Microsoft Planning Music Subscription Service

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Microsoft+planning+music+subscription+service/2100-1027_3-5739458.html?tag=nefd.lede' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Microsoft+planning+music+subscription+service/2100-1027_3-5739458.html?tag=nefd.lede</a><br /><br /></div><i>"With Apple Computer's dominance over the digital music business growing, Microsoft is planning to bolster its own online song store with a new subscription service later this year, sources familiar with the plans say."</i><br /><br />But more interesting from deeper in the article:<br /><br /><i>"The ability to download replacement copies of iTunes-purchased song would be aimed at boosting the fortunes of Windows-compatible MP3 player manufacturers such as iRiver and Creative Technologies. Because Apple does not license its FairPlay copy-protection format to other companies, iTunes-purchased songs can be played directly only on the iPod."</i><br /><br />I know I am reading a bit into this, but does it sound to anyone else like they are working a deal where if you already bought it on iTunes, you can get it for other devices for free? This might help consumers who are "locked in" due the the large number of songs they have already purchased from iTunes. What do you think?

[Felix Torres]

I know I am reading a bit into this, but does it sound to anyone else like they are working a deal where if you already bought it on iTunes, you can get it for other devices for free? This might help consumers who are "locked in" due the the large number of songs they have already purchased from iTunes. What do you think?

You didn't read anything that wasn't there.
What it means is exactly that, that MS is talking to the studios to turn downloaded-music licenses into universal licenses. How far they get down this road will depend on the studios, but since the studios are *not* happy with Apple's refusal to license Fairplay and the resultant pod lock-in, they just might go ahead with some version of the concept.

Ideally, it would mean that MS could look into iTunes, get a list of legally-licensed songs, and download the same songs in DRM'ed WMA format instead of having to transcode them. This, of course, would not apply to iTunes exclusives. For users it would mean that they would be free to upgrade away from the pod if they so chose without losing access to their purchased tracks.

For MS, the value lies in letting people move to subscription-capable players (whether they keep their pods or not) plus the opportunity to get pod people to compare their high-datarate WMAs to the low-datarate AACs. (And may the chips fall where they may afterwards.) :wink:

For hardware vendors it means they can still sell wma-players even into households with pods, which should help vendors of flash-based players, PDA, streamers, etc.
HP would probably love this.
Lots of winners with this idea.

This could get tricky for Apple because it pretty much blows lock-in out of the water, forcing them to keep the pods competitive or risk losing customers. But even they win by not having to spread themselves into every single niche type of music playback device. :-)

For consumers, even pod people, it gives them all the choice advantages of the existence of pod-clones with none of the risks, since nobody is touching Apple's IP and there is no way or excuse for blocking it.

Will the studios bite?
Dunno but they might take the threat to Apple to get them to license Fairplay.

Or, they just might go ahead.
Now that they have an idea of the true size of the download market, they know what is at stake is but a fraction of the tiny 2% of the full music market that uses downloads. They would hardly be betting the farm by allowing this.

[Felix Torres]

BTW, the rumor has already had some impact:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8174645/

A bit premature, dinging Yahoo when they're barely in the business yet...

[Jason Eaton]

BTW, the rumor has already had some impact

So just how exactly do they match drops in share price to a specific event? Do the reporters go out and poll all those that sold stock? What if the 5% was a correction for inflated prices? Or how about the recent Intel news?

Who knows maybe it did.

As a ton of ancient proverbs would seemingly point out wisdom that seems now lost on journalisim these days, I'll see it when I see it, I won't count my chicken before they hatched, and I have not heard the fat lady sing because the orchestra isn't in the pit yet.

With as many impotent iPod/iTune killers out there the reporters would have you believe the show is over. Maybe they are just sitting in the wrong theater.

...

Back to the main topic, I wonder if when you preform the 'switch' in audio formats do you lose the rights afforded by the other? If reading it is that you have a universal right to the song now wouldn't that also mean you can have multiple copies, backups, and what ever format you choose as well as any number of machines?

While that sounds like the utopia that everyone is asking for, it seems so anti-drm that I can't believe it.

I would say more believeable would be that your trading one locked in format for the other. The DRM key holder will always be the overseer of the industry. No consumer will benefit until DRM is taking away from the companies using it to sell things. Until DRM bcause an open standard everyone loses.

Ramble on rambler. :D

[Felix Torres]

[Back to the main topic, I wonder if when you preform the 'switch' in audio formats do you lose the rights afforded by the other? If reading it is that you have a universal right to the song now wouldn't that also mean you can have multiple copies, backups, and what ever format you choose as well as any number of machines?

While that sounds like the utopia that everyone is asking for, it seems so anti-drm that I can't believe it.

I would say more believeable would be that your trading one locked in format for the other. The DRM key holder will always be the overseer of the industry. No consumer will benefit until DRM is taking away from the companies using it to sell things. Until DRM bcause an open standard everyone loses.

Ramble on rambler. :D

Not being anti-drm by nature (I only object to intrusive DRM) I see nothing wrong with DRM on principle.
Plus, I see no value in even dreaming of a DRM-less future.
P2P'ers made that impossible for the next decade or three.
It is worth remembering, though, that we do have a DRM-free alternative.
Its called CDs; lossless, open, and DRM-free.
If you feel inclinded to rip off the studios you can buy it, copy it or rip it in lossless form, and then resell it.
Real cheapskates can even get the CDs to copy from the public library or friends.
DRM changes none of that.
All it does is (slightly) restrain the online traffic in pre-ripped music.
Don't like DRM, buy CDs.
There is no law of nature that say the studios *have* to offer un-DRM'ed music and (so far) no law that *requires* us to buy DRM'ed music.
"You pays your money and takes your chances."
98 percent of the music sold on the planet is DRM-free.
That's close enough to Nirvana for me.

