Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iTS, Odds and ends, iTunes
TUAW Reader Feedback: DRM-free Fallout Predictions
The deal is signed. DRM is optional. iTunes is much less "crippled-by-design". So what will the EMI/Apple deal mean to iTunes in the long run? Here are my predictions. Feel free to chime in with your own in the comments.
- The 99-cent flat pricing model is dead. Once people get used to the two-tiered system, I expect backlist prices to drop--and new release prices to rise.
- Once EMI folds, the rest of the music industry will follow. If it makes money, it makes money. And if it makes more money than before, it kind of defeats the whole "Piracy is costing the music industry" argument.
- The 128 kbps track is on the way out. You can always downsample, but you can't upsample. It doesn't cost Apple all that much more to store and send better quality music. I see the lower quality tracks disappearing over time.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Daniel said 6:14PM on 4-02-2007
People in the EU might stop harassing Apple so much. (At least about DRM... we can't say much for Greenpeace.)
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JD said 6:51PM on 4-02-2007
The question is whether Apple will be able to track its music appearing on the p2p networks. If a lot of Apple-encoded music ends up floating free, I wonder what the industry response will be?
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Charles said 6:30PM on 4-02-2007
I'm glad that Apple increased quality, but I was disappointed that they didn't go to full CD quality with something like the Apple Lossless codec.
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Carroll Wills said 6:46PM on 4-02-2007
I believe this also will further erode the already-minimal market impact of subscription services. These services are completely dependent upon DRM, since there has to be some mechanism for taking away the music if you don't pay.
While subscription services have their followers, the market has clearly voted for owning vs. renting music. DRM-free music will give iTunes' competitors what they want -- access to the market-leading iPod. And it will give iPod competitors what they want -- access to iTunes.
By breaking the DRM strings, these retailers will be liberated from the need to promote a business model that, despite the combined efforts of just about every non-Apple retailer, simply hasn't worked for consumers.
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Ruben Santiago said 6:47PM on 4-02-2007
um, what will be the new drm free music will be indistinguishable from the original studio recording, so it surpasses CD quality. no need for lossless.
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Sameer said 6:48PM on 4-02-2007
Apple lossless codec would be nice to have, but it would also kill interoperability that the elimination of DRM promotes.
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Cardo said 7:31PM on 4-02-2007
In my opinion, (my very limited one)... the rest of the labels won't back up EMI into the DRM-free model, as well as most consumer will still prefer the lower-priced tracks, so the initiative will eventually fade over time.
About Jobs' intervention in the press conference, it reminded me of the ROKR launch... when he seemed to fully sponsor the initiative but deep inside had something else in mind (now we now).
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Eli Hodapp said 7:06PM on 4-02-2007
I regards to Apple Lossless, it is completely unnecessary. I bet if you took ten people off the street and challenged them to listen to a 256kbit AAC and then the same song in a lossless codec no one would be able to tell the difference.
...Of course you'll always have your idiot audiophiles oiling their wooden volume knobs, but I don't think that they could possibly be troubled with digitally encoded music.
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Mitch said 7:11PM on 4-02-2007
I don't see people leaving the iPod / iTunes ecosystem now that (some) of the 'DRM' shackles will be coming off.
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Galley said 7:43PM on 4-02-2007
Yeah, but an unprotected lossless file can be transcoded to any format without loss-of-quality.
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me said 7:33PM on 4-02-2007
Buy 99 cents. Burn and rip it back. Raising prices is the DUMBEST strategy in the world.
P2P will increase. LOWER PRICES. .25 or .50 a track.
The customer has all the control. They can steal or they can buy. Raising prices will continue to promote stealing.
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Easyldur said 7:34PM on 4-02-2007
I agree with the ones saying that Apple Lossless is no use. I mean, I would love to have my music encoded that way, but remember you're listening with earbuds and not hi-fi Bose headphones (which would probably cost as much as your 80GB iPod).
It's true we have 2 prices now, but I think that in a year, when every label had followed EMI, we'll have all the music in 256kbps and for .99 dollars.
Still everything is possible.
Nice job, Jobs! You're the one and only master!
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minimalist said 9:34PM on 4-02-2007
4. AAC might become the legitimate predecessor to the mp3 format. If the largest and best known music store pushes it and it is successful, more 3rd party players will upgrade their firmware to support it so they can say "works with iTunes".
5. We may not be as much in the "era of the single" as some have predicted. Variable pricing will come to be standard, but purchasing complete albums will still be the best deal. Both the EMI deal and iTunes new "complete my album" feature show that record companies want this.
