Waaaaaah!

Engadget thinks the Apple/EMI deal isn’t good enough.

Engadget’s Ryan Block says Apple and EMI ditching DRM is good, but it’s not good enough (tip o’ the antlers to Gareth Flynn).

Was today’s announcement a real commitment dedicated to consumers’ digital rights? Or was it a play for disenfranchised music lovers’ hearts? We have a feeling the answer lies somewhere in the middle — although we can’t help but feel the whole thing is gestural at best, and subterfuge at worst.

Translation: there is no pool too big that I cannot try to ruin it for you by depositing my Baby Ruths into it.

We should be clear to start: we don’t believe Jobs is leading by example here — EMI is.

With his $4 billion+ stake in the media megacorp and his seat on the board of directors, you’d think Jobs would be quick to encourage Disney-owned labels, like Hollywood Records, Lyric Street Records, Mammoth Records, and Walt Disney Records, to “embrace [DRM-free] sales wholeheartedly.”

Well, do you know that he isn’t? Now that Steve Jobs has proven he means what he says about music DRM, let’s not believe him about something else! This first-person shooter game is awesome and has so many levels!

Perhaps Jobs and Iger don’t see as eye-to-eye as they previously postured, or perhaps Jobs is waiting to see whether this is actually the right move for the business, consumers be damned.

Yeah! Why, Jobs probably isn’t even a pescetarian! The Macalope bets he goes home and grills up a nice steak every Friday! And the Macalope has just as much evidence for that as Block does for his argument.

The finer details of EMI and Jobs’s announcement today were also dubious.

Dude, you sound like Martin Prince.

Despite the silver lining, which is that full albums should cost the same but will now default to DRM-free files, the two businesses still conflated DRM-free music with the discerning tastes of audiophiles.

If by “conflated” you mean “created value” then, yes.

Steve mentioned that 128-bit AAC just isn’t good enough for the sharp-eared, so uncrippled tracks are being bumped to 256Kbps. This gives Apple the ability to sell the music as a separate product and price point, while giving consumers the illusion of greater value.

It is a greater value, you numbskull! How is 256Kbps not a greater value than 128?! Arrrrg! The fact that albums are going to be in that format is something they’re giving you for free, not the other way around.

EMI CEO Eric Nicoli said, “Not everybody cares about interoperability or sound quality.” Since when did the two become so intrinsically linked?

Do you not know the meaning of the conjunction “or”? Maybe you should log on to LimeWire and download a copy of Schoolhouse Rock.

So why not make 99-cent 128-bit AAC tracks DRM free as well?

Why not give Ryan Block a pony?! Because he’d only bitch that he wanted a bigger, shinier pony.

Now take a look at Steve’s response to the question of whether TV shows will be sold without DRM.

No. The Macalope has said this time and time again. He does not agree with disconnect between music and video, but they are treated differently because the industry managed to get their hooks in the DVD specs. The landscape is totally different and you simply cannot argue both at the same time. Well, you can try, but you’re only going to waste your time and look like a jackass in the process.

In fact, the only other devices that we can think of that supports [sic] AAC are a handful of Sony players, the Sansa E200R, and the Zune — and good luck getting that to work with your Mac or iTunes.

Does Block not know that the majority of iPod and iTunes users run Windows? And, yeah, that whole dragging and dropping unprotected AAC files to another directory is a real pain in the ass.

The bottom line is this: we want to live in a DRM-free world, and while we’re not necessarily convinced that Jobs, Apple, Disney, and EMI do too, at least some of the players in this ecosystem are willing to look at it from the consumer’s point of view.

Yet you give credit to EMI and none to Apple and Steve Jobs.

Yes, the situation isn’t perfect, but yesterday it got a hell of a lot better and when sales of unprotected 256Kbps AAC files absolutely beat the crap out of the DRMed 128Kbps alternative — as the Macalope is sure they will — it’ll get even better. So quit your bitching.

30 thoughts on “Waaaaaah!”

  1. Ah yes, no, well umm, it is… no, it can’t be. This isn’t good enough because, well, because it isn’t good enough! And Jobs he.. well, he… oh, I just hate his turtle neck! And and and.. yes, I … we, this… err…umm… simply is not… like I said… or otherwise… welll, ahh, give me another day and I’ll think up something negative to say!

  2. “Disney-owned labels, like Hollywood Records, Lyric Street Records, Mammoth Records, and Walt Disney Records”

    You know he had to Google those to make his case since no one has ever heard of them. Like Steve was going to have a big announcement about Mouseketeers records going DRM-free.

