It was a sad day this past Tuesday for almost everyone except the record labels when Apple put in place the variable pricing scheme they’ve been promising since announcing their entire library would be going DRM-free. At the very least, many thought they could take refuge in the safety and comfort of iTunes rivals Amazon and Wal-Mart, both of whom also run digital music sales outlets, and both of whom had suddenly become a much better value proposition in the face of the changes.

Sadly, no e-tailer turned out to be safe. Both Amazon and Wal-Mart introduced their own variable pricing schemes shortly after Apple’s went live. This was literally hours after a friend recommended switching to Amazon, since it now presented a better deal. Amazon is now offering some of its best-selling tracks at $1.29, and some at the low end for 79 cents, while the overwhelming bulk of their catalog still goes for 99 cents. True to their lowest price guarantee, Wal-Mart’s standard price point is 94 cents, with some top sellers now going for $1.24, and a few bargains at 64 cents.

The changes across the board signal an industry-wide trend, and show that Apple was not alone in negotiating a new pricing arrangement with the record labels. It’s especially noteworthy that the same tracks don’t necessarily cost the same in each store, with Apple having more songs in the top-tiered price range than either of the other two.

Both Wal-Mart and Amazon had already been selling music DRM-free, suggesting that the recording industry’s goal with dangling the DRM-free carrot in front of Apple was to pave the way for price hikes across the board. Now that that barrier is gone, expect to see digital music prices creep to the point where they more closely resemble what you’d pay at brick-and-mortar stores.

Way back in January, at Macworld 2009 (the last Apple Macworld, remember?), Apple announced a change in the pricing structure for iTunes songs.

The new model, which basically seems to have been a concession to music publishers in order to secure DRM-free tracks, prices individual songs at 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29. Currently, all iTunes tracks cost 99 cents. No specific implementation date was cited at the time, but a new report from the L.A. Times indicates that the changes will come April 7.

Not everyone in the industry is thrilled with the new pricing scheme. According to the L.A. Times article, former EMI Executive Tim Cohen is quoted as saying that, “This will be a PR nightmare. It is for the music industry what the AIG bonuses are for the insurance industry.” Charging those who don’t pirate music more, when piracy is more widespread then ever, admittedly doesn’t seem like the way to go about curbing the trend.

Details of how songs would be priced also emerged in the report. It will not be determined based on the age of releases, as some had previously suggested. Instead, price will be determined based on artist popularity. That means that Flo Rida fans will have to shell out more, while people like me who listen to music no one else has ever heard of or cares about might wind up actually benefiting from the deal.

If I was a diehard Ciara or All-American Rejects fan, I’d think about getting my download on now while the old pricing structure is still intact. Of course, if customers are sufficiently scared off by the new price scheme, the music industry might be forced to go back to the tried and true 99-cents method. Not that they’ll go quietly, mind you.

Much has been made about the new iPod shuffle’s neat new features, like voiceover narration to make up for the lack of a display, and its incredibly small form factor. Much more, perhaps, has been made about the limitations the new form factor presents, since it lacks physical controls on the device itself, and also requires headphones specifically designed for the platform because of the unique control scheme it uses instead.

That unique control scheme recently raised even more eyebrows when it appeared as though Apple had not only forced customers to seek out specially designed headphones for use with the new device, but had also actually built-in a chip that would force third-party accessory manufacturers to pay them a licensing fee in order to be able to make headphones that would work with the new shuffle. When BoingBoing Gadgets took apart a brand new Shuffle, they found a unique chip soldered to the remote, from which a third wire was connected to the same ring on the mini-jack plug that governs the iPod’s controls.

Apple maintains that the chip is not hardware DRM, as many speculated immediately after the discovery. Instead, they claim the chip is just to ensure proper functioning of the headset-based controls, and that the specs of the device are made available to any hardware manufacturer that obtains a peripheral license from them (the one that allows manufacturers to use the iconic “Made for iPod” sticker). They acknowledge that clone chips will likely follow, and will be tolerated, although those manufacturers won’t get to officially claim that their devices are “Made for iPod.”

It may not be DRM, but it is all about control. Basically, if manufacturers care about having their device work properly, they have to go to Apple, hat in hand, and declare their intentions. This gives Apple the ability to scrutinize, and makes sure that they remain a necessary point of contact even in the aftermarket life of their products. Personally, I’m uncomfortable with any move that eschews open standards in favor of something that adds steps, extra manufacturing or unnecessary redesign, and therefore cost, to peripheral production. Apple is possibly the worst for this, and I’m actually hoping that shuffle sales give them cause to reconsider in the future.

