“Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, jolted the record industry on Tuesday by calling on its largest companies to allow online music sales unfettered by antipiracy software,” John Markoff reports for The New York Times.
Markoff reports, “The Universal Music Group, the Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment declined to comment. But several industry executives said they viewed Mr. Jobs’s comments as an effort to deflect blame from Apple and onto the record companies for the incompatibility of various digital music devices and services.”
MacDailyNews Take: An effort to deflect blame? The blame obviously rests squarely on the shoulders of the major music labels.
Markoff continues, “A senior executive at one company, who requested anonymity to avoid straining relations with Apple, said that while labels might experiment with other forms of copy-protection software, ‘we’re not going to broadly license our content for unprotected digital distribution.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Moron, what about the unprotected digital CDs you sell? Stupidity knows no bounds at the music cartels.
Markoff continues, “Jason Reindorp, marketing director for Zune at Microsoft, said Mr. Jobs’s call for unrestricted music sales was ‘irresponsible, or at the very least naïve,’ adding, ‘It’s like he’s on top of the mountain making pronouncements, while we’re here on the ground working with the industry to make it happen. He’s certainly a master of the obvious,’ Mr. Reindorp said, adding that ‘the stars were already aligning’ to loosen the restrictions.”
MacDailyNews Take: Jobs is “irresponsible or at the very least naïve” for making mountaintop pronouncements, but his call for unrestricted music sales is “obvious” as “the stars were already aligning” to loosen the restrictions?” It’s no surprise that this idiot works for Microsoft on the Zune fiasco. And what is Microsoft working with the industry to make happen besides illogical royalty payments to the music cartels from a non-selling device?
Full article here.
Related articles:
Dvorak: Apple CEO Steve Jobs is dead right about DRM – February 07, 2007
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ posts rare open letter: ‘Thoughts on Music’ – calls for DRM-free music – February 06, 2007
Falkirk said:
“Huh? That statement is so blatently contradictory that I’m amazed that the human brain could even conceived it.”
Yeah, Reindorp is doing a little too much recreational Zuning.
I’m sure Jobs let him have an ear full in his direction.
Jobs is all for the customer not necessarily for the business. It should be easy for the customer to get what they want and they’ll pay for it. But idiots from Microsoft only want to make the customers experience a fricken nightmare and are really succeeding in this experience on all fronts. Great examples,Zune, Vista, and now Office with it’s non-compatible document structure.
Jay,
If you’ve invested in a decent system, you’re the type of person who’ll also invest in decent headphones so your iPod sounds as good as it can – I use Shire E3c in-ear phones. Feel free to email me and I can give you details of my setup offline. I think I’ve hijacked this thread enough!
“nobody cares what Jason Reindorp thinks”
And Reindorp, Jr. still thinks getting a Zune for Christmas was some sort of punishment. He cries himself to sleep with a heavy brown brick on his nightstand. His classmates weren’t calling him “Rein Dork” before he brought the Zune to school. Isn’t this child abuse?
Apple Inc. should start it’s own record label/company, call it Apple Records and distribute DRM free music.
Microsoft and the music companies just fell into a heffalump trap set by Jobs.
In the Disney movie the heffalump never came along to fall in the trap set by Pooh and Piglet, this time real life bests the world of Pooh!
“Microsoft, you are coming to a sad realization…Cancel or Allow?”
I love big brother.
Little Jason had this to say a few years ago…
“Apple is probably still riding the wave of their initial launch,” said Jason Reindorp, a group manager in Microsoft’s Windows digital media unit. “They have spent an inordinate amount of money to generate awareness around their closed ecosystem. (But) as people get more sophisticated in this area they are going to be getting more frustrated with a closed ecosystem. I think the market will kind of self-correct as things get more mainstream.”
iTunes ushers in a year of change
By John Borland, and Ina Fried, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: April 26, 2004, 4:00 AM PT
Obviously the prognosticator of Prognosticators!
“I’ll take Jobs seriously when Aperture or Final Cut Pro is treated the same way that he’s advocating for music.”
Um, Aperture and Final Cut Pro, and in fact ALL of Apple’s software IS ALREADY treated the way he’s advocating.
