A month and a half ago I wrote a column in response to “Thoughts on Music,” an essay Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted on the company’s Web site where he explained why he thought major record labels should abandon digital rights management, or DRM–a polite name for the security measures injected into the song files sold through most digital-music stores. DRM is supposed to keep you from sharing copyrighted music, whether over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks or through burned CDs, but every DRM scheme ever released has been smacked down by hackers. And since DRM dictates what you can and can’t do with music you’ve legally purchased, it adds a nagging-parent aspect to the majors’ public image–an image that’s already been sullied by guilt-trip antipiracy ads and aggressive but ineffective lawsuits against alleged P2P users.
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Apple made its announcement in the this-is-gonna-change-the-world-and-make-you-happy-in-ways-you-can-scarcely-imagine tone it uses for most of its tech rollouts, and EMI added a touch of unwarranted magnanimousness (“EMI and iTunes are once again teaming up to move the digital music industry forward”). True, EMI’s move is a nice change from the majors’ default position of treating their buying public like filthy criminals, but it’s not like the label doesn’t stand to gain. The fact that they’re the first to embrace Jobs’s “music for the people” philosophy is a PR coup and ought to endear them to online consumers who haven’t already turned their backs on the majors. The label will also profit directly: the DRM-free tracks will run $1.29 apiece, rather than Apple’s standard 99 cents, and you’ll be able to upgrade previously purchased tracks by paying the difference.
EMI’s arrangement with Apple isn’t exclusive, and Microsoft, which had some harsh words for “Thoughts on Music,” reversed course and announced on April 6 that it would start selling the DRM-free EMI tracks through its Zune Marketplace too. The company even hinted that it had deals in progress with the rest of the Big Four. But no one seriously doubts that it was Apple’s move that forced Microsoft’s hand. And Apple apparently also has deals in the works with other majors: Jobs predicts that iTunes will be able to offer “more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year.”
The prospect of an all-digital music marketplace has a lot of brick-and-mortar retailers rushing to adapt, but Chicago’s Reckless Records chain still does less than 5 percent of its business online. It also seems unfazed by big boxes like Best Buy and Wal-Mart, whose loss-leader tactics have wreaked havoc on record stores. Funky mom-and-pops like Hi-Fi Records and the Dr. Wax in Edgewater have been joined on the casualty list by the entire Tower Records chain, but Reckless is expanding: the new location at 26 E. Madison opened last week, and I dropped in on its second day.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Reckless Records at 26 E. Madison photo/Yvette Marie Dostatni; illustration/Godfrey Carmona.
