Comments on: Real Steve: “Imagine.”

By: Church of Apple

Church of Apple — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 19:48:04 +0000

Macalope, I am quite disappointed with you. You posted the direct pronouncement of Jobs yet left out a huge essential part:

“These are the words of Jobs; thanks be to Apple.”

Now let us now gather around the warm glow of our iPods as I recite an excerpt from the sacred Book.

“…And so it came to be that Jobs did cast off the chains of licensing rights on Apple put upon it by another called by the same name. And slowly flexing its newly restriction free limbs Apple did arise unto its feet. Behold the radiant monolith that hath emerged! It was then that this magnificent pillar, with Jobs at its head, turned its focus on the four giants of hymn. Lo, His voice bellowed proudly and defiantly at the great beasts, ‘For to long have ye oppressed my followers’ measures! No longer will I passively observe such injustice done unto them! I, Jobs, demand that you release your chains upon the hymns of the faithful and of those that hath turned toward the light!’ And when the giants heard Him they quivered with such terror for they knew that they hath invited the wraith of Jobs upon themselves…”

Jobs 23:45-52

By: The Macalope

The Macalope — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 19:10:28 +0000

Alan,

They also increased the number of devices (or was it just iPods?) you can sync to, didn’t they? And more recently let you move songs from an iPod to a computer.

The Macalope doesn’t defend the actions you note. A company shouldn’t take away functionality. The point of the excitement about Jobs’ comments is that it is a dramatic change in the company’s position. Sure, Jobs is going to spin it (his point about how licensing FairPlay would mean that it would get hacked easier is also silly) making it sound like they always wanted DRM-free music.

People do remember that Apple’s a corporation, right?

By: Alan Graham

Alan Graham — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:41:15 +0000

So what do I know? A little more digging (this was a while ago) and here’s what changed back then…

Burning playlists contracted from 10 to 7…and guest listeners went from 5 at once to 5 in a 24 hour period.

By: Alan Graham

Alan Graham — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:08:13 +0000

One little thing I’d like to point out…since there is a bit of re-writing of history going on…the original iTunes Music Store allowed 7 devices to playback music…and in a following update…they took back 2 of them.

Who was responsible for that move? Apple…or RIAA? Labels?

Anyone else remember this?

By: Se7en

Se7en — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:55:50 +0000

Did you read Scoble’s and that Zune manager’s responses to this? “Table for 2, extra Whine, please”

By: Follower

Follower — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:11:16 +0000

As for the idea of selling non-DRM’d music from independent labels while continuing to sell FairPlay-encoded content from the majors: Reportedly, Apple was able to keep prices at 99¢ after the recent contract renewals with the Big 4 music labels by demonstrating the success of the absolute standardization of product on the iTunes Store. (Meanwhile, on the PlaysForSure side, differing prices and levels of DRM rights from song to song have not been good for Napster’s and Rhapsody’s bottom lines.) “One size fits all” (at least for music) is a core concept of the iTunes Store. Selling a mixture of DRMed and non-DRMed music would break that. Once that happens, the major labels suddenly get leverage they hadn’t had before: “Well, since your audience doesn’t seem to mind having two different types of use privileges, we’ve got some ideas about pricing that we’d like to discuss.”

By: Cannibal

Cannibal — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:08:56 +0000

i love when steve does math. his presentation of numbers can make you believe ANYTHING. it might be some sort of voodoo - but i do love it…

By: John C. Welch

John C. Welch — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 03:59:27 +0000

No, no, this is SO “Shane”.

Alan Ladd will play Steve, and Jack Palance will play Jack Valenti

By: The Quivering Bunny

The Quivering Bunny — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 02:45:44 +0000

Macalope,

There is one GLARING reason the Great Steve is advocating a DRM-free world. Not sure why people are missing this, but it’s quite obvious (and is causing me quite a bit of quivering).

DRM-free songs will kill the subscription model.

I repeat.

DRM-free songs will kill the subscription model.

Please help spread this message, before….ahhh, too late, it’s Chris Goro….ahhhh!

By: LarsG

LarsG — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 02:35:26 +0000

“and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat”..

You know, not all of the music in the iTMS catalog is licensed from the Big Four. A fair bit is from smaller and indie labels, some of which have no problem with selling their music without DRM. In fact, there are those that have asked Apple to sell their music sans DRM but have been denied.

Jobs doesn’t have to wait for the Big Four. If he really is serious about this he should give the smaller labels the option of selling their music through iTMS DRM-free. If he doesn’t, it is hard to see his open letter as more than damage control to get the euro consumer ombudsmen off his back.