Meet The New iTunes, Less than the Old iTunes?

Jim Heid's Mac iLife 04 Site has an excellent review of the numerous changes in Apple's new version of iTunes 4.5 (iTunes 4.5: More to the store, new ways to play, and ripping without losing).

One of the major changes, he notes, is stricter DRM on the songs you buy from the iTunes Music Store:

In iTunes 4.5, you can authorize up to five Macs or Windows computers to play your purchased music -- up from three. But Apple giveth and Apple taketh away: you can now burn a playlist containing purchased music up to seven times (down from ten). And the old workaround of simply changing the playlist slightly does not work.

So after one year and 70 million songs, $0.99 now buys you less rather than more -- seven hard burns instead of ten soft ones. What will Apple "allow" us to do with the music we "buy" next year? three burns? one? zero?

And what about the songs you've already bought? Don't we get to keep the rights we had before the change?

Well, Apple has conveniently reserved its rights to make changes -- unilaterially -- to its DRM and your ability to make fair use via its Terms of Service and Terms of Sale pretty much anytime it pleases, without even having to give you notice:

You shall be entitled to burn and export Products solely for personal, non-commercial use.
...
Any burning or exporting capabilities are solely an accommodation to you and shall not constitute a grant or waiver (or other limitation or implication) of any rights of the copyright owners of any content, sound recording, underlying musical composition or artwork embodied in any Product.
...
Apple reserves the right to change the terms and conditions of sale at the iTunes Music Store at any time. Customers are encouraged to review the Sales Policies on a periodic basis for modifications.

Update:I have changed the title of this post to reflect some of the debate and uncertainty about exactly how much or less the new iTunes offers users. It may well be that the increased flexibility with more computers outweighs the reduction in burns. But is interesting to watch how Apple changes its DRM over time.

Comments

[Patrick Berry]

Well, I'm not going to waste 7 CDs to find out, but since burning of each track is still unlimited I bet the workaround to the stupid limit is there staring us in the face. Also, I'll take another 2 computers over playlist burning. I understand that I'm selling out my rights by even going so low as to make this rationalization of a stupid system, but there it is.

[Anon]

You really think Apple is behind the tightening of restrictions? No way.

[Julian Bond]

Go and check out AllOfMp3.com It's a credible alternative to iTunes.
- No DRM
- Any encoding format, any bitrate up to full CDA
- Priced (cheap) per $0.01 or $0.02 per Mb

[tom]

are you really going to need to burn 8 copies of the exact same cd? they actually loosened the restrictions by allowing more computers (5 now, compared to 3). I see no problem with any of this, if you absolutely need 8 copies of a cd (because you're distributing it probably), just put the burned cd in and copy it.

[Hallo Spaceboy]

"And what about the songs you've already bought? Don't we get to keep the rights we had before the change?"

You ask a good question, but fail on the follow through. Did you think about asking Apple? No. Did you try it out? No. Did you jump to a conclusion based on the Terms of Service? Yes. If you looked into this you would find that the songs you bought before have the same DRM. You can still burn them ten times.

So, before you get all excited do some research.

oooh steve, your rdf is so big! please sir may I have another?

Well, if you buy Apple's crippled tunes, you get crippled. So just DON'T USE the music store!

[Patrick Berry]

tom, I think people like Jason are upset that it's clear that these artificial restrictions on music that you purchase are, well, in a word: silly. The idea that you have to give something up that you used to get, to keep you "honest" has pretty much been debunked. Most people will just go with whatever they are given, and therein lies the crux of the problem.

Anon: While I too am sure that Apple's strings are being pulled, most likely by the threat of having their licenses revoked, they are still the public face of the iTMS. So they must bear the brunt of the bad publicity that comes along with stupid "keeping honest people honest with lame restrictions when you already said they were honest people" restrictions.

[Unseelie]

They gave me more (5 machines to play on) than they took away (10 burns to 7 of any playlist), so I'm still happy.

Let me add some light on the burns restriction. You can't make more than 7 (10) burns of any one given playlist before you must alter the playlist. In other words, I can make 7 copies of 'The Nightfly' before I must then alter that playlist and burn it again. Once that's been done, you can turn around and burn the original playlist again.

Right, so it makes it harder for me to make >7 copies of a single playlist at a time. That's a non-limitation as far as I'm concerned.

[Unseelie]

And, no, that does not void your overall point. Apple does reserve the right to modify the terms of service at any time, and they also reserve the right to take the service away. That is troubling.