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Gene Cowan said 7:50PM on 4-02-2007
I assume that the bump in quality is what Apple is using to justify the price -- leaving off DRM is a bonus, because as one poster previously commented, one can always burn a CD of the DRMed file and then reimport it without DRM.
What I want to know is this: how much (if any) of that additional 30¢ is going to go to the artist? In my experience, independent artists are only getting about 2¢ out of the 99¢ sale price currently, making it pretty much a loss leader to be on iTunes.
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Leonard Nimrod said 8:07PM on 4-02-2007
ITunes store music on P2P networks:
It's possible for Apple to encode the AAC files with an inaudible, digital signature. One that can be found by specialize program looking for these self-imposed anomalies.
AAC (lossy) vs. Apple Loseless:
"CD Quality" music when compressed is typically associated with MP3 format at 320kbps. If you can tell the differnce between 320kbps and 256kbps then you have very sensitive ears AND a very excellent sound system. And it's not even possible to tell teh difference with your HDTV's speakers or your iPod headphones so don't even pretend that it will. SO why the need for Apple Lossless. Apple is already doubling the storage required (actually they're tripling it since they are still keeping the old files), which in turn doubles the transfer size and time required.
128,000 (128kb) x 210s (3.5minutes) = 26,880,000kbps
Seems high, eh? That is because the OS/programs typically register as "Bits" not "bytes" so divide that total by 8 to get a file size of 3,360,000 or 3.36MB.
I'm lazy and wanted to keep it relatively simple so I kept with BASE-10 instead of BASE-2.
Moving on...
This means the same song in 256kbps will take up twice the space, approx. 7MB. As for Lossless, the bitrate varies but for most songs you'll have over 1000kbps. That means a 3.5 minute song will over 25MB.
Consider the bandwidth and storage expense and imagine how much extra Apple would have to charge. And what a hassle for most customers whos HDDs and iPods can now hold a fourth of the songs it previously could. And all for something that isn't discernible from 256kbps AAC.
Twice the bitrate and without DRM all for a 30 cent premium. Songs like a deal to me.
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ShaleX said 8:15PM on 4-02-2007
Alright, so About the Apple Lossless stuff, So I took the song "Do you want to" by franz Ferdinand. I ripped the song in 128-bit and 256 bit AAC, Apple Lossless, and 192 MP3.....
bit and A
Soo,, on my Powerbook G4, through the speakers, me and my 2 friends could tell the difference between the the 128 and 256 bit AACs. We could not between the 256 bit and the apple lossless.... But then i looked at the file size. About 6 MB on the 256 bit AAC, and 26 MB on the ALC.
That's why The songs aren't released in ALC. for the 80% that will see the extra 5 mins to 2 hours of download time before they noticed the minor upgrade in audio quality.
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joseph matt said 8:54PM on 4-02-2007
one-tierd pricing isn't dead. that's utter bs. you are paying more for higher quality downloads with no DRM, compare this to the REAL multi-tierd pricing, which is more poplular artists are more money while the less popular are cheaper (or cost as much as they do now.)
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Kenban said 11:37PM on 4-02-2007
Heres something that most people don't know. The iTunes tracks have the DRM done on your computer. The actual transfer from the Apple servers to your computer is not encrypted. I expect with this code added to iTunes there will be a simple hack that makes iTunes think all purchased tracks do not require DRM when downloaded.
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mentalsticks said 2:54AM on 4-03-2007
The good thing for Jobs is now that he's off the hook with EU legislators. This in combination with his open letter on DRM gives hime the opportunity to say: 'See? We would *love* to open up iTunes. It's just the record labels ('cept EMI) who aren't cooperating.'
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Annoyed said 3:08AM on 4-03-2007
I'm so tired of idiots thinking that they are not idiots.
- "CD Quality" isn't the same as studio quality.
- How is raising prices the DUMBEST thing in the world? I can think of dumber things. Additionally, I'd happily pay $0.30 more for high quality and DRM free. Just because you're a cheap f!@# doesn't mean the rest of us are.
- How is a Powerbook G4 a valid test of the sound quality? Even if you're not an audiophile, those speakers sound like shit.
- Why do dipshits assume that everyone else listens to music only on our iPods and HDTVs?
- And where the @#$%^ did you get the idea that the music comes over the wire without the DRM and it's added at your computer. Damn you people are stupid.
Just because you have an opinion or think you know something, doesn't make you right.
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