“‘We think our customers are going to love this,’ said Steve Jobs in Apple’s press release yesterday announcing that its iTunes store would sell DRM-free versions of EMI’s music catalog. Wrong. I like it, but, please, Steve, stop doing me favors that (1) raise music prices 30% and (2) force me to take the extra steps to remove your AAC encoding,” David DeJean blogs for InformationWeek.
“You got part of it right, Steve. I definitely do not want DRM. I want the music I pay for to play anywhere, on any device. I want to exercise my legal rights to fair use and move it from format to format — from vinyl to cassette to CD to MP3 to whatever comes next,” DeJean writes. “But I definitely do not want the music I buy encoded in your AAC format, either, or locked up inside of your iTunes software. My favorite audio player software does not play AAC. My portable music player does not play AAC. I do not use iTunes to manage my music.”
DeJean writes, “If you really want to make me a loyal Apple customer, then sell me DRM-free music in an open format at a fair price. Exactly why do you think the 30% premium for DRM-free files is fair, by the way? Why should I, a solid citizen who wants to do the right thing, have to pay a penalty for my honesty?”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “dukemeiser” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: The hits just keep on coming! Seems more than one village has let loose their idiots to cover this topic in the past few days. David, perhaps if you used iTunes to manage your music, you’d realize that AAC not Apple’s closed format and that iTunes will convert DRM-free tracks to AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, your beloved, but old and inefficient MP3, and/or WAV. You are in no way locked into iTunes, beyond using its iTunes Store interface to purchase your songs. Also, if you read EMI’s press release before banging out your goofy blog post, you’d realize that the tracks are higher quality, hence the higher price, and also that 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.
MacDailyNews Obligatory Note: EMI’s DRM-free music sold via Apple’s iTunes Store will be in Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format. AAC is the successor to MP3 and is supported by iPod and also a wide variety of digital music players, including also-ran devices such as the SanDisk Sansa e200R, Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), Sony Walkman S series (and A and E series with firmware update), Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, BenQ-Siemens, Philips, Nokia Nseries and other Nokia multimedia phones, Palm OS PDAs, even the hapless Microsoft Zune, among others. More about AAC here.
MacDailyNews Note [4/4, 2:54pm EDT]: DeJean has since updated his article with the correction: When I originally posted this entry I called the AAC format “proprietary.” Almost immediately several of the commenters below and in emails called me on it. You’re all right. AAC is not Apple proprietary and I should have known better. I quickly apologized in a comment (see it somewhere below) and removed the offending misstatement from the entry. I wrote in haste, because that is the nature of blogging, and I repent at leisure.
Contacts:
David DeJean:
Tom Smith, Editor In Chief, Online:
Related articles:
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
AGAIN:
MP3 = MPEG 1, Audio Layer 3
M4A = MPEG 4, Advanced Audio Codec (AAC)
Maybe if people called them M4A’s instead of AACs? I agree MP4 would be less confusing.
I said this way back when iTMS came out that Apple needed to relabel AAC as MP4, so that people would make the obvious connection. It’s amazing to me that people are STILL confused.
Here is my email to Tom Smith and Author:
Mr. Smith,
I am greatly concerned that your publication would allow such an obviously incorrect and poorly researched article to be posted on information week’s website.
I have to question whether the author even has the skills to continue to offer commentary on personal technology questions. Not only is he not aware of the fact that AAC is not a proprietary technology, he is apparently not aware that it is a successor to MP3 and offers a higher quality sound at the time bit rate. The author does not seem to understand that AAC files can easily be transcoded to MP3 format if he needs to use the older format for his device.
In addition, why is this author offering “expert” opinions on music technology, when he apparently is not an enthusiast. I would think that if the author actually had an interest in the technology, he would own a more recent music player capable of playing AAC files.
I can only assume that the author has a vested interest in writing a “FUD” article such as this. I would hope that the editorial staff at InformationWeek is not in the same position and still maintains its journalistic independence. I expect to see corrective action taken.
I’m too tired. Can somebody just tell this guy he’s an idiot?
My latest Crutchfield catalog contains an automobile radio/CD player with the capability to play discs with AAC files. It’s not made by Apple. So.. products are even out there and InformationWeek blows it!
Editor,
David DeJean needs to do more research, as do you, before he is allowed to be published.
“If you really want to make me a loyal Apple customer, then sell me DRM-free music in an open format at a fair price.”
AAC is an open format. He is conflating DRM (in this case, Apple’s “FairPlay”) with AAC – the standard audio format aka “MP4”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding
“AAC was developed with the cooperation and contributions of companies including Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony and Nokia, and was officially declared an international standard by the Moving Pictures Experts Group in April 199”
He goes on to moan “definitely do not want the music I buy encoded in your AAC format, either, or locked up inside of your iTunes software. My favorite audio player software does not play AAC. My portable music player does not play AAC. I do not use iTunes to manage my music.”
…without stating specifically which “audio player software” or “portable music player he claims is not compatible with AAC, hiding behind vague accusations.
Again, he is conflating FairPlay DRM’d AAC with non-DRM’d AAC MP4 files (which I doubt he has or has tested yet).
