Oh, oh, first!

Don't forget iTMS also sells (some) DRM-free, high-bit-rate music.

Also, I didn't read the Braithwaite post, but Firefox tells me the first appearance of the word "unfair" is one you wrote. In the pull-quote above that, you quote Braithwaite used the words "colluding" and "disadvantage", but that doesn't amount to the same thing.

Jeff,
Congrats on crossing the 100K readers mark.
Great!!!

I also think the DRM-free stores are great, but until there is licensing available outside of the U.S. or Canada then iTunes will be where I shop. I don't have any friends in the states willing to share their credit card details, and Australia isn't yet 'hip' enough to have dangerous goods like music digitally shipped to.

"Old Testament"? Why not Koran, Talmud, Mein Kampf, Homeland Securities Act, .... WTF?

And if iTunes goes away, how long will amazon keep selling its DRM-free music for? Or will the record companies let the amazon contract lapse and it's back to DRM-ville, but on amazon this time?

There's also the recent unbelievably consumer-hostile death of PlaysForSure DRM. See the Dive into Mark post: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/05/06/the-day-the-music-died

Most non techie customers have a happy go lucky worldview where they buy DRMed music and it just works. It just takes ONE technical failure that costs them a stupid dollar and they will instantly know everything they need to know about DRM. They'll vote with their wallet and they'll tell others to stay away from DRM.

DRM was doomed from a cryptology perspective, but it was also doomed from a business perspective because it subtracts value from products. No customer ever asked for more DRM.

The polish on modern iPods is just icing on the cake. An evolutionary improvement to the radical change the original iPod represented.

Before the iPod, portable music meant CD players, which meant you could have a convenient and portable player, or a wide variety of music to listen to, but not both. Then, suddenly, there was this magic THING that was the size of a deck of cards and could store most people's entire music library. No swapping CDs, no scratched media -- instead, something that was easy to carry with an intuitive interface that integrated cleanly with the best music library manager (this was all Mac-only back then).

I mowed lawns all summer long to earn enough money to get a 5 gig iPod for my brother. I ended up liking the iPod so much that I kept it for myself... But there is a happy ending -- I helped my brother get a 10 gig a few months later.

I think Colen is on the mark and Jeff has missed the point.

The labels colluding with Amazon to produce an artificial competitive advantage and stopping Amazon and Apple competing on their merits is always going to be bad for consumers. Who cares about Apple.

I think the "unfair" bit refers to the fact that Apple presumably has to pay more per track and is, for all intents and purposes, forced to sell "inferior goods" (never mind whether they actually would choose to use DRM and enforce a vendor lock-in if given the choice).

I don't know whether it's legal or not, but I suspect it is. Just a case of one company negotiating a better deal than the other, technically. No ulterior motives at work there... ;)

Ultimately, I agree with you. Fair or not, it's an unusual case where the market is actually working in the best interests of the consumer. Plus, I have no love for the ITMS, and wish nothing more than to never have to touch it again. It sucked when I got one of the new iPods back when they came out and, due to new encryption, had to use iTunes to manage it. Thankfully, now MediaMonkey, WinAmp, et. al. are able to manage it, meaning iTunes need never sully my hard disk again.

Jeff,
Thanks so much for pointing this store out! I wasn't even aware of the store's existence. I'm tired of burning my tunes to disc then ripping them to mp3; I'll definitely be shopping with Amazon from now on. Or with the likes of radiohead and nin. Check out nin's brand-spanking new, free, and unencumbered album "The Slip". (http://www.nin.com/)

DRM is the reason I've never purchased anything on iTunes. Until the Amazon mp3 store opened about 6 months ago, I was still buying CDs and ripping them to add to my collection. I know use the Amazon mp3 store on a regular basis.

Another good place to buy DRM-free mp3s is www.cdbaby.com. CD Baby is almost entirely indie stuff and has stuff you can't find anywhere else. I think the artist sees more of the $$ from CD Baby, too--they give 91% of the digital sale directly to the artist. It's a great way to support the artist directly.

I didn't realize Amazon sold DRM free music. That could save me the headaches of taking the DRM off myself, however the free music from Ruckus is worth the headache I suppose. When I stop using Ruckus and if Amazon is still DRM I'll convert. Personally I hate iTunes it is a resource hog and all round a pain to use.

iTMS sells music with DRM (though not all of it with DRM, sure, and Jobs vowed to remove the DRM as soon as the labels let him, which is something already).

Amazon MP3 is nothing short of amazing, but unlike iTMS *it only works in the US*. And like the rest of Amazon's services other than the bookshop part, it shows no signs of going international anytime soon.

Sigh.

One thing I'll say in Apple's defense in this: I can buy a track from the iTunes store and *legally* share it with a couple of my friends. With plain vanilla MP3s, I can't legally share it at all. My co-workers and I love to share our music collections with each other, but we want to do it legally. A bit of DRM seems to be the only way to do that at the moment. The license agreement for Amazon's store, and for Apple's DRM-free iTunes Plus, says no sharing. Period. I'm certainly no DRM advocate, but in this case, it is giving me something I can't otherwise get.

Can you buy individual songs from Amazon?

> But to argue that the competition is "unfair" smacks of the absolute worst kind of Apple advocacy. Unfair? Unfair to whom?

It's unfair to customers who demand a *market* in DRM-free music. A market where potential competitors in this market not be excluded for arbitary reasons.

If any *other* company was being excluded from the DRM-free music market - would you also be OK with this?

Much maligned as Malda's comment is, it doesn't reveal how out of touch he is, it simply reveals which market segment he belongs too. Previous mp3 players with superior specs were branded for and marketed towards typical early adopting electronics consumers, ie geeks with a bit of disposable cash. They weren't huge successes because that was a bad branding decision; those people are not huge music consumers and represent a small part of the market. Malda's reaction to the product was almost inevitable, because the ipod wasn't targeted at him, while a lot of other products were. Apple enjoyed huge commercial success because it made much better decisions than its competitors.

For everybody waiting to dismiss a product that may go on to see commercial success, there is somebody waiting to dismiss that person's honest and accurate assessment...

i long for the day when amazon will sell mp3s outside the US. Until then there's very few options (besides piracy) for non-ipod users outside the US.

My fear is that if the Amazon MP3 store continues to grow in popularity it may begin to marginalize the iTunes store, once the word really gets out that it offers songs at better quality for the same or cheaper price and with no DRM.

Why does that scare me? Not because I think DRM will come back; I don't think that will happen. But because I fear that the labels will have the power to raise prices at their will, which gets us right back to where we were with physical CDs (which have no DRM, remember?): the record labels have complete control of the price. Steve Jobs is a great negotiator, and I wonder if some clause about price control isn't already written into the Amazon contract.

if that happens of course that means we'll go back to trading MP3s again, which - let's face it - is a reality we'd resort to if pushed, but not one we'd like to have to embrace again. I don't think the labels have learned anything and are just in the midst of trying to get control.

The only way to compete with iTunes is on price and quality; the labels can't stop the iPod from being the best music player and thus iTunes being the most convenient. But if iTunes becomes sufficiently marginalized, they can tear up those contracts completely without losing much and then get to work on recovering all the "lost profits" from selling all those songs to Amazon at such a "steep discount".

I have been voting with my wallet also. I've already purchased more music from Amazon than I did from Apple.

Die DRM Die!

Hmm, well sure, except for your factual errors. You don't mention (although commenters do) that Apple sells DRM free music on the iTMS. You don't mention that Apple provides a mechanism to remove the DRM on FairPlay tracks (albeit via a fairly invloved and time consuming process of burning them back to CD Audio format). So basically, just another opportunity to bash Apple based on... what? I'm sorry Jeff, your argument would fail if you mentioned these facts. You are either unaware (in which case why write an article without researching it fully?) or deliberately misleading your readers.
I'm not arguing that Amazon isn't a better source of DRM free music, It may well be. I don't know, I live outside the US. But it is incumbent upon you to get your facts straight. If you had taken these facts into account, how different would this post have to be? I enjoy reading your articles, but it looks to me like your bias against Apple is actually affecting your judgement. Whenever you write about them, you look uninformed.

A sound engineer I met in Vancouver, B.C. in 2005 gave me his version of the lowdown on Apple's relationship with the major recording labels. It was sheer venom on the part of the labels he said, because Apple was essentially setting their famous 99 cent price, and then telling the labels how much of that 99 cents they'd get! The labels were powerless to set their own prices in the face of iTune's success. He cited this as the reason that movie downloads were not going to end up available on Apple's site in the same manner as the music, as the studios were not looking forward to handing pricing controls over to a vendor in the same way that the music labels had.

