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Old 02-25-2009, 10:48 PM   #19
Xenophon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Barcey View Post
[SNIP a bunch of good stuff...] With iTunes they were the open alternative that forced Apple to open up iTunes so they have to understand this. [SNIP again]
Actually, that's not the way it went at all. Back at the beginning of the iTunes store, Apple started out trying to get the big record labels to permit no-DRM distribution. The folks at the big labels wouldn't even consider it without DRM. You may recall the Steve Jobs letter on DRM from a year or two ago -- it contains some of this history. Apple did eventually manage to convince one of the four biggest labels to allow DRM-free music at a higher price (it was the smallest of the four, of course).

Later on, with the iTunes store in a relatively dominant position, the labels decided that they would try to change that (that is, build up a competitor) by letting everyone except Apple have DRM-free music. The labels didn't get what they wanted -- Amazon wound up #2 in digital music sales, but are still 10x smaller than the iTunes store. Apple didn't get what they wanted (no more DRM and higher quality... er... less-compressed music). So everyone went back to the negotiating table.

When the dust settled, Apple backed off a little bit on fixed pricing (making the labels happy) and the labels let Apple go DRM-free with higher-bitrate music.

And now lots of people are talking about how Amazon forced Apple to remove DRM...

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