“For years, we’ve been hearing about Apple’s desire to make iTunes DRM-free. Steve Jobs even wrote a letter detailing his belief that DRM is bad for all of us–record labels included. And now, after years of waiting, Jobs and his minions have finally achieved their goal of eliminating it,” Don Reisinger writes for CNET.
“Does that necessarily mean that it’s good for Apple, though? I don’t think there’s a simple answer,” Reisinger writes. “Isn’t it true that one of the main advantages the iPod had over any other device on the market is its link to iTunes?”
MacDailyNews Take: One of many advantages, Don; not the only one. That’s an important distinction. The vast majority of the music on iPods are from ripped CDs, not the iTunes Store. Therefore, the iTunes Store has obviously not been a large factor in iPod sales. Yes, it’s nice and it contributes, but some people who aren’t very knowledgeable about Apples’ iPod business ascribe way, way, way too much credit for iPod sales to iTunes Store, DRM or not.
Resinger continues, “Now that its DRM advantage is gone, what’s stopping you from buying competing products from iRiver, SanDisk, and others?”
MacDailyNews Take: Come on. Superior user interface. iPod touch and the App store. Nike+. About a billion times more accessories than any other also-ran player. Vehicle’s with built-in Made for iPod integration solutions. Assurance that the company will be in business next year. Superior industrial design. A wide range of players. Perfect compatibility with the iTunes jukebox software. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Resinger plods on, ladling on the hypebole (“the dominant company in the industry may have committed a serious blunder”), with his totally flawed theories, guesses, and conjecture; none of which are tied to actual reality or backed by any sort of evidence. In other words, typical CNET. iTunes Store has continued to maintain its market-dominating share in the face of music cartels’ collusion to offer every Tom, Dick, and Harry online music outfit DRM-free music and iPod ruled before the iTunes Store even opened. The DRM-free iTunes Store will not haunt Apple in the least.
Full article – not recommended due to a flawed premise lacking any valid supporting evidence – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Kraig” for the heads up.]
I’ll write Reisinger a note and tell him not to worry… even without DRM, iTunes music is still wrapped up in Apple’s “proprietary” AAC music format.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> (Sometimes you have to fight misfire with misfire.)
Hope this isn’t true! Hate to see the three Zune users gain any momentum.
All contemporary “journalists” include the words “may,” “might,” “could,” “possibly,” “potentially,” “pehaps,” and the like in every assertion they make. (Just like market analysts.)
They can never be called to task with THESE words in their articles, can they?
If memory serves me, the iPod was successful a few years before the iTunes music store was even created. I can’t see it losing ground now, just because the store it’s meant to work with became even more user friendly.
@HMCIV
Helluva post. Laughed out loud.
Well put, MDN. The iTunes store makes a little bit of money for Apple, and it enhances the value of the iPod ecosystem, as just one of the many advantages of the platform.
What a dimwit article.
I agree that lazy tech journalists place too much of iPod success on iTunes FairPlay tracks. However,
“The vast majority of the music on iPods are from ripped CDs, not the iTunes Store.”
That may be true today but what happens as digital music sales become the norm and CDs are all but nonexistent? There’s probably kids today who have never even purchased a CD. FairPlay DRM would’ve been a major help as iTunes increases its dominance. That to me just goes to show that Apple really is committed to a DRM-free world despite the fact that it, for once, might have been to their advantage.
Back in the day……….way back in the day, CNET used to have good writers and produce good articles. I miss those days.
This guy is a moron, and I’m glad they have moved to DRM free, but I must say, I’m appalled that they want me to spend 30 cents per song on my past purchases, I made a smart playlist for “protected” files…2000 + songs! And I have to pay $600 bucks to free them up? Way to thank me for being a great customer…
I guess I’ll get to ripping cd’s…
grumble 🙁
Reisinger is an idiot. He got fired from Ars Technica for his poorly formed opinion pieces disguised as news. I think CNET needs to reconsider his employment as well. Maybe he can join George Ou’s blog.
I will predict that DRM Free iTunes Music will equal more iPods sold.
And even more music sells from the iTunes store.
Wow! Apple’s going to sell more and more stuff!!
@ HMCIV
“Sometimes you have to fight misfire with misfire.”
HA! To paraphrase Zaphod Beeblebrox, that quote is so amazingly amazing I think I’d like to steal it.