If that's in any way true (and it sound about right), it wouldn't be surprising that in 2008 that the recording industry would be happily handing Apple the shortest end of the stick that they could afford to.

I'm another one who would love to welcome his new Amazon music store overlords... if they had any plans to serve customers outside the USA. That makes me collateral damage for the stupid anti-competitive games being played by the record labels.

Jeff, your post tries really, really, really hard to seem like you're being even-handed about Apple and about Braithwaite's post, but there seems to be a good deal of hostility toward Apple lurking beneath the reasonable surface. Ironically, your post seems to be emotionally involved with Apple (albeit negatively) despite your protestations to the contrary.

Also, I think you misrepresent the Braithwaite post as somehow presenting an emotional position about Apple. I read all of Braithwaite's post, and didn't think at all that it was whining that Apple is being treated "unfairly" (your word, btw, which doesn't exist anywhere in the post). It's a given that Apple leads the market and are making some pretty good profit from the current, mostly-DRM'ed iTunes store. But as a highly user-centric organization, Apple would much rather not have to dump the encumbrances of DRM on their users. It's the labels that have insisted on the DRM lock-down from day 1 of iTunes' existence, and now the labels are trying to leverage this against Apple. Which they are legally allowed to do (all's fair... etc.). But I have no doubts that if Apple were allowed dump DRM, they would do so in a flash. Steve Jobs has already publicly stated as much. And if this happened, then their competitors would have to compete based on UX, usability, AND price rather than just on price and lack of DRM. That seems to be the point of Braithwaite's post, and not that poor, poor Apple is being mistreated and shouldn't we pity them, etc etc.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they've made quite the handsome profit along the way, too.

As far as iTunes is concerned, Apple makes little profit. They consider it a loss-leader for selling iPods, which is where the handsome profit is.

Apple is selling some movies on iTunes for less than the studios charge them, simply to maintain their consistent pricing policy.

Have to disagree with you Jeff....

Enjoy the return of DRM if iTunes goes down due labels not offering Apple the same opportunity to compete :)

Seriously, I'm surprised you can't see this is a classic bait and switch by the labels, if you don't think so, you're naive and a little misguided in your enthusiasm.

The problem with ITMS' DRM is that it's not aimed at protecting authors (and labels) but rather aimed at helping Apple sell more iPods!

As long as I can't listen to the music I buy on my USB-aware car radio, iTMS is a no-no.

There is one good thing about iTunes (and the iPod): It does not require the iTunes Store or DRM at all. I am playing my music with iTunes at home and on my iPod outside, and yet I don't have to deal with DRM, because I bought the music elsewhere. Personally, I prefer physical media, as they act as a sort of external backup device. I rip the CDs into iTunes and play the music there. It works without any hassle, without any DRM etc. I have never bought a single piece on the iTunes Store. ;)

I'd be buying music from Amazon if I could, but unfortunately it's limited to the US which is really annoying for me as an Irishman. We seem to get access to things like the iTMS far later than other countries (which is why I have a US iTunes account), due to licensing agreements etc. Pain in the ASS.

At the moment, I buy from eMusic if I can, then from iTunes if that option isn't available. Then from Amazon for the really annoying stuff you can only get on CD :(

I'm gonna miss the cds.
The thrill of tearing off the plastic of a newly bought cd and popping it in for a sonic bliss. The artwork.
Too bad not many of these online retailers offer flac(lossless audio).
I'm gonna miss the cds.

You see, the only problem with Amazon (compared to iTMS) for me is that it isnt available in Australia (i think) and it isnt integrated nicely with iTunes.

I understand the last one isnt really a valid point, but that is really were i dont like it. I like the iTMS pretty much because i only need to hit 'purchase' and the song is bought, added to my iTunes library and synced to my iPod next time i plug it in.

Maybe some polish readers will find this info useful:
I buy my music for *1 grosz* (= 1 cent) up to *99 grosz* (= 99 cents) per mp3 of Polish startup bands at megatotal.pl. No DRM, no politics - just music.

You can also freely browse and listen to all the music there, no 30s limitations.

Thanks!

My dad successfully bought some DRM'd music from the Tiscali music store (operated by OD2) a while back and it wouldn't play in Windows Media Player! A message came up in WMP saying that he had to install some new patch from MS, but it didn't say what that was. He chalked it up to experience and bought CDs from then on.

I prefer to buy CDs because my car's player is so old it doesn't play burned discs properly. I then have the artwork and a handy case for the CD. And I don't have to worry so much about backing up my music collection because I already have a physical copy.

I have bought some music from the iTS, but only about 5 tracks and they've all been plus, on principle.

> if iTunes goes away
> if iTunes goes down due

Do you honestly believe this is, in any possible universe, a realistic outcome? It's absurd.

> As far as iTunes is concerned, Apple makes little profit.

"By Billboard's calculations, iTunes turned a profit in 2007 with $1.9 billion in revenue and a 30 percent profit margin"
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/03/apple-apparentl.html

> I have no doubts that if Apple were allowed dump DRM, they would do so in a flash

Really? Odd, then, how OS X requires specific hardware to run. That's one bit of DRM they seem quite willing to carry forward.

> competitors would have to compete based on UX, usability, AND price rather than just on price and lack of DRM

What "usability" and "UX" do I need from Amazon? It's a website that lets me download MP3s. As Serge said, above, the DRM ends up protecting the iPod lock-in more than the artists or labels.

Too bad the friendly record labels haven't yet opened Amazon mp3 store outside US. And usually when they do, the ten dollar prices automatically change to ten euro prices which sort of pisses me off.
(1 Euro = 1.53900 U.S. dollars)

> I can buy a track from the iTunes store and *legally* share it with a couple of my friends

True, as long as each of your friends is on the same local network and all running iTunes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Library_sharing

> You don't mention (although commenters do) that Apple sells DRM free music on the iTMS

I did sort of mention this in the sentence containing "the majority of Apple's iTunes Store catalog", but I was glossing over it because I didn't realize Plus was a significant portion of the music catalog -- 2 million out of "more than 6 million" tracks, so a little less than 1/3. My error. I updated the post.

Can I buy songs from Amazon in MY country? No! Since when does music care about borders? Don't be too happy, we have a long way to go still, until we just buy our songs from the artists themselves we are not done.

Jeff, you really don't understand the point Rob Malda was trying to make, AT ALL.

Let me give you an example:
- I have a sony MP3 player.
- I use WinAmp for playing mp3's
- in my home, I use either my mp3 player hooked up to my stereo or my ps3 to play mp3s.
- I really like scandinavian metal music.

Now, let's go back to your article. You're basicly saying that if I say DRM and Apple's business practises suck bigtime, I'm stupid, because I should just follow along and buy an iPod, use iTunes on my pc (why would I use such a horrible program to play a random audio file?) and buy a mac mini to play the mp3s in my home? Oh, and because Apple until recently didn't share my taste in music, I couldn't purchase the music I wanted to purchase in their store.

DRM sucks. As simple as that. With my MP3 player I received a free cd in downloads from Sony. However, the mp3's are only playable by the horrific mp3 player software of sony or the mp3 player, not winamp. If I am on my ubuntu partition, I also want to listen to the music, why can't I do that? Didn't I receive a LEGITIMATE LICENSE to play the music?

I simply can't believe how shortsighted the article is you posted, Jeff. Open your eyes.

correction on my previous post: I didn't read the whole post, just the upper half. Ok, you correct yourself in the second half. I'm glad you came to your senses :) (yes, next time I'll RTFA in full ;))

In the whole mess made by various RIAAs I always keep going back to the model established on www.magnatune.com and the like (no affiliation, just a happy customer here). The base of the model? Treat your customers like customers, not thieves.

Never once have they made a problem out of me not being out of a certain region of the world (and I got that a lot in my life). DRM was an unknown, but the format preferences were always abundant (from mp3, through OGG and all the way up to a full waw).

And they kept on pilling up the extras - pay what you can afford, give up to X copies of every purchase to friends, podcast friendly, guarantee that 50% of what I pay goes to the artist...

And my first experience with iTunes and the like? Sorry, your country is not supported.

Wonder why I have never seen a DRM file?

Huh, after buying about 50ish tracks from itunes in the past.. after reading your blog entry I'm going to start buying from Amazon instead.

-- Lee

"There's absolutely no historical evidence that a type of media, once it is officially sold DRM free, can somehow revert back to the DRM model."

Did the first CDs have DRM? Did more recent CDs have DRM?

> - I really like scandinavian metal music.

