David Emery Online

Steve

7 February 2007

By now I imagine most people have heard about Steve Jobs’ Thoughts On Music – I mean it was on the Radio 1 news this morning, for crying out loud. I’m not sure if any other CEO could post an essay on a web site and it make it on the radio news, but that’s a question for another day…

Taken at face value, this is a very bold move by Jobs but in many ways an unsurprising one. For a start, the industry is quite obviously moving away from DRM. Rumour has it that Amazon is going to start an MP3-based online store later this year, which will probably be the first serious competition to the iTunes store if they get the pricing right; this is just the first strike by Apple to try and be in a competitive place when they launch.

Secondly, with the concept of DRM obviously having a limited shelf life, and iTunes’ current dominant market position Apple has little to lose by stating they want to get rid of DRM. One of the key points in Apple’s self image is its slightly hippie, anti-establishment undertone – they like to be seen as “sticking it to the man”, and this is a prime example of doing it. Sure, the lock-in between the iTunes Store and the iPod is nice, but I’m pretty sure Apple is confidant (they always are) of always being able to make the best player on the market, so they don’t need the store to prop it up. Similarly, I’m sure they like the idea of being able to sell songs to a wider audience, outside of their own walled garden.

I’ve seen a few people write something along the lines of “well, if he’s so set against DRM then why doesn’t he start letting people sell stuff on iTunes without it?”. The answer – if you ignore that this is obviously all part of assorted negotiations with both the majors and the European litigators – is that currently, Apple doesn’t offer any kind of choice or differentiation between any content on the store; all the tracks cost the same and are at the same bit rate, and Apple has had to face a lot of criticism and negotiations to keep it that way.

The whole success of both the iTunes Store and the iPod is founded on the user interface, and Apple isn’t going to want to start offering DRM tracks and non-DRM tracks in the store, less they confuse the user; it’s either all or nothing, and for that they have to have the majors on board.

This is just the start of that process.