Two years ago, Apple Computers introduced an eye-catching television spot for its iTunes software, featuring such diverse artists as De La Soul, Liz Phair and George Clinton. Soon after, Apple CEO Steve Jobs caught hell from record industry execs for the slogan: “Rip. Mix. Burn.” Like me, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) considered it little more than an optimistic euphemism for “Download. Burn. Repeat.”
While this has indeed been the method for most digital music users, despite the death of popular file-sharing services like Napster and Audiogalaxy, Apple may be the first major company to significantly slow the growing trend of casual music piracy. How? With none other than iTunes’ new built-in online music store.
Creatively named “iTunes Music Store,” it lets users choose from a collection of 200,000 songs — although the selection increases daily — at 99 cents a pop, plus tax. Some songs are only available as part of an entire album, including old standbys “Hotel California” and “American Pie,” but many albums are selling for just $9.99 each. The content is predominantly new, and it all comes from the five largest labels — Warner, BMG, EMI, Sony Music and Universal. There’s even a few exclusive songs listed, from major artists like U2 and Bob Dylan. You can preview each song for 30 seconds, download cover art, and perhaps best of all: no spyware.
Always independent, Apple is employing the Dolby AAC format for its files, which is said to produce CD-quality audio while taking up less space than most standard MP3s. This means you can fit even more songs on your iPod (three ultra-thin, gigabyte-rich models were released simultaneously with the service) or hard drive, and they’ll take less time to download. Naturally, the audio format only works on Macs, but a Windows version is promised by the year’s end, along with PC-compatible versions of the iPod.
Of course, since you’ll no longer be at the mercy of some Norwegian university’s bandwidth caps, you can get new music on your desktop faster than ever.
Most interesting about the service is its approach to digital rights management (DRM), which has been a sticky issue in the last couple of years. Unlike subscription services like pressplay and Rhapsody, which “rent” unlimited songs out for a monthly fee, iTunes lets you upload to MP3 players, share your music across up to three computers, and burn up to 10 CDs per identical playlist. You can even stream your tunes through Apple’s networking software, Rendezvous.
Apple’s DRM model, dubbed Fairplay, is somewhat closer to those of previously unsuccessful ventures by pay-per-song outfits like Liquid Audio, CDNOW, or the labels themselves. However, Apple is charging considerably less per song than many of its predecessors, and has a wider selection. Many of these older services charged as much as $3.99 per tune, a necessary evil to cover the cost of all those credit-card transactions (how Apple gets around this is not quite known yet).
And Jobs owes a little something to the defunct services that came and went before him. If they had not spent so much time negotiating with the RIAA for a reasonable blueprint for distributing digital music, Apple most likely wouldn’t be granted such a liberal DRM scheme today. Now that the RIAA has grudgingly accepted CD burning and similar features for online music services, it should be interesting to see what kind of competition pops up in the future. RealNetworks recently agreed to purchase Rhapsody owner Listen.com for $36 million, in a venture that could spawn a strong potential rival.
Like any new technology, Music Store has its limitations and detractors. Some say that the 99-cent flat rate is unfair because it doesn’t take into account the song’s length. Even if it does work out to $16 per album, an average price for a CD, aren’t these labels now saving production and distribution costs? Another obvious problem is the selection: If you want something older or more obscure, you’re still going to look for it on Kazaa or Grokster, and, while you’re there, why wouldn’t you just check if that Dylan track is available?
The service was launched soon after a federal U.S. judge ruled that file-swapping applications like Morpheus and Grokster are beneficial technological tools, no more illegal than VCRs or CD burners. It was a major defeat to the movie studios and record labels trying to strike these programs from existence — according to the RIAA, they’re the major culprits behind the continual drop of music sales in the last few years.
Still, it appears that many users are genuinely interested in a system that’s predictable, simple, fast, reliable, legal and guaranteed — no more endlessly looping choruses or profanities from Madonna. In the past, industry researchers have shown that many online consumers are willing to pay 99 cents for a single without copy restrictions, if such a service existed.
Just one week after Music Store launched, Apple reported one million song downloads, beating even their own expectations. While the record industry expressed concern that album sales would lag in favour of the “singles culture” created by this digital retail model, Apple reports that half those downloads were in fact part of album sales. Clearly, there is a market for legal MP3s.
And as Jobs reminded journalists at the iTunes launch event in San Francisco, in a rare show of Buddhist morality among top-ranked CEOs: “It’s not stealing, which is good karma.”