Well, there's your problem, right there.. :)

I like this - and I have never bought from iTunes because it's cheaper to buy the bargain basement CD (80's or 90's) by far, and the compression ratios suck. IPods sound fine through headphones but when you amplify them you need to put the bass and mid back in.

I do have a problem with Amazon, they've recently shafted small publishers that use publish on demand and tried to force them to use their (at least it used to be) 2nd rate POD service. Of course, when stuff arrives with upside down pages and missing pages it's the publisher that gets the blame, not the crap POD.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/27/amazon-muscles-print-on-demand-services/

I haven't been following this, but I won't buy from Amazon at the moment until they stop behaving like pigopolists.

Jeff,

You have a slightly blinkered view on things here. You have to remember that the Amazon music store is _only_ available to people living in the US. (Is it available in canada yet??)

I live in the UK and I've tried buying songs from it and it just won't let me. So I stay with iTunes Music Store. I don't have a particular problem with iTunes or the DRM associated with it, I play my music on my pc and listen to it on my iPod.

The DRM for me, doesn't get in the way, it is quite transparent, unlike the horrendous problems I used to have with the DRM used by Audible. That was an absolute nightmare.

Jeff,

>Really? Odd, then, how OS X requires specific hardware to run. That's one bit of DRM they
> seem quite willing to carry forward.

There's no DRM controlling what you can run OS X on. Apple only provide drivers for a limited pool of Intel kit. If you're sufficiently religious about not buying hardware from
Apple you can always build a 'frankenmac' that will run OS X:

http://www.macworld.com/article/133028/2008/04/building_mac_clone.html

Don't you love the wonderful:

> Please note that Amazon MP3 is currently only available to US customers.

For a lot of us, iTunes is the only decent option of getting *any* downloadable music at all. And given the fact that we had to wait a whole extra year before iTunes became available here, that means I'll be out of luck for another couple of months with Amazon. If they'll *ever* remove that line.

But this isn't a problem with Amazon and music only. The internet is global, but shopping is still largely local. Quite a frustrating experience for non-US customers, at times.

"Well, there's your problem, right there.. :)"
hehe :) Yeah, but the thing is... that's the one thing that's pretty much unchangeable. I tried, I really did, but britney really doesn't come close to evergrey ;P

> Unfair? Unfair to whom? The customers who are getting DRM-free music officially blessed by the major record labels?

Unfair to both the customer, who can't benefit from competing music stores -- as there is no competition -- and unfair to Apple who is not allowed to fairly compete with Amazon (and the rest of the world is hosed anyway, as the Amazon Music Store is only available in the US, so the only un-drm'd music stores for us europeans or oceanians are iTunes plus, good ol' CD and our PirateBay friends).

Reg's view that it's unfair, like it or not, is objective. It's not in any way, shape or form "Apple advocacy" (had that post come from DF it may have been, but Reg, is that a joke?).

> Before the iPod, portable music meant CD players

It didn't. Before the iPod, portable music meant unusable interface and ugly brick, but there were HDD and even flash music players long before the iPod.

> Really? Odd, then, how OS X requires specific hardware to run. That's one bit of DRM they seem quite willing to carry forward.

It's also a completely different one (and it's wrong anyway, OS X doesn't require specific hardware to run): in the computer market, Apple is a systems vendor, their software is here to sell their hardware, and the other way around. That's *not* the case in the music market, and Apple repeatedly stated they'd switch everything to un-DRM'd if they could. It's just that the labels won't let them have Amazon's deal.

Hell, Reg explained it perfectly well, you're more than a bit lacking in objectivity here jeff.

Just to agree with some of the commenters above, I read Reg's article first and I didn't get the impression that he was supporting Apple so much as objectively describing the current situation.

argh US only. Why the hell are distribution contracts so messed up? My current options are either iTunes or BitTorrent. Which is something that NBC should have considered when they pulled out of iTunes and set up yet another US-only portal. Customers will go down the path of least resistance. (sorry I realize this is slightly OT, but I had my hopes up for a second there before I read the fine print)

I don't see how the record companies letting Amazon sell DRM-free music at the same time as requiring that Apple keep DRM on the music that they sell, as anything /but/ unfair on Apple and ultimately on the consumer. While the recording industry tries to control Apple, we lose out. Jobs has already stated on record (heh, sorry) that he would remove all DRM from the iTunes store if the labels would agree to it.

And as no-one else has mentioned it yet - the 5-computers limit on the Apple iTunes purchases is 5 simultaneous computers, not 5 for all-time. Just thought I'd mention this as I've seen it in a few places and many people do seem to think that once you've authorised 5 computers it's game over. You can de-authorise computers; I'm on my 4th Mac, I have 2 machines in current use and have 3 authorisations available to me at the moment. All of my Macs were authorised when I was using them. When it's time to move the machine along, I just deauthorise that computer from my Apple account.

smucks.

http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

which.cd did I hear ?

> Record companies letting Amazon sell DRM-free music at the same time as requiring that Apple keep DRM on the music that they sell, as anything /but/ unfair on Apple

As a consumer, why would I care about anything other than competition resulting in lower prices -- and *less DRM* -- for me? Why would I care how "unfairly" a company with a 160 billion dollar market cap (as of this writing) is being treated?

It's competition. It's business. Business is war, and as long as the consumer benefits, the system is working as designed. AAPL is a big company. They don't need my or your moral support to succeed. They have plenty of great products. I'm sure there are millions of consumers who could care less if there is DRM on their music as long as it works on their iPods.

> It's not in any way, shape or form "Apple advocacy"

It is when you explicitly put the concerns of a 160 billion dollar company ahead of the typical music consumer.

> Unfair to both the customer, who can't benefit from competing music stores -- as there is no competition

Was there viable competition for digital music downloads before Amazon? No, there wasn't. So in effect this has created the only real competition there ever would be. Without Amazon DRM-free, iTunes was well on its way to becoming utterly dominant and entrenched, the de-facto standard for the forseeable future.

Would Apple have reduced iTunes Plus fees from $1.29 to $0.99 if Amazon didn't offer DRM free music for less? Out of the goodness of their heart? Because they love, in Reg's words, "delighting customers"?

It's actually much simpler than this: the record labels realized that the DRM they asked for from Apple wasn't protecting them or the artists at all, but in fact, protecting the Apple iPod lock-in model. The labels had no choice but to permanently destroy DRM to regain distribution control of their own music. A pyrrhic victory, to be sure, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of folks.

The enemy of my enemy (DRM) is my friend.

For those in the UK (you need a UK billing address), Play.com offer a MP3 download service now: http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download/6-/DigitalHome.html

Not really sure how the prices compare though.

I've been beating the anti-DRM drum for years now. Many of my friends blindly go on buying from iTS in spite of my repeated rants to the contrary. Ugh. Lemmings.

I continue to purchase CDs then rip them to MP3 format. It's a control thing. And it's a backup thing! Hard drives may be more reliable than ever before, but they still die and very few computer owners ever do comprehensive backups. So, if your hard drive goes belly up and you've lost all of that music you've paid to download, what then?

I completely agree with you Jeff; I don't buy anything from itunes since I got for mistake DRM-ed songs (it was the first time for me on that site and there was no clear evidence that those songs were DRM-ed, call it lack of transparency...). Unluckyly here in Italy we don't have the luck of having amazon's service so at the moment we can't do like you.
I hope the future will be better, best we can do for now is to avoid buying from itunes-store.

Quote:
As a consumer, why would I care about anything other than competition resulting in lower prices -- and *less DRM* -- for me? Why would I care how "unfairly" a company with a 160 billion dollar market cap (as of this writing) is being treated?

Because there is no competition involved, and the labels are manipulating the market at will. Exercise: as a consumer, why should you care about companies selling products at below production costs (hint: it has something to do with sustaining the competition in the future)?

Quote:
The labels realized they had to permanently destroy DRM to regain distribution control of their own music.

Nobody destroyed DRM. The labels can stop giving non-DRMed music to Amazon any moment that they feel secure in having more than 1 highly successful middleman for DRMed music. And if Apple is discriminated against heavily enough, there will be competitors in that market sector before long.

From Ars Technica:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080110-amazon-rounds-out-drm-free-music-offering-with-sony-bmg.html

Amazon rounds out DRM-free music offering with Sony BMG

Probably fuming at the news is Steve Jobs, who has been hammering the labels to let iTunes be the first to offer their music DRM-free.

But the labels have apparently been playing hardball with Apple, and have all (but one) decided to take their unprotected music elsewhere. It's not an accident that EMI and a handful of independent labels are the only ones selling DRM-free music through iTunes right now—the labels are actively trying to lessen Apple's influence in digital music.

