Apple's Jobs warns on music pricing --Reuters

Tue Sep 20, 2005 08:24 AM ET

By Astrid Wendlandt
PARIS (Reuters) - Apple boss Steve Jobs, the man behind the popular iPod digital music player, called the music industry greedy for considering a hike in the price of digital downloads, warning such a move would drive users back to piracy.

Record companies have begun rethinking how to price songs sold over Apple's iTunes Internet shop -- 99 cents each in the United States and 79 pence in Britain -- before new contract negotiations come up with the California-based company.

"If they want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy," said Jobs, chief executive of Apple (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , at a news conference in Paris on Tuesday.

"If the price goes up, they (consumers) will go back to piracy and everybody loses," he said.

Hit hard over the past five years by the rapid spread of illegal song copying over the Internet, music companies are struggling to revamp their business models as sales shift to more legal digital downloads from the CD format.

Vivendi's (EAUG.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) Universal Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (BERT.UL: Quote, Profile, Research) (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) , EMI Group (EMI.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and Warner Music (WMG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) are responsible for three out of every four albums sold around the world.

Apple, which Jobs said had more than 80 percent of the U.S. digital music market, unveiled this month a pencil-thin "iPod nano" digital music player aimed at securing its lead.

Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president of the iPod division, told journalists the company was not planning to add radio features on to its digital player because there was not enough demand for it.

WIRELESS MUSIC SCEPTICISM

Jobs also cast a skeptical eye on the future of the market for downloading music on mobile handsets.

"It is not clear that buying songs over the air makes economic sense," Jobs said. "I am skeptical because of the cost ... but we will see." Continued ...

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

Jobs: Video, Bluetooth, radio, 3G iTunes for iPod? Doubt it --Silicon

And keep your "greedy" hands off my iTunes pricing model

By Jo Best

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today gave strong hints that the company would not be looking to make a pure-play iPod phone or portable video player anytime soon.

With the soft launch of video podcasting and the iTunes Music Store now encouraging the purchase of albums or EPs with a free video, rumours have been rife of a video playing iPod debuting in time for Christmas stockings.

So far, it seems Jobs is yet to see a demand for the device and is unimpressed with the existing video players on the market. Speaking today at Apple's annual European conference, Apple Expo in Paris, he said: "Whether people want to buy a device just to watch video is not clear - so far the answer's been no. Devices that do video... have not been successful yet. No-one's figured out the right formula."

However, he didn't shut the door on a video playing device. "One never knows," he added.

Bluetooth connectivity or a radio - a common feature in Windows MP3 players - are even more unlikely additions to the iPod feature set, senior Apple execs revealed today.

Jobs said: "The problem with Bluetooth headphones is that it's not just recharging your iPod, you have to recharge your headphones too. People hate it. There are quality issues - the bandwidth isn't high enough, and even if it does get there some day, people don't want to recharge their headphones."

Jon Rubinstein, head of the iPod division added that, in Apple's experience, customers just don't want radios on their iPods. "Believe it or not, we don't get a lot of requests from customers" for a radio, he said. "We're very hesitant to add new features unless we feel a significant portion of the customer base want it."

One new feature to be found in Motorola phones these days is iTunes functionality, following the launch of the Rokr handset earlier this month. Despite months of collaboration between the two companies to produce the handset, Jobs remains reserved about the take-up of online song shops over mobile phones, saying the difference in cost between using a PC and using a phone to download music, as well as phones' small screens make the process unappealing.

"In terms of buying music over the air - the carriers spent an awful lot of money on their 3G networks and they charge an awful lot of money to download a song to a phone... they might charge $3," he said. "And you have to sync it back to your PC - so let's think about this: you buy songs over the air for €3 a piece and then have to sync it to your PC or you buy them on your PC for less than €1 a piece and then sync it to your phone."

"It's not clear buying over the air makes economic sense - I'm sceptical because of cost," he said.

The iTunes pricing model - £0.79 or €0.99 a song - won't change anytime soon, it seems. Jobs today described any company that wants to raise iTunes' prices as "greedy" and added such a move would push consumers back into the arms of illegal P2P sites.

