2003-12-03 Steve Jobs.The Rolling Stone Interview
He changed the computer industry. Now he's after the music business
他改变了计算机行业。现在他瞄准了音乐行业。
By Jeff Goodell 杰夫·古德尔
When Steve Jobs cruises into the airy reception area on the Apple Computer campus in Cupertino, California, on a recent morning, nobody pays much attention to him, even though he's the company's CEO. He's wearing shorts, a black T-shirt and running shoes. Tall and a little gawky, Jobs has a fast, loping walk, like a wolf in a hurry. These days Jobs seems eager to distance himself from his barefoot youth -- who was that crazy kid who once called the computer "a bicycle for the mind"?-- and driven to prove himself as a clear-thinking Silicon Valley capitalist.
当史蒂夫·乔布斯在加利福尼亚库比蒂诺的苹果电脑校园的宽敞接待区走进来时，没人太在意他，尽管他是公司的首席执行官。他穿着短裤、黑色 T 恤和跑鞋。乔布斯身材高大，有些笨拙，走路的姿势快而轻松，像一只匆忙的狼。如今，乔布斯似乎渴望与他赤脚的青春保持距离——那个曾经称计算机为“心灵的自行车”的疯狂小子是谁？——并努力证明自己是一个清晰思考的硅谷资本家。
Jobs punches the elevator button to the fourth floor, where his small office is located. For a man who is as responsible as anyone for the wonder and chaos of Silicon Valley, Jobs' view of it all is surprisingly modest: shrubby treetops extending out toward San Francisco Bay, the distant whoosh of the freeway below.
乔布斯按下前往四楼的电梯按钮，他的小办公室就位于那里。对于一个对硅谷的奇迹和混乱负有重要责任的人来说，乔布斯对这一切的看法出奇地谦逊：灌木丛的树冠延伸向旧金山湾，远处是高速公路的嗖嗖声。
There is nothing modest, however, about Apple's recent accomplishments. In the past few months, Jobs' company has rolled out the PowerMac G5, arguably the fastest desktop computer on the planet; has redesigned the Powerbook and iBook laptops; and introduced Panther, a significant upgrade of the OS X operating system. But Jobs' biggest move, and certainly the one closest to his heart, has been Apple's plunge into the digital-music revolution. It began two years ago, with the introduction of the iPod portable music player, which may be the only piece of Silicon Valley hardware that has ever come close to matching the lust factor of the original Macintosh. Then, in April of this year, Apple introduced its digital jukebox, the iTunes Music Store, first for the Mac, and then, in October, for Windows. The result: 20 million tracks downloaded, close to a million and a half iPods sold, aggressive deals with AOL and Pepsi, and lots of good PR for Apple as the savior of the desperately fucked-up music industry.
然而，苹果最近的成就并不谦虚。在过去几个月里，乔布斯的公司推出了 PowerMac G5，毫无疑问是地球上最快的桌面电脑；重新设计了 Powerbook 和 iBook 笔记本电脑；并推出了 Panther，这是 OS X 操作系统的重要升级。但乔布斯最大的举动，当然也是他最关心的，就是苹果进入数字音乐革命。这一切始于两年前，推出了 iPod 便携式音乐播放器，这可能是硅谷硬件中唯一接近原始 Macintosh 的诱惑因素。然后，在今年四月，苹果推出了其数字点唱机 iTunes 音乐商店，首先在 Mac 上推出，然后在十月推出 Windows 版本。结果：下载了 2000 万首曲目，售出了近 150 万个 iPod，与 AOL 和百事可乐达成了积极的交易，并为苹果赢得了大量良好的公关，成为拯救陷入困境的音乐产业的救世主。
Still, Jobs' bet on digital music is a hugely risky move in many ways, not only because powerhouses such as Dell and Wal-Mart are gunning for Apple (and Microsoft will be soon, as well), but because success may depend on how well Jobs, a forty-eight-year-old billionaire, is able to understand and respond to the fickle music-listening habits of eighteen-year-olds in their college dorms.
尽管如此，乔布斯对数字音乐的押注在许多方面都是一个极具风险的举动，不仅因为戴尔和沃尔玛等巨头正在向苹果发起挑战（微软也很快会加入），还因为成功可能取决于这位四十八岁的亿万富翁能否理解并应对十八岁大学生在宿舍里多变的听音乐习惯。
Do you see any parallel between music revolution today and PC revolution in 1984?
你觉得今天的音乐革命和 1984 年的个人电脑革命之间有什么相似之处吗？
Well, obviously, the biggest difference is that we're on Windows. It's still very early in the music revolution. Remember there are 10 billion songs that are distributed in the U.S. every year -- legally, on CDs. So far on iTunes, we've distributed about 16 million [as of October]. So we're at the very beginning of this. It will take years to unfold.
好吧，显然，最大的区别是我们在使用 Windows。音乐革命仍然处于非常早期的阶段。请记住，每年在美国合法发行的 CD 歌曲有 100 亿首。到目前为止，在 iTunes 上，我们已经发行了大约 1600 万首（截至十月）。所以我们正处于这个过程的最初阶段。这将需要数年时间才能展开。
Bringing iTunes to Windows was obviously a bold move. Did you do much hand-wringing over it?
