“As more stores and record labels abandon digital rights management, Apple may have an alternative plan for subscription services,” Tim Anderson writes for The Guardian.
“Last year, EMI began offering songs without it on iTunes. ‘The industry has finally been able to get some hard data about how removing DRM restrictions from legitimately purchased tracks affects piracy,’ says Bill Rosenplatt, DRM specialist and president of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies. ‘The statistics show that there’s no effect on piracy,'” Anderson writes.
“No effect. The assertion is remarkable. If DRM does not in fact discourage piracy, then it is merely a nuisance for the user,” Anderson writes.
“Ironically, the music companies are now abandoning DRM because it worked too well. Apple wouldn’t license its version to rivals – so the best-selling iPod drove the iTunes store to its present position, where it is the third-largest music retailer in any form in the US,” Anderson erroneously reports.
MacDailyNews Note: That’s incorrect. Apple is the number one music retailer in the US.
Anderson continues, “In the meantime, some early adopters are suffering the consequences of DRM’s failure. Last month, former customers of Microsoft’s defunct MSN Music store in the US received an unwelcome email. ‘As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of licence keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,’ it said.”
“The problem is worse than it first appears, since a ‘new’ device may actually be your existing PC. Some users habitually reinstall Windows to keep it running sweetly, but doing so removes its authorisation,” Anderson reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Windows is incapable of running sweetly and any users who rely on an OS that requires habitual wipes and reinstalls should have their heads examined.
Anderson continues, “Bill Rosenplatt, DRM specialist and president of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies, thinks that subscriptions may turn out to be Apple’s answer to the DRM-free competition… Mark Mulligan, digital music analyst at Jupiter Research, also expects Apple to change its approach. ‘It’s highly likely Apple will get into the next-generation service game. That could be Apple selling iPods preinstalled with unlimited access to music, or with a bundle to a subscription offering,’ he says.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
As we’ve often said, Apple should offer an iTunes music subscription option if and when it makes business sense.
Like analysts really have any credibility anymore?
The only way this will be decent analysis is in the same way that correctly picking heads or tails would be.
Analysts also said the iPod would be a failure, MSN MusicStore would be a serious threat to iTunes and a host of other completely wrong analysis.
I personally don’t like subscription services because ultimately they seem like a rip-off. Apple will, as it usually does, balance their business needs with the customers’ needs. That’s something the analysts never take into account. They figure out what’s best for the business, this time the music biz, but they don’t care about customer experience. Apple does.
Why do these so-called analysts have such a bone for music subscriptions when none of those services has been successful? They hear the words ‘revenue stream’ and suddenly they become zombies.
iTMS didn’t get to be #1 by selling subscriptions. Odd how this fact is lost on the people who should know better.
The day Apple starts a subscription services will be that day Laserdisc makes a comeback. It won’t happen. Bet the farm on this one.
The best answer to a DRM-free competition is to continue to deliver the best music player in the world (iPod), the best media management software (iTunes) & the best media store (iTunes Store).
I wish I could unsubscribe all those subscription services just to let them know they suck, but unfortunately I haven’t subscribed.
@Gwendo:
Amen!
It is Apple’s vertical integration – player, jukebox, store – that drives its success. no one has conquered that yet.
Sounds like wishful thinking to me.
Microsoft is the perfect reason why Apple WON’T get into the subscription music business. Microsoft’s actions are simply a class action lawsuit waiting for August to be filed.
Apple can always strip FairPlay from songs already downloaded, or just release a new version of iTunes which permanently unlocks any FairPlay songs.
Music Subscriptions are just a way for the music industry to enslave the customers as they have enslaved their contracted performers. Subscriptions services will all fail. Customers do not want to rent their music.
All the Media Punters all seem to think that customers are going to flock to subscription services just because that is the model the music industry as been promoting and hyping for the last few as the savior of the big music labels. Subscription models don’t help the small labels, nor does it help indie artists all subscription services models do is maintain the status quo of the all ready stale and stagnant music industry. The big labels need to fail or at least become smaller players in the market.
Subscription Music = Consumer Slavery.
The FTC and Justice Departments need to seriously look at the Music Industry if it starts to limit sells in favor of subscription services.
Complete BS…complete BOGUS…analyst can’t figure out anything about the new iPhone and simply don’t have anything else to write about…yet they have to get their paycheck doing something.
Subscriptions are like ARMS…they look purty up front, yet are arm twisting. It’s like marrying Jessica Alba, and she can’t cook or do anything except look purty for a few years.
‘The statistics show that there’s no effect on piracy,'” Anderson writes.
Wait! You mean all the money companies have been paying Microsoft all these years for DRM software, licensing, and services was for NOTHING?
