eHomeUpgrade: iTunes, One Billion Suckers Served

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/2168/itunes_one_billion' target='_blank'>http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/2168/itunes_one_billion</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Personally I've never bought an iTune and I don't own an iPod. I think Apple's DRM is awful and represents a major step back for us all. I think those that are investing in iTune digital libraries are suckers. You are basically betting that Apple's proprietary DRM laced format will be the standard for the rest of your life. You are paying too much for your music and tying yourself to only Apple products going forward. More innovative ways to play your music may indeed come in the future but unless they are marketed by Apple you will not likely be able to use these devices with your iTunes files due to Apple's tight proprietary control."</i><br /><br />This is a beautifully vitriolic piece from Thomas Hawk, and I agree with the basic premise - investing a lot of money into a DRM-laden format that might not be around five years from now is simply stupid, yet it's something that hundreds of thousands of people are doing. Apple is playing a dangerous game, to be sure. There's a <a href="http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/apples_itunes_music_store_one_billion_suckers_served/">rebuttal here</a>, but it's the usual fanboy stuff. What do you think, especially those of you who have invested a few hundred bucks into iTunes music?

[Jason Eaton]

I agree DRM music is bad... but using his argument, Windows Media DRM is better how? Might be a better read if he turned down his bias a little.

[bluemax]

Jason poses an interesting twist to the DRM issue. I've already been burned by DRM. Files I paid for won't play because the company that had the key is gone. Now the files won't play.

What is going to happen to the billion+ iTunes that have been paid for if Apple decides they are no longer interested. What will the millions of buyers think whey they find their files no longer work.

I'm sure the RIAA will dance with glee.

Bill B.

[Jason Dunn]

but using his argument, Windows Media DRM is better how?

Because with Windows Media DRM you have a choice of dozens and dozens of different players made by different companies. The real danger is five years from now Apple no longer has a cool player and they get out of the market, and consumers have $100's of dollars invested in music with no player to play it on. Maybe at that point Apple would license FairPlay to other digital audio player OEMs, who knows. Maybe it's a tempest in a teapot, but this is one reason why I burn DRM'd tracks to CD and re-rip as MP3 as soon as I buy them.

[ShinKen]

The question I have why single out Apple? Why are they playing a dangerous game when Napster, Microsoft, Yahoo are all on the DRM cart which is being forced on them by the RIAA? I have about 150 songs that I have purchased off of iTunes and MSN, maybe I am in the minority but I realize what I am getting into with buying these music singles from these services. That is why I burn them to a Audio CD so that if something happens and my hard drive crashes I have a backup.

honestly do not know how much sleep I would loose, if the company that I bought the music from ceased to exist, so that I could not play the music anymore. (Somehow I can't imagine myself staying up a night sweating worrying that Haircut 100's 'Love Plus One' won't play in the morning :D )

I agree the author needs to tone down the bias, as this could apply to anyone serving media from the RIAA or MPAA. But I guess when you control the majority of the market you get the majority of the blamed or rants about it (similar to how MSFT is blamed for all the ills of the computer world)

[Jason Eaton]

Because with Windows Media DRM you have a choice of dozens and dozens of different players made by different companies. The real danger is five years from now Apple no longer has a cool player and they get out of the market, and consumers have $100's of dollars invested in music with no player to play it on.

How many companies that made MP3 players that support windows DRM have bowed out recently? How financially good is Napster right now? What is the share of iTunes/iPod to the rest of the market?

Who is to say MS isn't going to stop support because it isn't worth it in the future(sorta like Windows Media for OS X and Explorer)

I am not defending Apple, heck I bailed on that ship. Just saying that I agree with his stance on DRM, just not the fact that he points the argument in one direction but not another when they are in essence the same.

More selection doesn't mean best, nor does it mean chosen by the people. Going on marketshare it is safer to say that Apple will be around longer, heck with the non-argued lock in, consumers will keep that marketshare number up. They don't have a choice but to buy more Apple stuff and keep the lead. :wink:

[Jason Dunn]

How many companies that made MP3 players that support windows DRM have bowed out recently? How financially good is Napster right now? What is the share of iTunes/iPod to the rest of the market?