  3. Yet Block praises Microsoft for “working behind the scenes to shake some of the DRM from the Zune.” Yes, how commendable of them. Particularly since before the Zune, Microsoft’s ENTIRE DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY revolved around WMA/WMV and DRM. And, I would argue, still does. Really.

    Expect the Redmond FUD cannons to be in “full assault mode” in the coming months. Their Windows Media empire-to-be is crumbling, and you can bet they’ll stop at nothing to save it.

  4. Gawd, what a maroon. Macalope, thanks for wading into the morass and getting your hands slimy. It’s more than I’m willing to do.

  5. “beat the crap out of the DRMed 196Kbps alternative — as the Macalope is sure they will — it’ll get even better.”

    Actually, the alternative (from the iTunes Store, anyway) is DRMed 128 kbps files, not 196.

  6. A quote from Lyndon B. Johnson springs to mind:

    “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read “President Can’t Swim”.

  7. This pony is insufficiently shiny. Hee.

    But, seriously, what’s his gripe?

    If 256kbit AAC is too much quality, well… he could transcode it, since it’s not DRM’d, into mp3, with a trivial drag and drop on any number of tools, could he not?

    Thus fixing both his complaints at once!

    (And I say this as someone who’s never purchased a single file from iTMS and with no AAC-related dog in this fight.)

  8. You know, if the record companies/Apple *really* wanted to produce the illusion of giving you greater choice, it seems to me what they would have done was give you the option between buying DRM-free files or (there’s that tricky conjunction again) higher audio-quality. I’d have expected for them to give you the option between buying DRM-free 128kbps tracks and buying DRM-ed 256kbps tracks. Have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised to see them bundle both DRM freedom and higher audio quality into a marginally more expensive file. It seems like a no-brainer. Perhaps that explains why Block didn’t get it…snap!

  9. This is what drives me crazy about these ‘tech evangalisits” whenever they talk about DRM: They completely refuse to understand the value of compromise. Yes, non-DRMed media is probably a good thng, but we’re talking about new business models being created here. It’s going to take time, and it’s going to happen in stages.

    And really, are that many people chaffing under the current limit of being able to put your music on “only” five computers? Sure, I have a 100-unit Xserve farm in my study closet, but I get by with only having my iTunes library duplicated on four of them. And I really wanted iTunes to burn 300 CD copies of my “Nothing But Prince Filler Tracks” playlist, but darnitall, it would only burn seven and I had to do the rest by copying the CD with Toast.

  10. I haven’t seen the article, but juding by what’s quoted here, I don’t think this is the maddest reaction yet.

    I think Charlie Demerjian at the Inquirer has succeeded in giving us that.

    “They are using DRM to distract you, the dumb sheep, and jack up your fees. You are not the beneficiaries here, you are being hit with a baseball bat. Wake up. For those who reported on this without thinking, please don’t wake up, you deserve the bat.”

    http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38678

    I can almost see him foaming at the mouth and struggling in his strait jacket.

    Huh? So I’m offered better quality files and without DRM at a modest price. And what’s more no-one’s holding a gun to my head and forcing me to buy them, as you might think to read Demerjian.

    As it happens I’ve never bought content from the iTMS, although I probably will when the new deal kicks in. Nevertheless, my iPod and my copy of iTunes work flawlessly with content I’ve ripped from CDs myself, so that I never even have to visit the store. But that’s not to say I don’t benefit from the store. I do use it – for free podcast content that Apple has kindly hosted the links to and acted as a kind of clearing house for. I’ve also benefitted from the option Apple have in iTunes to download 600 x 600 pixel artwork from the store for music tracks I *haven’t* bought there – artwork that’s generally larger and of a higher quality than I could find elsewhere.

    And, heck, I *like* the program, and I *like* the portable player, too. And it’s no exaggeration to say that they’ve enriched my life. They’ve also brought me into contact with material I might not otherwise have come across. Here’s an example – I subscribe to the BBC Radio 4 “In Our Time” podcast through iTunes – the last episode was a interesting and scholarly discussion of the history of anaesthetics:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml

    That’s not something I’d have thought to research myself, but it made for fascinating listening and a greater understanding of the past – and of where we’re going.

    I don’t know whether Steve Jobs wants money or power or recognition or adulation or all of the above or something else entirely. I don’t much care. He certainly doesn’t mean me ill. And he certainly isn’t trying to do me down in some devious way that I’m too stupid to see without the likes of Block or Demerjian to point it out to me. Jobs goes out of his way to try to offer products and services that he knows customers will like, and that suits me.

    But read some of the commentators and you’d think you were dealing with some kind of Bond villain.