I thnk you're a bit naive on this one Jeff - Apple would love to offer DRM-free music from all labels (see http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/), it's the labels that are preventing it.

Whereas I am of the opinion that I am better off just buying from iTunes (when I am not buying physical that is) because:

1) I am unwilling to support the music industry juggernaut's boycott
2) I believe a larger part of the revenue goes to the actual artist
3) Amazon completely sucks in comparison to the iTunes store (even tho I admit I don't hate it at all)
4) I'm only playing it on iPods and Macs anyway

The big labels need to stfu and stop trying to enslave artists, companies and consumers.

Jeff writes:

> As a consumer, why would I care about anything other than competition
> resulting in lower prices -- and *less DRM* -- for me? Why would I
> care how "unfairly" a company with a 160 billion dollar market cap (as of this writing) is being treated?

One thing to care about is the buying experience. Personally i'd rather buy music through the iTunes store because it's integrated with the most popular music player.

You are not being an advocate for the consumer, you're being an advocate for the music labels.

I'll buy music online once Amazon's mp3 sales are available in New Zealand. Until then (and probably after), CDs will do fine.

"One thing to care about is the buying experience. Personally i'd rather buy music through the iTunes store because it's integrated with the most popular music player."

Okay, that's fine...

"You are not being an advocate for the consumer, you're being an advocate for the music labels."

Wha? I mean, huh? Amazon's interface is worse (in your opinion) than Apple's, and to use the worse (in your opinion) interface... helps... the labe-

I'm sorry, I cannot make any logical connection between those two statements. Did you forget a paragraph?

Don't forget DRM-free will help on your batteries too!

Taking this to the logical extreme, buying drm free music means you are saving the planet.

"I have no doubts that if Apple were allowed dump DRM, they would do so in a flash"

Funny. I remember some tracks on emusic that were available as unprotected MP3s at the same time that they were DRM'd on iTMS.

Incidentally, Jeff, it's worth checking out emusic, and sometimes getting a subscription for a month or two. There's not a huge range of mainstream music, but they've got people like the White Stripes and Belle and Sebastian, and its much cheaper.

I agree, mostly, with the points you are making, but my usual solution is to buy CDs rather than MP3s. No compression, no DRM, open standard, permanent physical backup. If a particular song I want is on a CD that's bizarrely overpriced, I'll splurge the $.99 on iTMS.

Amazon mp3 store is very good and has a lot of titles, I use it often. Don't forget places like eMusic either. They also have DRM free MP3s, but they offer a subsciption model. At the high levels you get songs for around 20 cents each. I subscribe at a 2 year subscription, 75 songs per month for 15$ a month. Some of the major artist are not there, but many are and it has really given me a change to find a lot of great music by lesser know artist. So now I use eMusic in conjunction with Amazon to get music I like.

"Do you honestly believe this is, in any possible universe, a realistic outcome? It's absurd." -- Jeff Atwood, on the possibilities of the iTunes store disappearing, circa 2008.

I hope when someone find this quip when and if the iTunes store goes belly-up because of some colossal failure on Apple's part, they'll be as kind to you as you were to Rob Malda.

It's easy to look back on history and throw barbs at someone for being "out-of-touch" with how things turned out, but it happens, and it happens to all of us. Based on technical features alone, the iPod wasn't competitive with the Nomad. Creative had the superior product if you looked purely at a specification sheet. It was only because of iTunes and the iTunes Music Store that the iPod took off. iTunes made it easy to get music from the Internet onto your iPod; an idea at the time that was not only unheard of, but frowned upon by the music industry.

I think you owe Rob and Slashdot an apology.

Jeff,

>Would Apple have reduced iTunes Plus fees from $1.29 to $0.99 if Amazon didn't offer DRM free music for less? Out of the goodness of their heart? Because they love, in Reg's words, "delighting customers"?

I covered this on my blog back in October 07:
http://www.innerexception.com/2007/10/most-likely-reason-apple-lowered-itunes.html

The even shorter version than my post, iTunes Plus tracks at $1.29 were an inducement to the record labels to move their catalog to DRM free. When the major studios didn't take it and instead started supplying Amazon, Apple removed the promise of higher eventual revenue to the labels.

> Record companies letting Amazon sell DRM-free music at the same time as requiring that Apple keep DRM on the music that they sell, as anything /but/ unfair on Apple

I covered that on my blog in Jan 08:
http://www.innerexception.com/2008/01/bought-my-first-mp3-album-from-amazon.html

Doesn't matter if the dominant current music store, or really digital media store, is by Apple, Microsoft, or Amazon. Being unhappy about the current situation is not Apple advocacy run amok, its a desire for a truly competitive market for all forms of digital media. The current situation is not "pure competition" as you say, it's obvious the major labels are giving Amazon much better terms than Apple. I don't want, nor do I think anyone who's sane, wants iTunes as the only place to buy legal digital downloads from. I want Amazon, Zune Marketplace, anyone else that wants to have a go. As I say in my post, I may sacrifice buying DRM-free from Amazon, not because I need to prop up Apple the company, but because what I really want is DRM-free for all tracks on both iTunes, Amazon, and anyone else that comes along. Once that happens, and I am still hopeful, I would then most likely buy from iTunes for music exclusively because I think DRM-free AAC (MP4) is a better product (smaller sizes, better device battery life) than MP3s at the same bit rate. You may disagree with me on that, since MP3 is portable to every device, and MP4 is portable to most devices, you may think that is more important than what I think important. That is a truly competitive market.

But I think it is crazy to suggest that Amazon's MP3 store is pro-consumer in the long run. The music and movie studios have always tried to add more DRM, even after its out of the bottle. DVD DRM was broken years ago, you can strip the DRM and reencode pretty freely now with Handbrake, but they went at it again with even more DRM for HD DVD and Blu-ray. Didn't stop them then, won't stop them with digital downloads if the labels (colluded before to price fix CDs, doing it now for DRM-free MP3s from Amazon) believe it's in the best interest.

So did the whole issue where Apple refused to budge an inch on variable pricing suddenly go away? Not so long ago all of the hubbub was about Jobs battling with the records execs because he wanted every track on the store to stay the same price. Clearly that issue doesn't bother Amazon, so that could definitely be a factor in why Amazon is getting a better deal.

my experience with amazon is that their download software(needed to buy complete cd's) supports multiple platforms windows, linux and mac. I do not need any software if I am purchasing just one song. Corporate sympathy or loyalty never, only concern I have is how much money does it save me and is it drm free.

Curious what other people have done about this as I wrestled with the idea for a while:

Have you taken up Apple's offer to upgrade your old FairPlayed downloads to "iTunes Plus" files?

On the plus side you get higher quality files without DRM, on the minus side you have to hand over even more cash.

It was Microsoft's closure of their MSN Music Store that made me upgrade all my tracks. That action made it abundantly clear that a big name doesn't guarantee longevity.

Finally, price and encoding bit-rate are not the only areas that can be fought over. I recently bought an album on iTunes rather than Play.com (we don't get Amazon MP3 in the UK) even though it had DRM because they were offering extra tracks that I couldn't get elsewhere. Apple's size allows them to negotiate these types of exclusive deal.

For Germans: http://www.musicload.de/
For most places: http//www.magnatune.com/ (was mentioned already)
For most places: http://www.audiolunchbox.com/
For UK at least: http://play.com (also mentioned)

It's simply not true that there's no competition - most people are just too caught up with being sheep that they don't look for alternatives.

Regards
Fake

Since we're slamming Slashdot here, what's the alternative? I've learned long ago in the business world that you can't complain about something unless you have an alternative or you don't mind getting saddled with the onerous task of finding an alternative (which by the way is why corporate America sucks, since you only spotlight a problem if you want to be part of the solution; otherwise keep your mouth shut).

So, what's the better techie/nerd site?

(and yes, I look on Amazon first, but iTunes has the more obscure music, in my experience)

I've never had a problem with iTunes DRM, only with the availability of music from the store. I think it's a lot worse that you can only buy music that is available in your region. Don't tell me what I can listen to, thank you.

You can always burn and re-rip music if you want to remove the DRM. I don't know why everyone complains about DRM when you can always do this! If you wanted perfect, buy the CD.

A lot of this discussion is around the RIAA and its relationship to digital music. But there is a huge amount of non-RIAA music available on Amazon MP3, often for less than 99 cents a track or $9.99 an album. While independant label sales are still dwarfed by RIAA sales, sources like music blogs and commercial placements are spreading the word. All the music I buy these days are from independant labels; its not even a concious choice, its just the music I like. I would go so far as to advocate a boycott on all music from RIAA sources; one can use this site to see if an album is from an RIAA-affiliated label: http://www.riaaradar.com/

"...while the majority of Apple's iTunes Store catalog is still stuck in the old testament world of DRM customer punishment..."

