“Personally I’ve never bought an iTune and I don’t own an iPod. I think Apple’s DRM is awful and represents a major step back for us all. I think those that are investing in iTune digital libraries are suckers. You are basically betting that Apple’s proprietary DRM laced format will be the standard for the rest of your life. You are paying too much for your music and tying yourself to only Apple products going forward. More innovative ways to play your music may indeed come in the future but unless they are marketed by Apple you will not likely be able to use these devices with your iTunes files due to Apple’s tight proprietary control,” Thomas Hawk writes for eHomeUpgrade. “Personally I want nothing to do with it.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s iTunes lets you burn as many custom CDs as you like without DRM. You can play these music CDs anywhere. iTunes also lets you make MP3 CDs. Audio CDs play in CD players like the one in your car or home stereo. MP3 CDs play on Mac and Windows computers and in MP3-compatible car stereos and CD players. Data DVDs are great for archiving and backup, but they only work in your DVD-equipped Mac or Windows PC. If your optical drive includes a DVD burner, you can use iTunes to archive your entire music library on DVDs for safekeeping, storing the equivalent of up to 150 CDs on each DVD-R disc. More info here.
Hawk struggles onward, “So who owns the music anyway? You or them? They do. You bought nothing. You bought the right to play their song on their product. It might work today. But I’m not about to bet that this will be the format du jour 10 years from now.”
MacDailyNews Note: See our note above.
Hawk tries this one, “And if you think Apple will be opening up their proprietary format anytime soon, think again. Apple makes virtually nothing on their iTunes downloads, after paying the labels, marketing costs, bandwidth costs, etc. they make peanuts. They make a *ton* of money on the other hand on selling iPods. This was the genius deal between Steve Jobs and the hacks over at the record labels who are just as big of suckers as you are and basically have done nothing but cannibalize existing more lucrative CD sales. They were short sighted and never thought to try to get a piece of the hardware sale and now they are yammering on about raising iTunes prices on you because they are bitter dogs over the screwing that Jobs gave them.”
MacDailyNews Take: Do TV show producers get a cut of every TV sold? Do radio producers get a cut of every radio sold? Do software companies get a cut of every computer sold? So much for the idiotic argument that record labels should get a cut of every iPod sold.
For some reason, Hawk insists on continuing, “And what if you are just dying to get the latest CD from that hot new band. Again, theoretically, would it be possible to go down to Amoeba records, buy it for $14, take it home and rip it, then return it within 7 days to get 75% credit back? What’s that like $3.50 for the new CD? And with 12 songs that’s like what 29 cents a track? Hmmm… would I rather have a crystal clear high bit rate mp3 track for 29 cents or a sure to be antiquated DRM bloated track from iTunes for 99 cents? Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating piracy here, per se. But the way I see it, if Apple is going to go to war with me the consumer to lock up my music and keep it off my innovative new devices of the future, then this doesn’t really represent a valid step forward away from piracy at all.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hawk’s not advocating piracy per se, just ripping off brick and mortar CD stores by stealing their product and driving them out of business even faster. The reason DRM exists is because of people like Hawk. Is it just us or does it seem like the biggest DRM complainers tend to be the biggest thieves? What a ridiculous article penned by someone with a total lack of understanding about iTunes, iPod, Apple’s FairPlay DRM, and how each of them works. What makes someone think that, if they’ve never bought a song from Apple’s iTunes Music Store and they don’t own an iPod, they’re qualified to critique them? Shut up, go buy your CDs, and play them on your CD player (without stealing the music and then returning the CDs). You want a legal online music service without DRM? Stop stealing, keep dreaming, then tell it to the music labels, not Apple.
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Related article:
Apple’s vs. Microsoft’s music DRM: whose solution supports more users? – August 17, 2005
The de facto standard for legal digital online music files: Apple’s protected MPEG-4 Audio (.m4p) – December 15, 2004
A few points:
1. Hawk: Apple “makes peanuts” after overhead on every iTMS song.
Right-O, but 1 Billion Served is a lot of peanuts. If my math is correct, even if Apple made only 1 penny per song, then they just netted $10 million. In about, huh, 2 years?
Heck, Hawk, I’d be happy with $5 million such “peanuts” a year for 2 years.
2. Jeff:
“I see a very good parallel to what happened in the PC world. Apple had a proprietary system and didn’t want to share it. The PC world was open and it eventually dominated.”
Comparing apples and oranges again? MS’s OS and applications were and continue to be far from open. MS sells proprietary software for open hardware. MS wasn’t so smart. In that situation, it was IBM that was very dumb.
That territory’s been covered before: See the Daring Fireball article Why 2004/”>”Why 2004 Won’t Be Like 1984″.
