A few weeks back, I wrote extensively about the EMI/Steve Jobs press conference, as well as the DRM establishment's response. Check it out if you haven't. It's really good stuff, and not just because I wrote it.
Well, here's the rest of the story, or at least as much of it as I accidentally found this morning.
Here again is the transcript of the press conference with EMI Group chief executive Eric Nicoli and Jobs. You'll find that Steve does much of the talking (surprised?), but both guys come off as smart, funny and self-deprecating. A nice read.
Of course, you'll want to hear it yourself. So allow me to present an MP3 of the press conference!
And because you're a glutton for this stuff, here are the slides in PDF form. How cool is that?
On one hand, the slides don't actually say much at all. That's the point. You kids out there? Don't do drugs. And don't put a pile of crap on slides!!! That point-by-point build nonsense? Strictly for amateurs. Don't ever, ever, ever do it. Seriously. Give people a big pretty picture to look at, then tell 'em a story.
If you give them a slide with a lot of bullet points, they'll read 'em fast, assume that this is all you have to say about it (especially if you read even one line aloud to them), and stop listening. It's a waste of time for everyone.
But if you show them a pretty picture, they'll immediately turn back to you, breathless, waiting for you to tell them what it means. You think I'm kidding about this? I'm not. Pay attention to El Jobso. He won't lead you astray.
Okay, slides rant over. But I have plenty of other stories to tell on the subject some other day. For now, back to fun with DRM, EMI, Apple, etc.
Not long after the original press conference, EMI Senior Vice President Jeanne Meyer did a great follow-up interview with bloggers at The Download Squad. (In case you were wondering, bloggers do indeed carry enough weight to get VPs from multinational companies to sit down with them. I suspect that the Download Squad strategy included just asking. So if there's some heavyweight you want to interview for your blog, just ask.)
Here are some choice bits:
The reason we decided to go with a DRM free version was because of the lack of interoperability between the various stores and devices were becoming too confusing and too frustrating.
So it turns out that EMI's strategy was based, at least in part, on the limitations of the iPod/iTunes closed architecture! Read it again. It's her point not mine, but I'm surprised we missed this before.
Not that she's singling out iTunes, though:
It will allow any retailer to sell our music to the owner of an iPod for example, not just iTunes, at the same time it will allow iTunes to sell music for people to buy for use on any number of different digital music devices and in fact mobile phones.
This quote might be the most interesting to me:
When we offered DRM free in an standard format next to a DRM free but with a higher bitrateand priced a little higher consumers on a ten to one basis went for the premium product.
I'm totally in the majority on that count, but I'll be interested to see how it holds up. On the one hand, the MP3/MP4 format is a testament to how little sound quality matters when compared to convenience. (CDs are too, for that matter.) But when higher quality is every bit as convenient? Maybe.
Also worth remembering: that the average number of tracks that iPod owners buy through iTunes is 20. Twenty. But let's put it this way. Say every iPod is responsible for just a single download of higher quality, non-DRM music that they wouldn't have bought anyway. So 100 million times $1.29 equals....where's my pencil?....$129 million dollars. I'll take it.
She also notes, as Steve did, that nearly all music currently sold has no DRM. Even if every downloaded track had no DRM, it would account for far less than 10% of overall music sales. Which begs the question, what was the fuss in the first place? Anyhoo.....
Two last updates, one new and one old. The new one first. Steve says no dice on the subscription model for iTunes. ""Never say never, but customers don't seem to be interested in it," he says, "People want to own their music." Hard to argue.
On the other hand (I'm saying that a lot, aren't I?), I watch whatever it is, 20 or 30 hours a week watching subscription TV (okay, closer to 40 once you throw in Red Sox games), and maybe 2-4 hours a month watching DVDs I own. So all the hoop-de-doo about subscriptions being the wrong model is nonsense to me. Subscription models have been proven again and again. We just don't have the right model of the right model yet.
Wait! The whole XM thing is the perfect evidence that subscription models for music do work well enough for a sizable and fast-growing audience. And radio's ratings are up while TV's are down. So there. You don't have to either own music or steal it to listen to it.
Now here's the old "update." Folks as old as me will remember when Real Audio was the coolest thing ever. Cooler than QuickTime, by a long, long shot. (Not that QuickTime could stream then. Could it?) Rob Glaser seemed like a stud because, when Apple was adrift and a non-player, he left Microsoft with the express purpose of kicking MS's ass...which for streaming media, he totally did...uhm, until...well, I'm not sure when. But sometime around when they became RealNetworks, Real became (or was revealed as?) the lowest quality, most invasive annoyance on the net. Am I wrong about this?
Anyway, here's Rob at the end of 2005 saying that the iPod's reign is going to fade "closer to 2 years than 10" (although he makes an interesting analogy with Apple's computer market share sliding from 40% to less than 4% at the time of the interview), the reason the subscription model isn't getting traction is that most people steal their music (what?), and using Lynyrd Skynyrd as an example of why Real's Rhapsody music subscription service is the coolest. I was going to say it's hilarious and provocative in equal measure....but it's more like 75% hilarious, 10% provocative, and 10% "huh?" and 5% sad for anyone who remembers when Real was cool. But you'll dig the interview. Maybe a lesson to never say anything about anything about the future in print, even online, because you'll almost certainly look like an idiot later.
Speaking of which, where's my dang rocket car? Didn't somebody say we'd have rocket cars by now?
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