying 256kbps sans DRM.

Defeats the point

Thing is, if the price is raised above 99 cents, then you get into the $1+ range, at which point you might as well go out and buy the CD, defeating the point of iTunes if you want to buy entire albums/singles instead of just individual songs. Personally I'd rather pay 99 cents for a DRMed song and do the old burn/re-rip switcheroo and waste a 10 cent CD than pay extra for no DRM.

Re:Defeats the point

...Except albums are still $9.99 without DRM and at the higher bitrate.

Loose?

...if they are willing to loose the DRM, he'd be willing to...

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.

obvious

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been talking smack about DRM

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?

Why would anybody pay more than 99 cents for a song? You can get a DRM free CD for about $10-$15. Sure if you only want 1 or 2 songs, then you're still saving money, but I don't think that paying more than 99 cents is going to do it for most people. I'm on eMusic, and I pay about 30 cents for a song. I still think it's a little pricey, considering what you end up getting in the end.

No DRM cool, higher price not so much.

Can we still have the option of DRM w/ the lower price? I'm all for getting rid of the DRM on iTunes, but not for the expense of another $.30 a song. Plus the sound quality is fine for me right now, I'm not a audiophile and I'm sure those who are weren't using iTunes in the first place. This just kinda feels like when the cable company adds new features or channels and then feels free to raise your rates since they're making 'improvements' to your service that you didn't ask for.

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 ....

But we like suing people who prefer high quality audio ... we would prefer if all online music was 24kbs and required a new DRM key for each play session.

We of the RIAA will resist this thing called "progress" until our lawsuits make us hated more than rush hour traffic. *cough* .. well we might already be there, but there are still 10-year-olds to sue.

Marketing

This is nothing but marketing guys. If jobs was so anti-drm, why is it still so difficult to get music or videos OFF of the ipod? The DRM can even stay on the tracks, just add something in itunes to export music from the actual device to the disk of the computer it is attached to. I understand that there are already programs [sturm.net.nz] out there to do this, but it shouldn't have to be like that. Also, look at how successful the itunes store has been. I have bought a total of about 3 cds in my entire life, but i've also purchased 5-6 songs from the itunes store. Why? Because its convenient at work. 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. Until then, this is just marketing.

Re:Marketing

It's not difficult to get music or videos off the ipod. Apple just doesn't provide you the tools to do it.

Re:Marketing

> I have bought a total of about 3 cds in my entire life, but i've also purchased 5-6 songs from the itunes store.

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!

The labels have already loosed the DRM.

We want them to lose the DRM.

Attribution?

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?

Jobs is the single largest shareholder in Disney, and he goes on and on about DRM-free music, but doesn't push for Disney to release its movies on unprotcted DVDs, HD-DVDs, and/or BRs, nor DRM-free online web releases. When asked about it, he hemmed and hawed, "Um, well, you see, video is different than audio...". Bull. Jobs, stop grandstanding about music and start releasing your own company's movies in unprotected fashion. THEN you'll have some credibility on this issue.

Re:Jobs, where are Disney's DRM-free movies?

Video is different from audio.

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?

Oh my fucking god, you people are unbelievable.

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

No DRM, good quality mp3s, and 75 downloads a month. Yeah, I can't find too many big names, but there's plenty of stuff there just as good.

Still a cheaper option.

We have a good used music store. Used CDs are $1-$2. I purchase the CD, RIP it to my media server then return the CD for ~1/2 of what I payed. So for .50-$1 I get ALL the songs on the Cd plus I can use OGG, MP3, AAC, etc. Why would I want to pay more than that for one song? Unless it's a ring-tone of course.

Talking smack

I thought this was an English language web site.

The answer is obvious...

If people don't like the price on iTunes, they aren't going to buy the tracks, then the labels and Apple will have to make a decision to lower prices in the future. We can let our money talk for us. Personally, I try to buy most of my music from the artist when they tour, so I buy on CD. It just seems the best solution overall. This especially because burning an 128Kbps file to audio then re-ripping it just DESTROYS the quality of the audio even further.

ringtones anyone?

