In our warped reality, the media cartel have top guys in the US DOJ. It can be considered an extreme form of regulatory capture.
In this environment, what is sane (you purchase a CD, rip the bits for use space-shifted to the cloud) is not seen as "legal" without "license fees".
Apple paying dues to the music cartel does win in this environment; Google and Amazon playing to rational logic do not. Apple groked this 20 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi
My.mp3.com lost. That’s the legal situation. If you want to let people access their music in the cloud without them having to upload it you will have to come to some agreement with the labels. There is no way around it.
Google and Amazon are bigger and could afford a fight. And I hope they do.
To me the fact that Apple will have deals with the music labels and will probably only allow you to play music you bought from them - that's no surprise at all.
> Google and Amazon are bigger and could afford a fight.
A fight they have no guarantee they can win still. The jurisprudence is against them, although Amazon definitely seems to think they can be successful.
And while they're fighting Apple are establishing themselves as the number one player.
This isn't about what's right, it's about what will work.
I'm not sure Amazon (or Google) really think they can be successful but I'm not sure that's the point. I think they're just manoeuvring - potentially trying to show the record companies that there is demand, that there is money to be made and to encourage them into a mutually agreeable licensing deal.
This is Sony and Universal Music we're talking about not some two bit patent troll with no balls. They've got pretty good lawyers, deep pockets and believe (rightly or wrongly) that they're fighting for their survival.
Spending more and more on lawyers is likely to really only benefit the lawyers.
It strikes me as very strategic for a few reasons.
1. As pointed out below, Google and Amazon are likely to pick this fight. I would imagine Apple is more then happy to let those two companies spend the blood, sweat, tears and dollars on what will surely be a lengthy legal fight.
2. With the labels opening a deal, they'll feel more inclined to shutdown/stop Amazon/Google pressing their need to move legally in return.
3. While all this is happening, especially if injunctive relief is given to the labels, Apple has the legal solution in the U.S.
4. They continue to sell silly amounts of content and done right the process of shopping by my iPhone now becomes building a playlist, that can sync later to physical files in my iTunes, if at all. Or a subscription stream model, where again just putting together a list from the largest online retailer of music.
I'm sure Apple thinks it's positive because otherwise they'd just follow Amazon/Google. So it's hardly "spin", quite clearly Apple feels that what they're getting is going to be well worth the costs. They have a decent track record too.
It's certainly positive for Apple's customers that they don't have to spend hours and hours and tons of bandwidth uploading their music.
It's certainly positive for Apple and their customers if the fees are lower then they would have otherwise been or if Apple was able to get other concessions from the labels.
Only MG Siegler can spin this into something positive.