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Topic: In EMI-ITunes Deal, The Big Loser May Be Microsoft (Read 3366 times) previous topic - next topic
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In EMI-ITunes Deal, The Big Loser May Be Microsoft

When music label EMI announced Monday that it would offer high-quality digital music downloads free of copy protection, Apple CEO Steve Jobs basked in the early public relations glow, thanks to his canny call a month ago for the labels to abandon digital rights management technologies.

But while Apple scored a public relations coup by offering EMI's DRM-free tracks through iTunes, the company has also struck a major blow against Microsoft in a less obvious arena: music encoding standards.

In an early morning press release, EMI announced the immediate availability of its "digital repertoire" in high-quality, DRM-free AAC format. The new tracks will be encoded at 256 Kbps, EMI officials said, instead of the 128 Kbps that most iTunes tracks use.

"By providing DRM-free downloads, we aim to address the lack of interoperability which is frustrating for many music fans," said EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli in the press release.

Apple's iTunes Store is the first to receive the new premium downloads, which will be priced at $1.30. Apple will continue to offer DRM-shackled tunes from EMI at the lower rate of 128 Kbps for the usual price of $1. EMI stressed that DRM would remain on music bought under monthly flat-fee-based services such as Rhapsody, Napster and Yahoo Music Unlimited.

A large part of the news has to do with consumers' excitement over the "unprotected" part of the equation, since DRM restrictions are often seen as onerous, unfair and contrary to the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law. In fact, many observers, including Wired News, have predicted that 2007 would be the year that music labels begin offering higher-quality, DRM-free music. This week's announcement will surely cheer the champions of music sold without copy restrictions.

Still, the removal of DRM is just one piece of the puzzle; of equal significance to the online music industry is EMI's choice of AAC encoding.

Many onlookers had assumed that the company would go with the widely supported MP3 format. The decision to use AAC represents a crack in the wall that has separated services and devices that use Microsoft's WMA from those that use AAC.

All digital audio players support MP3, but users who want a more efficient audio compression than MP3 and/or the ability to buy music online have had to choose between AAC and WMA.

While AAC is an industry standard, Apple has been its primary champion. (AAC is part of the MPEG suite of standards, which includes MP3, and is based on patents owned by AT&T, Fraunhofer, Dolby Laboratories and Sony, and is licensed by a Dolby subsidiary).

Apple's iPod has long supported the AAC format, which is used by the ITunes Store. Apple normally adds a layer of DRM copy protection, called FairPlay, to the music files sold there.

In the past year, several other manufacturers have added AAC support to their players, including Microsoft, SanDisk and Sony. However, the software used to load these players with music from CDs doesn't default to AAC, the way Apple's iTunes does, and no store has existed where owners of those devices can buy music in the AAC format, the way iPod owners have been able to at the iTunes Store.

That's about to change, now that Apple and EMI have doubled down on AAC as their unprotected format of choice. Once Apple starts selling music from EMI -- and possibly other labels -- in the unprotected AAC format, manufacturers will scramble to add AAC support to their devices, because consumers will need their devices to play music purchased from iTunes. Other music stores could start adopting the AAC format as well, as EMI implied when it called iTunes "the first online music store to sell EMI's new downloads."

"This is an opportunity for manufacturers to make devices that could be compatible with major media services including iTunes," said Susan Kevorkian, an audio analyst for IDC. "That process becomes more and more appealing with every major label that chooses to go that route, and we expect that others will."

MP3 took a black eye in February when a federal jury hit Microsoft with a $1.52 billion patent-infringement award, to the benefit of Alcatel-Lucent, which holds patents on key components of the MP3 encoding and decoding process used by Microsoft and many other companies. The case has raised a cloud of uncertainty over the format, raising the fortunes of alternatives such as ACC.

Luckily for consumers and manufacturers, the audio decoder chips found in most MP3 players are already able to decode the AAC format, even if they don't support it out of the box. By installing a simple firmware upgrade, users of most music players can upgrade their gadgets to support the files.

Where does this leave Microsoft and its partners? Stores and devices that support WMA suffered a serious blow when Microsoft launched its Zune music player without PlaysForSure support.

A Microsoft representative indicated that the company was willing to listen to consumers, even if it wasn't ready to announce its own DRM-free music solution.

