iTunes goes DRM-free with EMI

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Ultimately, it's not about being virtuous

Going DRM-Free wasn't about being virtuous, but rather about recognizing that their current market is pretty much saturated.

I'm somewhat older, and I own an iPod. I've noticed two things:

1) The younger crowd goes after iTunes songs. They buy buy buy buy... And it's been an excellent market for Apple. No question about it. When I question these younger folks (25 or younger) they typically don't think DRM is a big issue. These people basically grew up with DRM and consider it a part of normal every-day life.

2) The older crowd goes after CDs and uploads them to their iPods. (My generation.) We zealously protect our CDs by burning a copy to iTunes and then safely storing our CDs away for future use if we ever need a fresh copy. We grew up remembering the Digital Millenium Act which stated that consumers had a right to copy music so they could have backup copies available. We've also pretty much re-purchased certain albums more than once. Back when it was in vinyl, and now in CD. In our younger days, we may have been a bit careless with our original CDs, so we ended up buying yet another CD. Basically, we've re-profited the recording companies several times over.

It is this market that I rarely see going out to buy songs on iTunes. Myself, I have only bought 3 songs. The rest, I go to Amazon and buy the albums. (That's another thing, older generations tend to listen to whole albums, younger generations tend to listen to singles.)

So therefore, I'm sure EMI and Apple recognized that they weren't getting much out of a potentially richer generation (yeah we've saved up a bit of cash over the years) and thus knew they were at their limits of market share unless they opened themselves up to people like me.

Admittedly, I plan to go back to iTunes and see what's up now that DRM-free products are available.

This is far more a $$$ opportunity than an altruistic one. And quite frankly, if they want my money, I'm glad they're listening.

Posted by: yyuko@...   Posted on: 05/30/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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