Industry Rep Clueless, Film At 11
So the hot news is that Amazon has launched a DRM-free MP3 download service to compete with iTunes. I took a look, and it will take a lot of polishing to compete with the clean experience of ITMS, but it's a pretty cool development. Wired covered the news with an interesting angle: if Apple hadn't become the dominant force in music downloads, labels would still be trying to compete with proprietary DRM. Now, they're forced to offer DRM-free downloads to compete with Apple's experience.
It's an interesting idea, and one that makes sense. There's an amusing money quote at the end, though, that demonstrates a degree of cluelessness:
"Never before in the history of content has the hardware been more valuable than the software," [Warner Music Group's] Bronfman said. "You think about the VCR or the video cassette -- the video cassette always had more value than the VCR that you shoved it into. Apple has been able to turn that model on its head."
That's not true at all -- a playback device have always been worth more than any individual piece of media that plays on it, even in the days of VCRs or cassette players or phonographs. Most consumers choose hardware based on the aggregate value of what it gives them access to, and for most people the iPod hits the sweet spot. Ripped or torrented music plays on it, and it has the largest selection of legal downloads.
Apple's current position in the market may be unique, but it's not shocking. They got there with the best user experience and nailed down a critical mass of deals with labels. After that, it's all just tactics.
Six Pence Review of Collage
Just thought you could have done better homework on the permutations of REX and the real skinny on how Six Pence was held hostage. Your historicity is lacking to say the least and as the A & R person for thes projects I died for this band. I am over it but the web gives erroneous data collection status and allows people reading it to assume this indeed is what happened or all that happened. The former REX owners were forced into bankruptcy by a large corperation and the holding on to REX was not done by REX but by Platinum. Steve Taylor appeared to be the SAvior but if anyone really cared they would have acknowledged the throusands of dollars the initial owners put into REX and the lives that were destoyed when Platinum allowed REX to take the fall. it was evil and painful. Nuff said. YOu might want to amend your history or admit you know not oh what you speak. I was there...you were not. David Bunker
Thanks for the info.
Wow, talk about a random blast from the past... When the REX name hung around and Sixpence stayed in limbo, I wasn't aware that REX itself had changed hands (or that the original owners had suffered through that crap). I stand by my review of Collage, but I'm definitely sad that the story unfolded the way it did. it sounds like both REX (the people, not the name) and Sixpence suffered.
Thanks for the post, Dave. I really appreciate the correction.
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