drm and apple
I might as well join everyone else and comment on the dropping of drm by emi for apple itune sales.
First, I think that this is going to become the norm and that the other major music providers will soon follow suite. I think that the absense of drm and the higher quality will justify the aditional 30 cent charge for many consumers and that emi's sales will rise dramatically. This will put competitive pressure on the other music providers to do the same.
If this leads to greater inter-oeprability, I don't think that this is going to cause apple to lose any market share. Apple has been sucessful because it has made it very easy to buy and play music using their software and players (i.e. ipod). They have demonstrated an ability to produce what consumers want that far exceeds that of their competitors. Apple makes better stuff and at a reasonable price and this is hard to beat.
I am not sure if the same thing will happen in the movie industry because the css has not been as bothersome as what has happened in the music arena. Dvd copy protection has become incorporated into all the dved players and software. In the open source world decss must be used but it is not a difficult task to find and install it. So getting and playing dvd's is not hard but making copies is not easy. With music and video available on the internet, especially for open source users, finding the right codec and software can be a bear, but playing dvd's on a Linus system is fairly easy (freespire/Linspire has it built in I believe).
In the long run, Apple's strategy of making it easy for users to find, buy, download, and play multimedia (right now limited to music) will prove the most successful because it encourages end users to buy the product. When drm gets in the way, users don't buy and this is not a very good marketing policy.
First, I think that this is going to become the norm and that the other major music providers will soon follow suite. I think that the absense of drm and the higher quality will justify the aditional 30 cent charge for many consumers and that emi's sales will rise dramatically. This will put competitive pressure on the other music providers to do the same.
If this leads to greater inter-oeprability, I don't think that this is going to cause apple to lose any market share. Apple has been sucessful because it has made it very easy to buy and play music using their software and players (i.e. ipod). They have demonstrated an ability to produce what consumers want that far exceeds that of their competitors. Apple makes better stuff and at a reasonable price and this is hard to beat.
I am not sure if the same thing will happen in the movie industry because the css has not been as bothersome as what has happened in the music arena. Dvd copy protection has become incorporated into all the dved players and software. In the open source world decss must be used but it is not a difficult task to find and install it. So getting and playing dvd's is not hard but making copies is not easy. With music and video available on the internet, especially for open source users, finding the right codec and software can be a bear, but playing dvd's on a Linus system is fairly easy (freespire/Linspire has it built in I believe).
In the long run, Apple's strategy of making it easy for users to find, buy, download, and play multimedia (right now limited to music) will prove the most successful because it encourages end users to buy the product. When drm gets in the way, users don't buy and this is not a very good marketing policy.
posted by konstantine at 12:45 PM
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