"Some music companies think the price is perfect right where it is; some music companies might like to do little experimenting with the price but, in general, they think it's perfect right where it is. One of the companies would like to raise prices. The problem is we're still competing with piracy and customers think the price [for iTunes] is really good right where it is," he said.

"If they want to raise prices on iTunes, it just means they're getting a little greedy - consumers won't like that. It will just be a message to consumers to go back to piracy and that's not good. If the price goes up a lot, they'll go back to piracy and everybody loses. Everybody loses."

According to Apple, UK year-on-year growth has been in the region of 90 per cent. Now Jobs has his eye on other areas of Europe - if only he can defeat the taxman. "We'd like to see that same kind of growth in France and Germany," Jobs said.

"There's issues to work on - the taxes on the iPod here in France are very high... it's ridiculous."

We have things that need to be done. I'm afraid that the damage is done from piracy, and the only way to compensate is by doing good business to customers.

First things first, now it's the time for the DMCRA to pass. In it's modified form, consumers could circumvent a DRM measure that's non-introperable and that it could make non-interoperable DRM illegal, because these DRM measures are causing anti-competition. Apple is making this practice by shutting out other players from iTunes and preventing everyone from playing their music out of iTunes. That may be the reason why the iPod was so popular.

By passing the DMCRA (Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act) by Rick Boucher, consumers are allowed to circumvent the technological measures in order to allow for legitimate copying (backups, portability, and other uses like interoperability between media like putting a music file as a custom soundtrack in a computer or video game), but remain illegal to circumvent technology for piracy reasons. This will not enhibit piracy, because it will only bring tools for consumers that circumvent the technology, but the technology that prevents people from sharing online or making mass amounts of CDs of music remain. It's time to change for the better, RIAA, or, I'm afraid, that we will have more people doing illegal downloading. I don't illegally download, but if these practices continue, than no more CDs will be purchased until things get better.

And, as for Apple, it's time to change the security and let people use non-Ipod portable players for your service. After all, I think that you will make more money that way.

When is the DMCRA coming up to be voted on.?

"We have things that need to be done. I'm afraid that the damage is done from piracy "

Piracy has done no damage.
There is absolutely no concrete proof of that.
DRM , Greed, Sue 'em all, DRM ( worth 2 mentions ), generic "product", DRM ...
Those HAVE done considerable damage.
I have yet to hear of a single ship carrying CD's being hijacked on the high seas.

Let them raise the price. It makes economic sense to me. The more they charge, the more they will lose. Why would you buy 3000kps of music instead of 30mbs for the same price? I thought the sheep were a little smarter. As for DRM let them.

"I have yet to hear of a single ship carrying CD's being hijacked on the high seas."

Of course real piracy isn't a joke, especially when murder is committed, but just for the sake of the linguistic issue, I'd love to see a headline read that real pirates have actually hijacked a ship and see what the music industry calls them.

Heck, it'd be awesome if old Captain Nemo was cruising the high seas in a stealth sub hijacking the cargo of music industry ships and leaving the crew in life rafts with food rations and gps trackers in order to ensure a safe rescue.

That'd make an interesting novel...

I like how they talk about features not requested on the iPod. I can think of one feature that should be the defacto standard on ALL MP3 players.

Gapless/Seamless playback.

Just how do you play a Pink Floyd album or DJ dance mix compilation purchased from iTunes on your iPod without gaps/pauses between each track?

"Piracy has done no damage."

There is absolutely no concrete proof of that.


"I have yet to hear of a single ship carrying CD's being hijacked on the high seas."

Gee, let's make the same stupid joke for 5 years and think it's funny. You are such an idiot.

"Just how do you play a Pink Floyd album or DJ dance mix compilation purchased from iTunes on your iPod without gaps/pauses between each track?"

There is a way to do that. I'm not sure what it is, but I saw someone else make the same complaint and someone else told him how to do it. I think there is an ITunes forum - go over there and ask.

""Piracy has done no damage."

There is absolutely no concrete proof of that.


"I have yet to hear of a single ship carrying CD's being hijacked on the high seas."

Gee, let's make the same stupid joke for 5 years and think it's funny. You are such an idiot. "

Marvelous, insightful AND relevant
I know I can COUNT on you to insult every single one of my posts, whether it merits it or not . Grr Arrgh.

