After the Apple/EMI announcement last week that iTMS will start selling EMI’s catalogue DRM-free, but only the higher quality tracks, I was left wondering about the (lack of) logic of selling lower bitrate tracks with DRM, and the higher bitrate ones without. It couldn’t possibly be to deter ‘pirates’ from sharing the files.
A couple of days ago John Naughton wrote an interesting article in The Guardian:
That said, there are some puzzling things about the new dispensation. From May, iTunes customers will be able to buy EMI content in two versions. One is the old DRM-crippled stuff, recorded at 128 kilobits per second and priced at 79p per track. The premium version is free of DRM restrictions, recorded at 256kbps (giving higher audio quality) and costs 99p per track. Customers who bought the old, crippled, versions will apparently be able to upgrade for just the difference in price.
The puzzling thing about this is the way improved quality and freedom from DRM are being bundled together. As Ed Felten, a Princeton expert on DRM, observed this week, if EMI and Apple wanted to find out how much customers valued DRM-free music, then the obvious step would be to give them just that option and see how it went. Ditto for higher audio quality. Under the new EMI scheme, the two are confused and consumer reaction will be difficult to interpret.
There are two possible explanations for the bundling decision. One is the straightforward marketing rationale that bundling makes the proposition even more attractive to consumers: two enticing enhancements for the price of one! The other explanation is more, er, Machiavellian. As Felten puts it: Apple has taken heat from European authorities for using DRM to lock customers in to the iTunes/iPod product line; the Euro authorities would like Apple to open its system. If DRM-free tracks cost thirty cents extra [as they will in the US], Apple would in effect be selling freedom from lock-in for thirty cents a song not something Apple wants to do while trying to convince the authorities that lock-in isn’t a real problem. By bundling the lock-in freedom with something else (higher fidelity) Apple might obscure the fact that it is charging a premium for lock-in-free music.
I hadn’t even really considered that it might be Apple who chose to do this, but reading the above it would make sense.
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