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Guess What, Steve -- I Don't Love It

"We think our customers are going to love this," said Steve Jobs in Apple's press release yesterday announcing that its iTunes store would sell DRM-free versions of EMI's music catalog. Wrong. I like it, but, please, Steve, stop doing me favors that (1) raise music prices 30% and (2) force me to take the extra steps to remove your AAC encoding.

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Over the years I have received my share of email calling me an idiot, but I never got more than I've gotten for this blog entry. And guess what, in this case I deserve it. I try, as a personal goal, to reply to all the email I get from readers that doesn't contain obscenities, and the more mail I answered on this commentary on Apple's announcement of DRM-free music, the more trouble I had defending it. Please see "Guess What Steve -- I Don't Love It (Remix)."

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You got part of it right, Steve. I definitely do not want DRM. I want the music I pay for to play anywhere, on any device. I want to exercise my legal rights to fair use and move it from format to format -- from vinyl to cassette to CD to MP3 to whatever comes next.

But I definitely do not want the music I buy encoded in your AAC format, either, or locked up inside of your iTunes software. My favorite audio player software does not play AAC. My portable music player does not play AAC. I do not use iTunes to manage my music. I do not like it, Steve-I-am.

If you really want to make me a loyal Apple customer, then sell me DRM-free music in an open format at a fair price. Exactly why do you think the 30% premium for DRM-free files is fair, by the way? Why should I, a solid citizen who wants to do the right thing, have to pay a penalty for my honesty?

I haven't been buying music at the iTunes store, you're right, but DRM is only part of the reason. The other part is your insistence on locking me into iTunes.

I was very pleased by your show of backbone in February, when you wrote your open letter titled "Thoughts on Music." (You did notice how effective an open letter was, by the way?)

And my first reaction this morning when I read that EMI was going to sell its entire catalog through iTunes was that I should go buy an album just to show my support. Too bad I won't be able to do that until May -- you may have given me time to change my mind. As I've cooled off I've been thinking you may do better with public opinion on this move than you seem to be doing with the European Union regulators, who apparently aren't any more satisfied with this iTunes/iPod-centric solution than I am.

I liked the line in your press release that said, "Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh." It's time for some more revolutionary thinking like that. The Apple, the Mac, they gave me something I couldn't get before. And they made me a loyal Apple customer for years. EMI music without DRM, that's good, now how about taking the next step and getting out of your own way. I could be a loyal Apple customer again if you would.

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Correction

When I originally posted this entry I called the AAC format "proprietary." Almost immediately several of the commenters below and in emails called me on it. You're all right. AAC is not Apple proprietary and I should have known better. I quickly apologized in a comment (see it somewhere below) and removed the offending misstatement from the entry. I wrote in haste, because that is the nature of blogging, and I repent at leisure.

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