将 iTunes 引入 Windows 显然是一个大胆的举动。你对此考虑了很多吗？
I don't know what hand-wringing is. We did a lot of thinking about it. The biggest risk, obviously, was that we saw people buying Macs just to get their hands on iPods. So taking iPods to Windows was really the choice. That was the big decision. We knew once we did that that we were going to go all the way. I'm sure we're losing some Mac sales, but half our sales of iPods are to the Windows world already.
我不知道什么是手忙脚乱。我们对此做了很多思考。最大的风险显然是，我们看到人们购买 Mac 是为了得到 iPod。因此，将 iPod 移植到 Windows 才是真正可选的方法。这是一个重大的决定。我们知道，一旦做出这个决定，我们就必须一路走到黑。我相信，我们会因此失去一些 Mac 的销量，但我们一半的 iPod 销量已经是来自于 Windows 阵营了。
How did the the record companies react when you initially approached them about getting on-board with Apple?
当你最初接触唱片公司希望与苹果合作时，他们的反应如何？
Well, there's a lot of smart people at the music companies. The problem is, they're not technology people. The good music companies do an amazing thing. They have people who can pick the person that's gonna be successful out of 5,000 candidates. And there's not enough information to do that -- it's an intuitive process. And the best music companies know how to do that with a reasonably high success rate.
好吧，音乐公司里有很多聪明的人。问题是，他们不是技术人员。好的音乐公司做了一件了不起的事情。他们能够从 5000 名候选人中挑选出将会成功的人。而且没有足够的信息来做到这一点——这是一种直觉过程。最好的音乐公司知道如何以相对较高的成功率做到这一点。
I think that's a good thing. The world needs more smart editorial these days. The problem is, is that that has nothing to do with technology. And so when the Internet came along, and Napster came along, they didn't know what to make of it. A lot of these folks didn't use computers -- weren't on e-mail; didn't really know what Napster was for a few years. They were pretty doggone slow to react. Matter of fact, they still haven't really reacted, in many ways. And so they're fairly vulnerable to people telling them technical solutions will work, when they won't.
我认为这是一件好事。如今，世界需要更多智慧的编辑。问题是，这与技术无关。因此，当互联网出现，Napster 出现时，他们不知道该怎么办。这些人中的许多人没有使用电脑——没有使用电子邮件；几年内都不知道 Napster 是什么。他们的反应相当迟钝。事实上，在很多方面，他们仍然没有真正做出反应。因此，他们很容易受到那些告诉他们技术解决方案可行的人的影响，而事实上技术解决方案是不可行的。
Because of their technological ignorance.
因为他们的技术无知。
Because of their technological innocence, I would say. When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content.
因为他们在技术上很天真，我会这么说。当我们第一次去和这些唱片公司谈话时——你知道，那是很久以前的事。我们花了 18 个月的时间。起初我们说：你们所谈论的这些技术都行不通。我们这里有博士，精通这些东西，我们不相信能够保护数字内容。
Of course, music theft is nothing new. Didn't you listen to bootleg Bob Dylan?
当然，音乐盗窃并不是什么新鲜事。你难道没听过盗版的鲍勃·迪伦吗？
Of course. What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it.
当然。新出现的是一个名为互联网的惊人高效的盗窃财产分发系统——没有人会关闭互联网。 而且只需要一个被盗副本出现在互联网上。我们将对此向他们表达的方式是：撬开一把锁——打开所有门。只需要一个人撬开一把锁。最坏的情况：有人只是将 CD 播放器的模拟输出录制下来——并将其放到互联网上。你永远无法阻止它。所以你必须与它竞争。
At first, they kicked us out. But we kept going back again and again. The first record company to really understand this stuff was Warner. They have some smart people there, and they said: We agree with you. And next was Universal. Then we started making headway. And the reason we did, I think, is because we made predictions.
起初，他们把我们赶了出去。但我们一次又一次地回去。第一个真正理解这些东西的唱片公司是华纳。他们那里有一些聪明的人，他们说：我们同意你的观点。接下来是环球。然后我们开始取得进展。我认为我们之所以能做到，是因为我们做出了预测。
We said: These [music subscription] services that are out there now are going to fail. Music Net's gonna fail, Press Play's gonna fail. Here's why: People don't want to buy their music as a subscription.
我们说：现在这些[音乐订阅]服务将会失败。Music Net 会失败，Press Play 会失败。原因是：人们不想以订阅的方式购买音乐。
They bought 45's; then they bought LP's; then they bought cassettes; then they bought 8-tracks; then they bought CD's. They're going to want to buy downloads. People want to own their music. You don't want to rent your music -- and then, one day, if you stop paying, all your music goes away.
他们买过 45's，买过 LP's，买过磁带，买过8 轨磁带，买过 CD。他们会想买下载版。人们希望拥有自己的音乐。你不想租用你的音乐--然后有一天，如果你停止付费，你所有的音乐都会消失。
And, you know, at 10 bucks a month, that's $120 a year. That's $1,200 a decade. That's a lot of money for me to listen to the songs I love. It's cheaper to buy, and that's what they're gonna want to do.
而且，你知道，每个月 10 美元，一年就是 120 美元。十年就是 1200 美元。对我来说，听我喜欢的歌曲花这么多钱可不划算。买下来更便宜，这就是他们想要做的。
They didn't see it that way. There were people running around --business-development people -- who kept pointing out AOL as the great model for this and saying: No, we want that -- we want a subscription business. We said: It ain't gonna work.