Owie! Paraphrasing Terry Jones from my son's graduation ceremony last week: always try to offend the most people possible.

About the only thing you could do to make that line even better would be to throw in an insult at the Linux crowd.

I live in Belgium, so no Amazon MP3 for me.

Why is it not available ? Well I guess Apple could make a justice case here that the music labels are giving an unfair advantage (no DRM/higher bitrates) to Amazon compared to Apple.

Why are the rules different ?

The music company should have a fixed price independent on what music retailer is selling it. The retailer can calculate some profit margin to pay for the distribution costs and make some money. But in the end, the RULES should be the same.

Even if the rules would be the same, the prices can still be different. People would chose based on ease of use and speed of download.

If Apple decides on the price that they want to pay to the music labels, I can understand that the music industry is not happy with it. It should be the other way around. But that happens when the music industry was trying 100 types of different DRM sites that offered horible end user experience - not taking into account that in the end its the buyers who decides if they charge the right price or not. If they insist on DRM then the price should be extremely low since we are severely limited in how we can use it.

I used to have my favourite music shops to buy vinyl or CD's, my choice was based on proximity, price and availability of Scandinavian Heavy Metal. Now I'm left with no choice at all since I'm living in the wrong country (although, for other things but music it is quite OK to live here).

Cheers!

If your dumb enough to buy music from iTunes then I doubt you care or will even notice the DRM.

Re: Ben Karel

Some of us are old enough to remember the joy of having a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300 when everyone was fumbling with portable CD players. I know, capacity sucked you say. But then, life is about trade-offs.

Sinan

"So, what's the better techie/nerd site?"

Ars Technica?

or better yet...

Google reader? Since basically all Slashdot does is aggregate news and add in god-awful comments.

You're not 'buying' an mp3 from Amazon, you're getting a non-transferable license for 'digital content' which means that the doctrine of first sale doesn't hold ( see here for details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine).

Relevant part of the Amazon agreement is below:

2.1 License. Upon your payment of our fees for Digital Content, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Digital Content for your personal, non-commercial, entertainment use, subject to and in accordance with the terms of this Agreement. You may copy, store, transfer and burn the Digital Content only for your personal, non-commercial, entertainment use.

2.2 Restrictions. You represent, warrant and agree that you will use the Service only for your personal, non-commercial, entertainment use and not for any redistribution of the Digital Content or other use restricted in this Section 2.2. You agree not to infringe the rights of the Digital Content's copyright owners and to comply with all applicable laws in your use of the Digital Content. Except as set forth in Section 2.1 above, you agree that you will not redistribute, transmit, assign, sell, broadcast, rent, share, lend, modify, adapt, edit, sub-license or otherwise transfer or use the Digital Content. You are not granted any synchronization, public performance, promotional use, commercial sale, resale, reproduction or distribution rights for the Digital Content. You acknowledge that the Digital Content embodies the intellectual property of a third party and is protected by law.

Jeff:

AFAICT, we agree on the most important things:

"It’s delightful that for the moment, we have a choice of where to buy DRM-free music. It’s wonderful that today, we can legally purchase the right to listen to a lot of major label music on DRM-free MP3s...

Buy what you like, where you like."

Although you don't address the issue, don't you agree that it is in *our* best interests for iTMS to be able to offer *all* of its catalog in DRM-free format and to offer said catalog at the same price as Amazon or anyone else?

Why does everyone think the iPod was the first major MP3 player? I had a Creative Labs Zen Jukebox 20 GB player at least three years before the iPod came out.

The iPod was not the first! What was so revolutionary about the iPod?!?

I personally still prefer buying the old-school cds and ripping mp3s to my computer. I still have some cd players around that don't play mp3 (like my car), and I like listening to music in my car :)

The space/content value of cds is really low these days, but I don't often have DRM issues with those.

I'm also in the eMusic + Amazon mp3 camp. I like eMusic because it's inexpensive and lets me explore a wide variety of new music. And while eMusic is a subscription service, I don't lose my music if I unsubscribe. I try to clear the stuff I get from Amazon with the RIAA Radar because I just can not in good conscience give my money to the blood thirsty RIAA. With eMusic, I generally don't worry about it, as their focus is on independent labels.

If I can't find what I want on either of those sites, I might go to my local record shop and pick it up. Otherwise I just won't buy it. I did get a couple of free iTunes songs with some concert tickets I bought the other day, so in that case I'll use the iTMS, but otherwise not.

With respect to the price fixing argument:

"But clearly, they can't. There are certain market realities at work here. There's absolutely no historical evidence that a type of media, once it is officially sold DRM free, can somehow revert back to the DRM model."

I really don't think the labels need to go back to DRM to fix the prices. Look at what they did with CDs in the 1990s (http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2000/aug/aug08a_00.html). That was well before Sony was putting rootkits on their CDs. The battle between the labels and Apple's iTMS is more between content and access to consumers. When the labels have options on how they can sell (or resell) their content to consumers, they pretty much name their price. The extensions of terms of copyright and other laws that the labels buy from our government let them ignore their customers completely. If they own the the copyright, they control the supply. You can't easily substitute a copy of The Beatles White Album with a Backstreet Boys record. You could buy a used copy of it (on CD), but that's about your only option other than paying what the labels demand. Digital music provides an even better opportunity for price fixing.

1. You can not buy used digital music.
2. Big retailers who can afford to sell music at a loss ($10 CD at Best Buy) will not be bringing you into a store where they can sell you other things at a higher price to make up for it.

Once the labels solve the "access to consumers" problem, they will charge whatever they want. Consumers will have the choice to:

1. Pay the label's demand.
2. Steal it.
3. Go without.

Then the labels just need to figure out how to get us all to rebuy our music collections every couple of decades (or more frequently - subscriptions!!).

By the way, folks in the UK may chuckle at your use of the word 'boner'.....don't forget internationalisation issues affect slang too!

This is no longer blog about programming, but an advertising campaign for Amazon. The battery charger, GPS, programming books, music...what is coming next? Buy buy buy, each post like a new episode of a shopping channel...

> It's actually much simpler than this:
> the record labels realized that the DRM
> they asked for from Apple wasn't protecting
> them or the artists at all, but in fact,
> protecting the Apple iPod lock-in model.
> The labels had no choice but to permanently
> destroy DRM to regain distribution control
> of their own music.

Sure, the customers benefit in the short term. But don't count on it for long. The record labels have lost control of their own content and know it. They *badly* need competition for ITMS to gain leverage in negotiations with Apple. Badly enough that they are willing to take a hit in the short term to reestablish that control.

Certainly iPod lock-in was part of the motivation for going DRM-free with Amazon. But only so far as establishing the largest possible customer base for the competing store. After all, lower prices alone wasn't going to get another store up to ITMS size anytime soon.

I fully expect that once the Amazon store has taken root, the record labels will back in the drivers seat. At that point Amazon will be dependent on the revenue, Jobs will be in a weaker negotiating position, and the terms of the deals from the labels will change.

And then the customers will suffer, again.

I think this is the part of your blog that Reginald should be printing and pinning to his cubicle wall:

"But let me tell you, I've been emotionally involved with companies before, and it rarely ends well. I find that corporations never reciprocate your love in quite the same way."

@Joe Beam...

There is no reason to call someone dumb for buying music from iTunes. iTunes works well with the iPod (not a coincidence). Apple has a great marketing department and some awesome designers that sold a product to a wide market. I seriously doubt they care much about what a handful of software programmers think.

I, for one, like the simplicity of just clicking to buy a song, syncing it to my iPod and enjoying the music. I'd say I've probably spent a few grand on music in the past 4 years. But, I am also a working bassist that plays session gigs, so I try to support the industry by purchasing music. I realize most of the royalties go to the label for a long time, but dollar votes for the artist keep me working.

Besides, I deal with craptastic processes at work, I just want something that works, and for my needs, iPod and iTunes is the solution.

just my $0.02

Gunther:

Hey thanks, I can always use a little help detaching myself from the situation. For example, here's something I wrote when I was all worked up into a frothing, ranting lather:

http://weblog.raganwald.com/2004/11/sharecropping-in-orchard.html

Jeff- why is it that every one of your postings come across as some kind of commercialized pitched for the product of the week? Do you get paid to punt this junk? Furthermore, what does any of this have to do with software development?