"Consumers have indicated this is important to them, so Zune has been working with a variety of partners to head in this direction," the Microsoft rep said. "This is a time of transition for the music industry and Microsoft is committed to striking a balance between delivering the best consumer experience while still protecting the rights of the content owners."

Now, developers and manufacturers have a big incentive to go with AAC rather than WMA, which could cut WMA out of the larger digital music ecosystem. Apple and EMI's embrace of AAC spells an unlikely defeat for Microsoft at the hands of a technology that consumers didn't really use until Jobs got his hands on it.

source: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/n...mihardware_0403

In EMI-ITunes Deal, The Big Loser May Be Microsoft

Reply #1 –
Good article.

I have mixed feelings regarding AAC. I'm glad that the world is (ostensibly) about to be come less microsoft, but worried that we just took a giant step towards an apple world.

Trading one monopoly for another, is not really progress.

In EMI-ITunes Deal, The Big Loser May Be Microsoft

Reply #2 –
It will become a level playing field when EMI license to Microsoft as well...as they will.

In EMI-ITunes Deal, The Big Loser May Be Microsoft

Reply #3 –
Quote from: spoon on
It will become a level playing field when EMI license to Microsoft as well...as they will.


It'll probably happen eventually but in the short term I'd be amazed if they could agree terms due to the Universal Studios deal wth MS over the Zune. I think there probably will be deals in short order with disgruntled suppliers who bought into the MS PlaysForSure system provided the experiment with the iTMS turns out to be a success. I think iSteve is taking a caculated gamble that competing services will not be able to offer tracks significantly cheaper than the iTMS and that people will take the path of least resistence when it comes to iPods and just buy from the iTMS rather than a competing service then importing the bought tracks into iTunes to sync to an iPod.

However mostly I thinks it's the fact that Apple makes money out of hardware and will do almost anything to preserve that, portraying MS DRMing you up the wazoo and doing a no DRM deal for iTMS gives them a massive PR boost.

In EMI-ITunes Deal, The Big Loser May Be Microsoft

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Teknojnky on
Good article.

I have mixed feelings regarding AAC. I'm glad that the world is (ostensibly) about to be come less microsoft, but worried that we just took a giant step towards an apple world.

Trading one monopoly for another, is not really progress.


The only thing Apple about unprotected AAC is that it is the default format for iTunes and the iPod can play it.

AAC is an open standard, just like MP3 is (in fact, it is the official successor to MP3). It has patents just like MP3 too, but it isn't controlled by Apple at all. If I recall right, its licensing fees are much lower compared to MP3 and other formats.

Microsoft in fact gave the Zune the ability to play unprotected AAC files. Many cell phones and other music players can play it as well.

If AAC becomes the de facto standard, that is good for all of us.
iTunes 10 - Mac OS X 10.6
256kbps AAC VBR
iPhone 4 32GB

In EMI-ITunes Deal, The Big Loser May Be Microsoft

Reply #5 –
Quote from: spoon on
It will become a level playing field when EMI license to Microsoft as well...as they will.

Precisely. The music industry is already beating themselves for practically handing the digital market to Apple on a platter, so other providers will eventually get in on the deal also.

Also, from what I understand from the press release, EMI didn't "choose" AAC - it's just the format Apple happens to offer. This is evidenced by the fact that EMI's music is available in other formats (including WMA) from other stores.

As such, other stores will soon be offering unprotected downloads in their own format.

This is rather surprisingly silly article from Wired.
EAC>1)fb2k>LAME3.99 -V 0 --vbr-new>WMP12 2)MAC-Extra High

In EMI-ITunes Deal, The Big Loser May Be Microsoft

Reply #6 –
Could you please link to the article instead of infringing on Wired's copyright (and clogging up the page)?
err... i'm not using windows any more ;)
 

In EMI-ITunes Deal, The Big Loser May Be Microsoft

Reply #7 –
Quote from: LANjackal on
so other providers will eventually get in on the deal also.


This article from Ars technica has the same message:

Quote
Gizmodo spoke to Jeanne Meyer, the Senior VP of Corporate Communications at EMI, who explained that EMI approached Apple, and Apple then came up with the idea to use 256kbps AAC encoding and the $1.29 price for the higher quality, DRM-free individual songs. EMI will allow any of their retailers (online music stores) to sell these tracks and albums, and the retailers may decide on the file format. So presumably, other stores can sell songs in high-bitrate unprotected WMA format if they want, although those songs won't play on the iPod without an extra conversion step.