“There’s no doubt that Apple is flying high,” Alice LaPlante blogs for InformationWeek. “In addition to muscling a sweet deal with the industry’s four largest music distributors (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, EMI Group, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment) to continue selling songs in its iTunes store for $.99, its brawl with France over whether copyrighted work, like music on iTunes, needed to be interoperable was for all practical purposes made moot.”
“If three times is the charm, Apple must have the champagne chilling in preparation for a victory in its ongoing legal tussle with the Beatles,” LaPlante writes. “For iTunes fanatics, this is a mixed blessing. The good news, of course, is that the cost of individual music downloads remains infinitely affordable. The bad news is that Apple’s much-loathed proprietary digital rights management (DRM) scheme will remain firmly in place. Mixing his metaphors but nonetheless capturing the spirit of what transpired, Ted Schadler at Forrester Research was quoted as saying, ‘Apple has all the cards, and when you have all the cards, you can play hardball.'”
“With 45 million iPods sold and iTunes representing more than 80% of the digital downloads sold in the United States alone, Apple is now the 800-pound gorilla in the digital music world. Tim Lee of Techliberation argues that the music industry created a monster when it demanded a strong DRM system for iTunes music. Because it locks music lovers into Apple’s proprietary platform, Apple may soon be able to bypass the record labels completely and cut deals with artists themselves,” LaPlante writes. “But is Apple shooting itself in the foot by maintaining its proprietary standards? ‘We’ve seen this movie before,’ says Michael Robertson, founder of MP3tunes, which provides individuals with a ‘personal music locker’ with online storage that works within iTunes. Robertson was referring to the fact that a company that has created an industry often gets sidelined to a bit part in that very market. Indeed, Apple doesn’t have to look far for an example. But ‘it’s just not in [Jobs’] DNA’ to open up. It’s therefore inevitable that eventually other device makers will catch up and other services will deliver cheaper, easier-to-use, or flashier functionality.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mike H.” for the heads up.]
“Apple’s much-loathed proprietary digital rights management (DRM) scheme?” “Much loathed,” by whom? We’ve yet to meet a normal user who’s come up against Apple’s liberal DRM boundaries. Apple’s iTunes Music Store FairPlay DRM allows users to play their music on up to five computers, allows for unlimited synching with iPods, allows unlimited burning for individual songs, and lets you burn identical playlists up to 7 times each. So, again, who “loathes” Apple’s DRM besides pirates and pie-in-the-sky dreamers who are anti-DRM of any kind? (Yes, a world without DRM would be nice. As would be a world without thieves.) Apple’s DRM is fair to both the consumer and the artist.
If you’d like to stay alive, we would advise not holding your breath waiting for “other device makers” to “catch up” with iPod and/or “other services” (with Microsoft’s Windows-only DRM, no doubt) to offer “cheaper, easier-to-use, or flashier functionality” than iTunes.
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Related article:
Apple’s vs. Microsoft’s music DRM: whose solution supports more users? – August 17, 2005
Yeah no crap. I’ve never once run into a DRM restriction with iTunes. It would be nice to not have it, but I personally don’t even notice.
As for dominance, it’s funny how no one seems to mind that MS dominates the desktop PC world, and now that Apple has a dominant share in some area that really isn’t as critical as desktop computers, people are blaking at it.
I personally would rather have a company that gets it right controlling the thing than one who dominates and contiunally produces crap products. At least if we are going to be dominated by a company, it will be enjoyable.
zzZZZZZzzz
To answer the headline’s question: yes.
The only thing I don’t like about FairPlay is in regards to the TV show content.
I agree. Too many of the knee-jerk anti-DRM posters on MDN are “pie-in-the-sky dreamers.”
I guess MDN doesn’t mind dissing about half of its regular posters.
LOL!
This article is just more of the same ol’ trash that comes from a “journalism” corps that knows nothing about technology, or the consumer they write to.
Apple’s DRM isn’t hampering sales in the slightest bit. So much for “much-loathed”.
