How much is your freedom worth?
April 2nd, 2007 by Asheesh LaroiaI read via a Public Knowledge blog post that Apple is going to sell music from a major label in a non-DRM’d format. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, software that restricts what your computer will let you do with music you typically have paid for. For example, the DRM on the iTunes Music Store prevents synchronizing full-quality files to portable music players other than the iPod.
As a consumer, you can now pay $0.99 for a DRM’d song or $0.30 more ($1.29) for a DRMless version with higher audio quality (bitrate). You can also up-convert your music for $0.30.
During these approx. four years of iPod + iTunes Music Store dominance, I always thought that Apple had built its empire on the lock-in between the music store and the portable player. So this move surprised me (I checked the date - April 2, not April Fool’s). This is a very different approach to the music industry than we saw with Microsoft and the Zune, and I’d say this looks very hopeful. The Zune, Microsoft’s portable music player, seemed to be a a pushover for the DRM folks; Microsoft gives about a dollar per Zune sold to Universal, a major label. That’s money handed to Universal for doing absolutely nothing. And the Zune has the famous “squirting” feature which provides very restricted music sharing, adding restrictions to any song you share.
This isn’t the first time EMI has played with selling music online without digital restrictions. Late 2006, they distributed a Nora Jones song in the standard MP3 format on both the Yahoo! music store and eMusic (a company I personally buy music from).
The way I see it, Steve Jobs is performing a market experiment. What do consumers think their freedom is worth?
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:14 pm
“What do consumers think their freedom is worth?” I think that it is most important question to keep at the fore of our minds as we engage with the changes that Apple and EMI are instituted. I was very impressed with the decision to relax DRM on songs, but the kicker is that additional 30 cents - it’s a matter of principal, tied to the greater implications of what 30 cents can come to symbolize. I suppose we’re supposed to feel elated by the grace of Apple & EMI to provide us access to our culture ( or our neighbors’) in a widely tradable format, and for only an additional 30 cents per song!!!
Does 30 cents represent the output of some complex formula predicting losses resulting from illegally traded files? To me it just seems to be the arbitrary economic moniker given to free[ly tradable] culture. Then again, what it may come to represent may be something wholly different, or even negligible. But, I think that the most interest outcome from this agreement - aside from the impending results of Jobs’ “market experiment”, is the commidifcation of “trading” culture.
Maybe it’s not wholly unique, but this is certainly an iteration of it. Not only has Apple priced cultural artifacts (in this case music) at 99 cents, but now they and EMI have provided consumers with a price for the “free” trade of cultural artifacts. I’m not satisfied with this sort of determination of what I thought was a free activity. Certainly, information storage and distribution of it have influenced the commodification of those technologies and the particular information being traded … but I always thought that direct peer-to-peer exchanges couldn’t be commodified.
I keep conjuring up an image of having to pay to share a bite of pizza with my girlfriend. I know that’s a stretch of an analogy, but I think enough can be milked to create the foundation for the consternation I feel toward this new 30 cent-scheme. It’s very simple, and I agree that it is a shaky experiment, but it’s practicing commodifying direct peer-to-peer sharing - no medium, no third parties involved. 30 cents, to me, is an invasion of my rights of property and liberty - I dissent from the proposal that commodifies the activity of personal exchanges (as separated from the commodities exchanged). I refuse to acknowledge that freedom of exchange can be commodified.
April 3rd, 2007 at 9:06 am
I see the 30ยข increase as some sort of internally calculated but essentially meaningless token increase. I hate to make a strange parallel here but I see it similar to a non-profit org being charged $1 a year as a lease. I think many people who are outraged by the “increase” are shortsighted and miss the point that we’re getting DRM-free tracks in multiple media formats (eventually) and a boost in audio quality. We also don’t have to pay any more for full CD downloads.
What I was outraged about was that the so called 84% statistic was from a 2005 survey. It took this much effort and time to drive a change when they had the facts already back then?
April 5th, 2007 at 11:49 am
People still pay for music?
April 8th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Part of me says that the price increase is not to cover losses from illegal trading, but to make up for the perfectly legal and legitimately evil ways in which DRM increases profits. Apple has just lost its vendor lock-in, and EMI may have more trouble collecting from from hardware makers like Microsoft should music purchases no longer be tied down to specific devices. This may have even larger repercussions when people realize that they can now get the quality and usability from iTunes that was previously held only by those of us who rip our own files from physical CDs.
I also believe that this is Apple’s way of punishing Microsoft for entering the market. After spending so much effort creating a complex DRM, Microsoft is now forced to release their own DRM-free tracks, invalidating so much of what went into Zune. EMI is putting pressure on other record labels as well, by making a first move to actually appeal to consumers and challenge the rest of the industry to back off on its approach to digital music.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:42 am
I guess the basic issue here is what is it worth to be able to use your property in the manner of your choosing? DRM as a rather blatant form of vendor lock-in is really just a way for Apple to get labels to agree to sell their music through them. The more labels agree to go along with this, the more iPods / iPhones / iP3 players are sold. I think real traction in the industry will come when we stop supporting DRM and those who shill tracks with DRM installed.
There are a few grassroots efforts to try to give people the right to use the music that they purchase, download it easily and still pay the artists and labels that produce it. One of which is Grooveshark out of Florida (my home town). At a recent technology conference here (GainesvilleUnderground.com), we were talking about just this. I really believe it will be companies like Grooveshark and the independent artists and labels that they support (and who support them) that will make companies like Apple take notice.
If you want more information, they have an article out in Zeropaid: http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8682/Grooveshark+goes+BETA+-+screenshots+and+Q%26A
If you like what you see, spread the word and send them some Digg love: http://digg.com/music/Grooveshark_-_screenshots_and_Q_A#c6355717