Steve Jobs Talks DRM

"So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies." [Quote from Steve Jobs' article]

Works for me. Can't wait to see how it all plays out. Two active iPods in our house. Thanks, Zoomba!

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.

Reading the fine print on this elsewhere makes it clear that Jobs is only discussing this because of problems in Europe with the companies own DRM. Whatever. While I certainly sympathize with the media companies, to a point, it is clear that their attempts to monopolize and restrict distribution have failed.

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.

The Norse respond:

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I'd like to know why nobody's discussing the story I saw on CNN the other day about ipods' built-in obsolescence. I realize this is slightly off-topic, but Giles Slade, author of the 2006 book Made to Break, was being interviewed on CNN last week and he talked about how ipods have lithium-ion batteries that are designed to run out of juice after thirteen months, one month after the warranty expires. This system encourages people to buy new ipods, because the devices are designed so the battery cannot be changed. I think this is outrageous. People are spending hundreds of dollars on these devices and they only last a year?! What happened to the concept of durable goods? I can't afford an ipod and now I'm glad I never tried to get one. I bought an MP3 CD player and a small cord that I bought at Radio Shack that allows me to connect the headphone jack on the player to the auxiliary input on our car stereo. I can record as many songs as I want to rip onto an audio CD that holds an average of 150 songs and carry a 2"x4"x4" CD case with more music than any 4GB ipod. I can change the AA batteries any time the power is drained and start again.

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.

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.

Corky_O:

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.

After reading the article, I found that he missed something completely. While the majority of people who do purchase music do so using CDs, what Steve forgot to factor in is the CDs are also lossless. No compression is used when producing music CD to be sold in stores. This is completely unlike the music stores selling music online. These songs are all compressed using lossy-compression algorithms. They are no match for lossless audio CDs that the purchasers rip and compress at their own personal preference.

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.