Steverino fires a shot (or two) across NBC's bow

[thatcrazycajun]

Steve Jobs announces new Apple iPod models, iPhone price slash and new retailer deals
Courtesy of BusinessWeek Online
Jobs tests patience of Apple loyalists, stock market
Courtesy of MSNBC.com

More in the wild, wacky world of Apple Inc. business news (see my post yesterday), this time less focused on the iPhone pricing issue and more on the tug-of-war between El Jobso and frustrated movie studios, broadcast TV networks and cable channels chafing under Apple's $1.99 price limit for individual song downloads, and only slightly more for TV series eps and films. NBC has balked at renewing its contract to offer its shows (and those of its NBC Universal corporate siblings, such as Sci Fi and Bravo) over a desire to price newer (and more costly to produce) shows higher than older ones, or to bundle shows in order to move more units of poor-performing programs.

Basically, the thrust of the article is that no matter how peeved the "content providers" (don't you just love that modern buzzword lingo?) may get, Apple still has them by the short-and-curlies...and eventually, they will come crawling back to the negotiating table, as they need Apple way more than Apple needs them. And pinning their hopes on other device makers to provide them alternative channels for distribution is at best a dicey strategy; none of the other makers have Apple's reputation for coolness (or talent like Jonathan Ive in their product-design departments).

UPDATE, 3:25p: Re MSNBC.com story just added above: See? I'm not the only one who thinks iPhone sales must be either tanking or not living up to Apple's rosy projections...or that early buyers got royally boned.
UPDATE, 8:49p: An open letter to early iPhone buyers from His Nibs is now on Apple's website, acknowledging that "we need to do a better job taking care of" them and offering a $100 credit to any item in their local Apple Store or the online one. Nice try, Steverino; now how about increasing that to the full $200 difference? Until/unless you do that, the early buyers will likely not stop cursing your name.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Apple still has them by the short-and-curlies...and eventually, they will come crawling back to the negotiating table, as they need Apple way more than Apple needs them.

A highly debatable assertion, at best. There are lots of avenues for content distribution; it's just that, for now, Apple and its DRM-based monopolistic lock-in to the ITMS have the major market share. Let enough content providers scoot, and Apple will be left, high, dry, and with serious cojones de azul.

[P]inning their hopes on other device makers to provide them alternative channels for distribution is at best a dicey strategy; none of the other makers have Apple's reputation for coolness (or talent like Jonathan Ive in their product-design departments).

Reputation is a good description. Granted, no single other company has that hipness -- then again, hip is fleeting. (c.f., Wordstar, Palm, etc. Speaking of whom, I hope they read and understand the open letter to them from Engadget; it would be good to see a reasonably priced smart phone that had, among other things, a good keyboard with tactile feedback.) Again, if enough of the Kool Kids of Kontent abandon Apple, all they'll have to sell is My Mother the Car and The Fugees. Which, from my POV, wouldn't be such a bad thing if Apple insists on adding DRM to all its offerings.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Surely you are aware that Apple is no longer insisting on DRM in all its offerings; the iTunes Plus service, recently introduced, allows DRM-free downloads of some music for a slightly higher price. I agree that smartphones need to come down in price in a major way; but I would dispute your argument that Apple cannot hold on for a good long while to its market dominance, simply because nobody else is as good at execution as they are (witness Micro$oft's failure to attract significant numbers of users to its Zune music/video box) and the content providers have already invested far too much in Apple's scheme to simply abandon them.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Apple never insisted on DRM, per se. It does still offer it, though, which keeps it on the Black Hat side of the board. (DRM is an assumption that the customer has criminal intent.)

I'm not saying Apple's head start can't be maintained. I rather hope it isn't, if only because a company as anticompetitive as Apple could use someone running neck and neck with it to push its prices back down into the range of what the market value really is.

As to nobody else as good at execution, I offer Archos as superior in most ways, save for marketing. Their UI is as good or better than Apple's; many of their models are designed for landscape mode, thus better adapted to our visual entertainments; they play more of the most common formats (DiVX, XViD, etc.) than do iPods; and, until recently, their top of the line models had significantly more storage than did iPods. (It is even possible to place Linux on many Archos models, allowing for MUCH greater flexibility of use.) Unfortunately, they were priced comparably to iPods, and Archos' reputation wasn't as hip as Apple's. Pricing has begun to come down for Archos, and I look forward to their becoming a significant competitor in the media player market.

