More Apple/Jobs/iTMS bashing from the Register?

[srobert]

Link to the article

"...Jobs propping up Universal's book value is abysmally stupid..."

(this extract is only a quote and not from the writer of the article)

Anyone else finds this article higly confusing and contradictory?

Here is a link to last week's Apple bashing article form the Register thread:

Last weeks' thread

 

[cubist]

One of the Register columnists seems to have been seized by a fixation on some kind of flat-fee licensing, and he waxes poetic (and incomprehensible) regarding it. It's mostly noise. Their only real point seems to be that iTMS will not last forever as it is, but then, nobody expects that.

 

[whfsdude]

Yeah it is just a stupid rant. Has no real point and it proves nothing

 

[jxyama]

i tried reading the article, but it lost me after the first section. it's a pretty confusing read, at best.

i can understand that iTMS will have its share of haters. not because it's successful but it can be seen as a temporary patch to the continuing saga of RIAA/piracy/online music distribution. i really don't know where it will end up.

RIAA does operate under an antiquated model, one that wasn't ready to handle massive distribution near-perfect copies of its product. however, for all the evil RIAA may represent, we must also remember that they do have considerable expertise in artist marketing and distribution. for every successful britney spears (whether she really is a genuine artist or merely a creation of the RIAA is another issue) where RIAA makes a bundle, there are tens and hundreds of artists RIAA promotes but goes nowhere - lost money.

i personally think iTMS is not the complete solution, but apple never claims it to be. i feel this article is fairly premature in worrying about the long term viability of iTMS and online music distribution when there's no alternative immediate solution in sight to begin with. i think for the state we are in, iTMS is doing ok.

it might help a bit if the article was a little better written too.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by jxyama

RIAA does operate under an antiquated model, one that wasn't ready to handle massive distribution near-perfect copies of its product. however, for all the evil RIAA may represent, we must also remember that they do have considerable expertise in artist marketing and distribution. for every successful britney spears (whether she really is a genuine artist or merely a creation of the RIAA is another issue) where RIAA makes a bundle, there are tens and hundreds of artists RIAA promotes but goes nowhere - lost money.

I don't know raw numbers but I know the ratio is more skewed than that. Something like 85-90% of the bands that a major label signs will not make the label any money. It's no wonder they milk pop stars for all they are worth. You never know when your next bread winner will come around again.


Lethal

 

[MrMacMan]

Think about it this way.

Even if thousands of bands lose thousand of dollars, one mega-star erases that in minutes.

I'm serious, TV shows... Concerts... Records...

Drain on all of them.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Yeah, but you don't know you have a mega-star until after they've become a mega star. And you don't know how long they will be mega-stars. A year, two, five, ten, forty? So you are constantly trying to find "the next big thing" becuase you never know when the current big thing is going to turn into nothing. This is true of the entire entertainment industry not just the music biz.


Lethal

 

[themadchemist]

what's up with the Reg?! It used to be relatively pro-Mac, esp. with the release of the G5. I think this is the work of a few crazy columnists following in the steps of the misguided Dvorak...

As far as this business model--I'm confused. What is going on? What "radical" changes? How is this possibly going to make any money?

More garbage, I suppose.

 

[patrick0brien]

-themadchemist

I suppose you don't know that the Register is a Charter Member of the "Poke-It-With-A-Stick Society".

Any cream that rises to the top must be churned.

 

[billyboy]

After reading the article once, not understanding anything, I read the previous story he hobbled together then read his pearls of wisdom again. I´m sort of a little wiser about where he´s coming from - and I think he´s got his mindset fixed way into the future but talking about compulsory licensing as if its coming along in the next Christmas stocking.

He also seems to have an idea that anyone can open up a music store and particularly, if that someone is a Sony it will automatically blow iTunes out the water and ruin Apple´s marketing tool for the iPod. That is certainly possible but very open to debate and definitely in the future.