Rockstar Games, makers of the extremely popular Grand Theft Auto franchise, are picking up and moving a very lucrative music partnership from Amazon to iTunes, which offers players of GTA IV the opportunity to purchase tracks used in the game’s soundtrack.

The reason for the switch? Apple’s (a AAPL) decision to finally go DRM-free. Rockstar had apparently always wanted to go with the big fish (how could you not, when they command more than 90 percent of the digital music distribution market?), but also wanted users not to be tied down with the music they purchased using it.

The switch will come alongside Rockstar’s upcoming downloadable expansion for GTA IV, which will also introduce a major addition to the game’s existing soundtrack. This is a perfect example of why Apple’s decision to move to a DRM-free music library was the right decision, from the consumer’s standpoint, yes, but also as a sound business decision. Formerly wary prospective partners will now embrace iTunes with open arms.

For us as iTunes customers, this sets a precedent that other companies will hopefully follow, which would lead to more choice, and innovative content purchasing models. With GTA IV, you purchase the music via the in-game “Zit” service, and you can then download the track outside of the game through Amazon’s MP3 store (soon to be iTunes). Video games are an obvious partner, since the interactivity is already there, but movie and television soundtracks could soon follow. I’d also like to see the reverse implemented, whereby you can use any of the tracks from your existing iTunes library in-game.

Many hailed the removal of digital rights management (DRM) from the vast majority of iTunes track, a move announced and acted upon last week at the Macworld trade show.

The removal applied to 90 percent of Apple’s library, and plans are to extend it to the rest in short order. Many suspect that record labels agreed to going DRM-free after iTunes agreed to be more flexible with its pricing options, moving from 99 cents per song, to between 69 cents and $1.29.

What many might not realize, however, is that this isn’t an open invitation from Apple to go totally nuts and start freely copying, sharing, and distributing music like crazy. It’s called “Social DRM” and it makes sure there’s a little bit of you in every iTunes Plus file you download via your iTunes Store account. That little bit of you isn’t your sparkling personality or winning charm, either. It’s your email address, and it’s hard coded into each and every purchase.

The purpose of including the email address is to track anyone who might get the bright idea of uploading their library to, say, a torrent site, thus stepping well into the realm of the illegal. Social DRM, in this regard, may actually be about preventing piracy, something which is not necessarily true about traditional forms of DRM, depending on who you ask.

In case you forgot, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a nice list of examples of why Apple’s still very much in the DRM game, even if it has relaxed a bit in the music department. Among the most suspect uses: the authentication chip in newer model iPods and iPhones that third party manufacturers are required to buy a license for.

Like many users, I’m pleased that the labels are finally allowing Apple to sell music free of DRM copy protection. Given that the labels have allowed this for many other vendors (Amazon, Wal-Mart, Zune Store, etc.) I think they’ve been flirting with collusion on the iTunes store for a while anyway. 

What I’m happiest about is the higher quality — which I don’t think Apple would have needed permission for  – since Apple’s FairPlay DRM was pretty transparent anyway. Of my nearly 8,000 songs, about 200 of them are iTunes, most belonging to my daughter. The DRM has simply never been an issue since they play on every Mac and iPod device we have. I’m not even sure I’ll upgrade them, but a lot of that has to do with price, as we’ll see.

What I’m most curious about are the details and consequences of this deal as it pertains not just to Apple, but also the competion. Here are some questions I have…

Why only eight million tracks now? 

Apple has 10 million tracks on their store. Yet only eight million of them are DRM-free now. The rest are slated as being DRM-free by the end of March. It seems likely the yearly Apple contract with the labels renews on April 1, hence the significance of the date. Still, why aren’t all tracks waiting for the end of March, instead of just 20 percent of them? Could it be the labels are being generous and letting some of their wares go DRM-free early? Um, no. Sorry, but I’ve seen no generosity from the labels (or RIAA) in the digital age; I assume the answer lies elsewhere and ties into the next question…

The new prices don’t kick in until April 1. Why?

As mentioned above, if the Apple contract renews on April 1 that would explain why the new prices do not take place until then, but then why are so many tracks DRM-free now? I can’t help but wonder if the 80 percent of available DRM-free tracks today are those primarily slated at selling for $.99 or $.69, whereas the 20 percent waiting for the end of March are mostly slated for the higher price of $1.29. In other words, the labels may have no problem with you possibly buying a DRM-free track now for 30 cents more than you’ll pay in April, but they don’t want to sell many for 30 cents less. 

