You Say You Want a Revolution
Apple, Inc. (have to get out of the habit of saying Apple Computer) was in music news twice this week. One headline would have been a stunning revelation 5 years ago, but it almost an afterthought today. The second item was far more important, but probably slipped by most people’s radar unnoticed.
The first is Apple, Inc. and Apple Corps (the record label formed by the Beatles) announcing that after nearly three decades of suing each other over the Apple name, they’ve settled their differences (Cisco, take notes. There’s a quiz later). This may or may not be a harbinger of an announcement in the near future that the Beatles catalog may soon be available on the iTunes Music Store. The Beatles, along with a handful of other holdouts including AC/DC, Jethro Tull and more famously, Metallica, have opted not sell their music online through anyone over concerns about possible piracy and loss of control of the album format.
While scoring the Beatles catalog for the iTunes Music Store would be coup for Apple, in my opinion it would be more a symbolic victory than a financial one. The Beatles are of course iconic in the history of rock music, but from a business perspective, the likely market for the Beatles already has the CDs. I am sure Beatles songs will sell, but I see it more as people rounding out their collections with a couple of songs from albums they never got around to purchasing on CD and such. But the days of the Beatles topping the charts have been gone for decades.
The second item to come out of Apple this week was this article on the Apple web site by Steve Jobs. Steve is famous for his ability to wow a crowd of the Mac faithful, but this is an unusual move for Jobs. He seldom gives interviews, and I don’t recall that he has ever taken it upon himself to share his thoughts with the world in print. Why now? And what does this mean?
The article is a good one, and I recommend reading it. But in brief, Jobs addresses people who think he should open up Apple’s Digital Rights Management protocol, FairPlay, to other devices to create a truly open marketplace for iPods and Rios and …. oh yeah, Zunes. Jobs responds by throwing down the gauntlet at the record companies who require that Apple have the DRM in the first place. He makes the point that while Apple has sold some 2 billion music tracks with the Fairplay DRM, record companys have sold TEN TIMES that on CDs that have no copy protection whatsoever. He concludes emphatically that Apple and the iTunes Music Store would embrace wholeheartedly the idea of selling songs with no copy restriction at all.
Record companies have been trying to figure out how to deal with the Internet and music distribution in a couple different ways. First, they ignored and hoped it would go away. When Napster came along, they sued them and turned them into a pod-person version of their former self. They’ve sued 12-year-old kids and grandmas who don’t even have computers. They’ve installed malicious software on their customers computers. They’ve tried to brainwash us with mind-numbing anti-piracy ads. And worse. And the net effect on piracy of all of this? Probably nothing.
The problem for the record companies is that their reason to exist is diminishing with each passing iTunes Music Store download. It used to be that a record company deal would get you resources to produce your record, and marketing muscle to sell it and get radio airplay. Today, though, anyone with (or without) musical talent can record a commercial-quality recording with equipment easily affordable by pretty much anyone who can afford a decent car. As for radio airplay, there is no more Wolfman Jack breaking new acts. You play gigs. You bring CDs. You have a website. You have a Myspace page and a podcast. It is entirely possible to market yourself to an audience willing to support your music on your own. Courtney Love figured this out… why can’t the record companies?
Steve Jobs has figured it out. He knew that putting the power of a personal computer in people’s hands would start a revolution back in 1977. He’s been working on the next revolution in the music business since the iTunes Music Store opened in 2003. His message today to the record companies to me seems best summed up by one of Steve’s more memorable quotes: It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy.
Permalink | Trackback | del.icio.us Digg Reddit
Comments:
Leave a comment
Hear, hear. I’m hardly a fan of music piracy (I still buy CDs regularly), but DRM is just bad news to me. I don’t want anyone telling me that I don’t own or can’t copy the CD I just bought or downloaded. It shouldn’t matter if I have 10 iPods or Rios or … Zunes. I should only have to buy it once. Otherwise, wouldn’t it be like buying a different copy of a book for every different room I wanted to read it in?
[…] Mr. Alex has written an excellent article on Apple Inc.’s music news this week. The first headline was about The Beatles music being added to the iTunes catalog and that Apple Corps (record label created by the Beatles) and Apple Inc. are playing nicely after having a three decade spat. […]
Dear Mr. Alex,
I was too busy to comment when I read this, but, since I work Monday through Thursday, my “weekend†has begun. To me, Apple’s Digital Rights Management protocol is another example of the copyright pendulum swinging too far in the direction of copyright holders. And what’s even worse to someone like me (a kneejerk liberal), it seems like these copyright protections are assisting corporations that market stuff much more than people who create stuff. A good summary of the pitfalls of the overextension of copyright protection can be found in an article by Robert S. Boynton that appeared in the New York Times on January 25, 2004: “The Tyranny of Copyright?â€)
http://econ.gsia.cmu.edu/ecommerce/The%20Tyranny%20of%20Copyright.htm
Apple’s Digital Rights Management protocol strikes me as another version of what happened to me years ago when I took my American DVD player to Japan. I purchased some DVDs in Japan, but they wouldn’t play on my machine. Then, after a little bit of research, I learned that the only reason I couldn’t watch them was the fact that they lacked the right imprimatur (i.e., regional code) to be viewed on my machine. I had legally purchased everything, but I couldn’t watch anything, and this led me to something that pissed me off even more.
It seems as though these built-in digital protections only affect stupid, honest people like me. It seems as though I could find a way crack or work around these protections if I only knew enough about computers because hackers seem to do be able to do it with ease. Or, many people have told me how stupid I was to actually buy software (or “digital entertainment†— e.g., music, videos, games) when I could just download them from site X on the internet.
This puts me in mind of loyalty oaths that government employees — including me, as memory serves — are required to sign: a promise that you won’t subvert the rules and/or values of the government; the irony, of course, being that someone who really hoped to subvert either would have no problem signing, while someone who hoped to do neither but didn’t want to sign away protections that should be enshrined in both would.
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=teacher+loyalty+oath&btnG=Search
To make a long story a cliché, the people in power are cutting off their nose to spite their face. I think that one of the morals of iTunes is that people, generally, do want to be good. They would rather pay a reasonable fee and do everything above board than be dishonest and get things for free. The history of government (and corporate?) prohibitions seem to suggest that monitored use is better than unmonitored abuse.
Love,
Mr. Monkey
Mr. Monkey:
I agree… I feel that based on Steve Jobs recent announcement, plus what I have read in the past about the birth of the iTunes Music Store, that the current DRM scheme is actually much more relaxed than what the record companies wanted. And I know I have read how the record companies think that when their contracts with Apple come up, they can renegotiate even stricter terms and “premium pricing” and the lot.
I honestly think that Jobs is sincere when he says that he’d prefer to sell without DRM, and that the RIAA are the ones driving the requirement.