For every MP3 player that quit the market, there are five more to take it's place - there are a HUGE number of WMA DRM-compliant players on the market today.

But Napster...hmm. Very good point. I hadn't thought about that, because ultimately it's a Napster DRM server that a user is authenticating against. So if Napster were to go out of business...poof, no more music. I guess that's one more arguement for subscription-based music plans - you pay $10, listen to anything you want, and if the company goes out of business you're not "out" anything.

[klinux]

The real danger is five years from now Apple no longer has a cool player and they get out of the market, and consumers have $100's of dollars invested in music with no player to play it on.

I think that is assuming the worst case situation here and a huge slippery slope. In that scenario, anything can happen and since anything can happen, it is just as feasible to think of a possible scenario which may be Apple lifting the DRM, for example.

This kind of question always rises when there is a paradigm change. You can hardly buy an 8 track or cassette player now, do you see a revolt there?

Hawk calling other consumers who see a value in a service "suckers" is simply a flame bait - and I am a fan of Hawk.

And I am sorry Jason but your statement "investing a lot of money into a DRM-laden format that might not be around five years from now is simply stupid" can also be restated to something like "investing a lot of money into a security-lacking OS like Windows that might not be around five years from now is simply stupid."

Any counter argument that you may have (yes, I too use Windows and I am not a Mac fanboy) such as Windows can be made secure, Windows have benefits, other OS has flaws, there is no way MS is going to be gone five years later etc is just as easily applied to Apple.

[Phoenix]

This is the whole reason why I buy CD's and stick with MP3 encoding.

The online music/media market is just still too young. Any considerable investment in proprietary formats (regardless of what they are) simply isn't wise, IMO, for the exact reasons presented in this thread.

Who can say what the best answer is for all of this? The online music model is so fresh and new to both companies and consumers, that Apple can comfortably rule the roost for the time being - like being the new "flavor of the month" at a candy shop, primarily fueled by all the hype and novelty. But one thing is certain - once the hype and novelty wear off and people begin to become more educated as this young industry matures, and although it may not be a huge issue for a lot of people right now, the most significant ingredient behind the online model becoming a sucessful long term replacement for buying CD's will be, indeed, gaining the trust of consumers at large, just as we're discussing. After the hype wears off, people are going to need to be reassured that their leap of faith in replacing the act of buying CD's with online purchases will be a good long-term investment instead of money down the toilet in just a few short years. But as long as we're having conversations like this, and until the mechanics behind all of it are ironed out, the trust isn't there.

I've heard people reason and question that as vinyl gave way to cassettes, which then gave way to CD's, that people didn't really complain about those older formats retiring in favor of something new, and that as this cycle of progression endures because nothing lasts forever, why then, should anyone be concerned about the longevity of these online formats? But I say, because the dynamics behind virtual formats are different than physical formats, they can't really be compared. We're not questioning the concept of the online model (the content delivery system) in general, but rather, the specific formats that are merely pieces of the greater puzzle which could easily change in a blink. Many understand that the online model is what will eventually replace the behavior of buying physical formats altogether and will be here to stay for good, because although the cycle of progression has shown that we go from one physical format to another (cassettes to CD's, for instance), we're in the beginning stages of replacing the last physical music format with a virtual one, and where do you go from virtual? But until trust is gained enough that this online model becomes the primary way that consumers buy their music, CD's are simply the safest investment (and MP3 the safest format) right now. And we know this because no matter what happens to formats as time goes on, we know that CD's will serve as a master copy that we can go back to time and time again in order to encode our music into whatever format is popular at the time based on our device of choice. Not to mention, CD's have been around for a very long time and never really gave way to DVD's or any other physical format for audio. (And who cares about DVD Audio and SACD - these are niche markets that never caught on and don't play enough of a role in things to warrant further discussion).