Anyway .....
As long as JD continues to "parrot" company line , I will counter.

"You are such an idiot. "

What a response mroop. Shows the level of your intelligence.

Even if you accept 'piracy' as the term for P2P file sharing, there IS NO CONCRETE proof of damage to music sales. P2P file sharing has been shown to have minimal, if any, damage on music sales.

If you accept 'piracy' as the term for people copying and selling CD's at flea markets or on street corners for personal profit, then such 'piracy' has caused damage. No one here condones such clearly illegal actions.

"Piracy" is a deroggatory term being applied to people engaging in 'copyright infringement', some of which may or may not be considered illegal or 'actionable'. It is designed to paint an awful image of stealing that isn't appropriate. Kind of like your above response.

"Gapless/Seamless playback."

Don't know much about codecs? You cannot strickly speaking, make an mp3 seamless or gapless, the codec itself doesn't support it. However, you can use a technique called fading to simulate the effect. AFAIK, AAC codec doesn't support it either.

INeedALover,

So nice to see you post! Now, hows about answering this for me?

Speaking of proof, I believe you said I was a liar, and I believe (scrolling up) oh yes, I did indeed ask you about it. That was 3 days ago. Do you intend to answer the question?

It's one thing to say somebody is this or that, it's quiet another to prove it. Incidently, remaining silent on the issue despite what you may have been told, does not make you appear anymore so correct then myself. So your better off to either answer the question, or just stop claiming I'm a liar. Your credibility isn't going to withstand much more.

I'm waiting.

Awehr,

I'm still waiting for you to explain what the BIOS has to do with an antitrust lawsuit against microsoft. Do you have an answer for me yet?

No damage from "piracy"?

Of course if we're talking about people selling bootleg copies of CDs, there probably is economic damage from that sort of commercial infringement. I'm not certain how one would prove actual loss, though. If they were being passed off as genuine and sold for $15 in a CD shop, there's a clear loss to the record company there. If it is a CD-R you buy on the streetcorner for $2, it would be harder to prove that this is a lost sale.

As far as noncommercial personal downloading, it would appear the concrete evidence of harm is nonexistant. Just in the past day or two there was a news item on a study showing that those who trade music bought more music online than those who don't trade music. This at least suggests that, like free music on the radio stimulates the purchase of music in a store, free music downloaded also stimulates more music purchases (online or in a store).

"No damage from "piracy"?

No, None.
The legal profession is VERY picky about the words they choose in court.
Copyright Infringement is the term.
Piracy or Theft is incorrect.
Use of these terms is propoganda.

"Of course if we're talking about people selling bootleg copies of CDs, there probably is economic damage from that sort of commercial infringement."

Can't argue with that. I don't THINK anyone here condones that, or believes it's legal.

"As far as noncommercial personal downloading, it would appear the concrete evidence of harm is nonexistant. "

That's the Infringement type I was referring to when mentioning "no concrete eveidence" was available.
Strange that these are the "infringers" they are targeting the most.

So,
no, no damage from "Piracy".
We really shouldn't accept "their" term for infringement. Heck, the courts don't allow it, why should we ?

Dreddsnik - your poor pitiful fool and baldfaced liar. You're nothing but a shill and a sellout. First you were against p2p and now you are for p2p. Please make up your mind already. I guess it depends on who is paying you to post your propaganda this week.

Grr Arrgh

Playing a Pink Floyd album or dance mix CD
seamlessly on an iPod or another portable
player?

One solution is a program called Albumwrap,
but it costs money and requires properly
tagged files in order to work. Audacity, a
free audio editing program, might also work
to join tracks together, though I've never
used it as such. What I have is a version
of Cool Edit (the last one before Adobe
bought them out). That can join together
audio files as well.

Albumwrap is shareware, at $15.00 and can
be downloaded from:
http://www.infamus.com/albumwrap/

jeffmorse, thank you for the POSITIVE input here. Personally, I don't care if he get seamless anything....but it's nice to see someone post who isn't badmouthing someone else.

Hey Jeff, I use CoolEdit Pro myself and think it's a great program. It could be used to fade one song into another..but for Pink Floyd's The Wall it would be a challenge to do it manually.