What about the competition?

As it is, the Amazon store sometimes undercuts iTunes by selling tracks for $.89. Will this still be allowed by the labels when the new Apple prices kick in? I mean, a dime differential is not that big a deal, but 40 cents is significant and a big disadvantage. Seems like Apple would have a case there for some kind of unfair competition. Same is true for Wal-Mart, etc. I do not know when the other stores’ latest contracts with the labels expire, but if they do not also have to honor a higher price when the contracts are renewed, something seems wrong there. Of course, these stores would get to use the lower price tier as well. 

Oh, and what’s with this AAC encoding?

Some of the comments I read yesterday about AAC encoding made me alternate between laughing and weeping for all of humanity. People, AAC is in reality MP4, and the successor to MP3. It’s better, with superior sound and smaller file sizes. Yet the Apple bashers would have you think it’ll only play on about three players. There is no self-respecting player today that does not support AAC, and it’s been supported on many devices (including Zunes and many smartphones) for years. Besides, if you feel you must have the inferior quality and larger size of an MP3 file, iTunes will gladly convert them for you.

What’s with the “Upgrade my Library” option, especially the price?

Right now, I’ve verified that most of the 200+ DRM tunes I have are now DRM-free. Yet iTunes so far has only identified 44 songs. Not exactly sure what’s taking it so long, and wonder if it’s not quite working properly. I’ll keep an eye on it and see how it grows. More importantly than the identification, I’m curious about the price. It’s straightforward right now. For a single song it’s $.30, and for an album it’s 30 percent of the current album price. But won’t that need to change in April? It sure as heck ought to. I think a lot of my tracks are going to be $.69 come April 1, do the labels really expect me to pay $.30 on top of the $.99 I’ve already shelled out for these? That would be ugly; upgrading should be minimal there. In any case I have no intention of updating any tracks until April and see if the price for upgrading changes based on the new tiered structure. 

Oh, and why can’t I just upgrade some of my music? 

I can click one button to upgrade all the tunes identified, but there’s no way to just upgrade individual songs or albums. Really? All or nothing? That’s beyond ridiculous. 

Conclusion

It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens on April 1, but also to see how the other online stores adjust their pricing — of if they do not need to. 

Meanwhile, the best thing about the DRM-free music is that the Apple bashers will have to look elsewhere (some of them have latched on to AAC) to claim being “locked” into Apple’s music “monopoly.”

Apple announced today that it’s bringing some major changes to the iTunes Music Store. Most notable among the announcements is their shift to making its entire 10M-plus song library completely DRM-free.

Prior to today, Apple’s iTunes Plus selection was fairly slim. Now, all songs from the four major labels, as well as the plethora of independent labels, will be available by default as DRM-free iTunes Plus downloads. Previously purchased songs can be upgraded via iTunes’ “Upgrade My Library” option in the Music Store at 30 cents each, music videos for 60 cents, and entire albums for 30 percent of the original price (roughly $3 if it was purchased at $9.99). According to Apple, 8M songs are available in the iTunes Plus format now, with the remaining 2M-plus tracks to be converted by the year’s end.

With this upgade, also comes an eventual update to the pricing scheme to offer the the major labels “more flexibility.” Starting in April, songs will be available for either 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29. There was no clear indication on what would affect the prices, but during the keynote, Phil Schiller said that “most” songs would be available at the lowest tier. Apple stated that, despite the change in per-track pricing, most albums would remain at $9.99.

Lastly, Apple announced that the iTunes Music Store for the iPhone would be freed from its Wi-Fi chains. Previoulsy, accessing the store via a cellular data connection limited you to the Podcast section, however, as of today, the entire music store will be in your hands. As before, the prices on the iPhone will be the same as they are on your computer and all tracks purchased via the iPhone will be syncable back to your main iTunes library. Looks like there may have been some justification for the apparent cellular data outages AT&T experienced this morning on the East coast.

In what seems like another addition to a long list of examples of how when you rent digital content, you’re actually renting it with a strict set of conditions, Apple owners are running into trouble with High Definition Content Protection (HDCP). The problem, affecting owners of the new aluminum MacBooks and MacBook Pro, occurs when you try to play some iTunes-rented movies on an external display attached to your notebook.

The HDCP causing the problem is intended to prevent copying high-def content across an HDMI connection. It’s also included in DisplayPort tech, which is the new standard for video output on current generation Mac portable computers. According to Ars Technica, the problem seems to affect movies protected by Apple’s FairPlay Version 3 DRM, although not all files which have Version 3 protection are affected. Whether or not the movie plays appears to be somewhat random, at least in Ars’ limited sample pool.

