Letter writing campaign time...
Apple needs to come out with a DVR/Cable card set-up, and ditch the noise.
iTunes has destroyed NOTHING, even from the "pricing" perspective. Digital sales of television shows, by NBC's
own estimation... are a pittance. CBS said exactly the same thing. It is simply another promotional avenue (a significant one that confers VALUE to content rather than perpetuating an impression that the content is FREE), and provides a means of stymieing piracy, by providing content in easy digitally form... allowing users who wish to acquire digital content legitimately, to DO so. Moreover, many users have found highly convenient, even effortless ways of transferring content between different formats regardless of the existence of iPod or Apple.
The bottomline is NOT pricing flexibility OR control... its the attack of the green eyed-monster. Its about nothing less than
sheer unadulterated, unfiltered, unbridled CORPORATE JEALOUSY.
Remember the corporate executive that spontaneously blurted that Steve Jobs doesn't want anyone else to make any money? It was
pathetic. When Apple first came to them, it was
a wasteland in the digital music arena.
ROLLINGSTONE: Of course, music theft is nothing new. Didn't you listen to bootleg Bob Dylan?
STEVE JOBS: Of course. What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it.
At first, they kicked us out. But we kept going back again and again. The first record company to really understand this stuff was Warner. They have some smart people there, and they said: We agree with you. And next was Universal. Then we started making headway. And the reason we did, I think, is because we made predictions.
We said: These [music subscription] services that are out there now are going to fail. Music Net's gonna fail, Press Play's gonna fail. Here's why: People don't want to buy their music as a subscription. They bought 45's; then they bought LP's; then they bought cassettes; then they bought 8-tracks; then they bought CD's. They're going to want to buy downloads. People want to own their music. You don't want to rent your music -- and then, one day, if you stop paying, all your music goes away.
Millions upon millions were flocking to Napster and Morpheous to download illegal music screaming, "This is GREAT!" Wasn't that a tad more detrimental to the music business than selling music digitally without any manufacturing overhead, well above cost?
In floundering to some form of better solution, they been trying to push Apple into a subscription model, and Apple has remained skeptical, even while clearly conducting tests and examining the possibilities in private. In order for digital subscriptions to not be a bankrupt model, it counts on millions upon millions of people either making one of two choices... #1.) Subscribing to a monthly fee they do not fully take advantage of. #2.) Subscribing to a monthly fee they completely take advantage of. #3.) Subscribing to a monthly fee they routinely take advantage of, by downloading music and immediately dissassociating it from its DRM system in order to get "free" music they can keep forever.
If iTunes were to become a nexus for subscription content, I can guarantee you... and by the interview clip above, Jobs KNOWS this... that most people will use the subscription for option #3. One person per household or group, will have a subscription that is used regularly to strip DRM from downloads, and the purchase model will evenutally go bankrupt.
This is not going to end well. At all. Apple needs to start giving control back to consumers and calling it a day on the studios that can't hack it.
~ CB
TV will be worth about half what it was to me this year because I won't be able to watch the final season of Battlestar Galactica on it (one of my favorite shows... produced by NBC Universal).
