Digital Music Forum East
Why was I in New York this week?
http://www.appscout.com/2007/02/digital_music_forum_more_suits.php
For the record, I was about as far from wearing a suit as is possible.
Interesting conference where you can get a good picture of how the various industry players view the universe (and to some extent blame each other and Apple for their problems...).
dc
7 Comments:
So, is the Zune team backing DRM or would they be happy for the content producers remove it?
If EMI does go through with a larger scale experiment will you be able to buy it on Zune marketplace sans DRM?
The whole ditching of P4Sure was geared towards hardware lockin - and avoiding loss of subscribers to other services. Without DRM that advantage is lost.
The Zune team is not "backing" DRM and would happily consider adding content without DRM to the service as it becomes possible. Of course, all-you-can-eat subscription without DRM isn't very likely.
Can't comment on EMI or other deals specifically, of course.
We didn't do p4s so we had the ability to move faster and could take responsibility for the entire e2e. DRM isn't a very effective lock-in in this space (at least I hope so - or we're in real trouble with Apple's!).
OK, I get using your own DRM allows you to move faster. But why didn't you provide compatibiliy with existing P4S? So Zune DRM was a value added function on top of P4S?
Is it just the issue of packing in this functionality (time and space?).
I think the subscription model with DRM and download without DRM would work well. In reality a lot of users just legally burn their puchased music anyway - downloading sans DRM is just making this process easier to use.
So, if Zune supports non-DRM, why not provide the music available on emusic.com available to buy on Zune Marketplace without DRM? There is overlap between the catalogs and emusic downloads have no restrictions.
The market place really needs a good digital watermarking system.
I assume you were the Zune guy they were glad to have according to the article. What did you take from the event?
First let me be completely honest with my bias. I own two iPods a 60GB Video iPod and 1GB Nano. I definately don't believe that the iPod is the best player out there. There are much better video players made by Creative and I think the Sansa is much better than the Nano.It's the whole ecosystem of the Mac,iTunes,3rd party software,and 3rd party accesories (Nike Plus) that keeps me with Apple. Now on to the point....
1. They all sound like a bunch of whiners...poor us we can't compete and make money because of Apple. As mentioned in the article, the two other companies making money have a different, workable business model. eMusic sells regular MP3's and Real through their deals with MLB.
2. Apple is in the same position in the computer market as these companies are in the music download business. Apple has 5% of the computer market but do you see Steve Jobs complaining that they can't make money selling Macintosh's because of big bad Microsoft?
3. Slight thought experiment. Can you imagine the positive press that the Zune would have received if the release had been pushed off a year but with all of the functionality of iPod+iTunes and tighter integration with Windows Media Center and XBox live? Can you imagine Microsoft doing a Steve Jobs style demo showing the presenter setting up a scheduled recording on a Windows Media Center PC, having the show go directly into the Windows Media Player and then docking your Zune and having the show sync with the Zune automatically? (Yes I know the Zune doesn't use Windows Media Player, that's part of the point).
What about being able to use your Zune Pass with your XBOX? Your Xbox live TV shows with your Zune?
This is why Apple is successful. As a hardware+software company it would have done this type of convergence. Why can't the much bigger Microsoft?
Hey David,
Nice job on TWIT. Very informative. Thanks
OK, now the no-DRM deal has been announced with EMI we need to know.
a. If the Zune will support transcoding from the iTunes AAC non-DRM format.
b. If the Zune marketplace is going to be in on the deal.
c. If the same upgrade option will be available for existing purchases.
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