The person who pointed out the problem to Ars was just trying to play Hellboy 2 for a class of high school students using an external projector. Another case reported in an Apple support discussion thread occurred when a MacBook owner tried to playback content to his external 19-inch monitor. This report was quickly joined by many, many others. In all cases, playback works fine on the computer’s built-in display.

Is there a fix?

Is this another issue to be resolved quickly and with relatively little stir, like the trackpad hard-click recognition problem? Likely not, since a fix in this case might open up rental HD content to potential piracy. A software solution would take more time and attention to preserve HDCP integrity while allowing proper use for those who rented content and have no intentions of copying the content.

That’s not to say that Apple can let this one pass. One of the great incentives to even rent movies through iTunes is the ability to play it back on your HDTV or projector. If new MacBook owners (who represent a very sizeable group) feel like they’re playing Russian roulette when they rent content from iTunes, they’d simply stop doing it. And those caught unaware will go back to Apple for some kind of compensation and possibly swear off the service for good. Some angry MacBook owners are already seeing this as a ploy to get people to buy AppleTVs. This is probably not the case, but even the impression that it might be is damaging.

In a time when many are turning to their computers as home theater supplements and substitutes, Apple would do well to nip this in the bud right away. Since some movies do and some don’t encounter the HDCP problem, it may be a studio issue and out of their hands. If it is, they’ll have to lobby the studios, paint a picture of lost revenue, and hope to pressure a switch in the encoding of affected movies.

What do you say? Does this HDCP mess have you looking to jump the iTunes ship, or do you trust in an Apple fix?

The BBC’s iPlayer is nothing short of a digital revelation — providing viewers in the United Kingdom with online access to an ever-changing (and free) selection of the BBC’s internationally-revered quality programming.

For an increasing number of us Brit’s, BBC.co.uk/iPlayer is the site we surreptitiously visit on our lunch-breaks at work and the destination for catching up on missed TV in the evenings. Yet upon its initial beta launch back in 2007, the iPlayer was a national disappointment; exclusively for Windows and with more bugs in it than an entomologist’s cupboard.

While iPlayer downloading may have been refined somewhat — Windows users can grab DRM-ridden episodes for play in Windows Media Player – it’s still not an option for Mac users. However, Erik Huggers is the man set to change all that. He’s the BBC’s verbosely-titled Director of Future Media and Technology and a veteran of Microsoft, having spent nine years with the Apple-competitor.

Speaking to Guardian.co.uk earlier today, Huggers talked about the different platforms used to access the iPlayer, “The situations we’re seeing are interesting – mum and dad are watching linear TV in the living room but kids are watching it in a different way … on the iPhone, iPod touch or laptop.”

The statistics for non-Windows platforms are indeed promising. Wii and Linux users account for 1% of the viewership, iPhone and iPod touch owners make-up for 3% and, notably, one in 10 viewers are Mac users. The intention is that by the end of 2008, the iPlayer will feature a native download manager for viewing episodes on the Mac.

Of course, the episode files are sure to have some kind of DRM embedded within them — the BBC has an awful lot of red-tape to go through and that can make for clunky solutions to simple problems. It’s also not clear as to whether the download manager application will have an embedded video player, or if there will be some kind of Quicktime/iTunes support.

Now here’s the really exciting thing for non-UK readers of TAB: Huggers also talked about opening the iPlayer up to international viewers, ”… today we are artificially blocking international access to the iPlayer. That’s a problem, in my mind, and a big challenge for the industry.”

Although Huggers hasn’t outlined a time-line for opening the international flood-gates as yet, the suggestion is that at some point in the future you’ll be able to grab your fix of Doctor Who, Little Britain, Spooks and all the other fine programs by the Beeb, regardless of your global location.

Stay tuned for more iPlayer news in the future, we’ll be keeping an eye on the BBC as they develop the service.

Norway has taken their two-year fight against iTunes and Apple’s FairPlay DRM to its next step, and will now ask the government to force Apple to open their iTunes music to other devices besides the iPod. 

As background, this all began when Norway’s consumer ombudsman, Bjorn Erik Thon, ruled that Apple’s FairPlay DRM violated the country’s consumer rights laws by locking down iTunes Store content to iPods and iTunes. This was first communicated to Apple in June 2006, and a few months later was escalated to Norway’s Market Council, which has the power to order companies to change their business practices. In January 2007, Norway declared Apple’s DRM illegal and gave Apple until October 1 of that year to open up FairPlay to other parties. By this time France and Germany had joined in on the action as well.

