“Apple Inc. boss Steve Jobs may be used to calling the shots in almost every business venture he enters into, but in dealing with the entertainment industry he’s being forced to learn he can’t always get his way,” Brian Garrity reports for The New York Post.”After trying for over a year to jam down the throats of studio executives the concept of selling cheap movie downloads via iTunes and having limited success, the notoriously inflexible tech titan is expected to change tactics and push low-cost rentals instead.”
MacDailyNews Take: Brian Garrity works for a tabloid (which, coincidentally or not, is owned by News Corp which also owns the studio, 20th Century Fox, with which Jobs is reported to have inked the deal). The goal of a tabloid is to sensationalize events in order is to draw readers, not necessarily to report facts. Who’s to say that Jobs wasn’t pushing for low-cost rentals all along, but only now got the studios to budge? Nobody, except Brian Garrity and the tabloid NY Post. Garrity presents no facts to back up his specious claim that Jobs is being “forced” to do anything. In fact, is history tells us anything, Jobs is the force, not vice versa.
Garrity continues his tabloid spiel, “Apple is said to be close to announcing a deal with News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox about a rental download service that could be announced at the Macworld Conference on Jan. 15, if not sooner, and is actively talking to a number of other studios about the offering… At the same time, Jobs is receiving plenty of pushback from the once receptive music and TV industries, which are now working hard to build up iTunes alternatives because he won’t play ball on higher pricing and new bundling models… And earlier this month NBC yanked TV hits like “The Office” and “Heroes” from iTunes in favor of Amazon and its own hulu.com service as part of a fight over pricing.”
MacDailyNews Take: NBC will be back soon enough – if Jobs lets them.
Garrity continues, “Also, as part of the deal, future Fox DVD releases would reportedly come bundled with Apple software that would make it easy for users to rip the movie into iTunes – another potential first. Both moves would represent a major capitulation on Jobs’ part.”
MacDailyNews Take: Again, total B.S. from Garrity and The New York Post. No facts are presented to prove that Jobs capitulated at all beyond a few public statements from Jobs that could have been — and probably were, as with the case of video-capable iPods — merely intended to throw competitors off track. Of course Jobs would talk down rentals and refuse to license FairPlay, right up until the day he offers rentals and licenses FairPlay.
Full tabloid story, Think Before You Click™, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Coupled with the awful sidebar illustration (shown above) that moronically calls Jobs “A Frayed Icon,” the NY Post comes off raggier than ever.
Wish Brian a Happy New Year here:
FIRST?
Jobs sets the rules no one else.
Apple moves Fox studios into the modern era with a supposedly easy way to put the movies we buy into a medium – computer, iPod, iPhone – we choose to view it. This is a reversal of the studio view of more and more DRM lock out – and the NY Post spins this as forcing Steve Jobs in some way??? Maybe he means a non-consumer oriented Steve Jobs in an alternate universe. Wow – the FUD machine is in serious spin cycle!
Just like he was forced to make the best OS on the planet.
Desperate hit whores. Nothing more.
“Also, as part of the deal, future Fox DVD releases would reportedly come bundled with Apple software that would make it easy for users to rip the movie into iTunes – another potential first. Both moves would represent a major capitulation on Jobs’ part.”
Could someone explain to me how having a major movie studio place Apple software on its DVDs is a ‘capitulation’ on Jobs’, or even Apple’s part? By my reckoning, the ability to have (assumption) exclusive ability to rip DVDs for portable viewing on laptops/iPod/iPhone and hopefully AppleTV is an absolute boon.
“NBC will be back soon enough”
The studio execs are going to have to deal with more serious issues first like the writer’s strike. They’re losing money in all directions now.
Heaven forbid Steve Jobs having to do something he doesn’t want to do. What a world we are living in.
“Also, as part of the deal, future Fox DVD releases would reportedly come bundled with Apple software that would make it easy for users to rip the movie into iTunes – another potential first. Both moves would represent a major capitulation on Jobs’ part.”
Can someone explain to me how it is a “capitulation” to be able to easily rip DVD’s to iTunes? Every move mentioned benefits iTunes and Apple? How can even a tabloid distort that as being a bad thing?
“NBC will be back soon enough”
The studio execs are going to have to deal with more serious issues first like…..
SHITTY PROGRAMING.
To Always Right:
Good point. It might be time for NBC to let go of ER after 13 years.
And whoever approved “Caveman” on ABC should be deported.
@MDN,
You take this all so personally. It’s a tabloid. Who really cares?
Looks like Jobs shaves his torso instead of his face.
Need to work on your 6-pack, Steve-o.
The NYPost is run by ultra right wingers. They couldn’t possibly be doing a smear piece devoid of actual facts, could they?
Garrity is actually half right. Jobs was forced into the video rental business, but not by the movie industry or others. Instead Jobs bowed to the overwhelming pressure of consumer demand.
While this is not a character flaw we should tip our hats to those companies who *don’t* bow to such pressures…Micro$oft, Wal*Mart, Napster, the DMV.
don’t kid yourselves, Apple is getting exactly what it wants. DRM free music available to all Apple devices and truckloads of video content which is Apple device playable. What could be better? There is no downside here for Apple. The only point of that article is to start the media machine churning. I’m just sittin’ back and enjoyin’ the ride.
One of the New York tabloid rags, the Post once featured this headline -in 4 inch letters – about a New Jersey mob boss who was murdered because he was gay: “Fairy Godfather!”
NY Post is a great newspaper that covers the facts and hits hard. Too bad they got this one wrong.
I use Hulu every single day. Its a freaking great website. Every show I usually pay for I know get for free in pretty decent quality!!!
I really don’t know why people are down on hulu!
Garrity is most likely a Windows troll who snuck through a bad article.
Obviously written by people who don’t know Steve very well. And can B.S. the others in their readership who are also unfamiliar with the history of SJ.
Who the hell is doing their photoshop work?
Who cares if there are other alternatives? No big deal. iTunes will still kick ass.
The studios have shitty programming because putting 100s of channels on TV means that you either compete on quality or on price. Since quality was never very high to begin with, it dropped rapidly as cable channels grew.
I doubt that I’ll rent much, but I hope Apple does well with TV on iTunes.
It’s Steve Jobs’ world. We just happen to live in it. Like it or not.
…my memory has Jobs very reluctant to “rent” or “subscribe to” music, not films. I thought he has stated several times what he saw as the difference in those two entertainment environments – and one lends itself to “own” while the other not so much…