Apple and the major labels are squaring off for a major battle this fall with competing formats for delivering the latest innovation in digitial music. Full albums will come with a cornucopia of digital extras — at least that's the way much of the tech press is setting the scene for a clash between Apple's Project Cocktail and the major labels' CMX format.
Both wrap songs, videos, images, lyrics, ringtones and other digital doodads into a comprehensive package that the industry hopes will bring back the long lost, profitable days of full album sales, which gave way to listeners buying single songs.
Apple and Amazon would not answer our questions about this move on the record (nor would any of the four major labels), after Times Online broke the news about the labels' CMX format. But from the sources we canvassed, a picture emerged of Apple and the labels working on these efforts in parallel. It seems they're not necessarily "at war" with each other, as a Google News search might lead you to believe.
In fact, many at the labels are happy to work with Apple on Apple's full-album format, and will supply the assets and licensing the company needs to create it. If one side is supplying the other, it's not a war. But the labels also want something they can sell on Amazon and elsewhere, and Apple's format will only be available in iTunes — it appears to be as simple as that.
So Apple may be the biggest game in town when it comes to digital music sales, but it's not the only game. Admittedly, many at the labels feel that iTunes is in need of some healthy competition, which isn't the same as a war.
If Apple markets its version alongside the tablet PC it seems almost certain to release it this fall so people can pore over digital liner notes as they listen to an album together, its format could gain traction. And the labels, which plan to introduce CMX cautiously — possibly with a U2 album and a few other key releases — appear more than willing to license Apple's solution, too.
Either way, all parties involved (Apple, labels, and consumers) stand to gain, and that doesn't tend to happen in wars.
Music fans should welcome the chance to buy a full album, plus extras, in whatever format they prefer -- if they regain the thrill of reading liner notes and enjoying the art of album covers, while hearing an album for the first time. For Apple and the labels, the model represents a way to bolster bottom lines by finally selling something new, a format in which digital music means something more than just increased portability.
If there's a war brewing here, it won't be about these formats. And it won't involve the desktop, where these formats are meant to be experienced (iTunes works on Windows and Mac, and it doesn't matter whether CMX works on Mac because Mac users will buy the Apple version, anyway).
It will be about getting these formats to play on various mobile operating systems, and that problem could be solved in a number of ways. Apple's mobile OS could support CMX the same way it does MP3 and other formats Apple doesn't sell. Mobile apps could be created to play full albums on competing operating systems (Apple could risk antitrust scrutiny by barring an app that plays CMX files from its app store). Or, both formats could simply come with a download code for individual, unwrapped versions of the songs when you purchase the full album package — you could mix them into your playlists and carry them on devices where the "digital liner notes" thing doesn't make any sense.
Ultimately, of course, both Project Cocktail and CMX could be rendered meaningless by consumer indifference. People have shown they prefer digital singles. And when it comes to buying bundles of music and related content, the mobile phone app is quickly filling the same market hole that CMX and Project Cocktail are designed to occupy.
Warner Music Group approached Apple about doing something like this more than two years ago, as we reported in April of '07. "We've been looking at a few technologies (for digital album art), and have been trying to bring these to Apple, to encourage them to bring that level of experience to the iPod," said WMG senior VP George White. "A very simple demonstration that we've done takes the Gnarls Barkley liner notes and does a fly-through (using Adobe Flash Lite). You're actually moving through the lyrics and artwork. It's sort of like a theme park ride through the album. It's really, really cool-looking on an iPod."
That conversation between Apple and the labels spiraled into two full-album formats, each offering digital extras that will -- if they're designed the right way -- make the oft-bemoaned disappearing album cover look staid by comparison.
Whether people buy these full albums on iTunes (through Project Cocktail) or on Amazon (using the CMX format), the labels will win. It's all about getting people to buy albums again, not about which format people prefer.
And to get that to happen, the labels might want to release bundles of music that hang together as pieces of art, rather than collections of songs with one or two hot tracks.
As IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian astutely pointed out, "the shift to digital happened as album value declined -- you'd get one or two great songs, and the album often didn't hold together thematically or represent the best the artist had to offer," she said. "It wasn't realistic to think consumers would keep buying albums. So this all goes hand-in-hand [with] developing artists or collections of songs so that consumers feel like there's value."
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Image courtesy of Tom Coates
