Posts tagged ‘itunes’
Mar 26
An Open Letter to NBC re: Leaving Apple’s iTunes Store
Two years ago, the idea of paying $2 per episode for a TV show seemed almost crazy, thanks mostly to DVRs, VCRs and file-sharing networks. But the iTunes Store has changed that, and helped to popularize TV shows such as The Office, Battlestar Galactica, and Heroes in the process. Now NBC is threatening to pull out of iTunes. Sound off inside.
Aug 31
Apple responds: NBC wanted $4.99 per TV show episode!
Apple has responded to news that NBC will not renew its iTunes contract. In a shocker, NBC wanted an eye popping $4.99 per episode, which is up from the $1.99 price that over 50 cable networks have agreed to this fall. As a result, the iTunes Store will not offer any episodes from the upcoming seasons of NBC TV shows.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=52a9aa68-24f2-412e-a24e-cf89308d187e)
Apple Stokes a Digital Music Standards War
Apple Stokes a Digital Music Standards War
The accord marks a fundamental change in the digital music landscape, a feat Apple is pulling off with increasing regularity of late. If I were an employee of Microsoft and involved with its confusing digital-music efforts, built around its highly DRM-protected WMA format, I’d be sweating right now.
But one of the truly remarkable aspects of the pact is how Apple is pulling it off. Having floated the rhetorical trial balloon for selling unprotected music files via iTunes in his landmark essay “Thoughts on Music,” Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs in hindsight appears to have been deliberately ambiguous about the file format he preferred. It’s now clear why. He didn’t mean selling unprotected MP3s, but unprotected AAC songs. The decision will have important long-term effects, especially as more labels follow EMI’s lead.
Using AAC is brilliant for several reasons. First, for Apple, whose stated market aim is to do everything in its power to sell more of its highly profitable iPods (and beginning in June, presumably profitable iPhones), the choice of AAC means more non-Apple devices will be able to play songs purchased on iTunes.
Before the EMI deal announcement, the AAC-formatted songs sold on iTunes were encoded in Apple’s DRM technology called FairPlay (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/25/06, “Apple, Tear Down This Wall”). When FairPlay is no longer an obstacle, other players that support AAC can give their owners a ticket to the iTunes party.
Why Steve Jobs Will Never Offer Music Subscriptions
Why Steve Jobs Will Never Offer Music Subscriptions
Don’t hold your breath for music subscriptions from Apple’s iTunes music store — Steve Jobs will never offer them. Renting music flies in the face of consumer behavior. Consumers want to buy music, not rent it, and a big part of Steve Jobs’ genius is his firm, intuitive grasp of how consumers behave, and tailoring Apple’s technology to accommodate it — not the other way around.
Steve Ballmer Silhouette Zune Ad
The infamous September 2000 video of CEO Steve Ballmer going nuts at a Microsoft 25th anniversary pep rally will likely go down in tech history as one of the funniest videos ever.
Now in true Web 2.0 fashion, some anonymous soul has “mashed-up” that video with the famous iPod silhouette ads to create a possible new ad for Microsoft’s ill-conceived, and likely ill-fated Zune.
Feb 23
Steve Jobs’ iTunes dance
Over at Salon.com, Cory Doctorow, who has written some of the best articles and papers on DRM, has written a piece in response to the Steve Jobs Thoughts on Music open letter. Generally, I agree with Cory’s stance on the impacts of DRM on consumers. In fact, I agree with the general thesis of this article–that Apple is using DRM protected iTunes content to prevent iPod owners from switching to competing MP3 players. However, as Steve Jobs pointed out in his letter, the average iPod owner has only 3% iTunes DRM protected music. 97% of the music on iPods is DRM free. So while this amounts to a “switching” tax, the average iPod owner is accustomed to paying more than 3% in sales tax.
Cory’s article really is just a collection of anti-DRM arguments, and while many of them are great arguments against DRM, they don’t succeed in refuting the Jobs letter. I think he misses the spot.
While I dislike DRM, even the so called FairPlay, I believe it was a necessary evolutionary step for the music industry. Of course it is easy to break. That wasn’t the point, the point was to prove to the music industry that ease of use and good design could once again get people to buy and download music rather than copy off a P2P network.
iTunes is a superior to P2P. It is easier to find and download from iTunes than from P2P, with better results for most users. But DRM won’t go away in a day, however the record lables must remove it from all of their libraries simulaneously.
Now that the first step has been taken, let’s hope that Steve Jobs is sincere and will actually remove DRM from music when the record labels come to their senses.
‘iTunes sales are fine’ – Apple speaks against silly claims
Apple has broken its usual silence to slam well-publicised claims that iTunes sales are losing momentum; claims made by Forrester Resarch analyst, Josh Bernoff. Bernoff’s claims, which emerge just weeks after Microsoft’s launch of its Zune device, prompted Apple to issue an official rebuke