Sure, $1.30 might seem like a lot, but consider the thriving ringtone market, where people spend $2+ for retarded 30 second clips of fergie or whoever, that have ultra-crappy quality, and can't even be listened to anywhere besides a tiny cellphone speaker!

These songs will sell fine.

Lose vs Loose

How did you manage to get this right in the headline and STILL get it wrong in the summary?

Geez!

Re:Lose vs Loose

And "lables"? What the hell is a lable?

Salsdhot: Folklore edtied by ilitterates.

b

Sounds great.

A year ago, people were arguing "why should I pay $15-$20 for a Cd when I only want 1-2 songs, because musicians suck now adays only have 1-2 good songs" so iTunes starts up. You can buy that one or two songs and save the "crappy filler songs tax". People were happy but didnt like the DRM (which I agree with). So not they're removing the DRM, increasing the quality of the encoding and only adding $0.30 to it. Now people are crying "why should I pay $0.30 more when I can buy the CD for less".... *shakes head* if you want a complete CD then buy the CD, if you want 1-2 songs buy it online. I'm not flaming it's just a perfect example of you can't always make everyone happy. For me this sounds great. When an artist I really like comes out, I grab the CD at a local store, if it's a one hit wonder I hear on the radio, I'll buy the one song online. How is this not a good thing? No this isn't a flame, just frustrated when people ask for things, get it, then complain against their own argument.

A/V heading in opposite directions?

Has anybody noticed that for the general public, audio and video quality is heading in opposite directions? Head down to your local "big box store" and you'll see that they're pushing products that have superior VIDEO quality:

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?

Audio has reached the point at which most people can't hear the superior quality. If you can't tell, does it matter? Video hasn't reached that point and still has a long way to go. Even so, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a while for next-gen video formats to take off because the improvement they offer over DVD is relatively less than DVD offered over VHS.

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?

I still can't find any of these alleged DRM-free songs on ITMS. I have searched numerous EMI artists, and only have the option to buy the 99 cent tracks.

Do these actually exist, or is this just a plan with an unspecified future implementation date?

Re:Where are the EMI songs?

According to every press release and article about them, they will be appearing 'in May.' The end of May has not been reached yet, so you may have to wait for up to three more weeks.

Gotta love your turntable!

My records are free of DRM and sound great, on top of that i can record them in to my computer and if the hard drive dies my records are safe.

$0.88. Every song. Every day. WalMart

Remember, WalMart Music is at $0.88 per song. Increasing the price much beyond that will drive customers to WalMart.

The RIAA members have very little leverage against WalMart. WalMart sells over 40% of the RIAA's market volume. But music is a minor item to WalMart; they use it mostly as a traffic builder for their stores.

The record companies can, of course, send someone down to WalMart in Bentonville, to sit in the waiting room to wait their turn with a buyer on the Corridor of Doom to discuss raising prices. Which is not likely to work.

Go ahead Labels, do whatever you want.

The label cartels can have DRM, high-priced tunes, no-DRM, whatever they like, I honestly don't care. There seems to be this notion that if the media barons give in a little bit and waver on the DRM issues that people will be willing to spend more, perhaps even more than what the songs are worth. Perhaps this is true for some consumers; however, only speaking for myself I can hold out for DRM-free music at a price that I feel is fair.

Otherwise, I'm perfectly happy with just not having their music at all. I can do without it, completely! If they can do without my dollars then I guess everyone is happy.

Music is a commodity and should be treated as such

Everyone on here is talking like music is a durable good of some kind while it's not. It's more of a commodity than anything and should be priced according to it's demand.

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

I freely concede that CDs are more pure in sound that 128-bit AAC. Than 256-bit AAC? Not so clear, at least to my 60-year-old, rock-concert-damaged hearing.

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.