He says Napster are the music industry? If they are, then the music industry is possibly in bad shape based on current sales. And seeing as the most famous name in music didnt even get a few million curious souls trying to download just one tune just to see what its all about, that again goes against his point that its inevitable iTunes will be elbowed out by stronger forces.

And his little tax idea that is coming sometime in the future once someone brings out a little bit of innovative technology. Its a brilliant one, but it isnt necessarily the death knell of iTMS. Whoever supplies the compulsory licensed music is going to have bandwidth and some sort of catalogue maintenance overheads just like regular iMusic stores, so his 1cent a song or whatever wont be anything like 1 cent at all. And unless it is a seamless download like iTunes, it could push even more people to go to regular iTMS type places - because if you think about it, you will have the choice between paying maybe 20 cents to put up with a less than convenient legal download or you can wait a really long time downloading pirate stuff for zero, (and maybe get prosecuted) or go one click from iTunes.

So Im sure iTunes will have to evolve, but by the time the scene is as radically altered as our scribe makes out, iTMS will have a huge customer base and just like all bricks and mortar stores didnt die when pirates ruled, Im pretty sure there will be a decent sized market for online music stores for a long while.

 

[rueyeet]

First, I think the Reg was happy with Apple when it was the open-source based OS X taking most of the news; they like open-source.

But I think Apple accepting any form of DRM in the iTMS pissed them off. The Reg's staff is pretty slanted on these things.

What I don't get is the continued insistence by this columnist that the iTMS is the same as Sony or Universal or whoever. iTMS and all the other services are like Tower Records or Sam Goody, and therefore the fact that Sony or whoever owns content doesn't matter squat.

And, as I keep trying to point out to the guy, it's not about the music, it's about iPods. Apple can't wait until the matter is settled, whether in manner utopian or otherwise: people have to have a legal alternative to get online music for their iPods. Making money off the music sales would be nice, but ultimately doesn't matter to Apple; they're just making sure iPod users have access to the music if the file-sharing thing doesn't cut it.

 

[patrick0brien]

Originally posted by rueyeet
people have to have a legal alternative to get online music for their iPods.

-rueyeet

I feel that Apple has the right approach to not accepting WMA files for music into the iTMS or iPod... for now.

Look at it from their perspective - suddenly, due to the reverse purchase of NeXt, Apple is a prime advocate of standards. We all know that AAC is a codec of MPEG4 - a standard. Unfortunately, there is no DRM standard yet, so they had to construct their own until then (FreePlay). Without the DRM, the iTMS would not be a B-Law possibility.

I for one, believe that Apple will fold the ability to use WMA files into the iPod and sales of WMA files through iTMS if the codec is accepted as a standard by the MPEG. Because without such a standardization, MS will maintain control of the codec and that leaves the door open to Embrace/Extend/Extinguish, which would suddenly indenture all users of WMA files - and Apple is right to not let that happen.

Their motivation is not the old habit of proprietary IP to force users to use thier stuff only (aka Not Invented Here Syndrome), their motivation is to sell to the broadest free market. And the market of WMA files is not that as long as MS holds all of the keys to it. Once standardized, the distribution and usability of WMA files on the iTMS and iPod would only benefit Apple - but only once free to do so.

The market of WMA files as a legally purchaseable medium only exists today because of Windows platform catchup by BuyMusic, PressPlay, Napster, etc. to tap the market discovered* by iTMS, while not having access to being able to do it with AAC. Remember even Apple couldn't do it with AAC until the six-month pilot period expired - last month. Now these services have painted themselves into a corner with this codec. That's ok for now, but what happens if MS clamps down and raises the licensing fees?

I agree with Apple's market actions for these very reasons. I hope you all understand.

*Agreed that Apple wasn't the first to sell legal files, but they were the first to get the business model right that, in turn, enabled the 'tipping point' that is the Legal Music Download Market as it exists today - ergo, Apple discovered the market.