Mixed Feelings

After having some time to consider Monday's announcement by EMI and Apple, I still have mixed feelings with their new system of selling DRM free music in the iTunes store.

First, the obvious problem with this new digital offering is the price hike. Raising the price to by 30% is not the right message to be sending to consumers. This is another addition to the continuing and seemingly unwavering entitled attitude that the record industry exhibits on a day to day basis.

Consumers have been clamoring for years that the price of music is too high. In fact, a strong case can be CD's impending death can be significantly contributed to the high price of music. So while it appears that the people who sell us music are deaf to our complaints as consumers, they decided they would be doing us a favor by offering us a product at a higher price than before when we could already get the same product in the record stores.

I guess what I would really like to see the record industry invoke is consistency within their product line. Why would you charge more for a essentially costless form of distribution for the same freedoms that you can get on a CD.

The $0.99 model was working fine, and actually provided a nice clean, generally accepted value for music, and to add confusion to the iTunes music store by offering a completely different kind of track with completely different rules at a higher price, when people already don't understand what DRM exactly is, it just seems crazy.

Shame on Apple for adding confusion to their simplistic design. This is one instance where Apple chose cool over functionality. Apple has been great at making these two things go hand in hand, but I can't see how this is going to work in the same way.

I did mentioned I had mixed feelings early, so now I can elaborate on the positives that might come to this. Apparently, albums of the new unprotected content will still cost $9.99. This is a huge accomplishment, and actually makes sense.

This, although probably small at first, could have an sizable effect on the album culture in music today, and might drive people to buy more albums. This is obviously good for the industry as the more music bought, the more money the make.

But on a grander scale, this could alter our societies current viewpoint on the way we listen to music. Right now we are a singles based culture, but if people can get unprotected content and a reasonable price, $9.99, then why wouldn't people be inclined to buy more albums. Kudos on the EMI and Apple making this a precedent from the beginning. This should force the other labels when they jump in the DRM free pool to adhere to this kind of pricing.