It's funny how as things go from physical to virtual, it's not just merely another rung in the ladder of technological progression. The entire landscape changes. The music industry always seemed to agree on one main physical format as things progressed. These formats were much like the virtual MP3 format in the way that no one really owned them, be it vinyl, cassette, or CD - at least not the record companies supplying the content. So as consumers, we could just go down and know that when we bought a record (regardless of which physical format was popular at the time) that it would play in any brand of player without a problem. And there hasn't been much room for consumer worry before because there wasn't much talk about format changes, plus it always took many years to transition from one physical format to another, as well as the fact that these formats can still be played to this day. But now that we're beginning to go virtual, and we can see that the content delivery system is beginning to change from brick-and-mortar to online, we also see that in this space, record companies aren't choosing and standardizing the format and sampling rates like they did and do with vinyl, cassettes, and CD's. The new online "content brokers", like Apple, are. So now suddenly there are many different formats and varying bit rates. And not only can formats and bit rates change quickly, brands now matter. So not only is the content delivery system changing, the role that the associated content brokers are playing is changing, too. It's clear that proprietary formats are all about these new content brokers positioning themselves to corner and control this young, largely untapped, lucrative online market. This introduces a whole new set of dynamics and concerns that both companies and consumers alike haven't had to deal with before. Is it any wonder why this is all taking so long to iron out? Is there any hope of embracing this new content delivery system, while allowing the record industry to resume its former responsibility of determining the format and bit rate of the content?

I think the reason people sometimes get concerned with AAC+ more than other formats is because Apple can be a real control freak in the way that it doesn't exactly like to license its products or formats. It's never positioned itself otherwise. It likes to keep everything in-house and to itself so it can keep a tight control on what it offers. That alone suggests to me that although Apple has a head start on things and rules the roost right now, unless they license their technology to other companies to broaden support of its formats, they will not dominate the online market, but will become a niche once again.

But one thing that nobody has mentioned yet, isn't just the concern that Apple might at some point abandon its current format for whatever reason, but that consumers may choose to abandon Apple's products and formats in favor of something else from another company. So in other words, maybe I buy hundreds of dollars worth of Apple encoded music, but a couple years down the line, I choose to go with another company's product which doesn't support AAC+. So then what? That's money down the tube.

And this is why I say it isn't wise to buy music encoded with proprietary formats, regardless of whether it's coming from Apple, or Microsoft, or whomever. My maneuvers as a consumer play just as big of a role here as does the manuevering of any company. CD's and MP3's. Currently, that's the only way to fly, IMO.

Now, because I'm an iPod user, once in a great while, I'll buy something from iTunes. But in all the time I've used iPods while iTunes has been available, I haven't purchased even $25 worth of music there, overall. I only buy a single every now and then that I really like because maybe I'm not interested in purchasing the whole album just to encode one song into MP3. AAC+ certainly isn't a format I'm invested in, and neither is any other proprietary format.

There's the subscription/multi-device streaming model (which could alter much of the above) that I've commented on in the past, but this is another discussion for another time.

The industry has a lot of work to do.

[MadTxn]

I agree with not limiting yourself to DRM-ed music. Which is why when I buy songs, I burn them to CDs, then re-rip them. DRM Free. Problem solved.

[Crocuta]

I agree DRM music is bad... but using his argument, Windows Media DRM is better how? Might be a better read if he turned down his bias a little.

A lot of people have picked up on this idea, but where did you get this from? Hawk doesn't support MS DRM, he supports no DRM at all. Just because he picks iTunes to pick on (simply because they just sold their billionth song) doesn't mean he support MS's DRM. In fact, he makes it quite clear that he believes in buying the CD and burning your own unprotected MP3s from them. Pheonix also makes this point in his short post :wink: and I agree completely. All of my MP3s are unprotected, burned from my own CDs. I haven't yet purchased an online song, and I doubt that I will. Of course, I could do like MadTxn and turn the DRM file into a CD, then rip that, but it seems like there would have to be audible quality loss for going through all of those conversions. No, I think I'll keep doing as I have been. It's MP3s ripped from my own CDs for me.