It was the latter event that almost certainly prompted Jobs’ Thoughts on Music, in which he stated: 

Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard.

Apple made other points in regards to its inability to deliver content that can be transferred to any digital music device, but the thrust of Apple’s argument remains along the lines of Jobs’ original point: DRM-free music is the best possible solution for consumers, and they are not being allowed to sell the bulk of their wares DRM-free because the labels are not willing to license it to them for distribution in that manner. 

My feeling is that a lot of this is a propaganda war. Apple fired a shot with Thoughts on Music only after Norway declared iTunes and FairPlay illegal, but hasn’t aired their case publicly since then. Meanwhile, the record labels are trumpeting DRM-free music from Amazon and other sources even as they still will not license it to Apple. I think Apple should use this latest Norway action to again state their case to the music labels and include what has transpired since then regarding licensed DRM-free music.

Apple’s response to Norway can drive their points home again. The response should outline out the following: 

• Apple called for the end of DRM on music a year and a half ago. 
• Apple was the first online store to deliver DRM-free music from a major label (EMI). 
• Apple followed with lots of DRM-free titles on independent labels. 
• Apple has millions of DRM-free tracks on iTunes. 
• The labels, meanwhile, have licensed DRM-free music for Amazon and numerous other sites. 
• The labels are not yet allowing DRM-free music on iTunes. 

While Norway and the labels could still argue that an alternative would be for Apple to license FairPlay, I believe the numerous DRM-free licenses the labels have provided in the last 18 months prove they know better. For true interoperability, people want DRM-free music, not more technology that will increase the cost and complexity of their chosen device. Given their licensing deals with other online stores since then, I think the labels will have a harder time under the scrutiny that would arise from Apple again pleading their case.

We reported earlier on the possibility of a 66% raise in royalty fees for digital music distributors. Have no fear readers, the iTunes store will continue offering the generous service of providing somewhere for you to dump all that spare cash. According to CNET News, the Copyright Royalty Board informed interested parties yesterday that they’ve frozen the amount owed music publishers by digital music retailers at 9.1 cents per track.

Apple’s strong statement to Fortune published Monday this week seems to have had some influence on the Royalty Board’s decision. Everyone, however, is claiming to be happy with the deal. Record labels see it as a guarantee that even if they up music prices, the cut they pay out to artist stays the same. Artists themselves are happy that they’re guaranteed the same take away even if physical music sales continue to trend downward. Apple and company are just happy to stave off a potentially devastating cut to their bottom line. The decision today represents the first time a formally set (or “mechanical”) rate has been set for digital downloads.

Nice to see that Apple isn’t afraid to brandish its market strength like a club. As their market share grows, expect to see their influence over industry policy grow. Let’s all hope for responsible musical overlords.

Fortune has an article on an upcoming ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board where artists are proposing a 6 cent (66%) hike in the per-track royalties they receive for digital music retail sales. Needless to say, Apple is not happy with this situation and has indicated that the continued operation of the iTunes store would be questionable at best if the resolution is passed:

“Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.”

We’ve heard for years that Apple operates the store on a tight margin and it is conceivable that this royalty increase could eat away at the per-song profit to the point where running it would be economically unwise.

Some may argue this is just chest pounding by the current king of the hill, but one should not take much solace in this point of view. We have seen many other DRM-based music sites go out of business, the most recent one being Wal-Mart. I find it amusing that Wal-Mart’s parting words (shot?) to their customers was “burn your tracks to CD and re-import them”, an unfeasible option for those with an extensive library. Not doing so would, however, render your digital collection utterly useless, as the home DRM servers will be offline permanently.

This same situation could happen with Apple – both audio and video – leaving a significant number of users with gigabytes (perhaps even terabytes) of digital garbage. With the loss of the iTunes audio/video stores I suspect the attraction of the iPod & iPhone would be greatly diminished, initiating a cascade effect no one really wants to see.

While there are solutions for making your library DRM-free, perhaps it’s time to demand the removal of FairPlay from all iTunes content so you do remain fully in control of your digital property. I know I make sure an iTunes audio purchase is in their new DRM-free format before buying, otherwise I turn to other sites such as eMusic, Noise Trade, Aime Street and the Amazon MP3 Store.

What do you think? Is this just an Apple ploy to protect their profit margin? Are you concerned that your DRM-laiden library may be inaccessible soon? Where do you (legitimately) get your tracks? Sound off in the comments!

