She’s A Little Runaway….
Hilary Rosen, once leader of the RIAA has posted to the newly opened Huffington Post something that is as ironic as it is puzzling. Rosen was at the helm of the RIAA when it started the campaign against filesharing. There was no online alternative at the time from the RIAA and in the early days they were dead set against ANY sort of online commerce of recorded music. Now she is preaching for Steve Jobs to open the iPod to other DRM formats. My how times change.
Either Ms Rosen doesn’t understand or fails to have a grasp of the technology but this statement I found particularly suspect…
“The problem is that the iPod only works with either songs that you buy from the on-line Apple iTunes store or songs that you rip from your own CD’s.”
BZZZTTT. Thanks for playing, Don Pardo has some lovely parting gifts for you. You can import other non DRM formats into iTunes for conversion to iPod, though it will only play a few native formats without conversion. The real issue Rosen has is that it won’t play other DRM formats and other DRM formats aren’t compatable with the iPod’s proprietary format. Other DRM formats only play on their respective players or codecs as well. That’s kind of how DRM works, babe. Bummer. Windows is by and large the platform of choice in personal computing while the iPod and iPod Shuffle have commanding leads in their respective hardware sectors. To boot, Windows Media Player 9 only plays the proprietary Microsoft DRM format, on a single platform no less (the latest DRM features work only on Windows, not on the Mac) and I don’t see Hilary getting her panties in a twist over that. It would be easy enough to burn CDs of the tracks you legally purchased online in these other formats and import them into iTunes but some of them don’t allow the burning of CDs. Some are subscription formats only. You are only allowed to listen to the music as long as you are paying for the subscription. People chose to be locked into the Windows Media of their own free will, just as the people that choose to use iTMS/Fair Play do. Just as those that took odds on Bellamy Road over the weekend, you other guys bet on the wrong horse. The iPod and iTMS are kicking your ass.
I have my issues with the iPod and iTunes. it ain’t perfect. Lately it’s the battery in my just out of extended warranty 3G 15GB model and the recent restrictions imposed on the latest iTunes versions. I’m willing to live with those with hacks unless something better comes out. And I’m always lookin’. It hasn’t and many in the music consuming public feel the same way. How else would a hundred buck limited feature flash player take a commanding lead in the market only a few months into the game?
Instead of whining about being left out make something better. if you do people will buy it. I just downloaded a couple of songs I heard on KJAQ, the new “Jack” station in Seattle. Bon Jovi’s Runaway and “You Give Love a Bad Name”. I also downloaded the latest from Mercan Dede last night from their site. You might hear Mercan Dede on KEXP, but not on Jack. All on the the iPod, no prob. A couple of clicks and bada bing, I got music. You see Hil’, those other stores use a platform that lock the users into Windows and WMP 9. No worse than Uncle Steve in Cupertino. Except his users experience is much better.
Sort of puts a fork in the ass of your openness argument, doesn’t it?