Universal's power play
The Macalope read the headline Thursday that Universal would be offering DRM-free music but didn't realize until reading Daring Fireball's post on it this morning that it would only be offering its music DRM-free on stores other than iTunes. On iTunes, it will continue to offer only DRM-ed music.
John Gruber asks:
Um, Universal won't sell DRM-free music through iTunes because they don't like Apple's DRM? WTF? Am I even supposed to pretend this makes sense?
In typical, twisted recording industry logic it does make sense. What do customers want? They want the most convenient way to put music on their digital music players which, by and large, are iPods.
So, trust Universal to make it confusing and inconvenient.
Still, this is good news for those who care about having their music be DRM-free, right? Isn't it just another step toward a DRM-free world?
Well, maybe, maybe not. This may shock you (particularly if you're Cory Doctorow), but most consumers don't care that much about DRM. Sure, they'd prefer not to have it, but their primary motivations are convenience and making sure their music will play on their iPod.
And what's this business about the deal just being until January? The New York Times reports:
The offer of Universal's music under the new terms is being framed as a test, to run into January, allowing executives to study consumer demand and any effect on online piracy.
Hmm. It seems to the horned one that iTunes is the most popular music store and this won't really change that. (How many iTunes shoppers are going to check to see if a song is from Universal before they click "Buy"?) So at the end of the year is Universal going to say "We tried DRM-free music and no one bought it"?
Speaking of Cory Doctorow, he has his own spin on the news which, predictably, starts with a long screed about the eeevilz of Apple's DRM.
For record companies, there are only two choices: sell Apple-crippled music and increase Apple's control over the online music business, or sell uncrippled music.
Actually, no. As Universal has shown, you can do both and make yet another move that's more motivated by trying to gain market power than delivering something your customers want. Universal could sell DRM-free music on iTunes. It's choosing not to. Doctorow somehow wants to blame this on Apple, the first company to bring a major label to market with DRM-free tracks.
So it's inevitable that Universal would come around to this position. They're not selling DRM-free tracks through iTunes (where Apple charges a 30 percent premium)--they're selling them through Apple's competitors.
According to Doctorow, Apple--the company that single-handedly kept the recording industry from charging us more than 99 cents for current hits for years--is the one to blame for the $1.29 price for higher quality DRM-free tracks, not EMI.
Sure. And Universal would just love to sell 99-cent DRM-free tracks on iTunes but big, bad Apple won't let them.
Doctorow continues to disregard Steve Jobs' open letter on DRM as entirely disingenuous. But there's ample evidence that Apple would prefer to sell an entire collection of DRM-free music. For the umpteenth time, Apple does not own the market because of DRM. It owns the market because the iPod is simply the best digital music player.
Mythical beast and rumormonger extraordinaire, the Macalope writes about all things Apple for the CNET Blog Network. Read more at The Macalope: An Apple blog. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
dumb and pig-headed about Apple? Did a Mac kill his brother?
The main difference is that the iPod is simply more restricted in the sense that the only DRM it supports is Apple's, wheras pretty much every other player and every other store is compatible with each other. The problem is that the iPod and iTunes store are so penetrated into the market that the average consumer doesn't even know anything else exists. This simply snowballs endlessly. It's no different than Microsoft's strategy in the OS market... most people entirely ignore the existance of Mac and Linux. (Though this is changing, probably due to Ubuntu, open-source software like Firefox, and iPods).
Of course, i'm not claiming anybody's DRM is better than anyone else's (it's all junk, and I won't buy from a DRM store personally), but at the very least, if you're going to have it, if you get a Zen or a Sansa, you've got a choice of who's DRM it is. Then you can move between different services or subscription models at your leisure. Only problem at that point is, nobody's been able to make a model or store monolithic or prevalent enough to take on iTunes. It's kind of a Xerox/Kleenex/etc. type thing in my view, because pretty much all of the DRM'd music stores are as good (and bad) as one another.
My least favorite argument for iPods are the 'ease of use' ones. Personally, I think the easiest-to-use MP3 players are the ones where you can drag and drop files to and from the player/computer and they act as Mass Storage Devices (*cough* Zen Vision: M *cough*). That means that on pretty much any PC (or Mac, though I haven't tried), I can simply plug it in and transfer files. No driver, no iTunes bull, and so on. THAT to me is ease of use. iTunes can shove it.
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More specifically relating to the article, I think Universal's main goal here is leveraging selling power away from Apple, because Apple is (perhaps rightly) screwing over labels and can continue doing so pretty much however long it wants. Not so much in that 99 cents is a bad deal or anything, but in the sense that labels have very little say in any matter regarding sales, it seems. Steve Jobs pretty much has them by you know what. That could be a good thing too, but as a consumer, I feel that it's like going from the frying pan into the fire, as control is transferred from the labels to Apple, one of the most arrogant, elitist, and downright obnoxious companies since Microsoft. And I don't think they have my best interests in mind any more than Bill and co. do. (Just $$$. As any company should, mind you, but when people act as is Steve Jobs is a god and a 'cool guy'... urge to strangle rises... can't they see that it's all PR and hip marketing? Just like the iPod itself.)
You are correct that there is nothing that makes an iPod better than any other music player. Well, unless you count that lots of people want them, and buy them. And that 70% of portable music players are iPods. From a marketing perspective, especially for the music companies, that is a huge fact.
Universal cannot win by trying to marginalize Apple. Apple owns the downloadable music market. All Universal can do is marginalize Universal. The only way to compete in that arena with Apple now is by building a better mousetrap.
You say that every other player and every other store are compatible with each other. Please give an example of two for-purchase (not subscription) online stores that have compatible formats that won't play on an iPod. I'm just guessing, here, but I think you're mistaken.
Apple's DRM is designed to ensure that the record companies will continue to sell their stuff on iTunes, not to lock in iPod.
If you find you like something better than iTunes, you're free to use whatever player and format you want. That's different from the MS OS strategy.
You can drag and drop non-DRM tunes from your iTunes music folder into anything you want to play them from. The FairPlay DRM may not work on your player, but AAC should. It's an industry standard.
The silliest thing you said was your last point. If you expect large corporations to have your best interests at heart you are deluded. They want access to the largest number of disposable dollars from their markets.
They have their stockholders' best interests at heart. Apple is doing a very good job of attracting disposable income to its products. It's because they build stuff that people like. It's not because Steve loves you personally.
consumers really care about DRM. Will they go buy Universal DRM-free music
elsewhere, or will they value the integration and ease of use of buying iTunes
content in spite of the DRM?
Ironic, all of this, because it was Universal and others that insisted on any DRM
in the first place.
- Where would I buy this stuff anyway?
- by larriveejp August 13, 2007 9:43 AM PDT
- Say I wanted to give in to Universal and buy through them. If I didn't read press
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(5 Comments)releases, blogs, etc. how would I even know this existed?
Engineering a self-fulfilling prophecy is just sad and pathetic. What a slow,
painful, and humiliating death this is turning out to be for the music execs.