There is a lot of buzz surrounding music labels’ agreements to sell DRM-free music in marketplaces other than the iTunes Music Store. The problem is that they miss the big picture. They don’t pay attention to the two things that really matter.

1. People want to be able to buy their music easily
2. People want their purchased music to work on their devices

The iTunes Music Store allows people to easily purchase music. They set the precedence with a $0.99 price point, and everyone is following suit. They showed that if it is easy to purchase music and easy to listen to it again, they will pay that price.

The problem is that with the (barely) exception of Amazon.com’s mp3 store, the price point has stayed the same 99 cents. People will still pay that price, and DRM-free music is certainly enticing for those of us that even understand that. Many people don’t realize that DRM even exists.

To make things worse, some companies try to charge $1.99/song for downloading it straight to your phone. It just doesn’t make sense.

So, you get a less-than-the-easiest interface for downloading music, and it costs about the same or more, and these companies want to bite in to Apple’s market share? I don’t think so.

If they want to bite into Apple’s bottom line, they need to offer something more than what iTunes offers. Yeah, it is DRM-free, but other than that, there is nothing.

Russ Crupnick, senior analyst for NPD group had it right when he said:

“When you have 80 percent market share on Apple devices…there isn’t much demand from people to get unprotected music. They don’t seem to encounter any issues with it.”

I am a big fan of tossing out DRM and all, but differentiating in only the DRM category is not enough. These DRM-free shops will get the Apple haters, but not much more.

To make themselves stand out and sell more, make a daring move and sell the music for much cheaper. People will continue to buy music from iTunes until something better comes along. Is it greed? If I could buy two songs from one vendor for the price of one iTunes song, and the quality was just as good as anywhere else (if not better), what would stop me from buying those two songs instead of downloading one song from iTunes? Nothing but ease of use. If the song could be downloaded and automatically added to my iTunes Library, I would do that in a heartbeat. Who wouldn’t?

Pirates will exist as long as it is easier to steal music than it is to buy it. Allofmp3.com had a good idea when pricing songs by the data size instead of a straight price. It was illegal which is not cool, but many people went to great lengths to purchase songs from that website. You could get between four and seven songs for the cost of one iTunes song. Music labels can create a site just like that and iTunes would immediately feel the pain. It would be so easy to get a lot of music for so cheap, that many people just wouldn’t bother pirating music. There will always be those who break the law, and so there will always be people who pirate music. But instead of borrowing a CD from my friend, I would much rather just go to a website and buy the album for a couple bucks.

People will always want value for the money they spend. If Rhapsody, Napster, Amazon, Microsoft, and anyone else wants to take market share away from Apple, they need to change their tune, start making it easier to get cheaper, DRM-free music into our iTunes libraries, and the money will follow.

Netflix and Napster are both launching assaults on Apple, today. CNET is reporting the release of Netflix’s Apple TV rival, simply called Player by Roku, and Napster is getting into the digital music distribution with apparently an identical model to iTunes ($0.99 a song, $9.95 an album).

I am all for competition, but I don’t think these two alternatives provide much to combat Apple’s dominance. Let’s take a short look at each.

Netflix

Personally, I use Blockbuster Online, so I don’t know much about the current “Watch Now” plan that Netflix has. Netflix last year started allowing people to stream movies in their queue to their computer. Now, they have announced a box that will allow you to stream movies to your TV. It costs $100. According to Crave’s review of the box, it has only 5% of the top movies available to be streamed and the quality is only 480i (worse than a DVD and much worse than HD).

Granted, this is the first version of the streaming device, and Netflix has three more models coming down the line. This is never going to sell well if there are so few options.

Netflix does have more models and a cheaper price than Apple TV. These are important competitive advantages. Netflix seems to be trying to make this box replace DVD players, which is a great idea. If they make a combo DVD player and streaming device, Netflix would be much better positioned to attack Apple. Just another box that doesn’t offer as much functionality as AppleTV is not that appealing.

One great benefit of this box is that it won’t cost Netflix customers any more money to stream their movies (other than the $100 device cost). They already get their “Watch Now” movies as part of the plan that they are on.

Hopefully, AppleTV will support a reasonable subscription plan for rentals. If that happens, and iTunes can keep the catalog larger than Netflix and Blockbuster, I don’t think that Netflix has a prayer.

