The Next Step is a Misstep

This past week, Apple and EMI announced their intention to release DRM free music. For "just" $1.29 per song, customers can purchase songs from EMI's entire digital catalog of music that's available through iTunes. The increase of $.30 also includes an upgrade in sound quality from previous digital tracks -- deemed to be practically indistinguishable from CD quality.

Steve Jobs declares on the Apple site that he thinks the "customers are going to love this." Apple and EMI believe themselves to be innovators and taking the first steps to completely revitalize digital downloading.

While Jobs has admittedly been on the cutting edge of the digital music industry over the past few years, this seems to be a departure that will have questionable success. True, for rare music fanatics and those that strongly desire the ability to share their music this is a great change. However, those consumers are few and far between. If my classmates are any indication, less than 10% felt this was a positive step for the digital industry. The resonating response was that this agreement will most likely have little to no effect on illegal file-sharing. What little effect it may have will be negative.

For those that purchase music, they do so for particular reasons: immediacy, convenience, morality, guilt, fear of the RIAA, quality, etc. For those that don't purchase music, they also do so for particular reasons: lack of consciousness, impatience, lack of money, the feeling that they
deserve free music, etc. This new deal with EMI doesn't truly affect any of these reasons. Instead, it merely makes those that already purchase music spend more for the ability to distribute the music freely. Quite honestly, if one wants to do that DRM-free, all he/she has to do is burn the track to CD, burn it back to the laptop and upload it wherever he/she wants. Granted, it does take longer -- but not that much longer, and 30% more is a significant price increase.

Additionally, an increase in sound quality is unfortunately not that attractive to many consumers. Yes for music fanatics, it does matter. However, I can count on one hand the number of my friends in college and high school who can even tell the different between an mp3 and a CD track. Is it really wise to presume they will pay more money for a difference they can't even hear?

In my opinion, if Jobs, EMI and the other major labels wish to make waves in the digital industry, they should go to high schools, colleges. Talk to the kids that are going to be buying the music in upcoming generations. They should realize their target audience is full of people that can't afford a price increase, don't necessarily realize that stealing music online is like stealing music from a retail store, and don't listen to their music quality as closely as previous generations. If we're talking competition, peer-to-peer filesharing is still the best alternative for them. Consumers aren't likely to backtrack after being able to speedily acquire a huge library of music at no cost.