Free markets people, it's not rocketscience

With DRM, iTunes has a defacto monopoly on legal online musictrade. Not only that, it's tied to the iPod.

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.

I don't get it

Can anyone here explain to me, why getting rid of DRM has to be connected to better Quality and higher price? I totally understand that higher quality warrants a higher price since the files take up more space and distributing them costs more bandwidth. But why oh why would they couple both moves? I sometimes get the impression that the music industry just does not want to accept the demands of the market. It just does not make any sense. Up to now, the argue for DRM because they imho wrongly believe that ditching DRM would cause even more copied music. That is indeed possible but increasing the price will just make it more probable. It should be the other way round. Getting rid of DRM eliminates costs for license management and support. All those calls by people reinstalling their machines not being able to listen to their music anymore because the counter is at the top will suddenly go away (for newly bought tracks that is). They should make DRM-free music cheaper. This would reduce the probability of people copying.

Re:I don't get it

'' Can anyone here explain to me, why getting rid of DRM has to be connected to better Quality and higher price? ''

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.

How will they market this?

If, hypothetically, Jobs succeeds in this endeavor, how will they market this (seemingly unnecessary) price change to regular consumers?

Sure we here on Slashdot may recognize the importance of DRM free music and increased quality, but will everyone else?

And when exactly did Apple...

.. start selling all the tracks of the Indy labels without DRM?

From the beginning of iTMS?
Last year?
Last week?
Not yet?

Hmmmm...

Apple TV now in Korea, still no iTunes Store

Apple has been aggressively expanding into a number of Asian markets over the past few years, perhaps as part of their quest for world domination. Or maybe just because of the possible profits in any number of large markets with good technology infrastructures. The latest product to be launched in Asia is the Apple TV, which was officially let out into the wild in Korea this week. Convert Flash to Apple TV http://www.apple-tv-converter.net/ [apple-tv-converter.net]

Re:Nice, but...

You do know Apple is still charging the same 9.99$ for the whole album right? They only increased the per song price. The songs also come with the album art embeded in the file. You aren't paying more, period. You also get the convieniance of buying online and getting immediate delivery.

Re:So... *More* than buying a CD?

If you buy the whole album, even if it has 20 tracks, it's $9.99. Please do a little research before spreading this FUD.

Re:Why hasn't anybody written a workaround for DRM

You don't understand how lossy compression works, do you? Transcoding is bad.

As for stripping the DRM but maintaining the original compression, it's been done (jHymn), but Apple released a new version of iTunes that broke compatibility with that, so it doesn't work anymore. If you think you can fix it, by all means, give it a try.

Re:Why hasn't anybody written a workaround for DRM

This would reduce the quality of the audio.

Re:So... *More* than buying a CD?

The biggest cost isnt the physical media (well maybe it used to be). It also isnt the money going to the artist. The biggest costs are in marketing and lawyers. To recoup these costs and make some change for themselves they put the price as high as the (mostly) free market will permit them to do so.

So yeah when you buy that CD, you're paying for all their marketing campaigns and for lawyers who are going out and suing the ass off 10 year old kids, but not the 10 year old kids of the guy who owns Time Warner though, oh no they just get a stern talking to and an increase in their allowance so they can buy as many CDs as they please without having to download them.

Re:Nice, but...

Ok, so now when you purchase a whole album, you get:

)) Pay as much or more than you would for the CD
)) Lossy compression (maybe better quality, but still not as good)
)) No album art
)) Save the producers the cost of stamping CD/printing art/distribution

Why am I paying _more_ for this? Hmm. Buying/ripping CDs is starting to look like a good idea again.

I doubt iTunes was really about buying a whole album, especially since they unbundled the purchases from the beginning.

They're betting that more people will want to buy 20 songs for $20 from various artists rather than 2 CD's that have maybe 2 or 3 songs they want and a bunch of filler. They then added the ability to shop online instead of going to the record store and instant loading to an iPod. The CD ripper who wants most of the songs is not really their target market; IMHO.