Napster

Napster is also fighting against the iTunes monster by offering the same thing that iTunes offers. You can buy DRM-free, 256 kbps MP3s from Napster’s online store. This departure from their usual subscription plans offers music “from all four major labels and thousands of indie artists” (from Crave)

I don’t understand why they are offering the exact same pricing as iTunes. This does not help consumers. At least Amazon was on the right track by reducing the price of songs to $0.89 (ten cents isn’t much, but it is a start). I know that Apple has sold four billion songs on iTunes at that 99-cent price point, but I think that companies could sell even more, and further fight piracy if the price point were lower.

I was in college when allofmp3.com was all the rage. I also love Russian music so that site was amazing. At first, I thought somebody “got it” and realized that if you charged just pennies for each song and it was DRM-free, it would be much easier to buy the music than it is to find illegal copies.

Napster is not offering much more than iTunes, so there is not much of a reason to start using their service, to me. What do you think? Is it enough? Napster claims 6 Million songs. Is that enough? I know that the argument has been ad nauseam about a price point that will fight piracy, so I won’t belabor the point here. I will just ask that somebody offer it! They will sell more music and probably make more money in the long run.

We received three inches of snow last Thursday, but I wasn’t worried. We had plenty of white supplies (bread, milk, toilet paper) stocked up, so we didn’t have to venture to the grocery store. NetFlix said two DVDs would be delivered that afternoon. So before dinner, I ventured down to the mailbox to retrieve my treasure, when I learned of the tragedy. I only received one DVD from NetFlix. Gasp! When was the last time the shipping estimate was wrong? I stagger through the swirling wind to my home, comforted in the knowledge that I would soon be laughing at the antics of the gang at Cheers (Season 6, Disc 2).

That is, until I opened the red envelope and removed the disc from the white envelope. The DVD was split in half. Sigh. Whatever would I do? How could I watch a movie without having to drive down to the local video store? I know, I’ll rent a movie using iTunes! Steve Jobs, you’ve saved the day! In the past I’ve purchased episodes of Survivor that the VCR missed, and watched them by hooking my PowerBook to my VCR through my S-video port. It’s awkward, but it works.

This article details the problems I encountered with renting movies from the iTunes store, and how I attempted to work around the ridiculous DRM restrictions on rented movies (DRM = Digitally Ruined Media).

The Attempt

I have two Macs at home, an iMac G5 and a PowerBook, a AirPort Express, and DSL. Both Macs are running 10.4.11. I pull up iTunes on the iMac, but don’t see any information about renting movies. Oh, I have to upgrade iTunes and QuickTime. Time spent: 15 minutes.

Restart, open iTunes, click Agree to the ridiculously long (4,048 words) Terms of Service (this is supposed to be entertainment, not a nuclear missile control panel), click on iTunes Store, and look around. I decide on Ratatouille. I rent it and the download instantly starts. The time to download estimate starts at 6 hours, but settles quickly down to 4 hours. And that’s how long it took. I paused the download a couple times (I checked email once, and uploaded a podcast episode), but otherwise the download was uninterrupted. I was able to still use the iMac during the download. But being able to watch the movie Thursday evening was no longer an option, as the download wouldn’t finish until after 10pm. My wife and I decided we’d watch it over lunch and dinner on Friday.

Friday morning, I open up iTunes on my PowerBook. That’s when I realized I had to upgrade the PowerBook as well. Time spent: 15 minutes. Then I try the easy approach, by looking for the movie in the iMac’s shared playlist. But Rented Movies don’t show up in the playlist on my PowerBook, only music, regular movies, and TV episodes do. So I try to move the downloaded file from the iMac so I can watch the movie on our TV set downstairs. And discover you can’t do that. A computer is not a device. What? You can only move rented videos from the machine used to download the movie to very recent iPods, an iPhone, or an Apple TV.

So, this policy means you can’t download movies at the office on a fat pipe, burn the file to a disc or copy to a flash drive, and carry the file to a computer at home. The movie is locked to the computer used to download the movie. Ridiculous.

Workarounds

So, I examine my options:

1. We could watch the movie in our home office. (That wouldn’t be comfortable.)
2. We could move the iMac to the living room. (That wouldn’t be convenient.)
3. Play the video on the iMac and film the screen with our camcorder, import to iMovie, burn to a DVD with iDVD. (That wouldn’t be fun.)
4. Use technology to watch the iMac downstairs. (That would be great! But is it possible?)

I decided to try option #4. And it ended up working. Mostly. Kinda. Not really.

Setup

I looked around to see what my options were. For the video, my first thought was remote control via VNC. For the audio though I was stumped. I tried using our household intercom, but the audio was filled with static. I thought about calling my home phone from my cell, but that would cost a lot, plus tie up both phone lines. Maybe I could use my Skype phone to call my Gizmo Project phone. Again, expensive and inconvenient. Hey, how about using iChat over Bonjour? That should work, and won’t cost anything. The catch on using an audio chat will be figuring out how to route the sound from iTunes to iChat.