I just ripped a copy of the Wall disc 1 from my CD....strange, this is the first time I've had a MP3 copy of The Wall..

I've had vinyl, twice (one scratched to hell;the other melted when mom put my box of lps down by the furnace in the basement),

8 track once,

cassette once, copied two or three times...remember TDK's?

and CD twice (the first copy was sold with the rest of my cds in 1992 to get gas money to drive half way across Canada back home to NFLD)....

Anyway, I used Itunes( at 320 kbps) and happily each song (each with proper tags) runs seamlessly into the next (I'd have to get headphones to see if there is a discernible switch from one song to the next) when playing in winamp. I'll copy them to my mp3 player to see if it's the same.

"Awehr,

I'm still waiting for you to explain what the BIOS has to do with an antitrust lawsuit against microsoft. Do you have an answer for me yet?"

If microsoft colludes with bios manufacturers to include a bios which excludes operating systems competing with microsoft's, or software which competes with microsoft's, then it is grounds for antitrust law to be brought down on them like 10 tons of bricks.

Such a tactic would follow the pattern of tactics used which got them into trouble on antitrust issues in the first place.

Sounds like you are confused over Microsofts NGSCB project. If fully implimented, it would require the BIOS only trust secure, tested, and certified operating systems. That is, windows and nothing else. It would not prevent booting other OSs - but it would consider them untrusted, and disable various functions such as access to secure key storage. So, althrough it would be a big barrier to interoperability, it wouldn't be actually illegal.

"So, althrough it would be a big barrier to interoperability, it wouldn't be actually illegal."

microsoft does not privately own the trusted computing standard or the tpm chip patents.

Therefore it would be illegal for microsoft to prevent it's competitors from accessing the tpm "functionality" (if you can call it that)

No, but they are part of the group of companies working on it. They are the major software company in the group - Intel makes most of the hardware decisions.

yes, but they're not allowed to exclude their competitors, and they're not allowed to collude to exclude their competitors.

there's a difference between making your own standards like dvd-cca and the mpaa, and corrupting existing ones to exclude your competitors.

if microsoft chose to build their own microsoft pc's like apple builds their own macs, that would be one thing,but they're not.

let me put it another way.

If apple formed some cross industry standards group to push for the replacement of bios with third party mac compatible firmware, then arranged the specs and terms so as to exlude windows, that would be anticompetitive practice and obvious breach of antitrust law.

The same goes for what would happen if microsoft trys this with the TCPA.

RaidHHI

"I'm waiting."

Keep waiting.

PineMikey,

"Anyway, I used Itunes( at 320 kbps) and happily each song (each with proper tags) runs seamlessly into the next (I'd have to get headphones to see if there is a discernible switch from one song to the next) when playing in winamp. I'll copy them to my mp3 player to see if it's the same."

So you didn't do a secure rip, and you actually used a modified codec. IE: even tho your mp3s are 320kbps, they aren't as good as they could have been, had you used a different codec. It's more then a bitrate sample that makes a good mp3.
Not that it matters much, since you didn't do a secure rip; we can't trust the integrity of the source .wav files prior to compression.

t"herefore it would be illegal for microsoft to prevent it's competitors from accessing the tpm "functionality" (if you can call it that)""

As I suspected, you don't even know what the BIOS does on a PC. Why did it take you 4 days to come up with this poor excuse instead of just saying you didn't know? Listen, and I really don't mean to sound like a jerk to you; but you really, honestly need to take a basic computer hardware course before you make any further posts about DRM on a pc. While your at it, it probably wouldn't hurt to learn a bit about the software interface level with the hardware. As I said, I don't mean to seem harsh, but this isn't even funny anymore.

INeedALover,

"Keep waiting."

As I suspected, your indeed trying to blow smoke up peoples ass here. Do you think anyone besides me hasn't noticed how stupid you actually are?

