Steve Jobs Talks DRM
From The Book of Jobs, Chapter 13, Verse 23....
Tuesday, February 6, 2007 by Zoomba | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs knows how to pick a product and market it like crazy. The iPod, despite any technical complaints people have with it, remains the absolute dominant force in the digital music player market. Everyone wants to unseat it, but no one has come close yet. And then there's iTunes, the music store to go along with the iPod, which is also the most popular music store on the Internet, with over 2 billion songs sold.
What ties it all together? FairPlay, the DRM scheme devised to ensure that only the purchaser can play iTunes purchased music, and only on up to 5 computers, and only on iPod music players. Have a Zune and want to buy off of iTunes? Tough luck! Some claim that the iPod and iTunes pairing has created an unfair monopoly in the digital music player market. Some critics say Apple should license FairPlay so others can sell iPod compatible songs, or play iTunes purchased work on rival players. Others have also said that DRM is evil and should be eliminated completely.
Today, Steve Jobs himself has penned an open letter to the community and posted it to Apple.com with his thoughts on the landscape of online music, and DRM in general. It's a long and good read if you want to get an insiders view on the market.
It ends with a challenge to the record industry of a sort, if they would allow it, Apple would drop DRM and sell open and freely usable songs.
Reply #2 Tuesday, February 6, 2007 8:14 PM
Great link, Mike. 
Although I have complained about having to install a second media player (iTunes) on my PC to use my iPod, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Jobs. In fact, I grow more impressed with the Apple products and company as time goes on.
His article clearly shows straight-forward reasoning and clarifies (at least for me) why the use of the DRM technology is currently in use by Apple.
I can also say that all songs on my iPod are either from CD's or downloaded legally (read: "authorized by musicians owning the rights"). This - for me at least - makes the claims in the article ring true.
Reply #3 Tuesday, February 6, 2007 11:14 PM
Personally, I would not pay 99 cents for a song especially if I was severely limited as to its usage. I have bought music from the Russian site allofmp3 for around 33 cents a song and have no problem paying that. I would go as high as $5 an album but that's it. Same thing with movies and software. Get it cheap enough and most people will pay to insure a virus/bug free copy. Start playing games by trying to control its future usage or deliberately killing the content and you only ask for problems.
Reply #5 Wednesday, February 7, 2007 2:11 PM
Maybe Steve Jobs should spend less time criticizing the music companies (there are plenty of people out there willing and able to do that) and more time contemplating developing products without a planned obsolesence cycle and gratuitous built-in proprietary technology. Apple is just as bad as Microsoft in this regard--they want to be your sole-source provider for everything from music to movies to games to anything else remotely involving an electronic device--they've just been less successful heretofore. I suppose we should feel lucky about that, since either one of them would readily turn into the Wal-Mart of consumer electronics (making vendors conform to their exacting specifications and refusing to support products if they do not) if given half a chance.
Reply #6 Wednesday, February 7, 2007 6:01 PM
Interesting.
I do know that rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (as with other rechargeable batteries) have a limited number of times they can be recharged, which depends on various factors based on environment and use.
Apple indicates that all iPod's are part of the 'out-of-warranty' battery replacement program which is outlined here: http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/service/battery/
Although it is not an ideal situation, at least users (like myself) are not out a couple of bills due to the lifespan of the batteries.
Reply #7 Wednesday, February 7, 2007 7:39 PM
You're right. I forgot about that part of the story--you can either send the ipod in to Apple or buy another one. They're betting that most people won't bother with that, especially with a service fee of $65.
Reply #8 Thursday, February 8, 2007 4:44 AM
There are a group of people who won't notice the difference when listening to a song that's compressed using mp3 at 192kbit/s compared to one compressed at 320kbit/s. This same will hold true when cross-comparing different compression formats (WMA, MP3, AAC). But what is inevitable is the fact that there are those who will notice the difference, who will hear the subtle difference between one format or one bitrate from the next. And then there are those who will want nothing short of the highest bitrate possible to attain the least compression as possible. And _then_ there are those who want nothing short of a lossless compression format (APE or FLAC). When you have people who are capable of hearing these differences, these are the kind of people who will never purchase music from an online store if the format it comes in is compressed using lossy formats. To them, they prefer buying the audio CDs and compressing them using a format that they want and using a lossy format with the bitrate that they choose to use.
Currently, all the online music stores employ a lossy compression algorithm at a fixed bitrate. All these bitrates are standardized by the store themselves so you're pretty much locked in at the bitrate the store opted to use. You have no option of choosing a higher bitrate, ever. So even if, for the sake of example, the music you purchase came with no DRM, you're still stuck buying a degraded version of the song compared to the one that comes on the CD. I believe any Joe that cares about their investment would rather consider getting the CD than buying the degraded version.
This isn't to say that Steve doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm all for a DRM-free world. But currently he needs to look at his own iTMS and give the buyers extra freedom when it comes to acquiring music. Some of us got better ears than the Average Joe. And it'll be "music to our ears" if we were given a choice as to how much information is lost in a lossy format.
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Reply #1 Tuesday, February 6, 2007 4:31 PM
Works for me. Can't wait to see how it all plays out. Two active iPods in our house. Thanks, Zoomba!