Your Daily Dosage

Warner's CEO Responds

According to the BBC, the CEO of Warner Music finds Steve Jobs' DRM views "without logic and merit."  Perhaps he should view his reprimand of his children for illegal downloads "without logic and merit" given the zeal with which the RIAA has pursued its current cadre of lawsuits. 

Steve Jobs and DRM

Steve Jobs has posted an essay at Apple discussing DRM, iTunes, and the iPod.  He outlines both why Apple encumbers iTMS purchases with DRM and why licensing FairPlay (the DRM system) is not feasible according to the contracts Apple honors with the music industry.

"Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free ... Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace.  Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."

Mr. Jobs also points out that, on average, only 3% of the music on any given iPod has been purchased through the iTMS.

UPDATE

MSNBC  has coverage, Daring Fireball has commentary, and the Macalope  brings the funny (but, by the way, Jack Valenti is the former president of the MPAA - Mitch Bainwol is the CEO of the RIAA)

Top 10 Artists for 2006 According to last.fm and My iPod

Well, not for all of 2006, but for the last two months.  I have been running iSproggler in the background which uploads playcount information to my last.fm account.  I generally put the iPod on "Shuffle Songs" and let it go.  Here are the top 10 artists I listened to during that period of time (taking into account that songs skipped do not count in play count):

    1.  R.E.M. (a little surprising since I have not liked much of their most recent work)
    2.  U2
    3.  Son Volt (in the Uncle Tupelo divorce I chose to live with Son Volt and only get visitation with Wilco)
    4.  Billy Bragg
    5.  Pavement
    6.  The Smiths/Morrissey
    7.  Pearl Jam
    8.  Nirvana
    9.  The Replacements
    10. Guided by Voices

Interesting as these are my top artists for the week:
   

Goodbye, Universal Part II (Redux)

John at Daring Fireball adds his hilarious take on the upcoming UMG/Apple negotiations.

Goodbye, Universal Part II

(via Slashdot)

Universal Music Group Chief Executive Officer Doug Morris is at it again.  This time he thinks he will be extracting a piracy tax from the iPod.

"I don't see why we wouldn't do that... but maybe
not in the same way."

UMG is in a completely different situation with these negotiations.  Microsoft bargained from a weak position.  They were launching an iPod/iTunes competitor and needed to be able to license content for their Zune marketplace.  Apple already has a license and already provides a constant revenue stream to UMG.  Pulling the plug on iTunes availability threatens a revenue stream that does not require much expense on the part of UMG.  Besides, I imagine UMG's artists may have a problem with loss of iTunes exposure.

"Not in the same way" must mean not at all.

Goodbye, Universal

I cannot belive I just read this:

""These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all
know it," UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. "So it's time to get paid
for it."

As someone who has loaded my iPod(s) with legitimately purchased music, I am quite offended by the assumption that because I own an mp3 player, I must be illegally downloading or listening to illict materials.  Thinking and Driving is on the right track with this.  Another alternative is to obtain UMG material on the used and secondary market.