“…you didn't do a secure rip, and you actually used a modified codec…they aren't as good as they could have been…we can't trust the integrity of the source…”

Raid, you need to lighten up. PM ripped some music for his own use and seemed to be quite happy with it. Obviously, no one who comes here could possibly do anything on a computer that would live up to your expectations as a self-proclaimed Techno-god. So, why even bother pointing out how inept everyone is if you are not willing to offer any advice or specific solutions. If you are half as intelligent as you seem to think you are, you could do much more constructive things with your time than sitting around all day taking jabs at us “mere mortals.”

…or maybe you are just ticked because you already said it couldn’t be done and PM was able to do it.

“You cannot strickly speaking, make an mp3 seamless or gapless, the codec itself doesn't support it.”

Maybe DeadMan was more interested in finding a way to do it that lives up to his standards, not yours.

"As I suspected, you don't even know what the BIOS does on a PC. Why did it take you 4 days to come up with this poor excuse instead of just saying you didn't know? Listen, and I really don't mean to sound like a jerk to you; but you really, honestly need to take a basic computer hardware course before you make any further posts about DRM on a pc. While your at it, it probably wouldn't hurt to learn a bit about the software interface level with the hardware. As I said, I don't mean to seem harsh, but this isn't even funny anymore."

Listen here you ignorant sod. You asked a question and I answered it correctly. You don't like it STFU, because YOU obviously don't know what bios i'm talking about.

Actually.. i've taken hardware courses. I've studied the inner workings of ram and processor in fine detail, and could probably write the verilog necessary to make simple specialized chips. so STFU with the elitist atttitude.

For your information, microsoft is trying to push specialized bios into TCPA which would give microsoft the capacity to remote format your hard disk independent of OS, and also to give microsoft the ability to prevent OSS developers from accessing the TPM chip (through closed docs i'm assuming)

"...microsoft is trying to push specialized bios into TCPA..."

awehr, do you have links to more information about this? I would be interested to get more details.

byteme,

"Raid, you need to lighten up. PM ripped some music for his own use and seemed to be quite happy with it. Obviously, no one who comes here could possibly do anything on a computer that would live up to your expectations as a self-proclaimed Techno-god."

Do you have some sort of inferiority complex or something? I wasn't cracking on him.

"So, why even bother pointing out how inept everyone is if you are not willing to offer any advice or specific solutions. If you are half as intelligent as you seem to think you are, you could do much more constructive things with your time than sitting around all day taking jabs at us “mere mortals.”"

You don't read so well? I've posted urls where to get the codecs, the software, and the necessary instructions for setting up and using them. How much more help do you need? Pictures?

"…or maybe you are just ticked because you already said it couldn’t be done and PM was able to do it."

Wait.. What did I say couldn't be done?

"Maybe DeadMan was more interested in finding a way to do it that lives up to his standards, not yours"

finding a way? You really need to learn wtf your talking about, before you suggest finding another way. The mp3 codec does NOT support gapless playback, the .OGG format however does. As for standards, again, I wasn't bitching at him. If you want gapless, you fade it. Or, you use another codec. Gapless isn't available in the standard mp3 format. It just wasn't something considered at the time. Winamp will pause for a slight moment between tracks, thats the way mp3 technology is. OGG files have a slight header, so winamp actually starts reading the next file in line before it's done with the first, so you get gapless playback. Mp3 does not have this header, and thus doesn't support gapless playback. Does this make sense to you now?

"Listen here you ignorant sod. You asked a question and I answered it correctly. You don't like it STFU, because YOU obviously don't know what bios i'm talking about."

Theirs only one BIOS on the ibm pc platform. Made by different manufacturers, but most of the kernel code is published and hasn't been changed in years. What other BIOS is there? You didn't answer my question correctly. I've already told you, microsoft has nothing to do with this phoenix bios I'm looking at beside me. What possible lawsuit could microsoft be in if this bios didn't support running something? Matter of fact, it doesn't natively support IDE, should foxconn or phoenix be sued for that? It's SATA only.

"Actually.. i've taken hardware courses. I've studied the inner workings of ram and processor in fine detail, and could probably write the verilog necessary to make simple specialized chips. so STFU with the elitist atttitude."

Really? Which school did you attend these courses? And you've studied the inner workings of ram? Then can you tell me why RDram memory basically bombed? WHich is faster, DDR or RDRAM?

