Death Of Nokia's 'Comes With Music' Shows That 'Free' With DRM Is A Losing Proposition
from the dead-and-buried dept
This is from a little while ago, but I'm just catching up on some older stories. Reader Rabbit80 points us to the news that Nokia has finally put its "Comes with Music" program out of its misery and shut it down. Comes with Music was actually an interesting idea: you buy a phone and for 12 months you get free music downloads. At a conceptual level, this sounds great: you're using the abundant (free music!) to make the scarce (mobile phone!) more valuable. But, like everything, a good idea can be marred by the execution. And, in this case, the execution involved the major record labels demanding that "Comes with Music" really mean "Comes with DRM'd Music." A year and a half ago we pointed out that Comes With Music was really getting very little uptake, and the decision to kill it off just confirms how weak the pickup was.Nokia says that it was the DRM that was the real killer:
"The markets clearly want a DRM-free music service."And, of course, there was nothing stopping the labels from allowing a DRM-free service, but they still have this infatuation with DRM, even though they finally came around to ditching the DRM on MP3 sales.
That said, this little real world experiment once again seems to highlight how the claim that "people just want stuff for free" is a myth. Here was a case where people could get the music they wanted for free... but it came limited and so they weren't interested. It's rarely about people just wanting stuff for free. It's often about the restrictions or the convenience of things. The price is nice, but it's rarely the key factor, despite what some industry folks would like to claim.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Not at all. The music wasn't "free", it was restricted. What they really wanted as free music, not chained and limited.
It actually goes a long way to prove the point, that even with it being offered without cost, the limitations were still move than the free---ds wanted to pay.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Feel free to revise and restate your previous post.
;-P
[ link to this | view in thread ]
We know their profits where cut in half, but wow! how can incompetency endure so long.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Definitely - for a massive example of price v convenience, you only have to look at Apple (particularly their iPods, iPhones and iPads).
You can easily find cheaper products than Apple, and often with more functionality ... but the Apple user interface is so very well designed that they sell like the proverbial hot cakes
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
benefits
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Well placed campaign contributions.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I was using Spotify the other day and I was tempted to pay for their subscription service. The reason I backed down? Because I can't listen to it in the car.
There are numerous ways in which I can get to listen to music legally - and for free, but all of them seem to involve having an internet connection (and I use these services frequently!) Give me a convenient and cheap alternative to having to be online and I will most likely jump at the opportunity. And having DRM'd music that expires on my phone doesn't count!
The entertainment industries need to start working together and find ways to attract consumers. If there was a service where I could legally download as many films and as much music as I liked for a reasonable fee (say �25 per month) I would jump at the opportunity. At the moment they are lucky to get that amount in a year from me.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Apple's products let you work with MP3 which you can transfer. They don't sell DRM'd songs anymore (although watermarked) but you can transfer songs from your PC to your Mac and your iPhone/iPad/iPod.
So the only backlash they are feeling are from those who don't like their business model. But that model does include freedom for the consumer. And they offer more freedom than I could get from Nokia's offering.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Blindered approach to Apple.
Everything else they sell still comes with the same DRM they've always had. Beyond this, there are also technical limits and restrictive developer policies that chafe with a lot of people.
Apple is only DRM-free if you're terribly blindered.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
http://gigaom.com/video/piracy-consumer-attitudes/
To quote, "So what makes them pirate? 69 percent said the content being free was a deciding factor."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Free music isn't truly free unless it's free from DRM as well.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
great article. i like this part:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
it's just not that simple.
i'm not arguing that people don't want stuff for free, lots of people do, and when i first started pirating, that was the big motivator for me as well. in the beginning, when you have more time than money, getting stuff for free is really tempting.
i'm arguing that piracy is not JUST about getting stuff for free. piracy is simply an all around better way to do digital media.
i download stuff for free all the time. but i also have a netflix subscription. i use netflix for convenience mostly, not necessarily for it's actual content. it's great for being impulsive, or when i am traveling, but sucks compared to streaming media over your LAN.
actually, before bit torrent, i used to rent DVDs from netflix, rip them, and then return the disks. i discovered that the ripz i get from bit torrent are just *WAY* better quality than the ones did myself. plus it was way less work.
i pay for all sorts of other stuff too. i have a pair of servers with multi-terabyte arrays that i keep all my downloaded stuff on. i have a third server dedicated to downloading because the tools i use to stay under the radar of the Copyright Cops makes a PC useless for pretty much everything else. i have a couple of home theater PCs to play my files back on. i have a couple of terabyte sized external drives for trading warez with my friends. plus i run out of disk space every year or two and have to upgrade. and don't get me started portable players.
all that gear was expensive. i also have the top bandwidth package from my ISP (a cable company no less) which is also expensive.
so it's not that i'm cheap, far from it. i'd say that "freeloading" has cost me several grand just in hardware. no, for me it's the basic fact that pirating is just an all around better way to get media.