There’s no DRM (or the software equivalent, product activation) on any of Apple’s software. You can install 1 copy on as many computers as you can get your hands on.
But Apple trusts most of its users to do the legal and ethical thing, and pay for something that provides value to them. THIS is what Jobs is advocating for downloaded music – not what some crazy posters here seem to have made up their heads, that he wants music companies and artists to quit getting paid for what they own.
Sheesh. Try actually reading the letter. (Or if you did that and you’re still confused, maybe you need a remedial reading comprehension course)
@falkirk
I agree totally.
Most posters appear to have missed the point here. Steve Jobs makes several important points:
1. Apple introduced fairplay at the insistence of the music publishers
2. If Fairplay is compromised the iTunes store will close in 3 days
3. The vast majority of music is DRM-free, and easily copied from a CD
But perhaps more importantly, Apple is firmly positioning themselves in the anti-DRM camp, and on the side of the consumers. Microsoft has, instead, illustrated how out of touch they are with the consumer – this is “corporate speak” and may play well with industry execs, but comes across as stuffy and out of touch.
If DRM is abolished and piracy remains rampant, the music industry will have to find a new way to deliver a return to the artists and the industry. While DRM may be cumbersome and annoying, it is the only game in town right now and it constantly amazes me that people grumble about DRM on selfish grounds but never fee obliged to suggest an alternative which would put food on the table of the artists. Ummm. Would you write, rehearse and perform music if there was no guarantee you would get paid?
If Steve Jobs is saying DRM has to go, perhaps he has a new solution? If he does, it will be a radical rethink of the whole industry.
And I don’t think it will be ads on iTunes or product placement in songs.
Any ideas?
Zune is commercially irrelevant. Who really cares what an obscure executive of a defunct product at Microsoft thinks?
Another thing, why is it that some insignificant cog at Microsoft was quoted and not J Allard, Microsoft’s “rising star” in digital entertainment? What’s J’s take?
Speak, J, speak. Here’s your chance to dictate the future of digital entertainment. You can lead the way to the promised land, define the new paradigm, set the new standard, and blaze the trail to musical nirvana.
I’m waiting…because I ran out of cliches.
I suppose the genius that is Allard hasn’t yet received his orders what to think and how to say it from Ballmer.
Jobs’ statement is brilliant. It brings public attention to the music labels, but it hass one other major effect: it torpedoes Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace. Think about it: Zune downloads play only on Zune players. In order to get a song from Zune, you have to buy Zune points, and you can virtually NEVER use up all of your points evenly. So Microsoft gets more of your money than their entitled to (as with most Microsoft products).
Let’s say DRM was abolished. Now someone who owns a Zune, but who didn’t want to pay Zune points and only wanted to pay for the songs they wanted, could buy music from iTunes and load it on their Zune (why anyone would want to do that, even if Microsoft allowed it, is beyond me, but this is a hypothetical and fictional person). Microsoft doesn’t get millions of dollars of Zune points money in its accounts, but still has to pay Universal money for each Zune sold (about $500 annually, so not that bad).
Jobs is simultaneously taking out the music industry’s hold over Apple and undercutting Microsoft’s online Zune store. Brilliant.
Jobs’ statement is brilliant. It brings public attention to the music labels, but it hass one other major effect: it torpedoes Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace. Think about it: Zune downloads play only on Zune players. In order to get a song from Zune, you have to buy Zune points, and you can virtually NEVER use up all of your points evenly. So Microsoft gets more of your money than their entitled to (as with most Microsoft products).
Let’s say DRM was abolished. Now someone who owns a Zune, but who didn’t want to pay Zune points and only wanted to pay for the songs they wanted, could buy music from iTunes and load it on their Zune (why anyone would want to do that, even if Microsoft allowed it, is beyond me, but this is a hypothetical and fictional person). Microsoft doesn’t get millions of dollars of Zune points money in its accounts, but still has to pay Universal money for each Zune sold (about $500 annually, so not that bad).
Jobs is simultaneously taking out the music industry’s hold over Apple and undercutting Microsoft’s online Zune store. Brilliant.