Chances are his stuff will work with AAC and he just doesn’t know it yet because he hasn’t tried it without the DRM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#Products_that_support_AAC
The EMI deal is selling music encoded at twice the standard, already very high quality 128kbps AAC, at 256kbps for 30 cents extra BUT if you buy the album you get the songs at the traditional $9.99 price.
The recording industry wants to save the concept of the “album”, so it “punishes” (aka “monitizes upon”) people buying singles but theoretically incentivizes people to buy full album instead.
And this is not Apple’s “fault”. Don’t read Apple’s giving in to that as something THEY want. If you think that you’re fools. Apple always concededs temporarily on one or two items that can be blamed on the other party, only to later use that item’s failure against them in the later rounds of negotiation. $0.30 extra? This too shall pass.
The short of it is that I’m tired of sites like yours shooting off at the mouth, being coy about acting like Apple/Jobs are the big bad bullies.
I’m one more biased article away from not reading informationweek anymore.
i know i said MP4 in my letter, I meant of course M4A but my bad, close enough. I don’t blog nor an I getting paid fro writing!
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Funny thing is I will get more “editing” from you guys than DeJean did!
I think he’s saying he could get DRM for free off the internet illegally and he’s trying to do the right thing but Apple is charging him too much money so he’ll continue to download songs illegally.
There is no pleasing these idiots. It upsets me that no one bothers to check these fools before their dribble is published.
This DeJean is a cut above the other anal-ysts: he corrected his error!
MDN magic word is “morning,” as in, “It is a new morning for analysts, as one of them actually admitted to an error and corrected it.”
Dis-InformationWeek..
I received this from him
“Eric —
Every once in a while I do something that I wish I could do over.
Sigh. Yes, I know AAC isn’t proprietary. Yes, I know I could transform
AAC files to MP3s. The point I was trying to make (and apparently
didn’t do a very good job of) is that while I was very pleased a major
music company has decided to sell DRM-free music, I did not feel that
Apple had matched that new openness by opening up its own closed
system in any way: for me, AAC and iTunes still amounts to a DRM
system. Apparently I’m not alone. As I said in the piece, the European
Union still has concerns that Apple is operating in some restraint of
trade. I share those concerns.
— David”
I still don’t think he understands.
@Eric
You’re right. Dude just doesn’t get it. He obviously can’t drag and drop an MP4 file from his hard drive into another media management application of his choice.
Research?! I don’t need no stinkin’ research!
My mind’s made up! Don’t confuse me with the facts!”
Sent author 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/guess_what_stev.html
received a note from the author as well
comments on his blog ripped him a new one as well
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/04/steve_jobs_and.html
reader comments ripped him a new one
InformationWeak
Eric,
if what you are saying is genuine ( and I don’t have the slightest reason to doubt it ), his reply to you is even more worrying than his original mistake.
He’s not the only person to believe that AAC is solely an Apple format, such ignorance is widespread. He now understands that he was wrong and should have checked. But he then in that e-mail he goes on to say that as far as he is concerned DRM and AAC are effectively the same thing. Furthermore, unless he has an EU source different to the ones I’ve read, the EU does not consider that distributing music in AAC format is a restraint of trade.
To make one error because you didn’t check, is something that occasionally happens to some people. To then make two further errors while explaining the first error is simply to demonstrate that you’re a bigger idiot than people previously thought you were.
He needs to understand that Apple looks to the future, MP3 has had it’s day, AAC is it’s successor. Apple chose AAC for quality, but allowed iPods to play legacy files, such as MP3 and others. If DeJean had his way, no format would ever be allowed to be superseded by a superior one.
OK – Here’s my 2 cents. High kbps songs require higher transmission times and hence higher bandwidth to transfer. Who pays for that bandwidth? Apple does. OK. So part of the increase in price will be for bandwidth price, and not just for quality price. My 2 cents.
One problem: Microsoft is going to be offering DRM-Free music following Apples footsteps. Apparently, not just Microsoft, but other music companies want competition. The only thing is that there are a lot more players that can play many formats such as my Creative Zen than formats played by the iPod. If this does kick off successfully, then there is a possibility that Microsoft subscription music without DRM might offer more freedom than Apples music without DRM. Proposal also by EMI.
@Greg
I don’t mean to be insulting, but your post doesn’t make any sense – at least not to me. Perhaps I’ve missed something.
First, you state that “Microsoft is going to be offering DRM-Free music following Apples footsteps.”
I suppose Microsoft may in fact offer EMI music DRM free. But I don’t see how this helps them. They have been staunch advocates of DRM. And non-DRM music allows for interoperability. While Microsoft may hope that Apples non-DRM music will allow people to buy from itunes and play on players other than Ipods, how does DRM music help Microsoft?
You then go on to say: “there are a lot more players that can play many formats such as my Creative Zen than formats played by the iPod.” Is that true? The Ipod can play a variety of music. AAC is pretty ubiquitous. I feel quite sure that neither Microsoft nor any other drive provider has a standard that is more popular than MP3 or AAC though I’d be happy to be educated on this point.
Finally, you say: “there is a possibility that Microsoft subscription music without DRM might offer more freedom than Apples music without DRM.” I don’t believe that statement makes any sense. Subscription music withou DRM is an impossibility. If I can subscribe to all the music I want and then just keep it forever, it destroys the subscription model entirely.
I don’t know. It’s late. Maybe you can enlighten me.