My Thoughts On Music

I've read all the chatter in the tech blog community about Steve Jobs' Thoughts On Music and I've read the comments on this blog and elswhere. The reaction to Thoughts On Music range from ecstatic (mine) to cynical and jaded. There are many who doubt Jobs' declared preference for selling unprotected music. I don't doubt it, but I think he can and must do more to drive this to its logical conclusion. Here are three things Apple must do immediately to build a vibrant online music distribution business where more than 3% of all music is bought online.

1) Start selling all music that can be sold unprotected that way immediately. The entire eMusic catalog is available in mp3. Those artists should be available in unprotected formats on iTunes today.

2) Don't force the consumer to use a specific format. iTunes should offer music in whatever format the purchaser wants it in; AAC (Jobs' preferred format), mp3, flac, and any other format that is popular.

3) Build a robust API into the iTunes music store so bloggers and music services can resell music from iTunes on the web. Today if you link to iTunes music, the person who clicks on the link goes through this horribly unfriendly un-Apple experience where they are forced to launch iTunes. Why is that necessary? Just authenticate the buyer and download the music via the web.

We've been locked in DRM wars and format wars for too long. And the online music business has suffered from walled gardens that don't interoperate the way web services do. It's time to change those things. Apple has led the way to date. They must finish the job.

Comments

[jw]

fred,

i disagree with your 2. point. don't confuse the user!

itunes should have one (1) DRM-free format (most probably AAC) and that's it. 90 % of the consumers don't care about the format as long as it plays on their ipod/music-player. AAC is a free format which could be embraced by every music-player producer (and some already do). those who don't want to use it just have to make sure it's easy for their customers to convert the AAC format into their preferred format.

the other 10 % who care about the format can easily transform the "itunes format" into their format of choice (which most probably can be done automatically)

one thing that could be argued about is whether apple should provide music in a higher quality (e.g. apple lossless) and let the consumer decide which compression (and thus format) they want to use.

other than that, i'm fully with you. yesterday marked the beginning of a new era. and i'm very exited about it.

[scott partee]

Hi Fred,
I am with you (ecstatic). I think we are right on this. I *only* buy iTunes songs because it is convenient for me (shhh, don't tell Apple / the EU that I'm using the Apple US store). I cringe a little bit every time because of the DRM, but I honestly don't see any other way for me (CDs in Europe are too expensive, and they tax US imports). Dropping the DRM won't turn me to the P2P networks (which I already do not use). It will only increase my purchases.

But I don't know if I agree with your 3 points.

1) Wouldn't this crush eMusic immediately and put them out of business? Why can't there be small stores that specialize in independent artists? Also, I woudl flip this and say that eMusic needs to wake up and allow per track purchase instead of their weird hybrid model.

2) Apple's concern here is, of course, supportability on their own devices. AAC and MP3 should be sufficient, although I could see a big market for lossless AAC or something higher quality. Personally, I rip all of mine to AAC for now because I like the sound/size ratio. Maybe that's stupid.

3) AMEN, Brother! That has been needed for so long. I *hate* clicking on iTunes links. Half of the time, they don't even work because the frickin' firewall tears down your TCP connection before iTunes (the pig) will launch. I manage A LOT of media through iTunes (30,000 plus songs). It takes a few minutes to load on my iMac. Once it loads, it's great for managing my library. But that's a total crap experience to clicking links. Sheesh!

[Jed Christiansen]

Hear! Hear!

I agree, I don't think Jobs is cynical at all. I really believe that he wants to change the world (in his own way) and DRM is holding Apple back from doing so.

Your point 3 could be incredibly powerful to Apple. While they certainly have never been particularly progressive on this front, if they were to provide the service it could create a massive new market for them. Considering the current dominance of the iTunes Store, it could be a game-changing tool. (And I, too, HATE the current system!)

Thanks for putting these ideas out there.

[Phil]

my point, if taken that way, was not meant to be cynical or jaded at all.

the mandate of a business is to make money.

an integral part of that, especially for a company like aapl, is branding and image. jobs is the certified master of the frame and has been forever. recall that he cast msft as the evil empire in a genius commercial circa 1984...

similarly, his current gambit is cast himself as the champion of consumers who will save them from the evil record industry. the crowd, as implied by my quoting shakespeare and recognized by the roman politicians, sway easily through the pathos emanating from a charismatic leader...

[Jason Chervokas]

Excellent suggestions.

On the first point, moving to non-DRM stuff that is otherwise available w/o DRM would show Jobs' good faith and put real pressure on the labels.

On the second point I say you can't have too much choice in the Net era--mostly I'd like to see higher sampling rate files. As decent as AAC is, any sampling rate below 320K is not sufficient for those of us who care about sound quality. And FLAC, which I think is the best sounding "lossless" format would be a plus. For years the Grateful Dead have sold music online w/ multiple format and sampling rate choices at various price points. Personally I consider all the music I download to be disposable. If I really care for some music I'll buy it on CD which to me is a better long term storage format and offers much better sound quality.

On the final point, I don't think it's related to DRM, but it is a fantastic idea. Nothing would do more to expand the digital music market.

[Phil]

more on aapl situation in europe from street.com...

http://www.thestreet.com/_dm/newsanalysis/techgames/10337494.html

[jackson]

Yeah, let's screw the artist! Yeah! Artist don't need rights or money - Yeah, let's screw 'em good!

[iain]

* just wanted cheer you on -- Great Stuff!
* I like the irony that non-DRMd CDs provide higher-quality music files than DRMd .aac/mp3 files
* Also eMusic is ~ 40 cents a song for long-time subscribers (not sure about newer pricing) and eMusic provide a backup of purchased songs. eMusic has some good features.

[eric]

If Apple created and API and I could use it to sell their music, that would be huge! There are so many things we could do with it (and I'm sure you'd be all over it as well!)

[John]

Phil, IBM was "big brother" in the 1984 commercial, not Microsoft.

[Phil Pearlman]

d'oh!

[lucabratsie]

I think my reaction was both ecstatic and cynical. I was impressed that Jobs was able to come right out and express an idea that conflicts with his companies current business model. My cynicism come from the fact that there was no way forward, and no token action taken to prove his sincerity. I would think it would be easy to do #1 at least on a tiny scale, and would allow a gradual transition away from DRM music.