“”Apple’s much-loathed proprietary digital rights management (DRM) scheme?” “Much loathed,” by whom?”
You mean you haven’t heard about the massive DRM protest march being organized in N.Y.’s Central Park? Drop your earbuds and join the teeming crowds!
<chant> “Fair Play! Play Fair!”
“Apple’s liberal DRM boundaries”
Hey now, let’s leave politics out of this!
DITTO Macro–on the DRM issues. I’ve yet to run into a problem with the DRM and clearly the mass majority also are not having problems with it because you would have heard the masses complaining or not buying iPod’s.
iPods continue to outsell other players and
iTunes is a great way to buy music with out going to the dreaded mall, with its parking and strollers and hassles.
The only people crying about DRM are so called tech journalists and WinBois.
I imagine we’ll see articles like this in 2010, and the landscape will not have changed.
I sure do notice Apple’s domination. I own a bunch of AAPL :>)
This article is nothing more than a load of OS political platform crap – nakedly.
Even if you don’t care for Apple and/or Macs, I still don’t understand why anyone would do anything to allow Windows to continue to dominate the planet – now that’s something I can get paranoid about – and already am – and that’s being objective. One company literally controls the planet Earth, being that Windows controls nearly 100% of all systems (critical or not) running on personal computers. NOW THAT’S FREAKIN SCAREY!! And just plan insane if you allow yourself to think about it for five minutes.
My only complaint about the FairPlay DRM is this: I have four kids (each with their own computer), plus my wife, and myself. Add in a couple of laptops and I have 8 computers at home. Unfortunately, the DRM only allows 5 computers to access the music. There should be some way for iTunes to check to see if the requesting computer is on the local network and allow for unlimited connections to local-network computers. Reserve the 5 ‘accounts’ for computers off of the local network.
I’ve run into the FairPlay restriction.
See, the computer authorization is tied to your main logic board. I’m not sure if it uses some kind of hardware ID or just the MAC address, but the simple fact is, if you replace the main logic board, you lose that computer’s authorization.
And you can’t deauthorize a computer except in two ways: you can reset all your computers (something you can only do once per year) or you can deauthorize the computer you’re sitting at.
So. FairPlay, meet the iBook main logic board problem. When your main logic board dies, you can’t deauthorize that computer any more. If it happens more than once, you lose “authorized” computers. If you go through too many of them, you can find yourself not being able to authorize the computer you’re using. Oops.
Fortunately, Apple customer service is gracious about this, so it wasn’t very painful to run into the restriction. And in ordinary use, when things run as they should, FairPlay is quite reasonable.
I’ll mention two things:
1) The Apple DRM is “much-loathed” in the same way that Apple, iPods, and Macs are “much-loathed” – success always creates jealousy and that creates fear & loathing. I run into people all the time who have passionate vitriolic loathing for Apple’s DRM in iTunes.
Of course, these same people say they would “never download any music with any DRM on it”. So they’re not exactly Apple’s customers, are they?
2) The Apple DRM is so transparent that people forget it’s there. Want proof? I work as a mobile disc jockey. Several times in the last year, I have had customers bring me a CD to play at their wedding, with songs they thought I wouldn’t have.
Guess what? They burned the CD not in “Audio” format, but in “Data” format. And it never fails that there’s at least one Apple DRM-protected M4P in there, which of course I can’t play without authorizing my computer with their account. (Which of course means that I have to have access to the internet at the job, which is not a given by any means.)
If I do have access to the internet, I just buy my own copy from iTunes. But it is funny that people don’t even give a second thought to the DRM – they just assume they can burn the CD and give it to me to play, they probably don’t even know there’s a DRM on it.
Greg Thurman –
George W. Bush got more votes the second time around than the first, but I’d still call him “much-loathed.” The people who don’t loathe are still buying. The people who loathe are still NOT buying.
MDN –
You’ve got regular visitors and contributors to this site who have run up against the “liberal” DRM scheme. It renders their iTMS purchases useless when the iPod they saved up for breaks and they can’t afford the pricetag for a new one. Or they just prefer another player. Or they’d like to burn their videos to DVD for use with their home entertainment system. Or.. or.. or..