the pirated product is just better: it works on any device i have, ad free, in any format i choose, and it's usually available days and sometimes weeks before retail.
there's also the community that surrounds piracy, known as "the scene". some release groups, like FXG, don't just release very good Copies Of Things, they release copies of Very Good Things.
i have watched quite a few good movies that i've either never heard of or would have dismissed as chick flicks or art films simply because FXG released them and i trust their taste. in cases where i know the film i want, AXXO always delivers good releases.
i download all sorts of things: stuff i already own physical media for, stuff for other people, i even download stuff i have already downloaded because i need a different format or file type. i'll bet i downloaded "the dark knight" half a dozen times, and that was *after* paying to see it in the theater.
there's also the anarchist/political angle, but i've gone on way too long already.
i'm willing to pay for all sorts of stuff like bandwidth, access, equipment, or convenience, but i'm not willing to pay for content.
as a matter of fact, i would actually pay money to be able to pirate stuff in the open without being hassled by take down notices: i.e. no block lists to manage, no encrypted connections to slow things down, no private trackers to maintain ratio on. that would be convenience that's worth paying for. i've talked about this in the past. i call it "the piracy pass."
people don't just want stuff for free, it's not that simple.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
rather than a service, i would prefer a license to do what i am already doing.
i call it "the piracy pass", a voluntary license that is the intellectual property equivalent of diplomatic immunity. i do what i have always done, only i get to do it in the open using public trackers and no encryption. when the DMCA notices come in, my license serves as authorization to keep on doing i'm doing.
the mechanism to track is already in place (media sentry, etc.) the mechanism to collect and distribute royalties is already in place (ASCAP and their movie and television equivalents).
there is no search and download service that can compete with bit torrent and torrent trackers, so why bother trying to come up with one?
other than setting up the license, nothing has to change. i keep pirating, just like always. they keep snooping, just like always. the royalties groups and the labels/studios keep screwing the artists, just like always. the only thing that changes is i get left alone and the content industry gets an increase in revenue.
also, if people don't want to pay, they can keep doing what they are doing right now.
honestly, it's really the only way that i can see the incumbent media industry surviving. not that i care that they do, if they die off, someone else with sensible pricing will fill the void.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
The best part is that you don't have to wait days for a download to come, you don't have to risk getting a virus, and you don't have to worry about answering lawsuits.
Perhaps you want to try it and stop wasting you time downloading.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Looking at my current costs each month - �10 goes to my usenet provider, �5 goes to my VPN provider and another �10 goes to my seedbox provider. Guess how much the creative industry gets? Zero
I know very few people that spend over �25 per month on legal content - with costs rising for everyday essentials, most people I know are struggling to pay for petrol to put in their cars. Entertainment is simply not a priority - why spend �15 for a DVD when it is free and easier to download it? Most of these people though, would pay a set fee each month if the option was available and wasn't full of crippling restrictions.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You say that like it means something. Basically, you're saying is that you're willing [e.g. forced] to pay for all of the things that you can't easily steal.
As I responded to the other article, most of the younger kids and college types belong to the �more time than money� crowd. They�re willing to spend hours scrounging around the web trying to find a decent copy of the latest movie. They�re also willing to sit through ads if it means the content is �free�.
But as you get older, you begin to realize that your time has value, and you become willing to spend money not to waste it. And you generally have the income such that you can afford to do so.
I, personally, will pay for an iTunes movie rental or a Netflix subscription so that I can find and watch high-quality movies (format not content) quickly and easily.
I also tend to believe that the people who create the content deserve some form of compensation as well. As such, I pay.
Despite the fact that in doing so I'm also supporting the occasional parasite and free rider... like yourself.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Blindered approach to Apple.
As to apps... I'm actually in favor of Apple's approach. It's not like you can use an iOS app on any other device, and providing a base level of protection for developers seems to be ensuring a steady flow of high-quality, inexpensive applications.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
I think you're finally getting it. You owe Mike for this education.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
so did you.
you are basically saying that atoms (scarce goods) and bits (infinite goods) are the same thing, and that the laws of economics (and possibly even physics) should apply where they simply do not.
i'm not saying that the idea isn't hard to get your head around. dudes like abraham maslow and charles darwin based just about all of their work on the idea that humans are basically hardwired to fight over scarce resources.