Jeff,

I'm interested in knowing what you think about NBC Universal deciding to go with Microsoft since Apple won't prevent people from playing "illegally" obtained media on the ipod.

Why should you care that the recording industry is "treating Apple unfairly"? Because once the recording industry breaks the power of the iTunes Music Store, they're going right back to selling only DRM crippled music and trying to make you pay $3.99 for the latest hit song. Or, insist that you can only get a particular song by buying the whole album for $19.95.

Look at the agreement that NBC signed with Microsoft for the Zune Music Service: Microsoft will now add a feature to the Zune that will actually search the media on your Zune for pirated content.

As far as the entertainment industry is concerned, we are a bunch of thieving varmints who refuse to pay "reasonable" prices for their wares. What's a reasonable price for the entertainment industry? Look at the cost of ring tones: Three bucks for a 20 second snippet of song which expires after three or four months.

Aw pity poor Jeff who gets a bare fraction of slashdot's readership, and they don't even have advertising links masquerading as content ;)

Anyway... what you forgot to mention in bringing up Malda's comment is that the original iPod really was lame. After all, you then go on to agree with him:

"A quick peek at the first iPod ad provides a little context to how rough that first generation really was"

Now you can say that later versions were better and that they made the iPod something to desire, but the initial one... wasn't as good as it could have been, especially when compared to its peers. The first version of a lot of things are simply precursors to later, more successful versions: Windows v1 (and 2); NT v3.51, .NET 1.0, the list can go on for ever.

LLBLGen Rulez!!

Jeff,

What is incredibly ironic is that Amazon is creating the same type of DRM lock-in with the Kindle and kindle books. The Kindle DRM format is an offshoot of the MobiPocket DRM (Amazon recently bought Mobipocket.) I can not buy Kindle ebooks for my Sony reader.

I also recently read from an Astek representative that they are working on a book reader and Mobipocket will only license there DRM reader if that is the only reader that ships on the device. Astek also wants to support the eReader format.

If Jeff Bezos really wants ebooks to become ubiquitious they would just have Kindle use the normal Mobipocket DRMed files. They would also license the Mobipocket DRM to reader vendors without an exclusivity requirement.

The bottom line is Amazon isn't about DRM free, and fair use for their customers... they are about making money. Selling DRM free music is the best way to do that, because it is an alternative to iTunes MS. But, obviously creating a closed DRM system in the Kindle and also Unbox is the best way to make money there.

The bottom line is, as a consumer of digital media I just want to be able to use the music, movies and ebooks that I buy, without encumbrances and on any device I own now, or may own in the future. I also want to have the right to transfer ownership (sell) that digital media the same way I can sell my used books, my used CDs, and my used DVDs. If I don't have the freedom to use and sell stuff then they price should be radically lower!!!

BOb

Apple is sort of half way between an electronics/computing company and a fashion company. I don't think any other brand name in the industry gains the same kind of brand loyalty... but to get to the point you pay for the Apple name, despite that fact that you can get a smaller MP3 player, with higher capacity, better audio quality and higher reliability for less... well I don't know that for sure, I'll be honest, but its very much the impression I get. I can buy a PDA and addons for less than an iPod or iPhone which does /more/ than the iPhone.

Because I am a geek, and I know this from experience and actually care about what my technology does, I have a dimmer view of Apple than the next guy. Who, in reality, probably has more reasonable criteria on what his technology should do for him, like "not being the cheap ass version". :)

--DRM anyway. I'm certainly not a fan.

Further DRM is futile. If you can watch/listen to the media you can steal it and pirate it by inference, regardless as to the protection used. Microphones, camcorders, home electronics kits... the possibilities are endless.

The possibilities for protection on the other hand are exactly zero.

Making it hard is good enough for 90% of people at least...

It seems to me that if one company can sell DRM music for a set prices, other companies should get to sell it for the same price.

We can all agree that the record industry is evil right? So then their plan to align themselves with Amazon must also be inherinetly evil, even if we don't see it at first blush.

Jeff,
This is crazy talk... Are you high? Look around you man, the sky is not falling because of DRM.

All we need is a few major pop artists moving to Magnatune, to start an avalanche, and the labels will be calling their time with DRM and Apple the good old days.

I couldn't care less about whether my music has DRM or not. I get it via iTunes and can play it at home just fine. I can put it on my iPod and listen to it while I'm out and about (walking around, in my car, whatever). If I needed to burn it to a CD, I could, but other than for backup purposes, I don't see a need in my own life. If it is a quality issue, well that can be solved via a better quality audio file, but the quality has been fine for my old ears. I guess my point is that DRM, at least for me, hasn't presented itself as a problem. Of course, I don't tend to "share" my music with the world, so I don't see the need to burn multiple copies of my music. Perhaps I'm just in the minority of folks that are satisfied with the product/service that Apple is producing. Just my thoughts.

Hefty

Malda's comments were appropriate to the genneration 1 ipod as technically inferior and I don't think you can say apple was doing something 'right' as in correct tech, but maybe 'right' as in effective marketing.

But more importantly, isn't the DRM issue itself another slashdotty one? Is that average ipod user (the one who bought the so called 'lame' product) concerned about drm vs non drm? Do they even know the difference before purchace or do they buy the easy integrated Itunes tune in the same way they choose the inferior genneration 1 ipod over the nomad.

Funny thing is that Microsoft would get roasted for providing a proprietary solution that was incompatible with the rest of the market.

Seems convenient that by selecting a format that uses DRM that you also end up locking the content to your own player.

Yes I know it’s possible to convert the songs but most folks won’t bother with that.

Microsoft gets accused of behaving like the Borg but Apple gets hailed as an innovator for behaving the same way…

This entire conversation is academic to me because I have never bought music in the form of single songs online. I borrow a CD from my local library, rip it and listen to my music. Why are so many people willing to shell out $1.00 for a single song? Yes, there are usually a few klingers on any CD, but I still conceive of the CD as a complete work of art. After all, who would want to listen to 'Back in the USSR' without having it followed by 'Dear Prudence?'

Jeff,
it's not only DRM. Even non-DRM protected songs bought on iTMS are useless on other players because they are AAC encoded: and guess what, Apple won't license AAC to other vendors nor will ever support unprotected WMA directly on their *Pods (iTunes converting from WMA to AAC is silly because of quality degradation and the fact that is moving from a "locked" format to a different "locked" one).
UnDRM'd MP3 is the way to go, even though the usual radical suspects (OS fanatics) are strongly campaigning against in favor of "open formats" (see playogg.org, another outstanding achievement of sillyness). Support Amazon, free music (as in free speech) :D

Apple is not the largest retailer of music. They don't sell music. They sell licenses. If they sold music, then the doctrine of first sale would apply, and they wouldn't be able to restrict you from doing things like reselling it, donating it to a library, etc.

Personally, I don't care for the iPod interface. I have a hell of a time trying to select items. Whenever I move my thumb from the wheel to the select button, the selection moves up or down one item. It also bothers the heck out of me that I can't turn it off. At least give me a true stop button in addition to pause.

I'm still with CDs. No Sony ones though. Mostly indies purchased from CD Baby. If I want lossy compression, I'll do it myself. But I like liner notes and artwork. I like to be able to hold the things I own in my hand.

Here's another take on issues that should be considered in this whole back and forth on content licensing and DRM:

"Contracting Away Fair Use Rights: Amazon's MP3 Store, Lucasfilms and Blanket Licensing"
http://iplitigator.huschblackwell.com/2007/10/articles/fair-use/contracting-away-fair-use-rights-amazons-mp3-store-lucasfilms-and-blanket-licensing/

"...it's not only DRM. Even non-DRM protected songs bought on iTMS are useless on other players because they are AAC encoded: and guess what, Apple won't license AAC to other vendors.."

Nope. FUD. http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/MPEG4_fees.cfm?product=MPEG-4AAC

> I have no doubts that if Apple were allowed dump DRM, they would do so in a flash

Really? Odd, then, how OS X requires specific hardware to run. That's one bit of DRM they seem quite willing to carry forward.

That's apples and oranges. There's a difference between looking at operating systems/software and data. Does Apple put DRM on .txt files? Or .jpegs saved on your Mac's hard drive? It would be hard to argue that the fact that Apple doesn't make iTunes able to put music on competing music players as some sort of embrace of DRM. If that makes sense.

Regarding AAC:

"Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at many bit-rates.

"AAC's best known use is as the default audio format of Apple's iPhone, iPod, iTunes, and the format used for all iTunes Store audio (with extensions for proprietary digital rights management).

"AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony’s PlayStation 3, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007) and the MPEG-4 video standard. HE-AAC is part of digital radio standards like DAB+ and Digital Radio Mondiale.

