“The deal announced today between Apple and EMI to sell unprotected digital songs on iTunes for $1.29 isn’t a deal. It’s a 30% piracy tax, substantially more than the 3% tax levied on blank digital audio recording media in the United States,” Thomas Claburn writes for InformationWeek.
“Never mind that Jobs is right and DRM should go. Charging a third more under the pretense of higher fidelity and greater freedom is just a rip-off,” Claburn writes.
Claburn writes, “It’s not clear how Apple will price its DRM-free albums. They’re $9.99 with DRM. Apple may decide that DRM-free music will be available only on a per-song basis, but let’s say the company offers complete albums for $12.99.”
“Don’t get me wrong. Jobs and EMI deserve praise for taking this step. But I’ll stick to ripping DRM-free CDs when I want music for my iPod, at least until the price is right,” Claburn writes.
Full article here.
Thirty seconds. That’s how long it took us to find, link to, and excerpt EMI’s press release which clearly states, “Complete albums from EMI Music artists purchased on the iTunes Store will automatically be sold at the higher sound quality and DRM-free, with no change in the price.”
Claburn the genius is going to stick with spending likely more for CDs than Apple’s iTunes Store charges for high-quality 256 kbps AAC encoded DRM-free albums because he can’t take thirty seconds to properly investigate and understand what’s really being offered by Apple and EMI.
Contact:
Thomas Claburn:
Tom Smith, Editor In Chief, Online:
[UPDATE: 4/4, 4:30pm EDT: Claburn has revised his article with various strikethroughs and the statement, “As has been pointed out, EMI says DRM-free albums will be available for $9.99. That’s reasonable.”]
Related articles:
InformationWeek blows it: calls AAC Apple’s closed format – April 04, 2007
Red Herring reporter is quite confused about MP3 vs. AAC – April 03, 2007
JupiterResearch analyst blows it: ‘AAC isn’t supported by majority of digital music players’ – April 03, 2007
Apple’s DRM-free EMI deal ‘a master stroke that should cement Apple’s dominance’ – April 03, 2007
In Apple’s DRM-free EMI music deal, the big loser may be Microsoft – April 03, 2007
Apple’s DRM-free iTunes play trumps Microsoft’s huge bet on DRM – April 02, 2007
Norwegian Consumer Council senior advisor applauds Apple’s iTunes Store DRM-free music – April 02, 2007
CNBC video: Apple CEO Steve Jobs and EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli – April 02, 2007
EMI’s Nicoli on DRM-free iTunes: ‘We have to trust our consumers,’ Apple’s Jobs: ‘right thing to do’ – April 02, 2007
Kudos to Steve Jobs and Apple for having courage to call for end of DRM and making it happen – April 02, 2007
Analyst Gartenberg: iTunes Store’s DRM-free music ‘a great win for Apple’ – April 02, 2007
Apple CEO Steve Jobs to appear live on CNBC within the hour – April 02, 2007
Apple: Higher quality 256 kbps AAC DRM-free music on iTunes Store coming in May – April 02, 2007
Warner’s DRM-loving Middlebronfman warns wireless industry it may lose music market to Apple iPhone – February 14, 2007
Monster Cable announces full support of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ call for DRM-free music – February 13, 2007
BBC columnist doesn’t believe Steve Jobs’ Apple would stop using DRM if music labels would allow it – February 12, 2007
EMI may sell entire music catalog DRM-free – February 09, 2007
Recording Industry Association of America wants their DRM, calls for Apple to license FairPlay – February 08, 2007
Warner’s Middlebronfman: Jobs’ DRM-free music call ‘without logic and merit, we’ll not abandon DRM’ – February 08, 2007
Technology Review editor gets a lot wrong in his article about Apple CEO Jobs’ push to end DRM – February 07, 2007
Apple’s Jobs jolts music industry; Zune exec calls Jobs’ call for DRM-free music ‘irresponsible’ – February 07, 2007
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ posts rare open letter: ‘Thoughts on Music’ – calls for DRM-free music – February 06, 2007
I had an asshat once. Real nice, too. Now my ass is just bare.
Thanks for your useless post troll. Considering English is not my first or even second language, I do o.k. with it. How many languages do you speak troll? Obviously English is not one them.
Tool.
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DLMeyer;
Mr Claburn states that albums would be raised to $12.99. EMI states that there will be no price increase.
Please read his entire article…
One more thing® Tormod, you tool bitch:
I just got a reply from CPM’s editor thanking me for my letter and letting me know the article has been corrected.
Here’s an excerpt of the correction:
As has been pointed out, EMI says DRM-free albums will be available for $9.99. That’s reasonable.”
