Warner Rejects Jobs' DRM Position 102
massivefoot writes "Warner Music has rejected the suggestion from Steve Jobs that DRM should be removed from music downloads. In an open letter this week, Jobs said that removing the software would also allow greater usability for customers, as any online music store would be able to sell songs that would work on all players. Warner Music, the world's fourth largest record company, seems far from convinced. "
Logic eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
This from an industry that thinks it's logical to/that:
* Get a share of the profit from iPod sales.
* Adjusting for inflation CD should cost around $30! Why can everyone see what a great bargain they are!
* If it's on your computer and you didn't legally download it, you must of pirated it!
* The quality of music has nothing to do with lower CD sales.
I know they don't read this but...
STOP treating your customers as thieves and maybe they will buy your product more often.
STOP dishing out crap, your customers will buy quality music.
DRM does not stop pirates any more then closed window will stop thieves if you leave the door open.
Re:The RIAA's response (Score:5, Interesting)
But even if Jobs is just doing this to get the EU off his back, you have to admit, this has made DRM a front-page issue. That's diametrically opposed to the approach Microsoft (with Vista) or the RIAA would prefer. They want to pull a fast one and sneak DRM into every part of Joe Sixpack's life without him even knowing it (until he gets his first C&D letter).
So whatever Jobs' motives, I think this is a good thing. Most of the articles I've read on the subject agree that DRM is a bad thing. The "public" is getting ready to kick out the RIAA, and I've got my front-row seat.
Re:Strong Argument (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The RIAA's response (Score:3, Interesting)
I like Apple products and use them if I have a choice but, cynically speaking, this announcement was a no brainer and a win win for Apple. If the record exec's had agreed, Apple could strip-off DRM immediately, be the hero and get back to their attempts to dominate the media download market.
As it is, Jobs can silence Apple's critics by demonstrating how constrained Apple is by the labels.
(If you look back, he does this every couple of years.)
Re:Strong Argument (Score:3, Interesting)
Where is the logic in that?
If all the 13 year olds want it, that artist will see MORE sales (and be less likely than other artists to be short on food money)
Normal free-market economics don't apply either - one can't expect a supply/demand curve to push price up with increased demand, when there is essentially no limit to the supply. (heavily downloaded tracks aren't any less available than unpopular ones, if anything they would be MORE available due to being more likely to be in server cache RAM)
While I agree that artists should be paid for their work, does their having to eat actually have anything to do with the price?
If so, wouldn't the least popular artists be the ones you should be paying since they're the mostly likely to be hungry?
And if being hungry is a basis for payment, why would we pay anything for works of artists that have died? They don't eat!
The whole system is far from fair. Per-listener compensation makes sense for physical media and distribution costs, but should what artists and composers get scale linearly? Considering than it may take no added effort on the artists part when something is heard by 50 million people versus 5, should they really be paid 10 times as much? Should an artist that's heard less not because of less talent but because of discrimination in the distribution/broadcast system really get so much less?
My feeling is that the costs (per listener per song) for music should be FAR lower than they are. If we get a bigger library and have more variety, we actually should be hearing each song less of the time, so it seems fair to pay less per song but perhaps the same in total.
It would actually be far more fair to all involved, if compensation was a bit more like the system used for broadcasters to pay composers. A flat fee is paid (amount depends on market size and share), then "logging weeks" are used to sample what is actually played and use that to weigh the distribution of the money among the composers. A radio station with broadcasting a good variety of music does not pay more than one that plays the same few songs over and over. Why should we?
We could do something similar if paid an annual fee (or one for the life of a playback device) and periodically voted how the payment was to be divided among the artists/composers in our libraries. Under such a system, sharing of music would be benificial to both artists and consumers. Artists would get more exposure and payments would be divided more evenly among them, and consumers would be more likely to be hearing the artists they actually enjoy most instead of what's hyped by the media.
Even with the current system, I think DRM that imposes technical obsticles to music playback could be avoided. Simply embedding info about the purchaser in each downloaded song (and having it periodically show on players), should be enough to discourage the average consumer from wide-scale file sharing. In theory, music could be purchased with different types of imbedded ID/license info. There could be personal licenses, family licenses, campus licenses, dance/dj public licenses etc...
Obviously the record industry would be opposed to most of what I've said. They're all about forcing their ancient business models on us.
Not sure if I still have a working VCR, but this has given me the urge to dust off the old Twilight Zone tape containing "The Obsolete Man"
You know, this is really funny (Score:3, Interesting)
Right here, we have proof that it's the other way around. Jobs essentially offered the big music companies an opportunity to show that it was indeed Apple who forced DRM into iTunes, and clearly it shows that it's in fact the music industry that wants (and think they need) DRM.
Will this backfire for Jobs? (Score:2, Interesting)