"It is specified both as Part 7 of the MPEG-2 standard, and Part 3 of the MPEG-4 standard. As such, it can be referred to as MPEG-2 Part 7 and MPEG-4 Part 3 depending on its implementation, however it is most often referred to as MPEG-4 AAC, or AAC for short...

"No licenses or payments are required to be able to stream or distribute content in AAC format. [8] This reason alone makes AAC a much more attractive format to distribute content than MP3, particularly for streaming content (such as Internet radio).

"However, a patent license is required for all manufacturers or developers of AAC codecs, that require encoding or decoding.[9] It is for this reason FOSS implementations such as FAAC and FAAD are distributed in source form only, in order to avoid patent infringement.

"AAC uses proprietary technology, and thus requires a patent license. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the property of a single company, having been developed in a standards-making organization."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

Don't forget, bloggers like Jeff now rely on important income from traffic. The world of 'columnists' and bloggers changed for me the day I read that Dvorak admits he purposely draws controversy by posting outrageous and flame-baiting-like comments to drive traffic.

Today, with the likes of Digg, all you need is to post a few outrageous statements and voila, car payment taken care of.

While everyone has their opinion, I wouldn't have thought that Jeff would have taken a swipe at Slashdot. Personally, I think it is one of the best sites on the Internet. I totally agree that there are a lot of 'out of touch' people on Slashdot, but to assume because of one post way back (hell, I would have written Apple off years ago too), that everyone on Slashdot is out-of-touch.

I find the article comments on Slashdot (while noisy) to be some of the most informative posts out there. You get an amazing field of reference (along with the Microsoft==evil ones I weed out).

It's not anything like Digg where 25% of the content is interesting, the rest falls into "Man Swallows Whole Watermelon" articles. But again, Digg is for the masses.

Just because you mentioned that you were an audiophile, I thought I'd throw out http://HDTracks.com (disclosure, I've done some consulting for them). Their catalog is independent labels only, but lots of Jazz & stuff that appeals to audiophiles. They do lossless FLAC, AIFF, and 320kbps MP3, all DRM free. Plus they are getting ready to release downloadable 96-khz/24-bit FLAC soon.

That the big music distro companies can sue Napster into submission, can build up iTMS when it makes business sense only to tear it down by building up a competitor that makes better business sense underscores the excessive power of the distro companies (not to mention the killing of kittehs and puppehs ;) ).

It would not surprise me at all if Apple, innovative as they are, begins to develop (or help develop) and promote a music distribution system or culture that elimiates the distro companies entirely. IMO, the music distro companies don't promote musical artisanship in general, only musical artisans that are commercially viable. Nor do they add value, but instead add gloss to otherwise crappy music.

Just a quick item about your initial point: techies rarely 'call' the markets correctly because they like to apply order and logic to a chaotic mass of irrational behavior. People don't buy the best thing, they buy the one their friend's want. It's always a mistake to assume that has rhyme or reason.

Also, if someone did manage to rationally sort out what the markets want, then their process of doing that will be used by many others, up and until the point where there are so many people influencing the market, that the market would be chaotic and irrational. Or in short: anything that works, insures that eventually it won't.

Paul.
http://theprogrammersparadox.blogspot.com

Then there are the super rich artists who occasionally offer things up for free outside of iTunes and Amazon:

http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup

w/e.. I'm still going to buy my vinyl and rip it myself @320 bit. You can keep your DRM or non-DRM non-media and I'll have my original artwork.

I agree with the main thrust of your argument. Regarding the CmdrTaco quote, though: he was right IN THE CONTEXT of the slashdot audience. Not only that, he's STILL right in that context. I'm part of the core /. constituency - a consummate geek. And while I can understand the design and marketing brilliance that went into the iPod; while I would probably instantly recommend the iPod to any nontechnical friends or family who asked; to this day I'm uninterested in buying one. Because I'm a member of the tiny percentage of the population that actually cares about things like built-in Ogg support (yes, I have some music in ogg format). And as a gadget wizz used to dealing with funky hardware, I'm not as concerned about having the most user-friendly UI; I'm more interested in the storage-to-price ratio. It's the same reason I'm still using the resoundingly awful Treo despite the availability of the iPhone - I want that iPhone interface soooo bad; but there are still things I'm accustomed to my Treo doing that the iPhone simply can't do yet.

If you interpret the quote as an absolute value judgment then it's laughable. But interpreted in the light of the /. audience - the iPod is *still* lame. Just lame in a ways that average consumers are unconcerned with.

@wayne

sorry didn't mean to call u dumb. I'll change my statement to this...

If your going to buy music from iTunes then I doubt you care or will even notice the DRM.

I've heard that the Zune Marketplace also has DRM-free MP3s if you buy them individually.

Can anyone confirm that?

Yes, a subset of the Zune Marketplace catalog has MP3 versions available for purchase. If MP3 is available, it does not offer the WMA version for purchase (though it may still have a WMA version for use with subscription).

How about the Russian mp3 sites (e.g., www.mp3fiesta.com) - no DRM and about a tenth the price of iTunes.

You nailed it, Jeff. Apple's DRM, despite its warm fuzzy name, is still DRM, and it's still stung me. I recently migrated over to linux, something I've tried doing about a half dozen times in the past but just couldn't make the leap as I found the various environments unusable (from a UX perspective). It drove me nuts. Then Ubuntu 7.10 came along and randomly hugged me and lightly stroked the back of my neck and then got me drunk and we made out and we've been lovers ever since.

However, in the process, I failed to realise (until I loaded up Rhythmbox for the first time) that the 150$ worth of apple DRM'ed music was suddenly 600MB of unusable digital files that are just taking up space. I've no recourse, I can't transfer ownership of the files to somebody else (like my wife), and I can't "return it". I'm stuck. All because I simply wanted to change my operating system. Why should my choice of an (ironically free) operating system have to cost me 150$ in literally lost product? Brutal.

www.insound.com now offers several digital downloads, DRM free, but they don't have the expansive catalog of Amazon. I can't wait for the day when Amazon's music store hits Canada.

Jeff: I'm not sure the "typical music customer" gives a damn about DRM - notice ITMS' popularity. Most people just aren't as scared of DRM as the internet mavens are.

Serge said: "The problem with ITMS' DRM is that it's not aimed at protecting authors (and labels) but rather aimed at helping Apple sell more iPods!"

Do you have any evidence to back that up at all? How do you explain Jobs adding DRM-free music to ITMS the very moment the label in question let him? If the "aim" was to lock users in to iPods, why would he ever, ever do that? (Answer: He would not. Ever.)

The iPod succeeds by being superior in interface and aesthetics, and competitive enough on price and features - not by some insidious lock-in... especially since there exists third-party software to convert, using iTunes, DRM'd AAC to non-DRM AAC, which Apple could probably stop for a good long time with some aggressive programming tactics, but hasn't bothered to.

Catweazle: Since the Russian sites don't have proper licenses to give you, that's basically "paying someone to steal the music"; I'd rather just steal it directly, if I was going to that.

Jeff,

There is one difference between iTunes/Ipod combo and rest of the Online music world like Amazon MP3:

* iTunes and the iTunes Store are tightly integrated with your Ipod *

Sure I can go to AmazonMP3, download albums, and drag all the MP3 files to my iTunes library. But why bother when I can click on "Buy"? Sure you can install amazon's MP3 installer, setup one-click, etc. But iTunes offers a better buying-streamlined experience.

> Before the iPod, portable music meant CD players

Um, I guess Ben never heard of the Diamond (now iRiver) RIO back in the day. Or the creative Nomad, which was a 6-8gig HD device that look akin to a CD player but held MP3's.

It honestly wasn't until the iPod got USB instead of Firewire, and supported XP instead of being Mac exclusive that the scene really took off. I vote with my wallet by buying CD's - I have the right to convert them to MP3 (there is no DRM on CD's), I get the liner notes and I have it in the format that I want it to be, and pay on average $1 to $2 more than the MP3 alternative. For a product they have to press, package, ship, store, and shelve for me to buy. Where is the best for the consumer.

Also, on the iTunes front - Steve Jobs & Co keep approximately 50% of all profits on each AAC track they sell. If Amazon made a deal where the RIAA gets more than 50 cents for each download, and took that out of their profit margin, then that's just good business. And it wasn't until the Amazon store opened up that Apple lowered the price on their DRM-free product.

Jeff,

What if Microsoft said to HP: "The only version of Windows that allowed to sell with your PCs is this version without IE and Windows Explorer and Media Player. We're going to let Dell (and maybe some of your other competitors) sell the full versions, with no problems, just not you." How quickly do you think the trustbusters/Justice Department/lawyers would have Microsoft in court? How would you feel if it happened to you?