So I guess the editor was able to understand my English and chose not to “ignore” me.
You dumb ass. Go back to playing your Xbox in the basement while sucking down corn dogs.
Claburn screwed up the album pricing thing, but he isn’t wrong about the extra 30 cents. It is a piracy tax. 256 kbps is the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. Think about it…
A (wholesale) price bump for DRM-free tracks was no doubt demanded by EMI. Jobs, either unable or unwilling to give up his thin margins on iTunes single-track purchases, passed the bump onto the consumers. But, Jobs also understands that making people pay more for DRM-free alone is a slap in the consumer’s face. So, he decided to give us something extra for our extra money: 256 kbps.
Here’s the interesting part… EMI, just like every other label, is quaking because nobody is buying albums anymore. So, Jobs says, “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll let you charge me more to sell your DRM-free single tracks on iTunes, and I’ll pass that onto consumers. But, if my iTunes user buys a whole album from you, you give me (and them) the tracks DRM-free at no extra charge. So, you get your piracy tax on the single tracks, at the same time we also give people a little incentive to buy whole albums again.”
Deal… Deal.
So, it is a piracy tax, but Jobs has packaged it in a very interesting and (mostly) non-offensive way. i.e. you’re not just paying the tax for DRM-free songs, you’re getting something extra for your money. And hey, if you do the label a favor and buy the other 9 crappy tracks on the album, we’ll waive the tax.
Personally, I don’t care about DRM-free because A) I don’t intend to switch to a Zune anytime soon, and B) the 128 kbps tracks sound fine in all the ways I listen to them. So, I’m not going to pay the tax anyway. The quality bump in album purchases is just a net surplus for me.
Thanks,
Chip
Wow so ironic for a magazine called InformationWeek. They should retitle themselves It’sNotClearWeek.
Huck is correct. Jobs himself sold the removal of DRM as a ‘feature’, coequal with the increased bitrate. So while the author was off on his math (DRM isn’t costing a 30% increase per track as much as, say, a 15% increase) he’s absolutely right to call attention to this.
I posted this idea before, but it bears repeating here: The RIAA has done us more damage than we know, as even with this ostensibly ‘good news’, we seem to be accepting the industry’s redefining Fair Use Rights as Fair Use Options. In other words, the fact that the removal of something that should never have been there in the first place is actually costing us more money seems to be eliciting very little reaction. In fact, most of the posters here are attacking this dude for pointing it out!
Now, trolls will claim its Jobs’ RDF at work again, or that the terminally uncritical nature of Mac Fans to all things ‘Apple’ is at fault. And while I figure there’s some measure of that – it seems there always is no matter what the topic – I think the biggest factor is just how brainwashed we’ve ALL become over the last few years by this industry.
At any rate, don’t be as braindead as MDN on this – Jobs left himself open to this kind of criticism. He and the EMI guy both made no bones about claiming DRM is something we have to pay them to get rid of, and that doing so is part of the ‘upgrade’ from standard 128kb tracks. And while in one way this is a positive break with how business has been done up to now, you’d have to be blind to deny that it’s a ‘giveth, taketh away’ situation.
MDN MagicWord = “include”
As in, “IMO, if this were really as 100% ‘consumer friendly’ as we’re being sold, Apple would include DRM removal on all it’s tracks, no matter the bitrate, and/or only increase the price of 256kb tracks to $1.19.”
Sent them a semi-sarcastic note. received email back from editor. this article and another one have been corrected.
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/04/steve_jobs_and.html
reader comments ripped him a new one
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/04/guess_what_stev.html
received a note from the author as well
comments on his blog ripped him a new one as well
I, for one, would have paid extra for higher quality. 160 kbps would have been good. 256 kbps is fantastic. It’s archival quality. There isn’t a person alive that can tell the difference between 256 kbps AAC and Apple lossless. My dog could tell the difference but that bitch just listens to rap. WTF does she know.
Any iPod with limited capacity will have the option to reduce the bit rate while loading.
The removal of the DRM, which never really gets in the way, is the little bit of sugar that helps the medicine go down.
Comment I posted on the article:
Another writer with a questionable agenda, quickly making an opinion about tehcnology he doesn’t fully understand and business practices he has no knowledge of at all. Previous posters have already pointed your technical mistakes and have done a good job of explaining this technology.
