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May 21, 2007

music

Why ditch DRM? The Zune done right.

Posted May. 21, ’07, 8:50 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Music

Wi-Fi iPodThere are ten days left in May. Ten long days, during which at some point DRM-free tracks are due to arrive on the iTunes Store en masse. Exciting, right? Right? Hey, I know it’s Monday, but try and stay with me.

So, DRM-free tunes on the iTunes Store. “La-dee-dah,” you say. What’s the big deal? I’m still going to be buying all my music from iTunes, and I just want to put it on my iPod and my Mac. What does DRM do for me? Well, allow me to spin you a tale…of the future (or, for you Heroes fans, one possible future).

I call this story “The Zune Done Right.” DRM has been a necessary evil for as long as the major labels have been involved in legitimate online music downloads. And as such, engineers have had to tacitly take those restrictions into account when designing products. There is no better example of this than the Microsoft Zune. Wi-Fi was to be the killer app of the Zune, but the one thing it was supposed to be able to do—let you share songs with fellow Zune owners—was crippled by byzantine restrictions on what songs could be shared, for how long, and how many times they could be played. Add to that kickbacks to Universal for the piracy that such a device inherently implied, and you ended up with a device with little integrity, and even less appeal.

Sure, DRM-free tracks have long been standard for those people ripping their own songs, but I’m hoping that along with relaxing the restrictions on online downloads, record companies will see that it’s in their best interests to promote features like uncrippled Wi-Fi sharing. Why?

Word of mouth.

In this increasingly wired age, word of mouth has become among the most powerful means of marketing. For one thing, it’s no longer directly tied to people of your direct acquaintance—you might take the word of someone who you only know through their blog, for instance, if that person demonstrates an interest in the same kind of music or movies that you like. And more and more musicians are making some of their tracks available for free to listeners as a taste test—much better, in my opinion than iTunes’s 30 second previews, which are only really good for confirming that you’re buying Elvis’s version of “A Little Less Conversation” and not the annoying six-minute remix.

Word of mouth is also more and more important as savvy consumers become more and more inured to advertising. Despite the fact that—to my amazement—banner ads and spam emails continue to be profitable, your key consumers in the 18-39 demographic are more likely to consume things on the basis of recommendations from their peers (via the real world or virtual) than on what ads tell them.

Now, iTunes has long had the ability to stream music from other computers on your local network, so why not extend this functionality to iPods? Allow you to browse and stream music—any music—from anybody else whose iPod is in close proximity to you, say via an ad-hoc wireless network. Imagine sitting down at a cafe to do some work and dialing up a friend’s iPod to shuffle through their tracks.

When first unveiled in iTunes, this feature had the record companies up in arms. Originally, you could stream to any other computer across the Internet, but it was later dialed back to only your LAN after people started using the feature to steal music. But there’s far less worry when it comes to the iPod; it is, after all, a closed platform, so Apple can control what all but the most dedicated hackers can do.

At this point record companies are feeling faint, mopping their foreheads with handkerchiefs while muttering “Ah do declare.” Let people listen to music without paying? Insanity. Anarchy. How dare they not pay the toll for having our music filter into their ears!

Well, fine, if you want to take the old 20th century approach—but this is a whole new era. Word of mouth can translate directly into sales. If you stream a song from your friend’s iPod and find that you like it, chances are you’ll go out and buy that album yourself—especially if it’s available easily, cheaply, and DRM free. It’s the modern day equivalent of inviting your friends over to listen to that new LP you just bought. Why should we take a technological step backwards just because the record companies are not making money hand over fist?

Abolishing DRM is the first step down this path. Here’s hoping that Steve Jobs’s prediction of half of iTunes’s tracks being DRM-free by the end of this year holds true, and that the next generation of iPod once again revolutionizes the field of MP3 players.


5 Comments

George said:

You got the quote wrong in the second paragraph...

“La-dee-dah,” you say. "What’s the big deal? I’m still going to be buying all my music on CD, and I just want to put it on my iPod and my Mac. What does DRM do for me?"

I can't ever imagine a time where I would give up buying music on CD in exchange for a lower quality digital version. Perhaps that makes me a dinosaur (at only age 30), but to some sound quality still matters. Now if only my Genesis 1976-1982 box set would hurry up and arrive in the mail...

May 21, 2007 9:40 AM
Sam said:

I just bought the COBY MPC-781 and the only music I ever listen to is DRM-free MP3's. I don't see why anybody worries about anything else.

May 21, 2007 11:14 AM
Al said:

What about FM radio? What about satellite radio? What about music video on TV? Isn't that how the majority of people first hear the music they buy?

For that matter, subscription music would work that way as well.

Don't try to reinvent the wheel.

May 21, 2007 1:20 PM
Steve S said:

Hey, maybe you should join up with Microsoft's product development team. They could really use the help. Hopefully, Apple follows through on their promise but at least until then DRM Free music is available from eMusic and up and comers like We7 and Grooveshar.

May 21, 2007 1:22 PM
Dave-O said:

I'm not sure I understand your scenario, are you talking about streaming from someone's iPod? How's that better than the Zune scheme? At least with the Zune, you have the music after you leave the vicinity of the other player (for 3 days).

Personally, I thought the Zune scheme was a pretty good idea, until I found out that some songs couldn't be shared (lame!). Seems to me that you should get 5 plays with no expiration (3 days? I regularly go longer than that without syncing my iPod) on all songs. When you sync with your computer, you should get a link to buy the song and a sample (maybe more than 30 seconds). You wouldn't be able to stream to other computers/airport expresses/Apple TVs until you buy the track. You can't put shared tracks in playlists. The sticking point is what to do with ripped or user-generated content. I know someone went off on creative commons licenses, but what prevents you from applying one to ripped tracks? I have spent all the time I have to spend in Neverland, so I'll leave a better solution to someone else.

May 21, 2007 2:15 PM

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