Subscriptions suck. I was watching a documentary yesterday where I guy noted that 600 million people paying 50 dollars a year for free access to all the major labels’ complete recordings to download unrestricted and own as many times as you want would give the record industry the same earnings they make today. In addition, there would still be money made from CDs for a long time.
Music subscriptions are a RIP OFF!!!!! This doesn’t make sense, and Steve Jobs said so himself. Anal-ists are talking through there anals again. I don’t want to pay for my music over and over again only to have it wiped out if I don’t pay. I have a music collection, which means I want to be able to pull it up anytime, any day, any year I want to listen to it. Without some corporate GREEDY record exec exclaiming you need to pay for it again. NO THANK YOU!!!
If you’ll notice iTunes is on top for one reason, THEY DON”T DO SUBCRIPTIONS!!! People don’t want them, only the record companies do so they can make you pay every single month for the rest of your damn lives! Great retirement money for them but does absolutely nothing for you. Oh, did you want to burn that to a CD? Pay again!! Did you want that on your iPod, pay again! This is the model the record execs would LOVE to have. Everyone paying every single time you play your music. I’m sorry the music is over priced already.
DRM, that is primarily invisible and non-intrusive (iTunes), isn’t an issue for the majority of people.
Price is.
Analysts and consultantrs are always correct. This is because analysts are free to think freely. Their thought are not burdened by the need to make deadlines or be profitable.
just my $0.02
“As we’ve often said, Apple should offer an iTunes music subscription option if and when it makes business sense.
“
Bullshit. You have trashed it until recently when rumors were becoming more common that iTunes would go subscription. We already caught you in that lie a couple months ago MDN. fucking liars. Why do you people keep putting any weight in MDN when there are REAL Mac news sites that dont lie and spin?
“No effect. The assertion is remarkable. If DRM does not in fact discourage piracy, then it is merely a nuisance for the user,” Anderson writes.
Really? Wow. We haven’t known that for 10 years or anything.
“‘Bill Rosenplatt, DRM specialist and president of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies, thinks that subscriptions may turn out to be Apple’s answer to the DRM-free competition… Mark Mulligan, digital music analyst at Jupiter Research, also expects Apple to change its approach. ‘It’s highly likely Apple will get into the next-generation service game. That could be Apple selling iPods preinstalled with unlimited access to music, or with a bundle to a subscription offering,’ he says.”
Wow. These guys are morons. I fully support Apple having an option for subscription, but these guys are basically saying that Apple should change their method, the one that works, to be more like the method that they want to work, but doesn’t. Gee, I’m sure at the same time they will get into the “next-generation hardware game” and add a radio tuner and more buttons to the iPod.
In what parallel universe are any consumers even remotely excited by the idea of subscription music?
Apple’s on the side of the consumer because Apple sells directly to consumers. They can’t afford to try following business models suggested by their suppliers, particularly when those suppliers are trying to push a bad business model which grossly favors themselves at the expense of the consumer. The legacy music industry, much like Microsoft, wants to return to the monopolistic high-profit low-effort environment of yesteryear. That time has passed.
It’s rather odd to see MDN’s about-face on the music subscription idea – even if Apple were to offer such a thing, I don’t think it would make any sense to do so, nor would I support it.
Any “analyst” who suggests that music subscriptions are a good idea, or are just waiting for the right moment to take off, is simply a paid shill for the legacy music industry, as far as I’m concerned. They’ll just keep throwing this idea out there, on the theory that a lie repeated often enough will eventually become true, or that people will eventually assume it’s going to happen after hearing about it so often. I, for one, ain’t buying it.
Apple is not likely to do a subscriptions model or even a preload subscription model. The Punter’s keep flogging the notion that iPods are the #1 digital music player because of the iTunes store. The fact is the iTunes store is #1 because of the iPod. The iTunes store and the iPod will be #1 with or without DRM. Apple’s DRM has never locked the iPod to the music or videos purchased in the iTunes store, so the claim that the iPod is #1 because of a DRM lock to the content is an absurd and well ridiculous conclusion to draw and then to make a leap to Apple change to a subscription model for music to maintain a DRM iPod iTunes Store lock-in is a notion that is so far out their that it doesn’t even make sense.
Yeah when monkeys fly out of your butt hole.
Funny though, you can subscribe to a podcast….and get updates on a particular radio program for example. I think this sort of subscription would be great if they followed a major selling point of the podcast…it is free.
The analysts said Apple subscription would be a “next-generation service game.” Maybe last generation.
@MDN Lying again
1st June 2006
MacDailyNews Take: A subscription service option for iTunes that works for both Mac and Windows PC users plus also works with iPods? Now that sounds like a winner to us. Not for everyone, of course, but it would be a nice option to have. What do you think?
Are you “Me in LA”?
MDN has consistently said that most people want to own music and rent movies and TV but has for at least 2 years said a subscription OPTION might work for those that want something different.