On the PowerBook:

1. I installed Chicken of the VNC.
2. Open iChat, enable Bonjour chat.
3. Connect the PowerBook’s S-Video to my VCR input jacks, set the TV to watch the VCR’s jack channel.
4. Connect the PowerBook’s headphone jack to the VCR.
5. In System Preference, open Displays. Press the Detect Displays button. On my system, the two screens were mirrored automatically.
6. In System Preferences, set Energy Saver to not put the computer to sleep.
7. In System Preferences, set the Screen Saver to “never” start.

On the iMac:

1. Install SoundFlower.
2. In System Preferences, open Sharing. Start Apple Remote Desktop sharing. Click on Access Privileges. Set a password so that “VNC users may control the screen.”
3. In System Preferences, open Sound. Set the Input and Output devices to be SoundFlower (2ch).
4. In System Preferences, open Displays. Set the Resolution to 800×600 and thousands of colors. This is to reduce the amount of data being sent over AirPort to the PowerBook.
5. In System Preferences, set Energy Saver to not put the computer to sleep.
6. In System Preferences, set the Screen Saver to “never” start.
7. Open iChat, enable Bonjour chat. In iChat Preferences, click on the Video tab. Set the microphone to be SoundFlower (2ch).
8. Open iTunes.
9. Quit other applications, especially those that make sounds.

Now from the PowerBook, using Chicken of the VNC, connect to the iMac. You will see the iMac’s desktop and can control the iMac from the PowerBook.

Start an audio chat from the PowerBook to the iMac. You can accept the chat remotely, since you are controlling the iMac in the Chicken of the VNC window. Any audio that the iMac creates will be piped into iChat, and will be heard on the PowerBook. You can test this by playing some music on the remote computer.

Start playing the rented movie, click to agree that the 24 hour countdown should start. Change Chicken of the VNC to full screen mode. Sit back and watch.

The problem I then experienced was my AirPort Express at 802.11g wasn’t up to the challenge of piping video. I was only getting around 2 frames per second. Most of the frames were full frame, but there were many times partial frames were transmitted. The audio sounded nice, no garbles, although there were a few brief times when some static would appear. This might work better with an AirPort Extreme, but I doubt it would be good enough to watch a movie.

Final Opinions

• Netflix is good enough for me. Shipping shiny CDs around the United States works well. I’ve had a very small number of bad disks in the past year. Netflix is a good deal at $16.99/month for around 12 discs.
• DSL is not fast enough to be able to watch a movie on spur of the moment.
• A computer is a device. I should be able to play a rented movie on any Mac that has been authorized to play the music I buy from the iTunes Store. If I can play music on up to 5 Macs, I should be able to play rented movies on up to 5 Macs.
• I will not be wasting my time on renting any more movies from the iTunes store.

It appears that we may be hearing from Apple in a few hours, on the topic of DRM-Free digital music downloads. Details seem to indicate that the EMI tracks that have historically been available for $1.29 without any copy protection, will drop to the normal $.99 price point. Along with EMI, some Indie labels are expected to join the movement. For all those vehemently opposed to digital music with copy protection baked-in, this is another step in the right direction.

Via Daring Fireball

Today Amazon launched its public beta of Amazon MP3. Amazon MP3 is Amazon.com’s foray into the digital music scene…and a it’s an extremely solid effort to say the least.

Pricing per song is between 89 and 99 cents and albums between $4.99 and $9.99. The Top 100 albums are being priced at the lower amounts, which I assume is to try and give themselves a little bit of competitive advantage.

The really big kicker here is that this music is DRM free. Yes, free. There is nothing tying in the files to a specific player, application, or operating system.

On top of the music being DRM free, it’s all encoded at 256kbps. On iTunes you’ve gotta fork over an extra 30 cents if you want the 256k bringing the total to $1.29 for a 256kbps encoded song. Talk about a punch in the gut.

The obvious downside to Amazon MP3 at this point in time is that it only has a selection of 2 million songs, compared to iTunes 6 million+ songs. I would imagine Amazon will have significantly more work ahead of them to reach the size of selection iTunes offers mainly because record execs are stuck in the dark ages and won’t wise up to the digital age of music.

Amazon MP3 really is the first solid effort at tacking on the beast that is the iTunes Store. It will be exciting to see where Amazon takes things.