Warning: Industry punditry ahead. Adjust your speed and headlamps.
So, yesterday Apple expanded “iTunes Plus”, which removes the proprietary DRM use limitations on songs. It’s not a digital media industry game changer but rather a significant game accelerator and a net positive for Apple and iTunes, Pioneers and Songbird and the digital media ecosystem.
Non-DRM’d songs from the iTunes Store improves interoperability and portability for users switching away from iTunes. Amazon has been selling DRM free since Q3′07 so this is a step towards a la carte non-DRM song parity for Apple. However Amazon has made scant progress in the market despite the non-DRM head-start because consumers value integration convenience over other factors including DRM hassle and price combined. (And FWIW, the iTunes Store continues to sell DRM’d music videos, TV shows, movies and audiobooks.)
iTunes remains a closed ecosystem, stymying transactions between digital media consumers, service providers and device manufacturers. Like iTunes, Songbird’s value prop is a user’s control point for digital media. Like iTunes, Songbird supports DRM and non-DRM content. Unlike iTunes, Songbird is built to streamline third-party service integrations (e.g., Amazon, 7digital, Last.FM, etc.) and third-party device synchronization (e.g. Philips, Sony, Sandisk, etc.) into a consumer’s media player, which is key to user utility and convenience that underpin customer satisfaction and willingness to recommend.
Apple’s done a great thing here by furthering the current thinking with respect to the digital media market past the real and imagined pitfalls of DRM’d content and to awareness of the emergent Internet digital media value chain — a segmented, multi-vendor, open market ecosystem of content producers, consumers, developers, service providers and device makers.
The industry just lurched towards the inevitable.
Chirps,
Rob
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[...] Songbird Blog » Lord almighty, we are DRM-free at last! – iTunes remains a closed ecosystem, stymying transactions between digital media consumers, service providers and device manufacturers. Like iTunes, Songbird’s value prop is a user’s control point for digital media. Like iTunes, Songbird supports DRM and non-DRM content. Unlike iTunes, Songbird is built to streamline third-party service integrations (e.g., Amazon, 7digital, Last.FM, etc.) and third-party device synchronization (e.g. Philips, Sony, Sandisk, etc.) into a consumer’s media player, which is key to user utility and convenience that underpin customer satisfaction and willingness to recommend. [...]
17 Comments
Subscribeso what now they just gave the record labels the right to charge us more for cd quality encoding. & besides if eu dont like this resalotuion to music that would force apple to close up shop for music distribution
“iTunes remains a closed ecosystem” – despite all the goodness in providing DRM-less music, that’s the critical point that makes it unacceptable for many of us, including the fact that people like me who are on Linux or other systems besides MacOS and Windows cannot even buy that music from the iTunes store as the software doesn’t run. One more point that goes to Amazon when comparing those two stores.
Apple definitely did a good step, still we can’t buy songs outside iTunes can we ?
there’s some big words in them theyr post… i like it. : )
also probably apple will still insert a watermark so your download will be tracked
Unfortunately DRM still in effect in the iTunes Japan store…
http://ascii.jp/elem/000/000/204/204028/summary.html?rss
Too bad they still only sell chopped up/compressed music files, rather than offering beautiful sounding, open source-encoded FLAC files..
“and third-party device synchronization (e.g. Philips, Sony, Sandisk, etc.)”
Just not my creative, huh?
I hate how everyone just goes on to say that the I-Tunes store is now DRM-free, when in fact Video downloads still have DRM. Seriously, Apple’s (and the record companies’s) move is a step in the right direction, but why do all the download stores abandon DRM or DRM-like practices only to go all DRM with video?
The problem with FLAC, Brad, is that not everyone is blessed with the sound equipment or ears to take full advantage of the added sound quality, as well as the hard drive space required by FLAC is still rather hefty. I still wish they’d use .mp3 format so I could stream purchased music to my Xbox 360 and similar devices.
Happy to see any movement towards the inevitable, even if it’s lurching.
“Songbird supports DRM and non-DRM content.”
If that’s true, then why do I get this message every time Songbird tries to play a .m4p song?
http://i44.tinypic.com/mhqzx1.png
@Dustin: Did you install the QuickTime add-on?
@Talon
That, and some of us(not me, but…) don’t all have the internet speeds to get those tracks in a reasonable time frame.
@Aaron
There is a good reason why video content has DRM, it has always been copy protected. DVD’s have copy-right protection built in, so they will be like that for a while, CDs didn’t so DRM was seen as unacceptable. And I’m so glad DRM is finally crumbling!
is it leagal to make a copy of a song to a cd for personal listening
@talon lardner
iTunes has the capability to convert from aac to mp3. If you don’t want to use iTunes, there are many free audio and video converters out there. The best ones to use are Super, and the Media Converter SA