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Apple increasing US iTunes music previews to 90 seconds

post #1 of 30
11/2/10 at 6:39pm
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Apple sent emails to music label representatives Tuesday notifying them that iTunes music previews in the United States will be extended from 30 seconds to 90 seconds.

In an email (shown below) obtained by AppleInsider, Apple announced that it is "preparing to increase the length of music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds on the iTunes Store in the United States." The letter was sent to label representatives from "The iTunes Store Team." No time frame was given for when the extended previews will be available to U.S. customers.

The letter explains that by continuing to make content available on the iTunes Store, the recipient is agreeing to the new terms. The new 90 second previews only affect songs that are longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with shorter songs keeping the original 30 second preview length.

In late August, rumors swirled that Apple would announce extended iTunes music previews at its Sept. 1 special event. However, after the event came and went without the speculated announcement, Greg Sandoval of CNET reported that the plan may have been blocked by the National Music Publishers Association because of a licensing disagreement.

Dear Label Representative:

We are pleased to let you know that we are preparing to increase the length of music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds on the iTunes Store in the United States. We believe that giving potential customers more time to listen to your music will lead to more purchases.

All you have to do is continue making your content available on the iTunes Store, which will confirm your acceptance to the following terms.

You agree that this letter modifies our U.S. Digital Music Download Sales Agreement so that Clips for songs longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds may be up to 90 seconds long (Clips for shorter songs will stay at 30 seconds); and you agree to license, or pass through to Apple, gratis mechanical rights for 90-second Clips embodying the entirety of compositions owned or controlled, in whole or in part, by you or your affiliates. Further, you represent that you have the authority to enter into this letter agreement for 90-second Clips.

Thank you,
The iTunes Store Team
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post #2 of 30
11/2/10 at 6:47pm
this is great!!!
Ha!!! first for once!!
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post #3 of 30
11/2/10 at 7:04pm
I hope it will find its way to Europe in a near future.
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post #4 of 30
11/2/10 at 7:14pm
I'm been saying this forever. There have been so many songs I didn't buy simply because the preview wasn't long enough. Especially when it's a 7 minute song and I got to hear a 30 second intro....

Long in coming. Very appreciated!
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post #5 of 30
11/2/10 at 7:23pm
So beautiful to see this news. A minute and a half is a solid amount for free listening.
GIGO. The truth in all of life.
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GIGO. The truth in all of life.
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post #6 of 30
11/2/10 at 7:30pm
  • e1618978
  • will burn in the Fiery Pit of Hell.
Hopefully they change movie rental from 24 hours to 30 hours too.
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post #7 of 30
11/2/10 at 7:35pm
Awesome
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post #8 of 30
11/2/10 at 7:47pm
A. Is it true? I can't imagine that a simple letter to the Music Labels, are going to be ok with this.
B. From what I understand, this didn't happen earlier because the labels didn't want to do this. So here's a letter basically saying... hey we're doing this, if you don't like it, pull out.

Because the Music industry is just so frakkin' greedy... I wouldn't be surprised if labels start pulling out.

However, this is much needed for the consumer. Like previous posts have said, I haven't bought music due to the duration of certain songs/albums. Some songs start slow, and however the 30 sec. clip was parsed at, you really can miss the song. I switch between 'previewing' albums from Amazon and Apple, just so I can get a better listen.

Let's hope this is true!
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post #9 of 30
11/2/10 at 8:09pm
Thirty seconds isn't enough to make sure it's the right version. Especially with classical.
Emailing video from iPhone to Apple TV , sort of..
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Emailing video from iPhone to Apple TV , sort of..
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post #10 of 30
11/2/10 at 8:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthias03 View Post

A. Is it true? I can't imagine that a simple letter to the Music Labels, are going to be ok with this.
B. From what I understand, this didn't happen earlier because the labels didn't want to do this. So here's a letter basically saying... hey we're doing this, if you don't like it, pull out.

Basically yes.

Thing is, who needs who more. Apple or the labels.

Also how is it going to look to the consumers if they pull out. Apple has positioned this as what is best for the consumers so if the labels pull out, it could be seen as a big F U to the consumers, who could protest with their wallets. Lord knows there's enough torrent sites etc that they can get their music and cheat the labels out of their money.
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post #11 of 30
11/2/10 at 8:54pm
Apple finally has a compelling answer to the claim that "our music lets you sell iPods." Now they can just response "no, our App Store sells iPods."
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post #12 of 30
11/2/10 at 8:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthias03 View Post

A. Is it true? I can't imagine that a simple letter to the Music Labels, are going to be ok with this.
B. From what I understand, this didn't happen earlier because the labels didn't want to do this. So here's a letter basically saying... hey we're doing this, if you don't like it, pull out.

Because the Music industry is just so frakkin' greedy... I wouldn't be surprised if labels start pulling out.

However, this is much needed for the consumer. Like previous posts have said, I haven't bought music due to the duration of certain songs/albums. Some songs start slow, and however the 30 sec. clip was parsed at, you really can miss the song. I switch between 'previewing' albums from Amazon and Apple, just so I can get a better listen.

Let's hope this is true!


