Steve Jobs on the Music Industry
Published December 10, 2003
No. If copyright dies, if patents die, if the protection of intellectual property is eroded, then people will stop investing. That hurts everyone. People need to have the incentive so that if they invest and succeed, they can make a fair profit. But on another level entirely, it's just wrong to steal. Or let's put it this way: It is corrosive to one's character to steal. We want to provide a legal alternative.
Of course, a lot of college students who are grabbing music off Kazaa today don't see themselves as doing anything any different from what you did when you were a teenager, copying bootleg Bob Dylan tapes.
The truth is, it's really hard to talk to people about not stealing music when there's no legal alternative. The advent of a legal alternative is only six months old. Maybe there's been a generation of kids lost — and maybe not, who knows? Maybe they think stealing music is like driving seventy mph on the freeway — it's over the speed limit, but what's the big deal? But I don't think that's the way it's going to stay, not with future generations, at least. But who knows? This is all new territory.
And then there's Microsoft. What happens to Apple when Bill Gates starts building an iTunes clone into the Windows desktop?
I'd answer that by saying I think Amazon does pretty well against Microsoft. So does eBay. So does Google. And AOL has actually done pretty well, too — contrary to a lot of the things people say. There are a lot of examples of companies offering services, Internet-based services, that have done quite well.
And Apple is in a pretty interesting position. Because, as you may know, almost every song and CD is made on a Mac — it's recorded on a Mac, it's mixed on a Mac, the artwork's done on a Mac. Almost every artist I've met has an iPod, and most of the music execs now have iPods. And one of the reasons Apple was able to do what we have done was because we are perceived by the music industry as the most creative technology company. And now we've created this music store, which I think is non-trivial to copy. I mean, to say that Microsoft can just decide to copy it, and copy it in six months that's a big statement. It may not be so easy.
Craig Lyndall rants, raves and writes other stuff at FilteringCraig.com and at The Cleveland Sports Curse
- Steve Jobs on the Music Industry
- Published: December 10, 2003
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- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Internet, Culture: Media, Sci/Tech: Software, Music: News
- Writer: Craig Lyndall
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I was amazed when I downloaded ITunes at what a great library manager it is as well. It is far and away the best way to manage different playlists and also to create mix cd's from all my MP3's. I didn't know that the experience could be that good, but it is.
What's with Jobs flat-out lying about the customes the other services have, though? He claims 50,000 forall the otherservices combined - there are hundreds of thousands.
Also, he dismsses the subscription model, which I think will end up being what the masses latch onto.
The only thing I can think of for you first question is that the interview was done a little while ago, or he is lying.
Also, I don't know about the subscription model either. I think there are a whole lot of people who want to get their stuff a download at a time. Plus that is also what makes the profits easy to trace and filter back to the appropriate parties. I guess with the subscription model you could do statistics to make sure people were paid properly, but it seems simpler with the individual download to me.
i hate the subscription model with a passion. The only truly helpful and best value subscription model is the one used by magazines.
I don't want to be locked into something if i decide several months before my subscription ends that i don;t want to use it anymore. Or if i forget about it for a long period of time, or simply cannot make us of it (e.g. if my pc breaks and doesn't get fixed for a few weeks)
The point about never being able to fully protect digital content is part of a larger, more general truism - it's impossible to develop a fully secure copy protection system for digital content of any kind, because there will always be people determined to break copy protection and invariably, because none of it is perfect, cracks are found
Yes, but with 60 million people now used to getting what they want, when they want it for free, the closer a pay system is to that, the better they will do, I think.
i've gotta agree with eric here.
kids are used to downloading stuff for free....and having to pay per download will not add to the experience. it seems like it'd be much more convenient to pay once and then forget it.
this coming from a guy who has no interest in downloading aside from the occasional "what that person sound like" kind of thing (and a subscription model would support that...at least for me).
I think the key is to make it "feel like free"
yea, that's right.
i used to use napster to do just the kind of sampling i spoke of (more often than not leading to a cd purchase).
i don't use kazaa at all because it's a pain in the ass (at least to me).
if there was a service that had a reasonable subscription fee (and was easy to use), then i'd probably sign up.
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I agree with a lot of what was said in that article. I used to use KAAZA and Napster because I wanted the CHOICE. If I only wanted one song, I wanted ONE song. Now with iTunes I get everything I want. I pay for it, and am glad to pay for a service I want.
Artists like the Beatles who refuse to allow their stuff on iTunes are stuck in the past and don't get it.