For some reason, I've been receiving e-mails from PC Magazine recently. I didn't sign up for this, but occasionally there is an interesting article or product review, so I don't really mind. Recently, however, the June 21st edition of the "PC Magazine Buying Guide" included a link to the article "DRM-Free Comes at a Price", by Tim Gideon. In it, he outlines why he's not happy with Apple's plans to offer DRM-free music through their iTunes Music Store (iTMS). This article was first published on May 30th, before the offering actually took place (you can now buy "Plus" tracks by EMI artists which are encoded at 256kbps, and are DRM-free), so a few of his concerns have been answered, at least in part, but that's not what interests me here. What interests me is the attitude of entitlement and the childish and petty nature of his complaints.After going over the basics of Apple's announcement, he writes "I'm no fan of DRM, so why am I still annoyed?", and then launches into his criticisms. First is that Apple is charging $1.29 for these "Plus" tracks, as opposed to the $0.99 they've been charging all along. He explains his disappointment like this:
Let's just bypass the insulting fact that we've been paying for lower quality all this time (since it's not a new gripe) and tackle the real issues here: The increase in bit rate is minimal and will be imperceptible to most ears. So, while you're ostensibly paying more to get better sound quality (which is still not CD quality), what you're really paying more for is the record label's "sacrifice." Since it's letting you actually own your music files now, it wants extra cash.
Insulting? The quality of the tracks sold on the iTMS has never been a secret, you knew what you were getting when you bought them, so where's the insult? I have never understood the nearly personal offense some people take to purchasing music from the iTMS. Some people seem incensed that they're buying tracks that are encoded at "only" 128kbps and are saddled with DRM (Digital Rights Management). I'm no fan of DRM myself, but where is the insult in all of this? If you want higher quality and no DRM, don't buy from the iTMS. It's really that simple. Apple is offering a service, no one is forcing you to use it, so where does this self righteous anger come from?
As for his real point, the regular tracks on the iTMS are encoded at 128kbps (kilo-bits per second), while the "Plus" tracks are encoded at 256kbps. Because of the way bit rates work, this doesn't translate directly into twice the quality, but it is a significant boost. In fact, nearly every source I could find noted that at 192kbps and above, the vast majority of people can't hear any difference, and that's when dealing with MP3s. The format Apple uses, AAC, uses a higher quality encoding scheme, meaning that these new "Plus" tracks should sound like MP3s encoded at a bit rate higher than 256kbps. Especially given how often people gripe about the 128kbps encoding now, this increase in quality is hardly "minimal" or "imperceptible". It is added value, plain and simple. Whether it is enough of an addition to justify the price increase is up to each of us to decide for ourselves. Again, no one is forcing you to buy anything, it's your choice. He's just complaining for the sake of complaining.
As a side note, it is true that the individual tracks cost $0.30 more in their "Plus" version, but the same is not true of whole albums, which for the most part cost the same in either version. As someone who very rarely buys individual tracks, this is wonderful news. For example, I recently looked for Emery's "The Question" (which I highly recommend), and found that the full album costs $9.99 in either regular or "Plus" form. Assuming that you take 256kbps to be acceptable quality (I do), and you don't mind not having the album art (in most cases, I don't), this is a better deal than buying the CD, which generally sells for $15 or more. For someone like me, "Plus" is the killer feature that could, if the other labels follow EMI's lead, make music stores largely obsolete.
Next, he moves onto what seems to be his primary complaint:
Now on to the damage done: those now inferior tracks that you bought on iTunes over the past half-decade? They'll still have DRM and still be "protected" (from your desire to share them). If Steve Jobs truly believes DRM should be eliminated, the elimination should be retroactive. This could be achieved by sending iTunes customers new DRM-free versions of all of their previous purchases via an iTunes update, or by updating the software to ignore all past DRM encryption.
