Apple and the music industry disagree
Recently, MSN published an article concerning changes in the way online music is being distributed and the disagreements between Apple and the music industry. The industry wants songs to be DRM encumbered, while Apple does not. Also the industry wishes for Apple to raise prices, while Apple – for obvious competitive reasons – favors lowering prices.
The RIAA is apparently still holding on to the mistaken belief that DRM discourages "piracy". I maintain that DRM actually encourages "piracy" and that incidences of "piracy" happen more often on products where Digital Rights Management (or Manglement if you prefer) have been implemented. Lets say consumers have two options of obtaining music. Option one involves purchasing a rights-disabled song, while option two is borrowing a friend’s CD and ripping the desired tracks with no use restrictions.
With option one, the song can only be used in a certain number of devices. After that number has been reached, typically the consumer has to notify a web based service that the song should no longer be allowed to play on a given device to move it to a new player. What if – in the current unstable economy – the company that the track was purchased from closes? How would the user transfer the right to use the song from an old mp3 player to a newly purchased one? The other option would be to repurchase the track from another vendor; but the idea of having to repurchase something that has already been purchased angers most people.
Obviously with the second option – as there is no DRM on the ripped tracks – these songs can be used on as many devices as desired. Also, there is no problem if the company that produced the CD or that created the ripping software goes out of business since the songs’ usage is not tracked. Given the serious issues with the first option, I think that many people who would ordinarily pay for online music will either buy the CD or turn to ripping borrowed CDs. Many people want to support artists, but not at the expense of their own freedom and will probably end up buying the CD.
At the end of the article, several questions were raised. I have addressed most of these below.
"[D]o the masses care at all about removing piracy restrictions from songs?" Yes they do. In fact, evidence of the severe negative public opinion of DRM can be found by looking at the customer reviews on Amazon for Spore or any other game containing DRM. Many people want to support artists, but not at the expense of their own freedom.
"Would you pay for unlimited iTunes?" I probably would sign up for this service. Normally I buy CDs because I like the cover art, having a physical object, and being able to listen to an entire album in my car on road trips without hassle. That being said, as long as the DRM is removed from tracks on iTunes, there is a good chance that I would subscribe since there are many groups with one or two songs that I like, but I wouldn’t want to buy a whole album just for one song.
Also, the question of whether if the price per song was changed from $0.99 to $0.69 or $1.29 if sales would be affected.
I believe that this would probably not significantly impact sales in the former case, but almost definitely in the latter. In the former instance, many people would just notice that the song costs less than a buck at $0.69 or $0.99; unless a whole album were being purchased at a time this would not influence many people. The difference between $10 to $15 for an album verses $6 to $9 dollars will probably have a more drastic impact. The current price would be $10 or more per album while a lowered price would result in less than $10 per album. However, I believe that many customers would shy away from $1.29 per song, as people tend to think in terms of dividing lines – in this case along whole dollars. Even though $0.99 is only one cent away from being a whole dollar, subconsciously many of us don’t equate the two values as being almost identical. Likewise, in reality if someone is so strapped for cash that $0.30 is going to have a huge impact on their finances, they would most likely not be spending a buck for a song anyway – and many very well not even have Internet access with which to purchase and download the song. But, since $1.29 is over a dollar, many people will feel that it is an unfair price. The human psyche is a strange thing, but it plays a huge part in marketing strategies and a price increase – as the music industry is suggesting – may very well drive more people to "piracy".
In summary, I do not believe that the current price point of $0.99 per track is prohibitively expensive, but I welcome Apple’s plan to reduce the cost of many of their songs to $0.69 per song. As stated above, the hassle with removing a song from one device to put it on another one is likely to be the deal-breaker not the price. Also, DRM doesn’t stop "piracy" among those who would not pay for music in the first place as there are other means to obtain the music.