Some may pull out...just like NBC pulled out and then came back with their tail between their legs...
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post #13 of 30
11/2/10 at 10:20pm
This is great news for all users. This could probably sell more music because of this.
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post #14 of 30
11/2/10 at 11:27pm
30 seconds is plenty of time to preview a song. When a song is 3-4 minutes, 90 seconds can be almost half, that is totally unnecessary. I hope Apple didn't waste too much "political capital" with the studios to get this un-asked for and unhelpful feature.
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post #15 of 30
11/2/10 at 11:40pm
This is good news for previewing music to buy the CD elsewhere. When they provide lossless format then I might actually buy something from the iTunes store.
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post #16 of 30
11/3/10 at 1:53am
Makes sense really as the music is on youtube anyway. For the most part 30 secs is enough, but it depends on the length of the track. It could be restricted to a percentage of the track's length.
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post #17 of 30
11/3/10 at 5:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlituna View Post

Basically yes.

Thing is, who needs who more. Apple or the labels.
Also how is it going to look to the consumers if they pull out. Apple has positioned this as what is best for the consumers so if the labels pull out, it could be seen as a big F U to the consumers, who could protest with their wallets. Lord knows there's enough torrent sites etc that they can get their music and cheat the labels out of their money.



If a label pulls out, consumers will know nothing except that they can no longer get Lady GaGa on iTunes.

Apple's positioning is unknown to most everybody.
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post #18 of 30
11/3/10 at 5:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by walshbj View Post

Thirty seconds isn't enough to make sure it's the right version. Especially with classical.

+1

As a professional disc jockey, this has always been an issue/gripe of mine. exciting that it might finallly be fixed.

Now where the hell is 10.6.5?
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post #19 of 30
11/3/10 at 5:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by i386 View Post

This is good news for previewing music to buy the CD elsewhere. When they provide lossless format then I might actually buy something from the iTunes store.

CDs are not lossless, smart a$$
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post #20 of 30
11/3/10 at 7:06am
I too appreciate that this is coming. The short 30 second clips have impacted my decision to buy lengthy songs from iTunes in the past, particularly ones I've only heard once. Kudos Apple!
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post #21 of 30
11/3/10 at 7:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmz View Post

CDs are not lossless, smart a$$

Really? I could have sworn CDs use PCM streams, which are by definition uncompressed and lossless.
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post #22 of 30
11/3/10 at 8:01am
Nope, people call Cd lossless but it's just another "uncompressed" digital format. Compared to reality, CD has poor resolution and poor frequency response. Some people can eAsily hear digital artifacts from the CD dithering process.
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post #23 of 30
11/3/10 at 8:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bwik View Post

Nope, people call Cd lossless but it's just another "uncompressed" digital format. Compared to reality, CD has poor resolution and poor frequency response. Some people can eAsily hear digital artifacts from the CD dithering process.

And combined with poor CD mastering, some CDs are actually not very good in terms of sound quality.
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post #24 of 30
11/3/10 at 9:40am
Fantastic. Now just sell Apple Lossless files and you will have a customer for life.

Their 256 AAC files are encoded very well, but I would like the full experience.
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post #25 of 30
11/3/10 at 10:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by e1618978 View Post

Hopefully they change movie rental from 24 hours to 30 hours too.

Absolutely! I'd be renting far more movies if I knew I could finish it the next night, should life or sleep have other plans halfway through the film.
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post #26 of 30
11/3/10 at 11:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bwik View Post

Nope, people call Cd lossless but it's just another "uncompressed" digital format. Compared to reality, CD has poor resolution and poor frequency response. Some people can eAsily hear digital artifacts from the CD dithering process.

At the end of the day, CDs are still better than the iTunes versions. People can also easily hear the difference between CDs and iTunes music as well.
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post #27 of 30
11/3/10 at 12:14pm
  • e1618978
  • will burn in the Fiery Pit of Hell.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmz View Post

CDs are not lossless, smart a$$

Frequency response on a CD is larger than your ears can hear, 20 Hz to 22 KHz. The problem (as I understand it) is that they add extra high frequency noise that has to be killed with a "brick wall" filter at 22 KHz, and that brick wall filter evidently has effects in the audible band.

96 KHz sampling rate moves the filter to 48 KHz, and SACD needs no brick wall filter.

But all the information exists on the CD - go listen to a good CD mastering on a $12K Naim CD player, it sounds as good as a good LP.
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post #28 of 30
11/3/10 at 3:44pm
I don't even bother anymore listening to samples of iTunes songs. Yes, they are/were to short and the part that is selected is not usually a good sample of the song. So unless I know the song already i don't waste my time.
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post #29 of 30
11/3/10 at 3:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bwik View Post

Nope, people call Cd lossless but it's just another "uncompressed" digital format. Compared to reality, CD has poor resolution and poor frequency response. Some people can eAsily hear digital artifacts from the CD dithering process.

"Lossy" and "lossless" apply to compression. How can an uncompressed stream be described with a term for compression? "Some people" has never been proven with blind testing. It's all been hearsay. By your standards, anything that loses quality is "lossy," so there is no such thing as "lossless" because there is no method of recording that can capture every nuance of reality. Certainly not vinyl.
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post #30 of 30
11/3/10 at 9:45pm
The music and movie industry doesnt give a crap about the consumer. They are antiquated relics of a time gone buy. They are stuck in the 20th century and would never go for something like this. Thats why they are losing sales, and why the independent labels are growing in spades. Its time for Warner Music, BMG, Sony and the like to go the way of the dinosaur and let modern technology flourish!
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