Take your head out of the sand and stop pretending poop smells good. FairPlay in its present incarnation is as anti-consumer as it is anti-competitive.
blucaso –
I am Apple’s customer. I own a Mac and an iPod but I will not purchase from the iTMS because I loathe their DRM. I buy and rip CD’s. When they license FairPlay so that I’m not required to own their portable music player, I will be happy to make some of my purchases from them.
If I make a playlist I can burn it 7 times…
If I delete the playlist, then remake it exactly the same, can I burn it another 7 times?
MW: music (spooky!)
“But is Apple shooting itself in the foot by maintaining its proprietary standards? ‘We’ve seen this movie before,’ says Michael Robertson, founder of MP3tunes… Robertson was referring to the fact that a company that has created an industry often gets sidelined to a bit part in that very market. Indeed, Apple doesn’t have to look far for an example. But ‘it’s just not in [Jobs’] DNA’ to open up.
This one is about as old as any Death Knell. Every pundit, prophet and street corner preacher thinks that the only way Apple can hold on to Digital Music in by licensing it to every mom and pop in the business. Just because they think Apple made a mistake in not licensing their OS to Bill Gates and Co in the 1980’s, they think it applies here as well. That is a Non Sequitur.
Greg – how does your iPod breaking render your iTMS purchases useless? The songs are still on your computer. If you can’t afford an iPod, you can’t afford any MP3 player, because iPods start under $100. So if you can’t afford any MP3 player, how is your lack of ability to listen to your iTMS store purchases the fault of the DRM?
Now, I’m not saying you SHOULD LIKE the DRM. And I’m not saying you should buy from iTunes. I don’t particularly like the DRM either, but I do find it to be invisible to me 99% of the time. (I don’t buy videos, much less want to burn them to DVD, so I haven’t any experience with that.)
But the fact also remains (and is duly ignored by most of the “loathers” I’ve talked to) that Apple did not invent the DRM on a whim. It was required by the record companies. Do you see any scheme on the other iTunes music that you rip that prevents it from being played on other MP3 players?
At the least, if Apple wanted to be truly “Anti-competitive” or abusive of their nascent “monopoly”, they would make iTunes incapable of ripping to MP3 format – they would use all-proprietary DRM-encoded AAC tracks that would only play on iPods. That would really isolate the iPod and iTunes users.
But they don’t do that. You can rip to AAC, MP3, etc. You can’t plug your iRiver and sync with iTunes, but you probably already have software that does that. In other words, they provide a seamless experience that is to the iPod user’s advantage in much the same way that using a Mac, Mac OS, and Mac software is an advantage. The Mac hardware is generally limited, the hardware and OS are made in-house, so Apple gets to maintain an extremely high level of user experience.
And if you’ve ever tried to get a Franken-PC to work out driver issues, or even had to figure out which jumpers to use on a DVD drive or Hard drive… or if you ever wondered why the latest PC’s still use PS/2 ports for their keyboards and giant old serial ports for printers… well then you begin to appreciate the advantages that Apple has in “proprietary” control of its product line.
And since the record companies insisted on the DRM, well if it’s going to be there, why not make it useful to your company and not everyone else? I still don’t see Windows making protected Windows Media available for Macs. Where’s the outcry? Where’s the loathing? (Well, there’s lots of loathing for WMV, but that has nothing to do with the lack of Macability!)
Enough said.
PC Apologist:
I don’t believe that its “required”. It does require an extra step, but I know for fact that you can burn your playlist to an Audio CD, then rip it back into iTunes as an MP3 file. I’ll have to get my daughter’s old Rio MP3 player out and see if the ripped file will play on the Rio, but I’m pretty sure it will. We did this quite often before she got her iPod.
“The bad news is that Apple’s much-loathed proprietary digital rights management (DRM) scheme will remain firmly in place.”
I don’t like DRM. It is fair to say that I loathe it.