"For your information, microsoft is trying to push specialized bios into TCPA which would give microsoft the capacity to remote format your hard disk independent of OS, and also to give microsoft the ability to prevent OSS developers from accessing the TPM chip (through closed docs i'm assuming)"

It will give microsoft the ability to remote format my hard disk? You have some urls for this? I'd like to see this specialized bios they're pushing for, since the bios has to maintain contact with some old and pitiful technology. You have urls for it?

Better watch who you call ignorant in this field, awehr. I was being nice about it, but I can easily be a real dick instead. Your choice.

Byteme..I'm not taking too much credit at performing anything special. The ITunes software just copied the CD as it was...I suspect all the editing had already been done on the original. I haven't tried it on my MP3 player yet..and the cheapo player I have more than likely will put a pause between tracks. I'm sure the more sophisicated players have ways of crossfading between tracks or eliminating the pause altogether.

Dreddsnik: Piracy has done no damage.

Aggree but the lawsuits did!

As a result many customers such as myself walked definitively away from the RIAA company and thr RIAA radar are receiving a lot of hit as a result.

Raising the price of the DRmed itune? Go for it so that we will not have to DDOS itune because it will die faster that we can kill it.

Illegaly downloading! according to what law?

Not my law! I am downloading every day entire ISO image of RIAA music CD, turn then into MP3 files at 128kbs and share them on various MP3 network. All my personal collection of CD that I bought few year ago are since a while on P2Ps now.

I am not sure if it does any damage but at least it enrages them and it makes me smile! Better than bullets (for now.)

MajorTreat,

"Raising the price of the DRmed itune? Go for it so that we will not have to DDOS itune because it will die faster that we can kill it."

DDOS itunes? HAHAHAHA, Do you have any foggy notion how much bandwidth you'd need to even make them notice you? Muahahahah.. My god, think about how many files they move per day to countless users. That's a hell of a big pipe to the net. You haven't got a chance in on a cold snowy day in hell.

"Not my law! I am downloading every day entire ISO image of RIAA music CD, turn then into MP3 files at 128kbs and share them on various MP3 network. All my personal collection of CD that I bought few year ago are since a while on P2Ps now."

128k? And your bragging about it? My God...

"Raising the price of the DRmed itune? Go for it so that we will not have to DDOS itune because it will die faster that we can kill it."

I DO despise them as much as you MajorTreat, but I would never condone an illegal action. They will kill themselves faster and better than we could, you are right about that.

I am not an audiophile. Just a casual listener. Nearly all my mp3's are 192k, with a few 128k. It may not satisfy audio snobs, but it is a "good enough" compromise for streaming on my home network.
If I want that higher quality sound I can always put in the original CD ( or vinyl ) which I own for every mp3 I have.

RaidHHI is an RIAA Agent Ignore him.

RaidHHI is an RIAA Agent Ignore him.

RaidHHI is an RIAA Agent Ignore him.

"Do you have any foggy notion how much bandwidth"

The response to this is so obvious that it proove that RaidHHI is an RIAA agent
Ignore RaidHHI.

You know whats funny MajorTreat? Your are exactly the type of stupid poster I was talking about. People ignorant like you are the majority here. Thanks so much for once again proving my point.

RaidHHI is na RIAA Agent Ignore him.

MajorTreat,

"RaidHHI is na RIAA Agent Ignore him."

Do you have any proof of this? Just asking. How much am I being paid for this agent work? I haven't recieved any contracts or employment offers with the riaa. Have you gotten my mail by mistake?

"RIAA" I mean "RaidHHI" is an RIAA Agent Ignore him.

I wonder how many of those posts I can get you to make in a single day...

RaidHHI is an RIAA Agent Ignore him.
RaidHHI is a parasite Ignore him.
RaidHHI has no brain Ignore him.
RaidHHI is a music dinosaur Ignore him.
RaidHHI is a tech dinosaur Ignore him.
RaidHHI is a business dinosaur Ignore him.
RaidHHI have no place among us. Ignore him.
RaidHHI is mean and self-fish. Ignore him.
RaidHHI will be soon extinct like all his friends at the RIAA.

Bye Bye Bye RAIDHHI!

Hahaha.. Man.. the mentality of this place...