If the labels are discriminating against Apple so blatantly then that's Just Plain Wrong - anti-competitive behaviour, possibly even collusion and certainly bad for competition.

Apple's DRM may be slightly restrictive, but it's *vastly* better than anything the RIAA and the record labels have come up with, and it managed to do DRM while still users some measure of freedom. Why should we punish Apple because it figured out how to balance the desires of consumers with the restrictions the record companies wanted? If Apple could offer the same DRM-free tracks as Amazon, wouldn't the users ultimately be the winners?

Apple gave us DRM we can live with. And a pretty good iTunes experience. And good music players too. And stuck it to the record labels. Don't they deserve a bit of credit?

> Also, on the iTunes front - Steve Jobs & Co keep approximately 50% of all profits on each AAC track they sell.

I wouldn't be so sure about that -- the numbers I've heard tossed about are much lower. If you have a source on the 50% number, please share.

After getting burned by MSN Music's DRM music files not playing on my computer after a processor upgrade and not being allowed to Authorize/Deauthorize any new PCs, I have sworn off DRMed music. Amazon MP3 DRM free downloads are my format of choice. fairly high bit rate without the DRM leaves me asking if I will ever purchase an actual CD again. I'm not an audiophile (I'm a convenience-phile) so digitally re-coded music isn't an issue with me.

Seems like the people who played by the rules and bought DRM music (I could have easily downloaded those same songs on Kazaa) are the ones who got screwed by it. The people who ripped a friend's CD to their MP3 player don't have any of the problems I had.

I've been holding off commenting on this because I wanted to make sure I had my thoughts in order first -- first a bit of background. I have been using iTunes since v1.0 came out in early 2001. I have bought a number of iPods and iPhones over the years, starting with a iPod mini when they came out. I've been using OS X since the Public Beta days, and I also use Linux and Windows regularly. I first downloaded MP3s back in late 1996/early 1997 and have been listening to all of my music through the "MP3 filter*" for about 7 years now.

I think there is a number of misconceptions that have been tossed out over the years about iTunes and Apple:

1 - Apple is pro DRM/anti consumer
2 - iTunes locks users into the iPod
3 - Apple uses proprietary formats to lock users into iTunes

It seems as every time these are tossed out, it's always from someone who hasn't used Apple products before. Or if they have, it was when they were in school, many years ago, on an Apple II+.

Anyway, I think what would be helpful is that people separate a few concepts here. One is that just because Apple is dominating the portable music market right now doesn't mean they are being anti-competitive like other companies (Microsoft, RIAA). If people would take an objective look at Apple's products, they would see the reason they are dominating the market is because in general, they are putting out the better product. Hands down. And by product, I don't just mean the hardware, I mean the software on both the iPod and iTunes as well.

Also, another thing to separate is that the behavior of Apple in regards to DRM is not necessarily due to Apple deciding that DRM is a good thing. Remember, they have to license the music from the RIAA to offer it on the iTMS. Saying that Apple wants DRM because it locks customers into iPods has no basis in reality -- the truth is Apple offers music with DRM because if they hadn't, they wouldn't have had much of a store in the first place.

An aside -- with the ease that Apple's DRM scheme can be broken, I would argue that it's not even likely to be a factor in locking someone into an iPod. To the above poster who switched to Linux -- why didn't you burn the music to CDs first and re-rip them? Or maybe even do some digging around on the net to find other ways to defeat FairPlay?

If people want to accuse Apple of locking consumers in, then what they are really saying is that when a company listens to their customers and offers a product that meets their needs, they must be doing something wrong because it locks customers in. If Apple stopped using iTunes, or changed for the worse the way you interact with the iPod, or made their DRM so tough that I couldn't use it, I would start shopping around for alternatives. But Apple keeps innovating and resisting pressure from the RIAA and others to add more DRM to their products. I really wish I could point to another company that has my needs in mind when it comes to music.

dennis

* Meaning that everything I listen to has been first compressed to MP3 or AAC before burned to a CD, loaded onto an iPod, played through iTunes or the stereo.

Hey, i just gave you a decent chunk of change for that mp3 link :). I NEVER knew amazon had an MP3 store.

Jeff, again, you are amazing!

Wow, so many readers who feel "dis-enfranchised" by the direction of Jeff's blog...

Could it be that the same criticism he leveled at his (now) new partner, Joel, http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000679.html , can now be applied to him?

I just couldn't resist: http://www.burch-swm.com/misc.html

I'm not hatin' Jeff, but you do open yourself up to some of this :-)

Buy a CD: higher quality, no DRM.

> Buy a CD: higher quality, no DRM.

Not that the music companies haven't tried - several times. If they didn't get so much bad press, I'm sure the DRM'ed CDs would still be on the market (and I am sure that they will try again if they think they can get away with it).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal

I find itunes mostly great, but the main problem I have had is that I can't easily share itunes library between different computers. That becomes a problem because I'm not going to buy 2 copies of each song (one for me and one for my wife).

What I have to do is strip the DRM from itunes songs, and convert to mp3s. It would be easier to just pirate the songs! stupid stupid stupid.

I don't know why EVERYONE doesn't use the "burn and rip" method. It would allow the entire public to use iTunes, while being free of DRM. Soon enough, apple would do away with DRM... Just like the government has no "No J-Walking" signs... They'd be useless!

And, deadcat, you're able to authorize up to 5 computers to use DRM songs.

Other sources of DRM-free music:

All sorts of independent music, including jazz and classical:

http://www.magnatune.com

And for classical music lovers, a fantastic resource, all MP3, no DRM:

http://www.classicsonline.com

+1 about buying mp3 outside US, but also I' don't envy that too much, I prefer buying the CD and burn it to FLAC

It's one thing to claim Apple has an addiction to hardware. People have been saying that for years as a way to apologize for the fact that Apple doesn't license the OS to other manufacturers. I don't think it's a particularly compelling argument, but it is one which can at least be discussed.

However, when you say Macintosh computers are DRM for Mac OS, that flies in the face of decades, at this point, of history. Apple has been shipping mostly off-the-shelf hardware now for a few years, but for decades that was not the case. They tried to claim it was superior hardware, and in some ways and for some short periods of time, that was actually true, so you have to give them credit for honestly trying to be better than the herd, even if with the next breath you point out they failed.

You can reasonably claim the Apple of today is merely addicted to hardware, but when you talk about their hardware as DRM, you just sound like a conspiracy theorist who isn't old enough to remember 1984.

>> I find itunes mostly great, but the main problem I have had is that I can't easily share itunes library between different computers. That becomes a problem because I'm not going to buy 2 copies of each song (one for me and one for my wife).

You can authorize up to 5 computers for each iTunes account. You do need to copy the songs to each computer yourself (you can't download them from Apple without buying them again), but that's not very hard if they're all on the same network (or both have an internet connection).

> > I have no doubts that if Apple were allowed dump DRM, they would do so in a flash

> Really? Odd, then, how OS X requires specific hardware to run. That's one bit of DRM they seem quite willing to carry forward.

Sorry Jeff, but between this misrepresented article and this corker of a non sequitur, you've just lost my respect.

> It's competition.

No Jeff, the problem is that it's *not* competition.

> It is ["Apple advocacy"] when you explicitly put the concerns of a 160 billion dollar company ahead of the typical music consumer.

You're putting your latent distaste for a 160 billion dollar company ahead of the typical music consumer. Is that any better?

> the DRM they asked for from Apple wasn't protecting them or the artists at all, but in fact, protecting the Apple iPod lock-in model

What percentage of iPods do you think are purchased by people as a result of DRM?

The whole premise of your article is based on the assumption that Apple doesn't really want the DRM gone, yet you'd deny them the opportunity to remove DRM. Really?

I think Jeff Atwood has jumped the shark.

Simon, I think you have jumped the gun here. Jeff's article is right on target. Last time I checked, I was a consumer. I have stayed away from mp3s for some time now due to DRM. iPod has turned the tide against the DMA and RIAA. DMA and RIAA sought to punish those of us sharing what we PAID for in the first place. Now that iPod does this kind of business, it cuts into theirs. They don't want money now near as much as they want control. If THEY have control, they can have the money....without sharing with Steve Jobs. Without competition, only on entity is control. Someone recently retired (and became a philanthropist) who operated an entire market for years doing the same thing...staying in control. Jeff didn't jump the shark.

Ergo, everything you said is correct, but it's not the point Jeff was trying to make in the article and his comments.

Man,