他们并不这样看。有人在四处奔跑——业务发展人员——不断指出 AOL 是这个的伟大典范，并说：不，我们想要那个——我们想要一个订阅业务。我们说：这行不通。
Slowly but surely, as these things didn't pan out, we started to gain some credibility with these folks. And they started to say: You know, you're right on these things -- tell us more.
慢慢地，但确实如此，随着这些事情没有结果，我们开始在这些人中获得一些信誉。他们开始说：你知道，你在这些事情上是对的——告诉我们更多。
Well, despite the success of iTunes, it seems that it's a little early to call all of your competitors failures. Real Network's Rhapsody, for example, has already won over some critics.
好吧，尽管 iTunes 取得了成功，但似乎现在就称所有竞争对手为失败者还为时尚早。例如，Real Network 的 Rhapsody 已经赢得了一些评论家的青睐。
One question to ask these subscription services is how many subscribers they have. It's around 50,000. And that's not just for Rhapsody, it's for the old Pressplay and the old MusicMatch. 50,000 subscribers, total.
一个需要问这些订阅服务的问题是他们有多少订阅者。大约有 50,000 个。这不仅仅是 Rhapsody 的数字，还包括旧的 Pressplay 和旧的 MusicMatch。总共 50,000 个订阅者。
The subscription model of buying music is bankrupt. I think you could make available the Second Coming in a subscription model and it might not be successful.
购买音乐的订阅模式已经破产。我认为你可以以订阅模式提供《再来一次》，但可能不会成功。
When you went to see music execs, was there much comment about Apple's "Rip, Mix, Burn" campaign? A lot of music execs regarded it as a subtle invitation to steal music.
当你去见音乐界高管时，他们对苹果公司的 "Rip, Mix, Burn "活动是否有很多评论？很多音乐公司的高管都认为这是一种含蓄的偷窃音乐的邀请。
Well, when we did the Rip, Mix, Burn thing -- I mean, "rip" is the phrase that means "take the bits off the CD and put 'em on your hard drive." Rip the bits off your CD -- as if you're physically ripping them off and putting them on your hard drive. The person who assailed us over it was Michael Eisner. Because he didn't have any teenage kids living at home, and he didn't have any teenage kids working at Disney that he talked to, so he thought "rip" meant "rip off." And when somebody actually clued him in a to what it meant, he did apologize.
当我们做“Rip, Mix, Burn”这个活动时，“rip”这个词的意思是“把CD上的音乐提取出来，放到你的硬盘上”。“Rip”就像是你在物理上把这些东西从CD上撕下来，然后放到你的硬盘上。攻击我们的人是迈克尔·艾斯纳，因为他家里没有青少年孩子，所以他以为“rip”的意思是“盗取”。当有人真正告诉他这个词的意思时，他道歉了。
Lately, the recording industry has been threatening to throw anyone caught illegally downloading music in jail. How smart is that?
最近，录音行业威胁要把任何被抓到非法下载音乐的人送进监狱。这有多聪明呢？
Well, I empathize with 'em. I mean, Apple has a lot of intellectual property. We told 'em that, too. We said: We really get upset when people steal our software. So I think that they're within their rights to try to keep people from stealing their product.
我很能理解他们的感受。我的意思是，苹果拥有很多知识产权。我们也告诉过他们这一点。我们说：当人们盗用我们的软件时，我们真的会感到很生气。所以我认为他们有权利阻止人们盗窃他们的产品。
Our position, from the beginning, was that 80% of the people stealing music online don't really want to be thieves. But that it is such a compelling way to get music: It's instant gratification. You don't have to go to the record store; the music's already digitized, so you don't have to rip the CD. It's so compelling that people are willing to become thieves to do it. And to tell them that they should stop being thieves -- without a legal alternative, that offers those same benefits -- rings hollow. We said: We don't see how you convince people to stop being thieves, unless you can offer them a carrot --not just a stick. And the carrot is: We're gonna offer you a better experience ... and it's only gonna cost you a dollar a song.
我们从一开始的立场是，80%在线盗版音乐的人并不真心想做小偷。但这是获取音乐的一种非常吸引人的方式：它带来了即时的满足感。你不需要去唱片店，音乐已经数字化了，所以你不需要提取CD。如此吸引人，以至于人们愿意为了获取音乐而成为小偷。告诉他们要停止盗窃——如果没有提供法律替代方案，并且能提供同样的好处——这听起来毫无说服力。我们说：我们看不出你怎么能说服人们停止盗窃，除非你能给他们一个诱惑——不仅仅是威胁。而这个诱惑就是：我们会给你提供更好的体验……而且每首歌只需要一美元。
You've sold about 20 millions songs on iTunes so far -- it sounds like a big number, until you realize that some 35 billion music files swapped in a year.
到目前为止，你在 iTunes 上售出了大约 2000 万首歌曲——这听起来是个大数字，直到你意识到每年有约 350 亿个音乐文件被交换。
Well, we don't even have to go that far. There are approximately 800 million CD's sold in the U.S. a year, I believe. That's about 10 billion tracks, right? About 10 billion tracks in the U.S. -- sold legally. Our next milestones are to get up to 100 million tracks a year, then a quarter a billion, and then half a billion, and then a billion. And that's gonna take a little bit of time. But we can see a path that people will buy a billion tracks a year online. From us and others. And that'll be 10% of the music that's sold today in the country, and then it will keep going from there. And, someday, maybe all of the music will be delivered online -- 'cause the Internet was built to deliver music. I mean, if nothing else, Napster proved that.