Price gouging? Do you even know what this term means? It’s abusive, deliberate overcharging on a product or service when there’s NO definite alternative or clear choice. In this case, you already stated your choice of contiunuing to rip your CDs. Other choices exist as you know. Apple and EMI being business entities have to come up with pricepoints that would make economic sense to both companies and acceptable to consumers relative to what’s being offered ( higher bit rates, more freedom with music you bought, convenience, etc.). Whether it’s fair to you or someone else is again all relative. It’s all about the consumers’ experience and benefits (whether perceived or actual) with products and services that determine its fairness. In the same vein that you argued about decaffeination, ever seen or heard of people paying $4 for a cup of decaf, with artificial sugar, fake milk and water cost of which is probably less than a dollar? Ever been to any prof. ballgame recently and ordered food in the concession stands? I could go on.. I’m actually surprised that you’re indignant about this claimed premium price when you have owned Apple products( as you claim?).
The point is that the consumers as a whole (not technology writers) determine the fairness of this market. From the looks of it most consumers would be willing to pay this premium that you so despise. It’s clear that you are not in the consumer profile that Apple /EMI are targeting.
‘Wow so ironic for a magazine called InformationWeek. They should retitle themselves It’sNotClearWeek.’
More like ‘InformationWeak’!
Has anyone said that yet? cause I’m proud of that one…
Even stupid persons can become reporters these days…
You don’t know the history of stupid reporters. I do.
‘DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page’
Who is this pretentious prat?
Spy- the voice of Cecil the alligator’s book of Handbags
My letter to the author:
>Never mind that Jobs is right and DRM should go. Charging a third more under the pretense of higher fidelity and greater freedom is just a rip-off.
Apple still offers the same old 99¢ DRM’d files which you can strip of DRM just as everyone always has. For an extra 30¢ you get a higher fidelity file and an added bonus of not having to deal with a DRM scheme.
>Many iTunes customers will avail themselves of the “simple, one-click option to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free format for 30 cents a song.” They will end up paying twice for their music.
The one-click option is to *Complete my Album*, not upgrade my library or anything else you can dream up.
>Apple’s piracy tax represents an incentive to share iTunes music, since DRM-free songs will include the price of any future debt to society incurred for copyright violations.
And where did you confirm this baseless suspicion? Music labels have been after Mr.Jobs since iTunes opened up to offer “flexible pricing” schemes. This is a way for Mr.Jobs to graciously give in to EMI’s pricing demands in reward for taking a monumental step by dropping DRM.
It would be nice if you actually did some research before submitting articles. As for me, I only continue reading columnists that are capable of reporting in an unbiased fact-supported pragmatic manner. This kind of baseless tripe does not qualify.
Brau
Brau, nice spanking.
Rock on!
MDN Magic Word: served
Brau,
One more thing®, don’t worry about the trolls posing as grammarians. Their asses are beet red from the severe spanking.
1) The prior product is not going away, so you’re not forced to do anything.
2) The DRM-less songs are different products. 256 IS NOT 128.
3) It is not price-gouging, because the products are not in short supply, Apple is not the only dealer in town, and music is not a necessary commodity! How can you price gouge what is in essence a luxury?
I wish people would do some thinking before typing.
This just in from the folks at “Information Week.”
“We are pleased to announce that we are changing our name to ‘Microsoft Dis-information Week'”
@MacMania – never mind the bad guy – I thought it was a well written letter – he just got all nuts over the their, there, they’re thing.
One more thing®, don’t worry about the trolls posing as grammarians.
That’s a comma splice; a semicolon is required if you prefer to keep it all one sentence.
If you do a Google search on “Apple EMI”, you’ll notice that almost all the articles are saying this no-DRM deal is BAD!! “Price too high! Apple gouging, ripping off consumer! DRM deal big bad joke! WAAAAH!!”
Bunch of half-wit monkeys. Or more likely, bunch of paid-off half-wit monkeys.
If I had to guess, I’d say that the RIAA and Warner, Sony and Universal Music Group are going to have to do some very creative bookkeeping to account for where they spent their lunch money this week.
Oh, and maybe even Microsoft, with its DRM-infested albatross Vista POS and a huge stake in making its highly DRM-protected WMA music format a monopoly/standard, might have a little money riding on this horse.
Definitely, someone is buying lots and lots of articles and opinions and editorials, because this is classic astroturfing, much like Microsoft did last fall with Zune. I.e. Zunefan websites appearing out of nowhere, several weeks before the Zune shipped: Zune is cool! really it is! Buy Zune, lots of people are buying it, you should too! You’ll get laid! Welcome To The Social. LOL
What a twisted, fucked-up world we live in.
No matter, Apple always makes me smile because they are insanely dedicated to creating a great product and an unmatched user experience. They Get It. They are one company I can believe in.
Loan me 10 large, anyone? I have an investment to make in AAPL, before it goes through the roof.
MW year — this is it, definitely.