It's not content providers who have too much invested in Apple's scheme to abandon them. It's the users who have shelled out big bucks -- say, $5/month at iTMS for the past three years. That $180 is the minimum replacement cost for the tracks Apple's locked down against their presumptively criminal customers, who by rights ought to be able to port their property to ANY device they own. To me, that's simply unacceptable, and one reason I continally attempt to dissuade people from using Apple and getting locked in to their abuse.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

>>(DRM is an assumption that the customer has criminal intent.)<<
Again, I disagree; DRM is not so much a presumption of criminality as a recognition that even the most honest folks can succumb to temptation, and that many do. If this were not so, we would never have had to invent locks for home and car doors, or other common-sense measures to protect our property. Or do you deny content owners' rights to protect unauthorized distribution of their intellectual property without compensation? Since there is no way to allow users to transfer songs/shows/etc. legitimately between their own devices without allowing illegitimate transfer outside as well, the publishers have to do something to keep honest people honest.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

That's crap. An mp3 isn't a car. Moreover, the lock on a car isn't to prevent the owner from operating it, but to keep people whom that owner wishes to forbid, from doing so. DRM is aimed solely and specifically at the people who pay for the material containing it. It's repeatedly been shown to be either ineffective (there's not one form of it that hasn't yet been cracked, generally within a week of release) or harmful (the Sony rootkit being the most infamous example). When the content leeches -- the corporate entities that do no creating, but merely sell other people's creative content -- can come up with a lock that allows me to freely interchange my purchased mp3 between any devices I wish but not to give it away unless I no longer have possession, I'll reconsider my opinion. Until then DRM is a clear assertion of my criminal intent by the folks trying to sell it to me, and good reason to boycott their business.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

>>That's crap. An mp3 isn't a car. Moreover, the lock on a car isn't to prevent the owner from operating it, but to keep people whom that owner wishes to forbid, from doing so. <<

No, THAT is crap; properly done DRM doesn't prevent you from playing your music that you have paid for, anymore than a car lock keeps you from driving your car (unless you've locked your keys inside, which is hardly the maker's fault). All DRM does is prevent you from COPYING the music or letting anyone else who hasn't paid for it play it. (Stipulated that DRM is far from always properly done, as the Sony rootkit case you cite demonstrated.)

Further, an MP3 may not be a car, but the principle is the same as regards the lock. If you make it easy to steal a car, the normally honest may be tempted to drive off with it (and some will). If you make it easy to copy purchased music, people will, for purposes both legitimate and not so.

And it's also unfair to accuse movie studios, record labels, TV networks et al. of contributing nothing to the creative content. What about sets, props, costumes, vehicles etc. in films/TV series (which most screenwriters, producers and so forth could never afford on their own), or recording equipment, professional musicians/production staff and distribution apparatus (which not every musician can afford on their own)? These entities didn't just sidle up to the artists in days bygone and demand (and get) a cut for nothing.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

[Reposted to fix link error]

Glossing over the fact that there is not and never has been such a thing as "properly done DRM", if I buy a song in electronic format I expect to be able to port it, with no difficulty, to ANY AND ALL players I own. No limits, no translators, no having to satisfy someone else's conception of what I ought to be able to do with my property. That, right there, is the essential failure of DRM, and why I continue to repeat that its use assumes that the purchaser is a criminal.

The thing that surprises me about you and other defenders of DRM is that many of them also claim to be defenders of freedom and democracy. Well, a basic principle of a free society is that it judges and punishes actions post facto, not intentions in advance. That latter is the mark of tyranny; they were common in all the most repressive societies you can name.

As for studios not sidling up to artists, I must disagree. That's EXACTLY what they did; here's an insider describing how they did, and the result for the artist. Note the bottom line; that's what studios are defending. Is it acceptable to you? It isn't, to me.

Remember, corporations have NO incentive to be benificent, and without regulation (thanks, crooked Republicans and spineless Democrats!) they aren't. Ever. (Thay may appear so; if so, it's because they think it's in their self-interest. PR is a very minor bit of self-interest.)

Nano-vision

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

I was just in the Apple Store last week fondling an iPod Nano and thinking real hard about buying one. Today, I've read all the NY Times has to say and popped onto the Applesite. I'd been holding off on buying an iPod until I could figure out what was going on and I've now decided to go for a now-old Nano providing I can get one used or on "clearance".

The experience is much like shopping for cars during a model change. The New Nano is somewhat bigger than the old one, it has an improvement of a video option I didn't really want in the first place, and it would require a software upgrade to OS 10.4.8 (Tiger) just on the eve of the introduction of OS 10.5 (Leopard). I'm still quite satisfied with 10.3.9 (Panther; gee they're running out of big cats, as is Earth) and have no use for Widgets or Automator, which are Tiger (& beyond) features. It would be neat if they sold off their overstocks of 2007 Nanos at a discount while they plug the 2008 iPods at the same old prices as the outgoing ones.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6982717.stm

Just as an FYI