好吧，我们甚至不需要走那么远。我相信，美国每年大约售出 8 亿张 CD。这大约是 100 亿首曲子，对吧？在美国，合法售出的曲子大约是 100 亿首。我们的下一个里程碑是每年达到 1 亿首曲子，然后是 2.5 亿首，再然后是 5 亿首，最后是 10 亿首。这将需要一点时间。但我们可以看到一个路径，人们将在线购买每年 10 亿首曲子。来自我们和其他人。这将占今天在这个国家售出的音乐的 10%，然后它将继续增长。总有一天，也许所有的音乐都会在线交付——因为互联网是为了传递音乐而建立的。我是说，如果没有其他的话，Napster 证明了这一点。
David Bowie predicted that because of interent and piracy, copyright is going to be dead in ten years. You agree?
大卫·鲍伊预测，由于互联网和盗版，版权将在十年内消亡。你同意吗？
No. If copyright dies, if patents die, if the protection of intellectual property is eroded, then people will stop investing. That hurts everyone. People need to have the incentive that if they invest and succeed, they can make a fair profit. Otherwise they'll stop investing. But on another level entirely, it's just wrong to steal. Or, let's put it another way: it is corrosive to one's character to steal. We want to provide a legal alternative. And we want to make it so compelling that all those people out there who really want to be honest, and really don't want to steal, but haven't had a choice if they wanted to get their music online, will now have a choice. And we think over time, most people stealing music will choose not to if a fair and resonable alternative is presented to them. We are optimists. We always have been.
不。如果版权消亡，如果专利消亡，如果知识产权的保护被侵蚀，那么人们就会停止投资。这对每个人都很有害。人们需要有这样的激励：如果他们投资并成功，他们可以获得合理的利润。否则，他们就会停止投资。但在另一个层面上，偷窃就是错误的。或者换句话说：偷窃会腐蚀一个人的品格。我们希望提供一个合法的替代方案。我们希望让这个替代方案如此吸引人，以至于所有那些真正想要诚实、并且真的不想偷窃的人，如果他们想在网上获取音乐，过去没有选择，现在将会有选择。我们认为，随着时间的推移，大多数盗取音乐的人如果有一个公平合理的替代方案呈现给他们，他们将选择不再盗取。我们是乐观主义者。我们一直都是。
Of course, a lot of college students who are grabbing music off Kazza today don't see themselves as doing anything any different than what you did when you were a teenager, copying bootleg Bob Dylan tapes.
当然，今天很多从 Kazza 上下载音乐的大学生并不认为自己做的事情与您在青少年时期复制盗版鲍勃·迪伦磁带时有什么不同。
The truth is, it's really hard to talk to people about not stealing music when there's no legal alternative. The advent of a legal alternative is new -- it's six months old. Maybe there's been a generation of kids lost -- and maybe not, who knows. Maybe they think stealing music is like driving 70 mph on the freeway -- it's over the speed limit, but what's the big deal? But I don't think that's the way it's going to stay -- not with future generations, at least. But who knows? This is all new territory.
事实是，当没有合法的替代品时，和人们谈论不要盗取音乐真的很困难。合法替代品的出现是新的——只有六个月的历史。也许有一代孩子在这方面迷失了——也许没有，谁知道呢。也许他们认为盗取音乐就像在高速公路上以 70 英里每小时的速度行驶——超速了，但有什么大不了的呢？但我不认为这种情况会持续下去——至少对未来的几代人来说不会。但谁知道呢？这都是全新的领域。
Lots people who work in the movie business have watched what's happened to the music industry and think they're next. Do you see that?
很多在电影行业工作的人都看到了音乐产业发生的事情，并认为他们是下一个。你看到这一点了吗？
It is a problem. But movies are very different than music. First of all, they're a hundred times larger. So in countries like the U.S., where broadband is not very evolved, it takes forever to download a high-
这是一个问题。但电影与音乐非常不同。首先，它们的体积大一百倍。因此在像美国这样的国家，宽带并不发达，下载一个高质量的电影需要很长时间。
quality version of a movie. And remember that the bar is going to get raised on that quality in another four years, when we have high-definition DVDs in the market. That's going to increase the download times by another ten X. Because people's of what they want are going to go up with that. Second, movies are not deconstructable into songs, like an album is, that are easy to download. Five minutes of a movie isn't very useful. You want the whole thing. Third, there's only been one way to buy your music -- that's on a CD. Look at the ways there are to legally buy a movie -- you can see it at the theater, you can buy it on home video, you can buy on DVD. But you can also rent it at Blockbuster or Netflix. You can watch it on pay-per-view. You can also watch it on cable or network TV. There are a lot of ways to legally get a movie. There was only one way to legally get music. That's a really big difference. The distribution is much more highly evolved in the movie industry than it ever was in the music industry.