    Christopher Breen was right when he said that although almost everyone gains from the new agreement there are losers:

    “… those who’ve taken delight at slamming Apple for its FairPlay DRM and encoding quality will have to find something else to whine about.”

    http://playlistmag.com/weblogs/ipodblog/2007/04/drm/index.php

    It didn’t take the whiners long, did it?

  11. Obviously, instead of selling reasonable-quality tracks for a reasonable price under reasonable terms, Apple should be giving away live performances by everyone’s favorite artists.

  12. Like Dvorak, Engadget has also discovered that it’s lucrative to comment against anything Mac. I’ve long dropped Engadget from my RSS feed.

  13. I find the whole, “Look behind the reality, and see the deep, deep reality behind the scenes” school of analysis to be rather tired.

    The story is rather simple: Apple and EMI are offering choice that wasn’t there before. Apple is pushing to get other labels to do the same. Yahoo!, Microsoft, Napster, and other mainstream music stores haven’t yet offered this non-DRM choice.

    I can now buy non-DRM files that also happen to be of higher quality. I like that option. I like higher-quality, non-DRM albums without the need to pay more. Regardless of why Apple and EMI are doing this, as a customer I’m happy to have the choice.

  14. If Apple and the record labels decided to give away 256 kbps music, there would be dickweeds out there whining about the low-resolution album art and long download times.

    Frigging idiots.

    It is fun, however, to have people to ridicule and stone from the bleachers.

  15. @Rip Ragged
    “It is fun, however, to have people to ridicule and stone from the bleachers.”

    [whine]
    Where’s the challenge? It’d be a lot more fun if they weren’t such slow-moving easy targets.
    [/whine]

  16. ^ ^
    ‘Tis true. In fact “slow-moving” is rather an overstatement. They just stand there – keening and wailing and gnashing their teeth about their own mistreatment.

    In the good ol’ days of GEnie and Compuserve we would have kicked them out of the chat room. C’est la vie.

  17. Erik said: “I find the whole, ‘Look behind the reality, and see the deep, deep reality behind the scenes’ school of analysis to be rather tired.”

    That’s only because George Ou hasn’t been at liberty to release his secret information about it. Then you’ll see. You’ll all see. But I’ve already said too much. I’ve got to log off now to try to ditch the goons from Apple Legal.

  18. Wow. You said “directory” instead of “folder.” I’m the only person in my age group who still does that. Nice to know there are others out there. 🙂

    And solid points all around. The EMI deal is a huge step for consumer rights, which are still being violated in the name of exclusivity and control.

  19. Could someone do the research and find out what percentage of Disney Jobs actually owns? I’m sick of all this ‘largest shareholder’ nonsense, as if owning 10% of a company lets you dictate to the 16 people who each own 5%

  20. My iTunes Purchased playlist has over 2000 tracks, so–perhaps needless to say–I’m rather an iTunes Store junky. It never occurs to me to consider the price of my download purchases. Heck, I just click and buy. Why not? The store is right on my desktop! (Similarly, I don’t shop around for the lowest CD price either; who has time for an obsession like that?) I won’t even notice the price increase when I start downloading all them yummy DRM-Free 256k tracks. Looks like I’ll also have to increase my daughter’s iTunes allowance. Big whoop.

    Life would be so much more pleasant without the shills. But I guess it’s the only way unscrupulous writers can make a buck.

  21. @Dave–
    “According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange commission, Mr. Jobs traded in 60 million shares of Pixar for 138 million shares Disney, making him the entertainment conglomerates largest shareholder with 6.3 percent of Disney’s outstanding stock.

    –from AppleInsider 5/9/06

  22. It is funny how certain people seem to think Steve Jobs is in control of Disney now. He’s one the board. He’s not even CEO or Chairman. Being the largest stockholder makes his equal vote on the board a little more equal from a purely psychological point of view, but he isn’t the boss of them.

    Yet.

  23. If memory serves, when Pixar bought Disney and all the stories about it came out, I remember the figure of 7% as the percentage of Disney stock that The Steve owns. The largest single shareholder, in this case, is by no means a majority shareholder.

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  25. This pony is TOO big and shiny, in fact, its bigness fools you into thinking that you are getting shininess for free when they are charging you 30 cents for a shiny pony that was always rightfully yours!!!! Heck, I could get an even cheaper used draft horse that is just as shiny and four times bigger!

    PS I am not a kook

  26. You missed that the idiot refers to “128-bit” files when he means 128 kbits/sec. If you’re gonna Fisk someone, Fisk for the gusto!

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