iTMS should have a subscription service
As I understand Napster to Go, for $15/month you can put any music on your player, listen to it, and then switch it out for new music.
What's the downside of Apple doing this, as an addition to the regular service? Because Apple controls both the iPod and the download service, they'd be able to do this kind of thing really well.
What's the downside of Apple doing this, as an addition to the regular service? Because Apple controls both the iPod and the download service, they'd be able to do this kind of thing really well.
Comments
I think a lot of people might pay $15 for full access to the entire iTMS for a month.
Originally posted by BRussell
I could see paying for a month to hear a whole bunch of new music. Then you cancel and buy what you want to keep listening to.
I think a lot of people might pay $15 for full access to the entire iTMS for a month.
Or they could offer up a ten dollar per month subscription to listen to all of the tracks on a pc. . .ala Rhapsody/Napster. Doesn't necesarily have to be unlimited dling to hard drive/player. I'd go for it in a second. 30 second previews just don't cut it IMHO.
Originally posted by Ra
You know... if there were a subscription service, I would sign up for a month, record all the music I wanted, then cancel. I'm sure a lot of people would be doing that. If I had a PC...
My thought was an itms radio service.
It would be more like a cross between shuffle/tivo/netflix.
You would queue up songs you want to hear, and itms would deliver a custom radio channel targeted at you, including the songs you want to hear, but also including similar material that you might enjoy.
Audio quality would be reduced ( maybe 64k or 96k ) and it would cost $5 a month ( just enough to cover bandwidth costs ). You might even be able to get with paid advertising for free.
There would need to be a convenient way of transfering it your ipod, Im not sure if itunes can currently do that with a stream.
Originally posted by Ra
You know... if there were a subscription service, I would sign up for a month, record all the music I wanted, then cancel. I'm sure a lot of people would be doing that. If I had a PC...
Can this not be done on a mac?
Originally posted by PBG3
The downside is that no one will do it because the idea is crap. Can you imagine how ripped off you'd feel if one day you didn't pay $15 and all of your music is gone, and you have nothing to show for the $100's or $1000's you've spent.
And you spend how much on cable/satalite tv? what happens if I would stop paying the ~45/mo...I have nothing to show for the past years that I have paid...
Imagine if you had to pay $1.00/program...my bill would be far cheaper (like 15$/month) but for many people, this is not the case
Originally posted by imacFP
This is just a way for the record industry to make more money and sadly it will be the format that wins. Clearly they didn't learn anything from the Peer to Peer hayday. The price and controls will keep on increasing until and the fans will suffer.
this will be the format that wins? you mean the subscription model as opposed to the buying model?
what leads you to this conclusion?
Napster also got a jump... but of %30.....
cheaters never win.
http://www.spymac.com/news/index.php?contentid=1809
for instance. I'd sign up if I could.
1. Download "all I can eat" tracks for $9.99
2. Have the ability to instantly convert "rented" tracks to "purchased" tracks. The iPod and iTunes should both offer this DRM modification process.
3. Tie in with .Mac so that I could sync my iPod to iTunes over any internet connection.
Microsoft's Janus is a step in the right direction but it's too expensive and not flexible enough. If DRM is going to be acceptable it has to function more intelligently rather than just being a brick wall.
Originally posted by Kishan
Can this not be done on a mac?
It can but there's no subscription services for Mac.
Originally posted by hmurchison
1. Download "all I can eat" tracks for $9.99
2. Have the ability to instantly convert "rented" tracks to "purchased" tracks. The iPod and iTunes should both offer this DRM modification process.
3. Tie in with .Mac so that I could sync my iPod to iTunes over any internet connection.
That would be cool as I oppose the subscription-only model.
Preview in full quality as long as you like (pay for your subscription) and if it does not wear of after four weeks buy it. You should get a discount on these songs, though, since you already paid for the preview period.
But I think that $9.99 is still to much as it adds up to over $100 a year which I have never spent on music. I don't need to have access to all the 700,000+ songs the iTMS currently offers and I don't have enough space on my iPod/iBook to store the whole catalog.
And further more, I can never listen to all 700,000+ songs in one subscription period - at 3 minutes a song, it adds up to 208 weeks (!) of music.
How about 10,000 songs for $3-$4?
By the way, I don't understand your third point: There is no need for .Mac as you could download all you want off the iTMS directly.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Microsoft's Janus is a step in the right direction but it's too expensive and not flexible enough. If DRM is going to be acceptable it has to function more intelligently rather than just being a brick wall.
I thought Janus is a flexible as it gets: The content vendors (or rights holders) can force any constraint they want (how about a song that is valid for a day only) on their costumers. On the other hand, they could give you a decent set of usage rights... yeah, right, well at least they could.
Originally posted by superkarate monkeydeathcar
this will be the format that wins? you mean the subscription model as opposed to the buying model?
what leads you to this conclusion?