[pb]

Who is burning a playlist more than 7 times??? The increase to 5 computers definitely outweighs the 7 burn limit.

[Jason]

The point is more that they control the music, you don't. This is a very different world than when you bought a CD and had the freedom to decide for yourself what you though a reasonable limit was.

[Wild Dingo]

I've worked in computer security for longer than I would like to admit. One of the features of the "really secure" old systems was something called "Mandatory Access Control" (aka MAC). Think of it as DRM for things other than media content. When DRM started getting press several years ago, I was thinking to myself, "hey, the mainstream's finally picked up on MAC. Maybe we'll get some cool new secure consumer platforms coming out of all this money flowing into the Media / Technology convergence."

But years later what do we have? NGSCB is still years out (and there's talk that we won't want it when it finally is released.) DRM features in things that should be stable products (like iPods) are varying rapidly.

I suppose the reason people are objecting to these changes is it underscores the fact that companies fielding DRM features are also in "learning mode." It also re-iterates the seemingly arbitrary control technology companies have over our daily lives. Likely that Apple is responding to the threat d'jour by changing their licensing model. I would guess they don't do such things without small mountains of paperwork and recommendations from their legal department.

I would guess that Apple has no plans to behave in a draconian way. That's probably a quick way to get people to move from iPods to whatever the WinCE equivalent is. But it does hilight the core purpose of MAC and DRM... Giving other people control over your experience.

In theory, we're supposed to exercise self-control so that we don't violate copyright. Fair Use Doctrine defines a number of well-known loopholes in copyright protections. If only everyone would just play by the rules, DRM wouldn't be needed.

By moving to release content in formats that use DRM, the media companies are telling us we have a choice: we can accept the conditions the IP owners apply, or we can choose not to listen/watch. Again... someone else is exercising control over our experience. In this case they're telling us we can't be the ones to decide whether or not our use of copyrighted materials is valid under Fair Use Doctrine.

But there's another side to the argument. The record companies have a very real concern with piracy. I'm not sure I buy their whole story... that piracy completely destroys the market for legitimate media; but you do have to look at it from the media company's point of view. In the past twenty - fifty years, everything was great. They had essentially developed a stranglehold on the recording and radio broadcast markets. "Want to have a hit single? You've got to play by our rules." Business plans were developed and inverstors were recruited based on this assumption being true.

But then disruptive technologies like low-cost digital duplication, portable MP3 players, and P2P networks arrived and scared the living daylights out of the media companies. What changed? They were no longer in complete control of the channel. In theory, artists could publish music direct to the web, bypassing the recording industry.

My personal take on this is the recording industry is totally forgetting the one thing they do very well, but independents tend to have a problem with: promotion. If there was massive disintermediation of the recording companies and studios, what can they still bring to the table? Promotion. These guys are great at it.

But now I'm rambling. What's my point?

A. We'll certainly see an increase in DRM and MAC technologies over the next couple of years. Or at least we'll see media companies pushing technology companies to push DRM/MAC.

B. The companies in question, while not clueless, are still in the awkward, geeky pre-teen years with respect to how to use DRM / MAC. We'll likely see Apple, et al. change their licensing restrictions quite a few more times as they try to figure out what the best terms are.

and

C. If Apple, et al. change license terms too many times, they're likely to lose revenue as customers get an "uneasy" feeling about signing up for a service whose terms change too often.

[Cypherpunk]

Dingo, I hear that a lot about how the record companies are mostly worried about losing control. But how does any of this DRM stuff help them? Artists can still put their music out on their own web sites, and in fact if the RIAA DRM becomes too onerous that's just going to drive people to the independents.

I just don't see any of the RIAA's actions as being oriented around maintaining their control of the distribution channels. If they wanted to do that, wouldn't they force Apple to stop carrying non-RIAA independents? Presumably they have the clout, they could threaten to not let Apple sell from the RIAA member catalogs, which would put the iTMS out of business. But they don't do it.

[De Badd Ass]

If you read the Apple Press Release, http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/apr/28itunes.html, you will notice one of the things that seperates Apple from the other companies. Apple put the bad news in the main type font, and the good news in the fine print.

"Honoring Apple’s commitment to discourage music theft while preserving fair personal use rights, the number of times a user can burn the same playlist onto CDs with iTunes is being reduced from ten burns to seven. Users can still burn a single song an unlimited number of times and listen to their music on an unlimited number of iPods."