高质量的电影版本。而且要记住，在未来四年，当高清DVD进入市场时，这个质量的标准会进一步提高。这将使下载时间增加十倍，因为人们对他们想要的内容的期望会提高。其次，电影不能像专辑那样拆解成单曲，这样就容易下载。五分钟的电影片段并没有什么用，你想要的是整部电影。第三，购买音乐的方式只有一种——那就是买CD。而观看电影的方式有很多——你可以在电影院看，可以购买家庭视频，可以买DVD。你还可以在Blockbuster或Netflix租赁，可以通过付费点播观看，也可以在有线电视或网络电视上观看。合法获取电影的方式有很多，而合法获取音乐的方式只有一种。这是一个很大的不同。电影行业的发行方式远比音乐行业发展得成熟得多。
Now, all this doesn't mean that piracy isn't taking place in movies --because it is. And that doesn't mean that it's good -- because it's not. But because of all those factors, people who just make the leap that movies are next are wrong. It may take a different path.
现在，这一切并不意味着电影中没有盗版行为——因为确实存在。而这也并不意味着这很好——因为并不好。但由于所有这些因素，认为电影是下一个目标的人是错误的。它可能会走上不同的道路。
Apple has had a head start in the digital music business, but obviously lots of other companies are getting into it now too. Last week, for example, Dell come out with it iPod-clone, the Dell DJ.
苹果在数字音乐业务上已经取得了先机，但显然许多其他公司现在也开始进入这个领域。比如，上周，戴尔推出了它的 iPod 克隆产品，戴尔 DJ。
We will ship way more digital music players than Dell this quarter. Way more. In the long run, we're going to be very competitive. We beat Dell on operational metrics every quarter. We are absolutely as good of a manufacturer as Dell. Our logistics are as good as Dell's. Our online store is better than Dell's. And we have retail channels. Most people don't want to buy one of these things through the mail. Dell is going to have to sell that thing retail if they are going to succeed. Their distrubution model works against them when they get into consumer electronics. Like they're going to be selling plasma TVs online. Would you ever buy a plasma TV without seeing it? No way.
我们这一季度发货的数字音乐播放器将比戴尔多得多。长期来看，我们将非常具有竞争力。我们每个季度在运营指标上都击败戴尔。我们的制造能力和戴尔一样出色。我们的物流也和戴尔一样好。我们的在线商店比戴尔的更好，而且我们还有零售渠道。大多数人并不想通过邮件购买这些东西。如果戴尔想要成功，他们必须在零售渠道销售这些产品。他们的分销模式在进入消费电子领域时对他们是不利的。比如，他们要在线销售等离子电视。你会在没看到电视的情况下购买吗？绝对不可能。
And then there's Microsoft. What happens to Apple when they build an iTunes-clone into the Windows desktop?
然后是微软。当他们在 Windows 桌面上构建一个 iTunes 克隆时，苹果会发生什么？
I think Amazon does pretty well [against Microsoft]. Microsoft hasn't really been able to compete with them -- maybe not wanted to. EBay does pretty well; Google's done pretty well. Actually, AOL's done pretty well -- contrary to a lot of the things people say about them. So there are a lot of examples of people offering services, Internet-based services, that have done quite well.
我认为亚马逊在与微软的竞争中表现得相当不错。微软实际上并没有能够与他们竞争——也许并不想。eBay 表现得也不错；谷歌也做得很好。实际上，AOL 的表现也不错——与人们对他们的许多看法相反。因此，有很多提供服务的例子，基于互联网的服务，表现得相当好。
And Apple's in a pretty interesting position. Because, as you may know, almost every song and CD is made on a Mac -- it's recorded on a Mac; it's mixed on a Mac. The artwork's done on a Mac. Almost every artist I've met has an iPod, and most of the music execs now have iPods. And one of the reasons Apple was able to do what we did was because we are perceived by the music industry as the most creative technology company. And now we've created this music store, which I think is nontrivial to copy. I mean, to say that Microsoft can just decide to copy it, and copy it in six months --that's a big statement. It may not be so easy.
苹果处于一个相当有趣的位置。因为，正如你可能知道的，几乎每首歌和CD都是在Mac上制作的——录音是在Mac上完成的；混音也是在Mac上进行的。封面设计也是在Mac上完成的。我遇到的几乎每位艺术家都有iPod，现在大多数音乐高管也有iPod。苹果能够做到这一切的原因之一是我们在音乐行业被视为最具创意的科技公司。现在我们创建了这个音乐商店，我认为这并不是一个简单的复制品。我是说，微软如果只是决定复制它，并在六个月内完成——这可是个大声明。这可能并没有那么容易。
Despite the wonders of digital music services, a lot of musicans and listeners worry it's killing the album as an art form.
尽管数字音乐服务令人惊叹，但许多音乐人和听众担心这正在扼杀专辑作为一种艺术形式。
We've heard both sides of it. Most of the successful artists have carve-outs in their contract for the distribution of music online by their record company. And so even though we could convince, let's say, Universal Music, the largest, to do a deal with us for the iTunes Music Store, they were not able to offer us their top 20 artists. All music companies were like this. We had to go to the individual artists, one by one, and convince them, too. And we did, and they trusted us.
我们听到了双方的观点。大多数成功的艺术家在他们的合同中都有关于唱片公司在线分发音乐的例外条款。因此，即使我们能够说服，比如说，最大的环球音乐与我们达成 iTunes 音乐商店的交易，他们也无法提供他们前 20 位艺术家。所有音乐公司都是这样的。我们不得不逐个去接触个别艺术家，并说服他们。我们做到了，他们也信任我们。
Now, there were a few who said: We don't want to do that -- and we respect that. They said: We will let you distribute our albums as a whole, but not individual tracks. And we declined. We said: You know, our store is about giving the user that choice. And what's happened is that half the songs we've sold, approximately -- about half have been as albums ... and the other half have been individually. I think there's a much higher proportion of sales of songs as albums than anyone thought. We thought it was gonna be around a quarter, but it's around a half.
