For the briefest of moments there, it had seemed like Universal and Apple would make a go of it after all. That was, until yesterday, when Uni threw its tunes into a suitcase, huffed out of the house, and took off in the Ferrari.
So what’s going on here? Well, according to a story in the New York Times, Universal is planning on offering DRM-free downloads through a variety of online music services, such as Amazon’s forthcoming offering, Real Networks, and Wal-Mart. But conspicuously absent from the list of vendors is the net’s largest purveyor of music (and the 3rd largest retailer over all), iTunes. The DRM-free tracks are being floated as a test: they’ll be available from August until the end of January 2008, allowing the industry to “study consumer demand and any effect on online piracy.”
But why not Apple? The Times offers this somewhat bizarre reasoning:
Apple's proprietary D.R.M. does not work with most rivals' devices or software - meaning that music sold by competing services cannot play on Apple's popular iPod. Some record executives say they believe that the stalemate has capped the growth of digital music sales, which the industry is relying on more heavily as sales of plastic CDs slide.So, essentially the punishment for Apple not opening up the iPod/iTunes ecosystem is taking their completely unlocked music tracks elsewhere. Which punishes iTunes sales, but does nothing to hurt the real moneymaker, the iPod. Which is either some kind of insanely brilliant plot or, well, just insane.
It’s understandable that Universal’s putting their foot down to Apple: after all, they’ve walked away from pretty much every encounter with Steve Jobs having given him more or less what he wants, while getting few concessions in return. So they’re angry, and they’re trying to take a shot at the Apple empire. Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to go exactly the way they think it is.
There goes my money from the pockets of UNO. I have spent over $600 on iTunes purchases sine the beginning of January this year. That figure encompasses both music and video purchases. Uni just won't be getting their share of that.
I was going to say everyone should boycott UMG music but am just going to pirate their music instead!
UMG, two word and three fs.
i seriously think that anyone going against apple at this point in the game is just crazy... it would be like anyone going agaisnt microsoft when it comes to software... even apple knows so and that's why they're opening more and more of their software to work on windows...
although this move by universal, as you said, will have no impact on the iPod. if it's DRM free, the iPod will gladily play it lol
Wait a minute...
iTunes, which works with iPods - the portable players representing 80% of the portable player market – is "capping online music sales"? Unprotected AAC works on many MP3 players, including the Zune!
How frigtarded can these guys get? Maybe they need to be reminded which store is #3 in music sales - oh yeah, it's iTunes.
I can't decide if the goal here is to do such a poor job of marketing their DRM-free music that they can make the case that consumers don't want it. Or, if the goal is to knock iTunes down a notch by offering tracks in a better format elsewhere.
In either case, I think it stinks.
I buy music from several stores which sell MP3s with no DRM including http://www.Bleep.com and http://www.Kompakt-MP3.net because they sell a lot of independent artists who aren't covered well by iTunes. I hope that the artists get better royalties since the music is being purchased "direct" from their label's store.
However, I certainly don't intend to buy any Universal songs from other stores even if they come without DRM. In fact, since my only option would be to buy DRM-laden songs from iTunes, I probably won't buy any Universal artists for the duration of this stupid experiment.
It makes more sense than someone switching to Verizon to download AC/DC tracks.
The idea (which is not clearly explained) being that iTunes doesn't need DRM-free downloads because the DRM tracks already play on the iPod. There's probably also the fact that, as the most popular site for downloading music, it's a lot more exposure to potential pirates. The question is, what will the other services charge for these tracks?
In his famous article "Marketing Myopia" Professor Ted Leavitt described the buggy whip industry and observed that no amount of product improvement could prevent the evaporation of the industry.
The record industry is on its way to becoming a new buggy whip industry. Eliminating DRM is the kind of ineffective product improvement Leavitt described.
The industry needs to reinvent itself is a free, ad-supported medium.
Check out the Ad-Supported Music Central blog:http://ad-supported-music.blogspot.com/
I don't think comparing the music industry to the buggy whip industry (BWI) is an equitable comparison. Maily because the BWI was not a stand alone industry.
The BWI was a parasitical industry, and without the "horse and buggy" industry it could not (and did not exist) exist on its own.
As for the lack of DRM, it is a "value-added" factor. However, the way it is currently being implemented is slanted in ways (even by Apple), that its impact on sales can not be accurately determined.
The only way to accurately judge the effect of DRM on music sales is for all other factors to be equal. If one were an iTunes user, if bitrate and price were equal, who in their right minds would purchase an iTunes FairPlay file?
@Mr. Cohen:
Great, that's what we really need, more ads. Maybe the artists could just perform songs that are just ads for companies instead (sorry, American Idol already beat me to that idea). Or maybe some nice in-song product placement:
"I love you like a Mac fan loves his Macbook Pro. Now featuring Santa Rosa technology. Oh, oh, oh, how I love you."
@GCarden:
I think the statement is more like, why would someone who owns a non-iPod shop at the iTunes store? Not even all of EMI's catalog has gone DRM free (and doesn't seem like it will anytime soon). If you own a Sandisk mp3 player, do you want to try to sift through all of the iTunes Store to find the few albums that might interest you that are in iTunes Plus or are you just going to go buy the CD, find a less legal choice, or even just not waste time on it? Although I think the majority of people would swing towards buying the CD (Uni is fine with that) or just not bother with it (which is still bad for the record companies), Universal has a valid concern that people will either steal it or skip it.