3. I’ve Googled Amoeba Records (actually, it’s Amoeba Music, but who’s quabbling?)
Amoeba buys and sells new and used music. So Tommyboy Hawk is not returning his opened CDs to the store. He’s selling them back to the store, and don’t think Amoeba’s not aware of the reason for his business.
I can not vouch for Hawk’s math.
We have similar businesses in our neighborhood. The selection of new CDs they have is extremely limited, and the new CDs are all priced at MSRP, not $14 like down the street at Best Buy. Secondly, they sell the used CDs for anywhere from 4.99 on up. So they do not pay anywhere near $10 for a used CD, or they’d be losing money and their lease.
Besides, Hawk’s not factoring in his own overhead (electricity, depreciation of hardware, gas to and from the store, etc). So whittle that $3.50 he “spent” on the CD down to … er… peanuts.
At one time, I thought Thomas Hawk was a reasonable commentator on various digital doings, such as his belief that TiVo might actually survive, although he is a Windows fanboy. But here he’s proven to be full of crap; he’s gone off the deep end, further astray than Dvorak; there’s no credibility left whatsoever. Wonder if he sold his credibility for a few of Ballmer’s dollars.
I don’t think I’ll ever be visiting ehomeupgrade or Hawk’s own blog ever again. Wonder what Scoble thinks of this.
eHomeUpgrade may be getting a lot of hits, but they sold their soul to get them.
Their desire to troll for hits at the expense of informing/educating their readers shows they LACK ANY JOURNALISTIC CREDIBILITY WHATSOEVER!
Whoa. I just wrote and essay on Thomas’ site.
Man that felt good to get that off my chest.
He is obviously retarded.
No matter who you buy from you are locked into them. May as well be locked into the king of music sellers (Apple at the moment). Besides, Apples DRM is easy to strip out even if it is a bit cumbersome. Ever tried to convert WMA into another format ?
Funny isn’t it? Apple is the little guy here, with only 3 or 4% market share. But no matter what Apple does there will be someone slaggng them. Apple is obviously seen as a threat to some. And that’s a good thing.
Hi guys!
Some prefer: compact-cassettes others the iPod/iTunes or even a X-mas tree !
Damnit!!! I clicked the link. Crap! I just gave the wanker a hit.
Why do you have to defend apple no matter what? Why not just admit that DRMs f_ck the consumers up the a$$?
As long as they continue to apply DRMs I see nothing wrong with getting music from direct connect instead!
just a thought though: is it possible to stream bought songs over the daap protocol? if so it should be pretty easy to save the stream and thereby bypassing the drm? seems too easy though :/
I’m very happy to be bound into Apple products for life.
And I’m just deliriously happy NOT being bound into products from MS, Dell, HP, Sony etc.
IT’S A LITTLE THING CALLED TRUST.
The pure fact that it is digital means that it will be around for a lot longer than say my 300+ cassette tape or 100+ record collection. We never know what the future will bring, but we can all rest assured that even if Apple was going to go out of business tomorrow, you are still given the right to EASILY back up your music with miniscule loss of sound quality before the DRM won’t unlock anymore. Try that with a cassette tape. Even if Apple went out of business in the future, the fairplay DRM technology would have long been licensed to others far before that would have ever happened. Why is this guy on the internet if he thinks the internet it’s such a fad…he should be backing HIS music up to cassette tape and listening to them on his Sony Walkman…and keeping his money under his matteress, and building a fallout shelter in his basement.
History of lock-in (that I can think of)
-gramaphon cylinders (we still have some of those 100 year old antiques)
-45 Singles
-LPS
-reel to reel tape
-cassette tape
-8-track tape
-CDs
-VHS
-Betamax
-DVDs
-Digital Music (WMA or Fairplay)
Why do things become obsolete? Why did I buy that 8-track and got locked into that hardware dependent system?
Why is Hawk a trolling fool?
to Mork not Mindy,
I know it is possible to play it on any device, but the transition is far less than desirable. You really got to want to buy from iTunes to take the time to burn, and then re-rip and then transfer.
I never thought that that concept of music management was an easy or sellable one.
In some perverse way, I could just pee in my pants and wash them later, but I would rather use the urinal, and take my chances with a little dribble.
sorry about the late response.
Yet more FUD from someone who has never owned a mac – let alone bought a song off itunes.
Here’s a unique idea:
Install itunes and start using it before you make ignorant and factually incorrect statements for the world to see.
Who knows, IF you actually tried something before writing about it – someone, somewhere may JUST take one of your ‘writings’ as a constructive and educated opinion based on experience.
Try it – it will be a new experience for you.
Emil – DRMs are there for a reason!