现在，有一些人说：我们不想这样做——我们尊重这一点。他们说：我们会让你们整体分发我们的专辑，但不允许分发单曲。我们拒绝了。我们说：你知道，我们的商店是为了给用户选择的机会。结果是，我们销售的歌曲中，大约一半——大约 一半是作为专辑销售的……而另一半是单独销售的。我认为作为专辑销售的歌曲比例远高于任何人的想法。我们原以为大约是四分之一，但实际上是大约一半。
But for every one of those, we've talked to, probably three or four artists who've said: You know, this is the best thing in the world. Because I don't want to have to wait 18 months to get together a dozen songs to make an album to get in front of my audience.
但是对于我们所谈到的每一个人，可能有三到四位艺术家说：你知道，这就是世界上最好的事情。因为我不想等 18 个月才能凑齐一打歌曲来制作专辑，去面对我的观众。
When is Apple going to start signing musicians - in effect, become a record label?
苹果什么时候会开始签约音乐人——实际上，成为一家唱片公司？
Well, it would be very easy for us to sign up a musician. It would be very hard for us to sign up a young musician that was successful. Because that's what the record companies do. Their value is in picking that 1 out of 5,000. We don't do that.
好吧，签约一位音乐家对我们来说非常简单。签约一位成功的年轻音乐家对我们来说则非常困难。因为这正是唱片公司所做的。他们的价值在于从 5000 人中挑选出那 1 个。我们不这样做。
We think there's a lot of structural changes that are probably gonna happen in the record industry, though. We've talked to a large number of artists that really don't like their record company, and I was curious about that. And the general reason they don't like the record company is because they think they've been really successful, but they've only earned a little bit of money.
我们认为唱片行业可能会发生很多结构性变化。我们与许多艺术家交谈过，他们对自己的唱片公司非常不满，我对此感到好奇。他们不喜欢唱片公司的主要原因是，他们认为自己非常成功，但实际上只赚了一点钱。
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They feel they've been ripped off.
他们觉得自己被欺骗了。
They feel. But then, again, the music companies aren't making a lot of money right now ... so where's the money going? Is it inefficiency? Is somebody going to Argentina with suitcases full of hundred-dollar bills? What's going on?
他们感受到了。但话说回来，音乐公司现在并没有赚很多钱……那么钱去哪儿了？是效率低下吗？有人带着装满百元钞票的手提箱去阿根廷吗？到底发生了什么？
And it turns out, after talking to a lot of people, this is my conclusion. A young artist gets signed, and they get a big advance -- a million dollars, or more. And the theory is that the record company will earn back that advance as the artist is successful.
经过与很多人交谈，我得出了这个结论。一位年轻艺术家签约后，会获得一笔丰厚的预付款——一百万美元或更多。理论上，唱片公司会随着艺术家的成功而收回这笔预付款。
Except that even though they're really good at picking, still, only one or two out of the ten that they pick is successful. And so, for most of the artists, they never earn back that advance -- so they're out that money. Well, who pays for the ones that are the losers?
除了他们在挑选方面确实很有眼光，但他们挑选的十个中，成功的也只有一两个。因此，对于大多数艺术家来说，他们永远无法收回那笔预付款——所以他们损失了这笔钱。那么，谁来为那些失败的作品买单呢？
Kid Rock.
小摇滚
The winners pay. The winners are paying for the losers, and the winners are not seeing rewards commensurate with their success. And so they get upset. So what's the remedy? The remedy is to stop paying advances. The remedy is to go to a gross-revenues deal and to tell an artist: We'll give you 20 cents on every dollar we get ... but we're not gonna give you an advance.
赢家付出。赢家在为输家买单，而赢家并没有看到与他们的成功相称的回报。因此，他们感到不满。那么解决办法是什么？解决办法是停止支付预付款。解决办法是采用总收入协议，并告诉艺术家：我们会给你每赚一美元 20 美分……但我们不会给你预付款。
The accounting will be simple: We're gonna pay you not on profits --we're gonna pay you off revenues. It's very simple: The more successful you are, the more you'll earn. But if you're not successful, you will not earn a dime. We'll go ahead and risk some marketing money on you, and we'll be out. But if you're not successful, you'll make no money -- but if you are, you'll make a lot more. That's the way out. That's the way the rest of the world works.
会计很简单：我们不会根据利润支付你——我们会根据收入支付你。这很简单：你越成功，赚得就越多。但如果你不成功，你一分钱也赚不到。我们会冒一些市场营销的风险在你身上，然后就退出。但如果你不成功，你不会赚到钱——但如果你成功了，你会赚得更多。这就是出路。这就是世界其他地方的运作方式。
So you see the recording industry moving in that direction?
所以你看到录音行业朝那个方向发展吗？
No. I said: I think that's the remedy. Will the patient swallow the medicine is another question.
不。我说：我认为那是解决办法。病人是否会吞下药是另一个问题。
I want to ask you about your own interest in music. I know you're a big Bob Dylan fan. What does Dylan mean to you?
