iPod Mania, and why reasonable people steal music
John Gruber writes great essays about the Mac ecosystem, and “iPod Mania” is no exception.
The iPod has risen to pop-culture phenomenon status. People aren’t shopping for “digital music players”, they’re shopping for iPods.
You heard it there first: “iPod” is on its way to being Xerox, Kleenex, TiVo.
He’s right, of course. It’s a phenomenon. And it’s hitting at just the right time—when there’s a “middle class” of computer-comfortable users who are ready to buy in. They’re not early adopters, but they’re savvy enough that if they get sucked into digital music, they are totally sucked in. My brother-in-law, a consultant who uses computers every day for work but would never consider making a hobby out of it, has just discovered iTunes. (Erin and I had just a little to do with that, but mostly he finally got curious. Of course, me getting an iPod might have helped nurture that curiosity along; coda the “peer pressure” argument.)
And now he’s iTunes Music Store crazy. (Crazy for him, anyway: ten or fifteen songs in a couple of weeks. He tells me his wife has just discovered it in the last few days, and in that time she’s bought more tracks than he has.)
What’s even more interesting about this is that my brother-in-law is frustrated that the iTMS library is so small. “Go buy the CD and rip it,” I counseled. “No way,” he replied, “it totally defeats the purpose, for me. I only ever want two or three tracks on any album, and so it’s a waste to buy it in the store. But if I can buy tracks individually, I’ll do it.”
So he asked what his other options were, and at that moment he became the perfect example of a music lover just waiting for the music industry to get its act together and embrace digital music! And since that isn’t happening anytime soon, he is the perfect example of those potential file-sharers who are not cheap college students looking to steal music, but instead legitimate customers searching for a way to enjoy music. I told him about the other music services, which have usability problems and even smaller catalogs, and I also mentioned AllOfMP3 (you know, the russian music store selling songs for a quarter a track due to international trade loopholes). His first question: “Do they pay artists at all?” Of course, the answer is “no.”
This, friends, is why reasonable people steal music. Because they can’t buy it, not at a fair price or in a fair way, that meets their (reasonable) needs.