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@cmw
So you want Apple to foot the bill of you using their bandwidth and server power to send you new, larger, higher-quality copies of your purchased music? Why should they be responsible for that? It’s your choice to upgrade, they’re not forcing you to.
In all reality, the DRM on the music from itunes was flexible enough for me that it never made a difference.
The only real benefit will be the ability to have a single itunes account provide for the whole family and interchange users of each song, where as before if one person purchased it, they were the only authorized user since we have different iTunes accounts. But even then its not a big deal.
@R2
“There are probably kids today who have never purchased a CD” – WHOA???
Reality check – Itunes has been selling tracks for 6 years – One could conservatively argue that only 5 of those years it has been what the market would consider “main stream”.
Considering a number approaching zero is the number of people who’s first anything is the start-of-the-art market leader – think first car, first computer, first restaurant, first house, first girl friend – then there is a very small window of opportunity for people to be young enough not to have bought a CD – but old enough to actually have a computer and iPod and buy iTunes.
And very interestingly, my Magic Word is “young”
Steve Jobs traded variable pricing for DRM free songs. Looks like a win win situation for Apple, the record companies and those that can wait for songs to get older and drop in price. What’s to worry about?
Me I’ll keep ripping CD’s and buying Apps, Games, TV shows, Movies…….
“what’s stopping you from buying competing products from iRiver, SanDisk, and others?”…..
Good question, “what is stopping me???” Well, the answer is pretty simple, the other products SUCKS!!!!!!!! that what it is stopping me from buying other products. In fact, we don’t have iTunes Store in our country, even that, iPods are selling like hotcakes.
Hey! …. Anybody seen Zune Tang?
@coolfactor
Nope, not at all, I would love what I have to be DRM free, but the deal they have put forward (with the amount of songs that I have purchased) is too steep, my point (besides my grumbling, and I admit to being a bit miffed) is the deal they are offering is unrealistic with high volume purchases.
And yes, i choose not to upgrade.
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“…then there is a very small window of opportunity for people to be young enough not to have bought a CD – but old enough to actually have a computer and iPod and buy iTunes.”
I didn’t mean that those kids weren’t old enough to buy a CD but that they didn’t WANT to. Growing up in the age of digital music, they aren’t anxious to go out and buy CDs the way I did to gain that feeling of independence. They can download all the music they want right there at their computer.
@ cmw
If you bought so much DRM’ed music that the upgrade price is too steep, then basically at the time you bought it the DRM didn’t bother you at all. It makes no sense to spend years buying tons of DRM music and seemingly not caring about it and then complain when you have to pay to un-DRM it.
Also, people complaining about this are looking at the situation as a glass half-empty anyway. You are getting all new files of a much higher quality without DRM and you still get to keep the old ones. You could just as easily look at it as a glass half-full and say you are getting all these files for 70% off the established price. If it was WalMart or another retailer, you can be sure that the new files would all be full price.
Apple doesn’t *have* to do anything here, they are giving their customers a gigantic break IMO.
@HMCIV
I think you’ll find Apple’s proprietary music format is properly misspelled “ACC.”
DRM-free iTunes Store to haunt Apple?
No, Apple has already established the iPod as the “de facto” music player of choice.
Regardless of where music files come from, most people will use a iPod to play it on. The superior iTunes application gives users tremendous power to manage their music.
Far as I know, there isn’t anything else to compare against iTunes and iPod.
Of course the “Genius” and iTMS mini store snitching on ones music collection isn’t a bright spot. Neither is the new Safari’s “Google anti-phishing/malware” feature snitching on EVERY website you visit, even if it’s turned off in preferences. But it seems people are just gently accepting the slow anal penetration of their privacy until people start reporting going to jail or being sued and tracking it back to Apple and telling the world online.
Hey, Apple announced a new Mac Pro and nothing showed up in the press!
Watch your apostrophes! (Notice that it’s not “apostrophe’s”.)
That would be “…Apple’s iPod business…”, not “Apples’ iPod business” because there is only one Apple. It’s “Vehicles with built-in…”, not “Vehicle’s” because we’re talking about many vehicles, not one single vehicle possessing something. You did get it right, though with “music cartels’ collusion”.
MDN Magic Word: free, as in, “You get this lesson for free.”