(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Steve Jobs on music and DRM - specifically, he doesn't believe in it because it's counterproductive and insipid, and iTunes only uses it under protest, because that's the only way to get the music they want to sell.

Comments

[netdef.livejournal.com]

I remain unconvinced in his sincerity, he manipulates plays both sides of that fence dependant on his audience.

[kjn]

Actually, there is a very good reason for Jobs to mean what he says here: where Apple makes its money today and how the iTMS operates.

Apple wouldn't lose a single cent on selling DRM-free content, on the contrary, they would probably save money. Apple makes its money from selling iPods, and the iTMS is there as a vehicle to sell more iPods. It generates impressive revenue, but all of it goes back to operating costs (including DRM maintenance) and the record companies.

And of course he has to play both sides - the record companies have their heads so far stuck up their asses they can't see anything else.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

They'd actually make more money, since people like me won't buy DRM'd content, ever, under any circumstances.

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

DRM-free isn't enough for me, I'd still skip it. The sound quality still isn't to great, and I don't think it'd kill these download services or record companies to use higher bitrates. I'd even be willing to pay more for lossless audio codec files instead of having to deal with lossy ones.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Their shit quality is bad, yes, but their shit quality is *only* there to keep you from just burning the music to CD and re-ripping it in DRM-free format. Once you remove the legal requirement to make burned copies suck, switching to a better quality or a lossless codec is trivial.

But, here's the thing, I *might* consider buying a low-quality DRM-free song. I will *never* buy a DRM'd one, regardless of quality. This makes me a 100% loss, as far as Apple is concerned.

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

If you could clarify for me here-you mean they're delibrately keeping bitrates low due to how easier it is to make the files work with DRM? I thought it might have to do with possible badwidth issues or how much the record companies really don't give a damn about their customers. eMusic is fairly low-quality but DRM-free, and I only got on it for a brief time to listen to some import only album I didn't want to shell out $30 for until it is finally out in the States.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Even if something is DRM you can still remove the DRM by rerecording it essentially. However, that makes you lose quality. Right now, the quality is tolerable to most people, and doing it that way would make it intolerable to most people. If they made it tolerable to you, getting rid of the DRM would still leave it tolerable to most people.

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

It'd be interesting to see a study about how many people really think that bitrates that are that low are that tolerable. I always thought a large portion of the sales may be due to impulse buying. I've noticed some people in various Mac forums have claimed they've eventually stopped buying from iTunes do to audio quality issues lately, but I can't be completely definite about how it fits into anything yet.

[netdef.livejournal.com]

They are keeping bitrates low to conserve on server-side bandwidth costs - it should not matter to their DRM choice.

But the format they use is also not well-regarded. Other "lossy" formats do a better job of preserving the perceived details of music, like Ogg-Vorbis.

For computer audio playback I prefer lossless formats -- like FLAC, as weaselking mentioned earlier, for two reasons.

1) If formats change in the future (as they are likely to do) I can convert without losing much, if any from the original.

2) My ears are cursed and *do* hear the difference in quality. It's bad enough with Redbook CD aka WAV formats at 44.1KHz already. Losing what little we get from that is unbearable.

I wish one of the new hi-def audio formats would become available for use on the PC, like DSD/SACD or Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP), but in a more portable size. But the RIAA would never tolerate that while trapped in their current dark-ages paradigm.

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

The official sites for Loreena McKennitt and Sarah McLachlan have introduced FLAC as an option to buyers, so I think-or at least hope-that it's a good sign, even though it'll probably catch on more slowly than lossy options.

I wish one of the new hi-def audio formats would become available for use on the PC, like DSD/SACD or Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP), but in a more portable size. But the RIAA would never tolerate that while trapped in their current dark-ages paradigm.

Agreed.

[netdef.livejournal.com]

The official sites for Loreena McKennitt and Sarah McLachlan have introduced FLAC as an option to buyers . . .

Oh? I think I may have to go buy those direct just to show my appreciation/support for that move. Did those artists go independent when I was looking away?

Thanks for sharing that! :)

/me scuttles off to Loreena's official site . . .


.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Pearl Jam releases their "official bootlegs" online as FLAC.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

They are keeping bitrates low to conserve on server-side bandwidth costs - it should not matter to their DRM choice.

Bandwidth is cheap, even at the kind of volume they do. It's not a case of DRM making the file easier to work with, it's a case that iTunes sells, as a feature, the ability to burn your downloads to CD a certain number of times.

As soon as you burn the track to CD, it's now in CD format, which is DRM-free, and can be re-ripped.

They keep the quality low enough that burning it to CD and re-ripping it doesn't get you a perfect track, meaning that if you *want* CD-quality and DRM-free, you *have* to buy the CD. You can't just buy CD-quality DRM'd music, burn it to a CD (or a rewritable CD, or a chunk of hard disk mounted and claiming to be a CD-ROM drive), re-rip it, and get CD-quality DRM-free music.