Notice that it says, "Users can still burn a single song an unlimited number of times..."

Be honest - which would YOU rather have: the right to create three more identical CDs, or the right to play your songs on two more personal computers and an unlimited number of iPods?

Since you are allow to use the song on 5 computers and each computer can burn 7 CD, that's 35 CDs that you and your friends can burn. Before, only you and 2 of your friends can burn 30 CDs. I rather be able to share the song with more people by giving them the file than having to burn them a CD.

I don't know why people complain, I never seen anyone burn that many CDs for their friends. The only people that do are piraters and they probably get their music from file sharing programs anyways. They don't have to worry about these restrictions.

[Sam Walker]

"The point is more that they control the music, you don't. This is a very different world than when you bought a CD and had the freedom to decide for yourself what you though a reasonable limit was."

The only reason that was ever the case is because the Record Industry didn't know any other way to do it. Just because you could make copies of CDs and give them to your friends did not mean it was legal. I'm not necessarily saying that it should be illegal, but the fact that this new format prevents you from doing illegal things with your music (even though it's ridiculously easy to get around these restrictions) does not mean the format is bad – it means the laws are bad.

[Phil]

If you don't like the Terms of Sale, do not agree to them. When you do, you're entering into a legal agreement, in which you say "Yes, I accept this."

[Roger]

Cry yourself to sleep tonight. Do you think that Apple doesn't know how easy it is to create a 'new' playlist in iTune's eyes, without actually changing anything? They have set up a system that all the major players have bought into, and left a giant door hanging open for you to do whatever you want to with your music. Maybe you should learn before you type. Free music now will mean NO music later when the financial carrot that dangles in front of musicians noses goes away. And even for the purists out there who are actually making music for the love of music, you'll never hear it because you've downloaded them right out of existence. Hang in there buddy, you're gonna be alright.

[Roger]

Cry yourself to sleep tonight. Do you think that Apple doesn't know how easy it is to create a 'new' playlist in iTune's eyes, without actually changing anything? They have set up a system that all the major players have bought into, and left a giant door hanging open for you to do whatever you want to with your music. Maybe you should learn before you type. Free music now will mean NO music later when the financial carrot that dangles in front of musicians noses goes away. And even for the purists out there who are actually making music for the love of music, you'll never hear it because you've downloaded them right out of existence. Hang in there buddy, you're gonna be alright.

[Roger]

Cry yourself to sleep tonight. Do you think that Apple doesn't know how easy it is to create a 'new' playlist in iTune's eyes, without actually changing anything? They have set up a system that all the major players have bought into, and left a giant door hanging open for you to do whatever you want to with your music. Maybe you should learn before you type. Free music now will mean NO music later when the financial carrot that dangles in front of musicians noses goes away. And even for the purists out there who are actually making music for the love of music, you'll never hear it because you've downloaded them right out of existence. Hang in there buddy, you're gonna be alright.

[Chris Weiss]

Okay, so maybe I'm reading things wrong, but the limitation is that you can't burn the same playlist more than 7 times. There's nothing to prevent you from making a CD->CD dupe (or a thousand CD->CD dupes if you're trying to actually make a buck off of things) though, right?
There must be something more to this limitation, I can't imagine Apple would spend that much effort on engineering something so easily circumvented. Sort of like the warning labels on cigarettes.

[Metzgo]

Ok,
So I can always burn a copy of one song I've bought, but can only burn a playlist so many times? If so that's fine with me. My biggest concern is that I have put all of my CDs on my harddrive in the largest format possible (WMA Mathmatically Lossless) I have an IPOD now but have a PC, I am torn between Itunes or MusicMatch, If I want a song I buy the CD used, get the whole album, and resell it, So the majority of my music is mine anyways, and I will hardly use the music store anyways. Which would be a better fit all around, iTunes or Musicmatch?

[Daniel Morris]

The biggest problem for me? I can't burn MP3 disks with AAC-encoded tunes any more. This after I changed to MP3-capable players everywhere. Before, I could, because iTunes let me. Not anymore.

Heh.

If Alanis could use a dictionary, she'd write a song.

[doggo]

What's really annoying is not being able to burn as many copies of songs you've made in GarageBand as you want. Even after re-saving the .band file under another name. I think three is the limit. Sucks hugely! So, now I've burned on copy of the song that I didn't like, fixed the song, burned another copy with it in a playlist, etc. Now I can't burn an audio CD of it for my friends. Pfft!