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Apple Drops Anticopying Measures in iTunes
by noteworthy at 8:50 pm EST, Jan 6, 2009 |
Last month, the music industry pulled out its stun guns, aka PR flacks, to bring you the following breaking news: In a stunning turn of events, the US music industry has ceased its long-time litigation strategy of suing individual P2P file-swappers.
Earlier today, Apple briefly summoned the world's attention to bring you the following incredible (!!!) news flash: Apple said it would begin selling song downloads from all four major music companies without the anticopying measures that have been part of its iTunes store since it opened in 2003. It will also move away from its insistence on pricing songs at 99 cents.
In other words, Apple's software engineers are so distraught over Steve Jobs' failing health that they have resorted to spinning the deletion of annoying source code as a major product innovation. Does this sound familiar? Let John Markoff take you back: Long assailed within the computer industry for routinely adding too many features to its software programs, Microsoft will tacitly acknowledge that criticism today when it starts a Web marketing campaign for its new Office XP software suite that ridicules its notorious Office help system. The Clippy campaign, which will cost about $500,000, also includes a Web-site-based computer game in which irate users, many of whom have long found the paper clip program annoying to the point of distraction, will finally be able to retaliate by shooting virtual staples, tacks and rubber bands at the animated Clippy figure.
The story behind the story, of course, is that the "music industry" -- by which I mean the cartel engaged in organized trafficking in an artificially scarce form of antique "performance capture" -- is an industry in decline, and the major players are desperate to stanch the flow of attention to other "new" (and more participatory) media. Regardless of these late-stage efforts, the decline, which is both inevitable and inexorable, may be viewed as a leading indicator of a broader, long-term phase shift in celebrity culture. From the archive: The trick is to make people think that a certain paradigm is inevitable, and they had better give in.
Also: Someone from the future, I’m sure, will marvel at our blindness and at the hole we have driven ourselves into, for we are completely committed to an unsustainable technology.
In this case, what's unsustainable is not just the artificial scarcity of individual captured performances, but rather of the underlying capture technology, not to mention the performance itself. Finally: But for everyone, surely, ... this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated. Very different is the mood today.
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RE: Apple Drops Anticopying Measures in iTunes
by Lost at 3:38 pm EST, Jan 7, 2009 |
noteworthy wrote: In other words, Apple's software engineers are so distraught over Steve Jobs' failing health that they have resorted to spinning the deletion of annoying source code as a major product innovation.
You sound awfully upset about such great news :) |
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RE: Apple Drops Anticopying Measures in iTunes
by noteworthy at 7:59 pm EST, Jan 7, 2009 |
Jello wrote: You sound awfully upset about such great news :)
If you think this is great news, you are doing it wrong. Did you read the part about the 30% price hike on the songs that most people buy the most? Under the earlier deal with EMI, each buyer could decide whether to pay more (30% more) to have Apple "leave out" the DRM. Now they have determined that it's better for everyone if buyers aren't burdened with that confusing decision. Instead, everyone will (usually) pay the higher price. The market analysts that blurbed for this article pretend to be hopeful about the reduction in price for the neglected back-catalog items. This is a charade; Apple and/or the labels get to set the thresholds that define the boundaries between the 0.69, 0.99 and 1.29 categories. Steve Jobs may be underweight, but he knows how to run a business. This new agreement is a margin-positive change for Apple. In other words, under the new plan, customers will be paying more for less total product. Brad Stone was inclined to put a positive spin on this, writing that "the majority of songs will drop to 69 cents beginning in April." By "majority" he means the bulk of crap that no one wants any more, if anyone ever wanted it at all. See Magician's Choice: In a typical example of the Magician's Choice, the magician will ask a spectator to make an apparently free choice among several items. No matter what choices the spectator makes, the magician ends up with the item which he wanted the spectator to choose.
When Chris Anderson talks about the long tail, there's a reason why he focuses on Rhapsody and not iTunes. People who want to rummage around in the "long tail" (i.e., back catalog) are more likely to choose a subscription service. In 2006, according to Anderson, the top 100 artists represented ~35% of sales volume at iTunes. The definition of the $1.29 category is probably more like the top 5,000 tracks, which might encompass 60-75% of the sales volume. Then you have 20-30% of volume at the $0.99 price point, and just 5-10% of volume in the $0.69 category. Depending upon how much the price hike drives down unit sales, they might define the $0.99 bin somewhat more expansively. But don't expect anything in the Billboard 100 to be in the $0.69 bin. Real demand has been falling sharply for years now, whether you look at units sold or minutes listened. Raising (most) prices by 30% in the face of the weakest consumer confidence in the history of recorded music might not be the end of the world, but it certainly isn't Great News. It isn't even Good News. |
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Apple Drops Anticopying Measures in iTunes - NYTimes.com
by bucy at 5:19 pm EST, Jan 6, 2009 |
Apple said it would begin selling song downloads from all four major music companies without the anticopying measures that have been part of its iTunes store since it opened in 2003. It will also move away from its insistence on pricing songs at 99 cents.
!!! |
There are redundant posts not displayed in this view from the following users: ubernoir, Stowbari.
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