However, this statement implies 2 things:
1. that Apple’s DRM scheme is worse than others. I don’t think this is true. It seems to have similar restrictions as other DRM schemes. It certainly was nowhere near the Sony DRM on CD fiasco.
2. That Apple wants this in place. While I do think Apple does to some extent leverage the perception of being “locked in” to iPods if you buy from iTMS, the ability to strip the DRM by burning is pretty clear indication they don’t give a rat’s ass. It is all about the labels.
Which leads to the fact, as pointed out by others, that what some people are bothered by (loathe?) is the fact that they “can only play their iTMS tracks on iPods”. Which, of course, is wrong because it is so easy to strip the DRM. Sure, you lose fidelity, but if you’re using the cheap manufacturer provided earbuds from your Creative MooPer 6i-v, the difference is really undetectable.
I agree with what iBook G3 user says about the auth/deauth process. Though it is thankfully not insurmountable, it is not consumer friendly to have to jump through several hoops (even if the hoops are large). How do other DRM scheme do in this regard?
DRM sucks. The people that want to pirate can defeat it. Sure, being mildly tech savvy will make it seamless, but the tech incompetent who wouldn’t be able to pirate if they tried are the ones that will run into problems. It is all about the labels, the same guys that paved the way for piracy with their stupidity (inability to predict the market, trying to pretend the market didn’t exist, waiting until they had ironclad DRM before starting ridiculously overpriced and poorly conceived online stores). The average consumer, with the proper education, will not be a pirate. We just want the same fair use with online downloads as with tapes, CDs, and vinyl.
MW: music, unlock my fucking music
In the same paragraph he writes ‘the music industry created a monster when it demanded a strong DRM system for iTunes music’ and ‘But is Apple shooting itself in the foot by maintaining its proprietary standards’.
Does he read what he writes? It is The Labels’ DRM schemes that music stores use not Apple’s or Sony’s or Microsoft’s. The Labels asked for and approved each different DRM scheme. Only The Labels can change or get rid of them. You can’t blame Apple for outclassing their competition by a 4 to 1 ratio. Apple did not use Microsoft like tactics to get where it is today in the music business. Only the labels are to blame for the lock in. Direct your anger elsewhere.
PC Apologist,
The vast majority of people bitching about Apple’s iPod lock in have a financial stake in the sale of music players or online music or both. You may be one of them. Don’t bitch about lock in here. Complain to The Labels, they are responsible, not Apple. They can make changes. Apple can’t make changes without their approval. Apple, quite naturally, doesn’t need to make changes.
Echo…echo. It is easy to dislike (loath is too personal a word to apply to a technology), but once you accept that DRM is a fact of modern digital commerce, then Apple’s version is the one most would would select in a head-to-head comparison with other schemes.
Apple has all the cards, and when you have all the cards, you can play hardball.
He’s right, you know. And when it’s the bottom of the ninth and you’re down for the count, you go for the Hail Mary play if you want to make it to the finish line.
All music services with DRM are using proprietary digital rights management.
Microsoft is not giving this stuff away anymore than Apple is giving it away.
Do you think Microsoft was a place on their web site where you just order their DRM kit for free?
Where is the link to the music store developer kit on Microsoft’s web site?
Their are NO free or open source DRM methods.
Brian Alen
Actually, there ARE a bunch of times when we have run into restrictions with Apple’s DRM. Have you ever tried creating a movie in iMovie with a song that you purchased from the iTunes Music Store and then burn it for a friend? The song won’t play on their machine. How about creating a photo slideshow in iPhoto (with a DRM song from iTunes) and then emailing that to a bunch of people? Or posting it on a website? Sorry, Charlie — you’re out of luck. Nobody except you can hear the music — they’ll even get error messages on their end. You can’t use your DRM songs for ANYTHING except burning CD’s, playing them on your iPod (or connected device), and listening to them in iTunes. That’s it. Once you actually try USING the songs for any other purpose, you’re totally out of luck. So DRM is a total nightmare to deal with, and Apple hasn’t offered enough flexibility on this front.