Digital Rights Management
Apple offers music pirates permanent amnesty for $24.99
June 7, 2011: 7:16 AM ETSteve Jobs' master plan to draw a generation raised on stolen music into the iTunes store
Image: Apple Inc. Click to enlarge.
Of the 5,364 items in my iTunes music library, 143 are songs I purchased on Apple's (AAPL) iTunes store. The vast majority were ripped from my old CD collection. A few were obtained by other means.
My children have even larger digital music collections that they store on iTunes and play on their Apple devices. I venture to guess that like most kids their age, the vast majority of their music came, directly or via friends, from pirate sites. When I offer to gift them iTunes music, they tell me thanks, but no thanks. It's not worth the hassle.
As I understand it, the iCloud service Steve Jobs introduced Monday -- especially the feature called iTunes Match -- is a bid to change that dynamic.
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iTunes music: The cost of removing Apple's copy protection
When Apple announced Tuesday that it was finally lifting the so-called digital rights management (DRM) restrictions that iTunes music customers found so onerous, it left one thing out: the cost of doing so -- in money and, as we learned overnight, time.
"We are thrilled to be able to offer our iTunes customers DRM-free iTunes Plus songs in high quality audio," said Steve Jobs in a press release.
"It's really easy," said MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 7, 2009 11:21 AM ETPosted in: Apple, Digital Rights Management, DRM, iTunes, iTunes Store, Macworld, Microsoft, Phil Schiller, SanDisk, Steve Jobs -
Macworld 2008: How can Steve Jobs top the iPhone?
The Macworld Conference & Expo, Silicon Valley's largest technology trade show, opens Monday. But the moment everyone is waiting for comes Tuesday morning, when Steve Jobs makes his annual keynote address at San Francisco's Moscone Center.
Jobs has set a high bar for himself. At Macworld 2006, he introduced the first Intel (INTC)-based Macs -- sparking a burst of sales that nearly doubled Apple's (AAPL) market share from roughly MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 14, 2008 2:00 AM ETPosted in: 3G, Apple, Apple TV, Beatles, Digital Rights Management, DRM, Flash-drive MacBook, Fox, Hollywood, iPhone, iTunes, Keynote, Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook mini, Macworld, Market Share, Microsoft, Office 2008, Steve Jobs, ThinBook, Xserve -
What the Apple-Fox iTunes deal means
There are few things Steve Jobs loves more than a dramatic Macworld surprise announcement, but three weeks before his annual keynote speech, someone - my guess would be Rupert Murdoch - just stole his thunder.
Several sources this morning - including the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal - are reporting that Apple (AAPL) and News Corp. (NWS) have struck a deal for a new video-on-demand service that could change MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 27, 2007 8:09 AM ETPosted in: Apple, Digital Rights Management, FairPlay, Fox, Hollywood, iTunes, Macworld, News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, Steve Jobs -
Warner Music's Bronfman Changes His Tune
Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr., who once likened Napster to slavery and Soviet communism, made headlines today with a mea culpa in which he confesses that he -- and the music industry -- was asleep at the wheel. (see below)
The billionaire song-writer and sometime Broadway and Hollywood producer (who inherited a fortune from the House of Seagram and lost much of it) even had kind words for MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 15, 2007 9:07 AM ET -
The Hole In Apple's iTunes Price Cut
Two days after Apple (AAPL) began cutting the price of its DRM-free music for new customers, from $1.29 a song to 99¢, the company is still charging the higher price for existing customers.
The fact of the 30¢ price cut was confirmed yesterday by Steve Jobs, although the company denied that the move was in response to competition from Amazon (AMZN), which charges 89¢ to 99¢ per song, or Wal-Mart (WMT), MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 17, 2007 9:32 AM ETPosted in: Digital Rights Management, iTunes