As for Gates being against DRM, if that’s the case, explain to us why Microsoft won’t allow third parties to have access to Office file formats, why QuickTime can’t play Windows Media files, why there’s no longer a Mac version of Windows Media that can play encoded WMA files, etc.
What’s the use of DRM if it can be cracked? The reality is, there is no such thing as rock solid DRM. So, your question what will replace DRM is irrelevant.
The only “solution” (other than eliminating DRM) is to:
1. Ban any type of digitized music that can be owned or copied by individual consumers, including CDs and downloadable files.
2. Have persons pay for live entertainment.
Don’t think for a moment that this is going to happen. The genie is out of the bottle, he won’t go back, and you can’t make him go back.
If you are concerned about people stealing music, you will have better success as a philosopher than a programmer. A person that believes that stealing is wrong won’t steal because it violates their code of ethics.
The next question is less philosophical and more economical, why engage in a business where every customer is thought of as a thief conspiring to steal your profits? If the anxiety of being unable to prevent millions of people from staling your money is too great, get out the business. There are other occupations with far less worries.
I can’t believe you accept Jobs’ words as honest, really. His tech talk about not being able to license FairPlay is as believable as his saying the iPhone won’t be open to third party software because it could break Cingular’s network (oh, please, really!). Come on, guys, we are talking about Mr. Steve “we won’t do Flash-based iPods” Jobs!
The whole idea of getting all feel good from a corporation’s official announcement so obviously spinny is… brrr!
When you’re on top of the mountain, that’s where you make your pronouncements from, Jason.
You mac users are an elite group of snobs. Too bad your junk doesn’t work with 95% of the world. My ZUNE, my PC, my treo 700w and my XBOX all work together with everthing else.
Get off your high horse. I can’t wait for IBM to take Iphone name.
LOSERS.
Reading all the reactions, here and elsewhere, to Jobs open letter is just hysterical.
Everyone slamming Jobs about his comments about DRM-less music seem to have conveniently forgotten that Bill Gates made an anti-DRM opinion not too long ago and didn’t get these kind of reactions.
What hypocrisy.
Tex, Tex, Tex…
You are a sad little troll. Get it right… It’s Cisco, not IBM, and no way they are changing the name.
And by the way, Tex, my iPod (3 of them), treo 650 and Razr, windows XP and Vista, 2 versions of Linux, and ALL of the TOP rated PC games, and oh, yes OSX (The real Vista) run on my MacPro.
If our stuff is so bad why does your precious MSoft COPY everything from itunes to iPhoto, to trying, but failing miserably at making a movie dvd?
LOSER!
Have a great day!
@TEX
Sounds to me like you have never used a Mac.
You will sonny. You will.
And when you do, you will love it…
2 years ago i thought the same as you. After 30 years in the industry, formal Microsoft MCSE certifications, and 15 years running a Microsoft-based IT business, I am a living breathing example of the halo effect.
I bought an iPod. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Microsoft era is over.
I wish Apple had the money — the wherewithal — to pull out of Norway and slam the door. If Apple is important enough that the government seeks sanctions against the company, it’s important enough that the hell to be paid for pulling out would fall on the politicians’heads. The profits Apple accrues from that rinky-dink crag of rocks and crinkly bits are negligible; the population is too small.
Apple is being blackmailed by a country that probably is being bankrolled in this game of political football by Microsoft, a company far more wealthy than Norway itself. It would be interesting to follow the cash bonuses Norway’s “lawmakers” and other “officials” have banked or spent on new Volvos and Accuras.
Take a stand, Apple. Pull out.
Yessss, let’s defend the corporations and their lovable “we reserve the right to change all the conditions on your license as we wish, you little consumer microbe” contracts and such against those corrupt Noweggians. Even more, let’s all go SONY and rootkit our computers. It is sooooo right!!!
What pisses me off most is that every fanboi takes Steve’s words seriously. Come on, guys, it’s been too many Macworlds not to know when a discourse comes from the Ministry of Truth. We know Steve.
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/06/will_steve_jobs_drop.html