The Steve Jobs Interview that Never Got Published

A 2003 interview with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs which, for one reason or another, never got published, is now available online.

At the iTunes Music Store unveiling nearly a decade ago, Time magazine reporter Laura Locke scored an interview with then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Little did she (or anyone else except Jobs) know that April 28th, 2003 would be a truly historical day for the entire music industry.

Locke kicked off the interview, asking Jobs ”'Rip. Mix. Burn.' [a tagline from Apple advertising of the time] has been Apple’s mantra as of late. Why go legit now?”

Jobs quickly answered back explaining to the journalist that the “‘Rip. Mix. Burn.’ [slogan] was never not legit.”

“When some folks thought ‘Rip. Mix. Burn.’ was an anthem to steal music, it was just because they didn’t know what they were talking about. They obviously didn’t have any kids living at home. This was the 50 year-old-crowd that thought that.”

"We've been against stealing music from the beginning," Jobs added. "We own a lot of intellectual property. Most of our competitors don't, but we do. We're not happy when people steal. So this is not an about-face for us, or anything like that."

The Apple CEO explained that the online venue would provide "a far better experience" for the end user and said that the ability to preview a song was "giant, just giant."

"I cannot overemphasize that because of the previews, the browsing, et cetera you will fall in love with music again ... and it's really wonderful. It's so cool," he told the reporter.

Asked about subscription services, Jobs said “Well, they’ve failed. They’ve completely failed. Nobody wants to rent their music. They have hardly any subscribers.”

Speaking about the competition, Jobs expressed a sincere belief that anyone trying to copy this business model would have a hard time doing so, mainly because they have a cool jukebox - iTunes.

Then there’s the “tens of millions of dollars for server farms and networking farms […] and we’ve already got that in place,” and then comes the payment system, Jobs explained.

Jobs also noted that the only industry that would lose from the birth of the iTunes music store would be the retail business: “The Internet was made to deliver music,” he said. Full interview here.