As I responded to the other article, most of the younger kids and college types belong to the �more time than money� crowd. They�re willing to spend hours scrounging around the web trying to find a decent copy of the latest movie. They�re also willing to sit through ads if it means the content is �free�.
right, and i'm saying that compared to a pirated DVD rip streamed from a local hard drive, netflix sucks miserably. it sucks in terms of video quality, reliability, and availability.
i am saying that the product available illegally is *SUPERIOR* to the legal one in absolutely every respect.
i am saying that netflix, hulu, boxxee, all of them could be absolutely free, as in zero dollars and zero ads, and they could offer every bit of content ever produced, and i would *STILL* choose the illegal copies because they are just better, all the way around.
the market price for recorded content is ZERO. you can talk about morality, and tradition, and young whippersnappers all you want, but the fact of the matter is that high quality media can be digitally distributed faster, easier and for free, by file sharers.
file sharers have solved the distribution problem. as in mission accomplished. this is the right way to do it, end of story.
what remains for content producers is a product problem: the product that they make isn't sustainable in a market where the price for recorded media is zero.
until the content industries can deliver something BETTER than a product which is SUPERIOR to their current offering, there just isn't a reason for them to sell the things that they are selling.
in my mind, the only improvement to be made is the convenience that comes with legality. bit torrent is easy to do, and staying under the radar isn't hard either, it's just inconvenient.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
i've used netflix for a couple of years, and it sucks compared to bit torrent: lousy selection, poor video quality on streaming, and every time i want to watch something i have to wait for it to buffer. it's only benefit is it's ability to deliver recommendations for random stuff. also there's that whole 28 day wait on new releases. so it's fine for random thing, but the bulk of my video watching is via bit torrent.
The best part is that you don't have to wait days for a download to come, you don't have to risk getting a virus, and you don't have to worry about answering lawsuits.
have you ever used BT? a popular TV show, 350-500mb in size, with a thousand seeders, will download for me in less than half an hour. less than 10 minutes if it's my only active torrent, but that almost never happens cuz i pretty much always have dozens going.
i use RSS feeds to download new releases automatically. they just show up on my server, kind of like TIVO :-)
as for viruses, you don't know shit about filesharing.
copies are put out by groups, known as release groups, and those guys have reputations to maintain (i recommend FXG, kingdom, or aXXo). viruses, fakes and other nonsense trashes your reputation. it's a community, people take care of each other.
the closest i've come to a virus is a false positive on a keygen or other crack for a video game.
and for lawsuits? i got a couple of DMCA warnings in the beginning before i learned how to stay under the radar. it isn't hard to do thanks to private trackers, block lists and encrypted connections, it's just inconvenient and it slows things down. building ratio on a private tracker is always tough.
if i had a pass i could buy, my downloads would be faster and the people that snoop could collect nielesn ratings type statistics.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
i am curious about seedboxes, they limit your number of connections, right? does your seedbox help you build your ratio?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DRM
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Response to: Anonymous Coward on Feb 16th, 2011 @ 9:17am
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The main problem with Comes with music in our experience is it's as glitchy as can be. Not like iTunes where you download a song, plug your iPod into the computer and the iPod is synced in a matter of moments.
The first time we had trouble with Comes with music because of daylight savings. The phone happened to say a different time to the computer by one hour and we didn't pick it up. That threw Comes with music into a spin and we got this licensing error message that stopped us being able to download music or play the songs on our phone. It took weeks of phone calls and emails to Nokia to resolve.
Next came the problem of transferring songs to the phone from the PC after the subscription expired. My advice if you have a current subscription or are thinking of getting one - don't try and transfer your favourite songs from you PC to your Comes with music phone after the subscription is up. Fill up your phone with your favourites before. We were under the impression that the songs you download during your subscription are yours to keep - and transfer between computer and phone or vv. Warning - it will glitch if you try and transfer songs after your year is up. In our case it caused another licensing error and now we can't play any of our songs on the PC which we downloaded during our Comes with music subscription. We've lost the right to listen to all of them - even though they say you have the music for life.
The Nokia staff try and be helpful. I feel sorry for them actually. I don't know much about DRM and all that. All I know is, the whole Comes with music - now called Music unlimited - is glitchy because of it. Only half expect it to work if you subscribe to it. And expect it to keep hiccupping during your subscription and hiccup or stop working after your subscription expires.
In our case we subscribed to Comes with Music because we lost all our music in a fire. Music was important to us - it helped my husband rebuild his life - it helped us feel normal again.
A few weeks ago hubby found some songs in my Comes with music PC library collection which he liked and I tried to transfer them to my Comes with music Nokia phone so he could listen to them at night. And now the DRM licensing is preventing us from listening to any of our music on the PC. All that remains of our Comes with music collection is about 110 songs on my phone. Yet another Nokia Comes with music glitch. Sigh.
Would I buy another Comes with Music phone again? Yes. I believe we got our money's worth out of the plan.
Do I wish it was DRM free? Yes. Because my computer is not going to last forever. Neither is their Nokia phone. The phone that came with the comes with music subscription never really worked well as a phone - it had poor reception. I've only ever sent 200 texts on it according to the outbox. But already the buttons on the phone don't work along the top row properly. So in short - I'm going to lose my music collection when the phone wears out. And like I said before - even if Nokia can resolve the glitch in the licensing problem - my PC will wear out too. And since they don't have comes with music in Australia anymore, I won't be able to buy another phone like it.
I guess that's why most people go for iTunes.
[ link to this | view in thread ]