As I mentioned above, this article was published before the "Plus" service was actually rolled out, so it's very likely that the author simply didn't know about the "Upgrade My Library" option, which allows you to upgrade all of your purchased tracks to their higher bit-rate, DRM-free "plus" versions. Of course, this option comes at a cost, you have to pay the extra $0.30 to make up the price difference, so the author might still not be happy about it. He wants the tracks he already purchased to become "Plus" tracks free of charge, apparently as a matter of principle.
Why he believes that Steve Jobs and Apple owe him anything is beyond me. This goes back to the "you knew what you were buying when you bought it" point I made earlier. When you bought songs on the iTMS, you knew that you were getting tracks encoded at 128kbps and saddled with DRM for $0.99 each. You knew that, and you agreed to those terms, or you wouldn't have made the purchase. End of story. Now that there's something better available, why on Earth should you be given that free of charge? Does that happen in any other industry? Do people demand free upgrades for the computers they purchased last year because there's something bigger and better out now? That would be like me demanding that Saturn give me a new Ion because mine is a year old now, and the new ones have some nifty features I'd like to have. That's simply not going to happen.
And actually, Apple is offering a pretty good deal when viewed in those terms. If I could get a brand new, updated car by paying the difference between what I paid a year ago and what the new ones cost, I would do it. The same goes for my two year old iBook. I paid roughly $900 for it two years ago. The new MacBooks retail for about $1100. I would gladly pay $200 to upgrade, but that isn't going to happen.
Of course, when dealing with digital files some of the rules are different. it would certainly be possible for Apple to just give everyone these upgrades, and all it would cost them is some time (the people running the iTMS have to be paid after all), and possibly bandwidth, though given the monstrous amount they already use, they'd probably hardly notice. But that's not the point. Just because they can, doesn't mean they're under any obligation to do so. They offered a service that you took advantage of, and now they're offering a service that is of greater value to you and they expect to be paid for it. Welcome to the free market. You can argue on philosophical grounds all you want that Apple should offer free upgrades, but they are under no legal or moral obligation to do so.
It's also worth noting that the author is willfully ignoring the fact that only one label is offering DRM-free tracks so far, EMI. The only way to retroactively remove DRM from previously purchased tracks is to somehow separate EMI artists from all of the others. In other words, to update the tracks themselves instead of the software as a whole. Part of that $0.30 per track upgrade cost is going to pay for the fact that this has to be done case by case, as opposed to via a blanket upgrade. Whether this actually costs Apple anything is irrelevant. They are, once again, offering a particular service at a particular price, it's up to you whether their offer is worth it to you or not.
Finally, the author makes a clear implication that Steve Jobs and Apple aren't really serious about going DRM-free. I can't speak for the intentions of Jobs himself, or of Apple as a whole, but I can speak to the simplistic - if not outright ignorant - nature of that implication. It isn't up to Apple whether or not the tracks they sell feature DRM or not. When the iTMS first opened, Apple had to appease the RIAA - the gate keepers who hold the keys to the majority of music the average consumer would be interested in - or they wouldn't have had anything worth while (from a business standpoint) to offer. The RIAA is known for being opposed to digital music, to say the least, and so Apple was required to put a Digital Rights Management scheme in place before being allowed to sell anything. Now that EMI has agreed to sell their tracks without DRM, Apple is able to do so, but they are still in no position to force that on the other labels whose music their sell. They also have to do whatever EMI asks of them lest they pull the plug. For all we know, that $0.30 is a condition EMI demanded before allowing this change.
To imply that if Apple "truly believes DRM should be eliminated" they would throw the doors wide is to ignore the realities of the business Apple is in. They can no more dictate these policies to the record labels than can K-Mart or Wal-Mart (well, maybe Wal-Mart... regardless, Apple doesn't have that kind of clout). Again, the author is complaining for the sake of complaining, and displaying (yet again) a willingness to ignore facts for the sake of a petty attack.
Maybe it's time I start marking these PC Magazine e-mails as spam, if this is the quality of their offerings.
No comments:
Post a Comment