To stop piracy, and therefor the studios actually make money so that they can signup more artists, who can write more songs, who can then make enough money to continue being a musican.
Take 5 minutes to sit down and think of the bigger picture – let’s face it, in the modern world, if there was no drm there would be NO entertainment business.
My last name is Hawk and I disavow and relationship with this lunatic. I sincerely hope there is not one iota of DNA connection between him and I. Ugh.
It is clear that most of the reader GET IT! This guy is trying to excite Mac users he is clearly a ill informed writer whom does not do his research don’t click the link he will die on the vine like other hacks that have tried this tactic..ignore him not worth your time…
“Stupid is as stupid does”…Forest Gump
PS : Do you think Forest knew this guy? Hmmm…just wondering
that is the most poorest, most blatent, obvious attempt at getting hits i’ve ever seen!! i didn’t read the article and i aint gonna.
one BILLION suckers?! that statement is so very, very unbelieveably stupid that if he were to make it to me in person i’d just laugh in his face and walk away. i mean, why bother?
It’s the dopes like that guy that make you sorry blogs were invented.
You should see the ditto head responses he has….sheesh
I think he misses the point………..1 billion votes For, and one Against! Our family has 4 iPods, 300 downloads from iTunes, 400 Cd’s ripped and the convenience of music on the go. Not a perfect world but a damn sight better than pre-iPod.
Obviously another TURD RANCHER.
Probably has a real nice Dell laptop and Dell DJ music player to go with it….nice!
Why does MDN even give stories like this any air time? Is this really Mac news worthy information?
Looks like just another putz to me
So how does this idiot know that Apple makes “nothing” or peanuts from iTunes sales?
Oh, I know, he read it in a John Dvorak article so certainly it must be true.
A person is perfectly within their rights to be against DRM – I even agree to a certain extent. Whether I choose to be faced with “restrictions” is my choice and I make it.
A person is perfectly within their rights to be against downloaded music in terms of quality – I even agree to a certain extent. I only buy single songs from iTunes as I prefer to have the physical cd in terms of both quality and the fact that I like the artwork etc that comes with it. It’s my choice and I make it.
A person is perfectly within their rights to think that a particular method of purchasing music is expensive – I agree that some are. I don’t use them. If I can buy something cheaper at a different store than I usually do, I make a decision based on the saving and how good I deem that store to be etc. It’s my choice and I make it.
However to then say that you should buy something, copy it then take it back for a refund (even only a partial one) is outrageous. It’s no more ethical than burning a cd and giving multiple copies to all your friends and whomever else you felt like – ultimately the people selling it are not getting the payment they requested from the volume of people who now possess it. You can argue that the people you give it to may go buy it themselves but they might not and some definitely won’t – some who might have otherwise taken a punt on their own. You can’t prove the effect. Even if you just felt the cd was expensive that doesn’t give you the right to rip the people you bought it from off in order to get a better deal for yourself
Music may be expensive, record companies (any any other kind) may be limiting their sales by limiting what you can do with their products but ultimately it’s their choice. They pay artists to make records, which they in turn can distribute how they want for what they want.
Format wise there is always gonna be something else in the future (better or not) I didn’t get replacement cd’s for my vinyl – I had to pay for the ones I wanted. If I want to continue to play my vinyl I have to keep my player or buy another if it breaks. If companies who make record players stop at some point because it becomes uneconomical then tough luck for me.
DRM is bad if taken too far but that doesn’t mean it’s all bad, it’s a question of what you are willing to put up with. At the same time no one can 100% guarantee that DRM free digital (computer based) music wouldn’t result in widespread copying. If eventually DRM does ever stop it almost certainly won’t be a sudden switch off – it will be a gradual loosening of the restrictions. It would be an incredibly bold business who effectively opened their doors and said: “take what you want and leave whatever you felt like paying – if you even pay anything”. If music were free I would download dozens of albums a week. I may hate most of them and not have even bothered to buy them normally – no loss to anyone then? What if I liked say 10 of them each week? I couldn’t afford to pay for that much music – would I then delete the ones I wouldn’t normally have bought? Of course I wouldn’t. Would I pay for some, but not others? How would I decide? Ultimately I probably wouldn’t bother.
If apple don’t want to share their system then it’s down to the other companies to come up with a viable alternative, the market is still young enough and in fact still globally small enough for someone else to come in with a system that works well, at a reasonable price, with wide compatibility and succeed. Apple did the same thing against the other digital providers and are still in the process of doing so the the physical providers. Of course there may come a point when apple has destroyed everyone in their wake when the authorities will force them to open up in some fashion – and they will be right to do so but at this stage the market is still fairly open.