我想问你对音乐的兴趣。我知道你是鲍勃·迪伦的忠实粉丝。迪伦对你意味着什么？
He was a very clear thinker, and he was a poet. I think he wrote about what he saw and thought. The early stuff is very precise. But, as he matured, you know, you had to unravel it a little bit. But once you did, it was just as clear as a bell. I was listening the other day to "Only a Pawn in Their Game." You know, when Medgar Evers was shot there were all these folk songs written about it. Dylan thought it through so carefully, and wrote this brilliant song about it. And that stuff's as good today as when he penned it.
他是一个思维非常清晰的人，也是一个诗人。我认为他写的是他所见和所想的东西。早期的作品非常精准。但随着他的成熟，你知道，你得稍微解读一下。但一旦你理解了，就会发现它同样清晰。我前几天在听《Only a Pawn in Their Game》。你知道，当梅德加·埃弗斯被枪杀时，有很多民谣写关于这件事。迪伦非常仔细地思考，并写出了这首精彩的歌曲。这些作品今天依然和他创作时一样出色。
When did you discover Dylan?
你是什么时候发现迪伦的？
Steve Wozniak turned me on to him. I was probably ... oh ... maybe 13, 14. We ended up meeting this guy who had every bootleg tape in the world. He was a guy that actually put out a newsletter on Bob Dylan. He was really into it -- his whole life was about Bob Dylan. But he had the best bootlegs -- even better stuff than you can get today that's been released. He had amazing stuff. And so we had our room full of tapes of Bob Dylan that we copied.
史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克让我喜欢上了他。我大概当时...哦...可能13、14岁。我们遇到了一个拥有世界上所有盗版磁带的人。他实际上还出了关于鲍勃·迪伦的通讯，他非常痴迷于迪伦——他的整个人生都围绕着鲍勃·迪伦。可是他的盗版磁带真的是最好的——比今天已经发布的还要好。他有一些惊人的东西。所以我们房间里堆满了我们复制的鲍勃·迪伦的磁带。
Obviously music is important to Apple's future. But skeptics have long viewed Apple as little more than as the cool R&D lab for the computer industry. Apple innovates -- everybody else takes it and makes money off it. How does Apple survive in an industry that's getting more consolidated, more mature?
显然，音乐对苹果的未来至关重要。但怀疑者早已将苹果视为计算机行业的一个酷炫研发实验室。苹果创新——其他人则拿去赚钱。在一个日益整合、日益成熟的行业中，苹果如何生存？
Well, first of all, I don't think that's a terrible thing, what you've just portrayed. Right now, in the personal-computer business -- in terms of companies that sell personal computers -- everyone is losing a lot of money, except for two companies.
好吧，首先，我并不认为你刚刚描绘的事情是可怕的。目前，在个人电脑行业——在销售个人电脑的公司中——除了两家公司，其他所有公司都在亏损。
Hewlett-Packard just announced their results, and they just lost $56 million in the PC business in one quarter. That's over $200 million a year. Sony's losing a lot of money in the PC business; Gateway's losing a lot of money in the PC business; IBM's losing money in the PC business; Toshiba's losing a lot of money in the PC business. Everyone's losing money in this business -- except for Dell, which is making a reasonable amount of money, and Apple, which is making a little money.
惠普刚刚公布了他们的业绩，他们在PC业务中一个季度亏损了5600万美元。这一年下来超过2亿美元。索尼在PC业务中亏损很多；网关在PC业务中亏损很多；IBM在PC业务中亏损；东芝在PC业务中亏损很多。这个行业里大家都在亏钱——除了戴尔，他们赚了不少钱，苹果也在盈利，不过盈利不多。
And Dell's making money because they're taking market share away from the guys, because they all sell the same product. We're making some money because we're innovating. And we decided to innovate our way through this downturn, so that we would be further ahead of our competitors when things turn up.
戴尔正在赚钱，因为他们从竞争对手那里夺取了市场份额，因为他们都在销售相同的产品。我们也在赚钱，因为我们在创新。我们决定通过创新来度过这次经济低迷，这样当形势好转时，我们就能在竞争对手之前走得更远。
Still, Apple's market share seems stuck at about 5% in the U.Ss and 3% worldwide.
尽管如此，苹果在美国的市场份额似乎仍然停留在约 5%，而在全球则为 3%。
So our market share is actually greater than BMW's -- greater than Mercedes -- in the car industry. And, yet, no one thinks BMW or Mercedes are going away, and no one thinks that they're at a tremendous disadvantage because that's their market share. Matter of fact, they're both highly desirable products and brands.
所以我们的市场份额实际上超过了宝马——超过了梅赛德斯——在汽车行业中。然而，没有人认为宝马或梅赛德斯会消失，也没有人认为它们因为市场份额而处于巨大的劣势。事实上，它们都是非常受欢迎的产品和品牌。
But is that a fair analogy? Mercedes isn't dependent upon having a critical mass of developers writing software in order to make their product useful.
但这算是一个公平的类比吗？梅赛德斯并不依赖于拥有大量开发者编写软件来使他们的产品有用。
Except that we do have that critical mass now. In other words, the thing about Apple's market share that you have to understand is, when you get under the hood, we don't sell computers, en masse, to sit on every desk of every corporation. So when you take that out, the remaining markets -- we have a much higher market share. Our consumer market share has doubled in the past few years -- doubled. So our market share in the creative-professional marketplace is over 50%.