They are essentially saying 2 things:
1) Consumers - we belive you will value the added quality and lack of DRM and are willing to pay a premium for this.
2)Record industry - we will raise prices to CD prices, he added premium will cover incremental piracy loses like CD's do today.

This does represent a bit of a strategy change in that non-DRM songs should work easily on any mp3 player; so they are no going for the Zune / Zen / etc. buyer as well. Given the iPod's dominance in the mp3 market they probably are less worried about losing a few player sales versus pushing iTunes out to compete with rival services and manufacturers.

Re:So... *More* than buying a CD?

You say: An album worth of tracks on iTunes cost more than a full price new release.
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:Nice, but...

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.

)) Pay as much or more than you would for the CD

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).

)) Lossy compression (maybe better quality, but still not as good)

[sarcasm]Yes, because everyone can tell the difference between lossless and compressed music. And everyone cares. I've seen three year olds throw tantrums when they realized their favorite Barney song was in 128kbps MP3 instead of FLAC. Man, the bloodcurling screams of "I want FLAC!" are unnerving.[/sarcasm]

)) No album art

As of iTunes 7.0 you can import album art. There's nothing like have the physical art, but it's a start.

Why am I paying _more_ for this? Hmm. Buying/ripping CDs is starting to look like a good idea again.

You are not paying more for an album in most cases. What iTunes gives you is convenience. You don't have to drive down to the store. You don't have to wait for it to be shipped from Amazon. You don't have to spend time ripping it. Also, iTunes (and all other online music stores) are not for audiophiles. They are for regular people. If you want to buy the CD and rip it yourself in FLAC, no one is stopping you.

Re:Why hasn't anybody written a workaround for DRM

DRM Dumpster has been doing this a while now...

http://www.burningthumb.com/drmdumpster.html [burningthumb.com]

Re:Nice, but...

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:

• DRM free
• Lossless audio quality which you can rip to VBR/320 now and still have the option to rip to FLAC in a few years time, WAV a few years after that (as HDD capacities increase), if you so desire.
• Artwork/lyrics

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) on it? You've got it all backed up - right? Well, I sure as hell haven't made a backup. I've got 80, 90 gig of music and a DVD burner that won't burn working DVDs - so that's 150-odd CD-Rs I'd have to sit there burning.

If you buy an albums' worth of music on CD, then rip, you get MP3s, and your CD goes on the shelf as a physical backup. Buy an albums' worth of music on MP3, if you want the physical backup you have to burn one. Well, do you burn CDRs every time you buy mp3s? Really? And even if you, consider:

• Which disc lasts longer - the glass-mastered, pressed redbook CD, or the burnt consumer CD-R? I know a load of my backup CD-Rs from five years ago, that never left their storage case in the meantime, no longer read. (If I hadn't been paranoid enough to burn everything twice, it'd be lost. So now that's 300 CD-Rs I'd have to burn...) Whereas well-kept twenty year old audio CDs still play fine.

Just my opinion of course. I'm not telling anyone what format to buy in - I see plenty of people come up with well argued reasons why MP3 suits them better, fair enough. I buy MP3s too, occasionally. When there's only one or two tracks on a CD that I want, then obviously it makes much more sense. This doesn't happen that often, though, simply because I mostly prefer artists who are capable of putting out albums that aren't 80% crap! In these situations, iTunes would need to be DRM-free, 256kbps, track for £0.50 / album for £5 or less* to be remotely attractive competition for CDs, in my eyes.

(* I realise that $0.99 / $9.99 is less than £0.50 / £5 at the moment, but we get the usual $=£ stitch up with iTunes.)

Re:So... *More* than buying a CD?

"the RIAA needs to realize that over the past 50 years they've gone to progressively cheaper physical formats, without even pretending to pass the savings along to their customers."

Why do those equations not take into account the inflation rate? If you normalize prices at a particular year I bet you'll notice that they are going down. The bulk of the price increases are occurring when people will most accept them, at a format change.