As to how the expanded license (if universal license sounds like a misleading promise) might work, it seems to me obvious:
You'd have the same limits on the wma side as the Fairplay side.
It wouldn't be an exchange (because Apple would have to revoke the Fairplay rights, which they wouldn't do) but a supplement.
So, logistically, it can *only* work as an addition.
(All they're saying is you don't have to buy the song a second time to move to the new platform; you gain the ability to play it on dozens of different devices and lose nothing.)

I suppose you might have one less device to copy the music to, if the licensing assumes the pod is still active, but I doubt it since the strategic intent is to get folks to switch away from the pod. :-)

Remember, the idea isn't to do anybody a fovor or give away anything for free; just to allow the functional equivalent of transcoding without losing the data that would be lost in transcoding.

For MS, downloading an equivalent track is simpler and faster than transcoding which would require them to crack Fairplay every time Apple changes it, which as a DRM-supplier themselves, MS has no desire to do.

As always, it comes down to the studios' restrictions; they might say that you get a wma file that only plays on the designated non-pod player or you might get *all* the rights that MSN dl's normally carry; cd burning, network streaming, etc.

As for the stock prices: hey, the media, pundits, and investors (to say nothing of politicians and activists) *all* routinely confuse correlation with causality. Muddy thinking, yes, but that's how the stock-market runs these days; up or down at the vaguest hint of news.
In this case, the drops came late in the day, *after* the news of the rumor that MS is considering some kind of subscription service, sometime, somewhere. :twisted:

Doesn't have to make any kind of sense; it just happens...

By now, of course, cooler heads have prevailed over the panic sellers and the price has either recovered, stayed the same, or sunk lower. Or not. :wink:

[Kent Pribbernow]

So I am reading this right; I get free WMA copies of all the tracks I've purchased via iTunes? :?

[Jason Eaton]

Not being anti-drm by nature (I only object to intrusive DRM) I see nothing wrong with DRM on principle.
Plus, I see no value in even dreaming of a DRM-less future...

...As to how the expanded license (if universal license sounds like a misleading promise) might work, it seems to me obvious:
You'd have the same limits on the wma side as the Fairplay side.
It wouldn't be an exchange (because Apple would have to revoke the Fairplay rights, which they wouldn't do) but a supplement.
So, logistically, it can *only* work as an addition...

Heh, I have no problem with DRM at all. The majority of my music is MP3 from the original CD's. I also don't have a problem with Apple's DRM on the limited amount of music I already have. Call it a guilded cage but there seems to be more DRM related problems on the WMA side between players and providers then there are problems between Apple and MS.

I guess I don't see the magic incentive to jump over the fence. A cage is a cage. One might be bigger but the experience seems far better where I am sitting.

I would normally say 'more power to them' for offering this to the public. But I am jaded now and have seen it before. Remember when browsers cost money? MS came in gave for free and matched features. Pushes the other companies out of business and well... yeah look at all the innovation and growth in MS browsers now (not to mention the standards they followed :wink: )

Call it an objection on principle if you will and maybe that is 'blinding' my judgment.

I just can't see the incentive to switch when I already have a good player and no problems with my music. Is it less of a hurdle now? Sure... but it is a hurdle in a path I have no desire or incentive to even wander down. Call it the strawman argument of switching, it is making the presumption that I want to switch. So to say this is going to have a huge impact on the market is to believe in an argument that isn't even happening.

[Felix Torres]

So I am reading this right; I get free WMA copies of all the tracks I've purchased via iTunes? :?

That is what evil MS seems to be trying to get the studios to agree to.
As I said: its transcoding without transcoding.
And you get a quality boost, to boot.

Now, all it takes if for the studios to sign off on it...
Not. Holding. My. Breath.
(But I do have fingers and assorted limbs crossed.) :wink:

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

So just how exactly do they match drops in share price to a specific event? Do the reporters go out and poll all those that sold stock? What if the 5% was a correction for inflated prices? Or how about the recent Intel news?


There is a branch in financial engineering that does event analysis, though I doubt the report used anything like that!

Its called CDs; lossless, open, and DRM-free.

Errm, no, have you not come across a protected CD before?

[Felix Torres]

]Its called CDs; lossless, open, and DRM-free.

Errm, no, have you not come across a protected CD before?

Actually, no. 8)

I know they exist but I've never run into them in the wild.
My tastes must not run towards the kinds of acts that feel the need to protect their music.

The weirdest stuff I've run into so far is the duo-disk; the hybrid CD/dvd and I have to say I rather liked it.
The CD side seems to play everywhere except my xbox but the dvd side plays there so I'm covered. And unlike the reported problems with car players, my car player ran it just fine.

Long term, any copy-protected CD that didn't come with pre-ripped music tracks isn't getting my business.

Like I said, I have no problem with drm as long as it doesn't get in the way of reasonable use. When it does, they lose a sale and I move on.
No biggie.

[RenesisX]

Microsoft has had an excellent relationship with the major labels in the past, so if anyone can pull this off they should be able to.

I suspect they'll have a hard fight though, essentially the labels are just going to hope people download and pay for 2 copies.

[whydidnt]

I suspect they'll have a hard fight though, essentially the labels are just going to hope people download and pay for 2 copies.

I have to agree with this statement. To date, the labels have shown no interest in doing anything to help with digital downloads, fighting them every step of the way. Thier only interest is in being able to sell the same piece of music to the same person several times. :roll:

For them to agree to do this MS is going to have to convince them that somehow they make MORE money by allowing the license to be copied to another DRM scheme. I'm not sure how they do that, but suspect they may have to "grease the wheels" a little to make it happen. Given Gates' recent comments regarding the iPod, I wouldn't be surprised to see MS invest some of their billions toward this end though.