Because the record industry wants it. They are looking for a steady stream of profits and subscription is the way to do it. It is possible that buying will win out, but my understanding is that Apple is the only company doing that now and everybody else is moving towards subcription.
The current service simply isn't practical using public computers, with all of the IP address restrictions, and the fundamental way iTunes works with iPods.
A student should be able to log-in to _any_ computer on campus, download whatever they want from iTMS, and walk away without having to come back to the same computer.
I'm sure there are other solutions beside subscriptions too...
I'd like to know the technical details of how iTunes is configured at Duke.edu...
Anyway, it would be great to provide all students, faculty, and staff members on campus with iTunes/iTMS.
Originally posted by imacFP
Because the record industry wants it. They are looking for a steady stream of profits and subscription is the way to do it. It is possible that buying will win out, but my understanding is that Apple is the only company doing that now and everybody else is moving towards subcription.
not true, first the "record industry" is not a conscious entity and doesn't have one unifying thought.
the RIAA (who have unified thoughts) is not a record company and not all record companies (and many artists) don't belong to RIAA.
Record companies (if they had one unifying thought) probably would just like to see computers and anything that can be used to "steal" from them be made illegal.
corporate technology = fine
consumer technology = not fine, but if it must exist it should be regulated to the max. (remember divx dvds? that was the corporate idea of responsible consumer technology)
Record companies are hanging on by their fingernails, this is evident by their incestuous A & R practices, if one Britney is good ten Britneys is mo' better!
They are really hoping to legislate themselves back to healthy profits and praying that recording artists don't come to realize that they have become irrelevant and in in fact a roadblock to the creative process.
If record companies do prefer the subscription model it may be because they feel they can stiff artists out of royalties less conspicuously, because let's face it, the big thieves in the temple are usually the preachers. not the parishioners. They've been stealing from artists since the first stylus landed on a piece of wax.
But I still insist record companies don't care where the revenue stream comes from, if they can bank it, they like it.
Originally posted by BRussell
What's the downside of Apple doing this, as an addition to the regular service? Because Apple controls both the iPod and the download service, they'd be able to do this kind of thing really well.
The downside is even worse DRM (Digital Rights Management) than we currently have to deal with.
Either the subscription model fails because people break the DRM and run off with thousands of play-forever songs practically for free, or, for business models like that to truly ever succeed, a very repressive "DRM ecosystem" will have to be rigidly enforced.
Do you want to live in a world where the inputs and outputs of every computer and home entertainment device are scrambled and ciphered and, by force of law, required to observe DRM standards?
Why do you think Microsoft is pushing Windows Media formats so hard? That nightmare "DRM ecosystem" is Bill's dreamworld, and he wants Microsoft to be in charge of all of the standards behind it, and to use the same technology to the point that you own nothing, rent everything, and even your own documents are tethered to a string Microsoft can pull anytime it likes.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Microsoft's Janus is a step in the right direction...
Right direction? No, no, no.
The right direction is to let computers and the Internet do what they do best -- share information quickly and easily -- and not to put more and more effort into elaborate technological roadblocks that work against the natural capabilities of computer technology in order to prop up old business models.
Please... read this -- Cory Doctorow's great anti-DRM speech given at Microsoft.
Fat lot of good his talk did, however. Microsoft is just as pig-headed as the RIAA about this stuff apparently.
Originally posted by Ra
You know... if there were a subscription service, I would sign up for a month, record all the music I wanted, then cancel. I'm sure a lot of people would be doing that. If I had a PC...
I was thinking the same thing...why wouldent you just record the music you want (easily done in several ways) and then cancel after a month or two?
besides if I were the owner of a record label or an artist I would quickly realize that I am not making ANY money with the subscription programs. One of the reasons these labels are flocking to apple is the fact that they have legitimized online music purchases and furthermore have kept it somewhat profitable for the artists and music labels while somewhat slowing the rate of illegal downloads.
Originally posted by FormatC2
There's one situation that a subscription would work well for: college campuses.
The current service simply isn't practical using public computers, with all of the IP address restrictions, and the fundamental way iTunes works with iPods.
A student should be able to log-in to _any_ computer on campus, download whatever they want from iTMS, and walk away without having to come back to the same computer.
I'm sure there are other solutions beside subscriptions too...
I'd like to know the technical details of how iTunes is configured at Duke.edu...
Anyway, it would be great to provide all students, faculty, and staff members on campus with iTunes/iTMS.
Thats why it would be cool to have your iTunes songs in your .mac account. It would allow you to take your music anywhere (take it easy iPod owners...I have one too). This way you always have a backed up copy of your music that you can bring up anywhere you have internet access. Its lighter than your iPod and its battery doesnt run out. I think it has potential as an alternative subscription option...provided you can preview the full song before you purchase.