Today, as I took the odd moment here and there to keep an eye on happenings in the web world, I was somewhat startled to watch Apple provoke absolutely ridiculous amounts of stürm und drang with an update to iTunes.
In brief, when iTunes 4 was released a few weeks ago, one of the new features was the ability to stream your music to other computers running iTunes. This was intended as a way for someone with multiple machines in their house to keep all their music in a centralized location, and still be able to listen to the music anywhere — even if the music was stored on dad’s machine in his office, the kids could call up the music collection on their computer in the living room, for instance.
Not too surprisingly, within hours after the update was released, people discovered that the streaming would also work across the ‘net, if the hosting computer’s outgoing bandwidth was strong enough. Not long after that tips were being traded on how to capture the music stream — and suddenly what was intended as a convenience for personal use became yet another way for people to illegally acquire music.
Today, the update to iTunes 4.01 was released. From Apple’s description (with emphasis added)…
iTunes 4.0.1 includes a number of performance and network access enhancements, and only allows music sharing between computers using iTunes 4.0.1 or later on a local network (in the same subnet).
…and the Apple-centric sites absolutely exploded with rage and indignation (and, thankfully, a few somewhat reasonable voices).
Noticeably upset:
Neutral, or posted with actual thought:
Quite honestly, I find this collective tempertantrum to be surprising, and more than a little childish. Apple is having to walk a fine line, balancing their desire to use as little DRM as possible with the music industry’s desire to actually be able to still make money. The fact that they’ve been able to come to an agreement with all five major music industry players that allows the iTunes Music Store to exist with as little DRM as there is, is impressive enough. The balancing act that they’re having to pull, with their customers ~~needs~~ demands on one side, and the music industry on the other, is one that I wouldn’t envy any company, and so far I’ve been impressed with what they’ve been able to pull off.
What we seem to be seeing, at its most base, is the battle between two very strong forms of greed: the greed of the music industry, and the greed of those users who seem to feel that it is their right to be able to listen to anything, at any time, for free.
I, for one, have never understood, or been sympathetic to those who feel that they have some right to free music. As a DJ for many years, I’ve amassed an impressive collection of music — some 1200 CDs or so — and have long lost count of the number of requests I’ve had to make copies of my music for people. Why in the world should I do such a thing?
First off, copying and distributing music is illegal! Yes, I know that the music industry is (very generally) Evil, that CDs are hideously overpriced, and that artists see very little of the money from music sales. However, no matter how small of a percentage an artist might get from any single sale, how much money will they be getting if there are no sales? A little bit of something is still something, but nothing is just that. If there is an artist that I like, I’d much rather pay the money and support them in what little way I can — they created the music, they should be able to reap what rewards they can from that creation.
Secondly, and equally as important in my eyes, I’ve spent untold hours and ungodly amounts of money on building my collection over the years. Why in God’s name would I turn around and proceed to give the fruits of that undertaking away for free? If someone hears music that I have and likes it, they have the ability to take the time and money to find the music themselves (though I’m afraid that many, if not most, are far more likely to spend the time on Kazaa or some other file-trading system than spend the money at a music store). It’s all out there somewhere, and I don’t have any secret tricks or magical conjurings that allow me to find the music I do. Time, patience, a little luck, and money is all it takes.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand. The streaming feature of iTunes is a feature — not a right. It is a convenience — not a right. And, most importantly, it is for personal use, for you the consumer to listen to the music that you own. Had Apple allowed the iTunes streaming implementation to continue to exist as-is, they may very likely have faced suits and the dismantling of the iTunes Music Store (quite possibly the first realistic model for online music distribution) when the music industry decided that it didn’t want to support a service that was so obviously and prominently being used for illegal distribution, no matter what the original intent of the service was. Rather than do that, Apple added a slight restriction to the streaming service, so that while streaming still works, and will work in the home, it no longer works over the internet at large. Would you rather have had Apple pull the streaming feature entirely?
Grow up, everyone. This is truly a tempest in a teapot.