不过我们现在确实有了关键的市场份额。换句话说，你必须理解苹果的市场份额，当你深入了解时，我们并不是在大量销售电脑，目的是让它们在每个公司的每张桌子上都能看到。所以当你把这一点考虑进去，剩下的市场中，我们的市场份额要高得多。我们的消费市场份额在过去几年中翻了一番——翻了一番。因此，在创意专业市场，我们的市场份额超过了50%。
So when you look at the markets that we compete in, our market share isn't 5% or 3% -- it's 10% to 60%. In some cases, it's up at 90%. So that's sort of the myth of the market share. If you throw in the boatloads of PC's that are sold to corporations, then that waters down our market share. But that's not a market we compete in, you know? That's like saying: Let's add the computers that are sold, you know, on Neptune.
所以当你看我们竞争的市场时，我们的市场份额不是 5%或 3%——而是 10%到 60%。在某些情况下，甚至高达 90%。所以这就是市场份额的神话。如果把卖给公司的大量个人电脑算上，那就稀释了我们的市场份额。但那不是我们竞争的市场，你知道吗？这就像说：让我们把在海王星上销售的电脑也算上。
Do you see a time when a version of the iPod will become more important to Apple than the Mac itself?
你认为有一天 iPod 的某个版本会对苹果公司变得比 Mac 本身更重要吗？
Well, Apple has a core set of talents, and those talents are: We do, I think, very good hardware design; we do very good industrial design; and we write very good system and application software. And we're really good at packaging that all together into a product. We're the only people left in the computer industry that do that. And we're really the only people in the consumer-electronics industry that go deep in software in consumer products. So those talents can be used to make personal computers, and they can also be used to make things like iPods. And we're doing both, and we'll find out what the future holds.
苹果有一套核心的才能，这些才能包括：我们在硬件设计方面做得很好；在工业设计方面做得很好；我们编写的系统和应用软件也非常出色。而且我们非常擅长将这些全部打包成一个产品。我们是计算机行业中唯一还在这样做的人。而且我们也是消费电子行业中唯一在消费产品的软件方面深入研究的人。所以这些才能可以用来制造个人电脑，也可以用来制造像iPod这样的产品。我们正在做这两件事，未来会如何，我们拭目以待。
You're well-known as being a technological optimist. Do you still feel as hopeful about what technology has done for us as a culture as you did, say, twenty years ago?
你被公认为科技乐观主义者。你仍然像 20 年前一样，对科技为我们文化所做的事情抱有希望吗？
Oh, yeah. I think it's brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I've ever seen is called television -- but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.
哦，是的。我认为这让世界变得更加紧密，并将继续这样做。一切事物都有其负面影响，所有事情都有意想不到的后果。我见过的最具腐蚀性的技术是电视——但话说回来，电视在最佳状态下是宏伟的。
Why do you call television the most corrosive of technology you've ever seen?
你为什么称电视是你见过的最具腐蚀性的技术？
Because the average American watches five hours a day of television, and television is a passive medium. Television doesn't turn your brain on. Or, television can be used to turn your brain off, and that's what it's mostly used for. And that's a wonderful thing sometimes -- but not for five hours a day.
因为平均每个美国人每天看五小时电视，而电视是一种被动媒介。电视不会激发你的大脑。或者说，电视可以用来让你的大脑关闭，而这正是它大多数时候的用途。有时候这是一件很美好的事情——但每天五小时就不太好了。
When you talk about what technology has done for the world, though, it's not just TV and computers. It's also genetic research, cloning, nanotech. There are a lot people who feel like we're pushing technology too far, that we don't really know what we're messing with. Do you have any sympathy for that point of view?
当你谈论科技为世界所做的事情时，不仅仅是电视和电脑。还有基因研究、克隆技术、纳米技术。很多人觉得我们在推动科技的边界，实际上我们并不知道自己在搞什么。你对这种观点有同情吗？
You know, again -- I'd rather just talk about music. These big-picture questions are just -- (Snores) I think we're all happier when we have a little more music in our lives.
你知道，再说一次——我宁愿谈谈音乐。这些大局观的问题只是——（打鼾）我觉得当我们的生活中有更多音乐时，我们都会更快乐。
(Laughs) It's that simple?
（笑）就这么简单？
We were very lucky -- we grew up in a generation where music was an incredibly intimate part of that generation. More intimate than it had been, and maybe more intimate than it is today, because today there's a lot of other alternatives. We didn't have video games to play. We didn't have personal computers. There's so many other things competing for kids' time now. But, nonetheless, music is really being reinvented in this digital age, and that is bringing it back into people's lives. It's a wonderful thing. And in our own small way, that's how we're working to make the world a better place.
我们非常幸运——我们成长在一个音乐与我们这一代人有着极其亲密关系的时代。比以往任何时候都更亲密，也许比今天更亲密，因为今天有很多其他选择。我们没有视频游戏可以玩。我们没有个人电脑。现在有太多其他事物在争夺孩子们的时间。然而，尽管如此，音乐在这个数字时代确实正在被重新定义，这使它重新回到了人们的生活中。这是一件美好的事情。在我们自己微小的方式上，这就是我们努力让世界变得更美好的方式。
(December 03, 2003) （2003 年 12 月 03 日）
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