I have no reason to use such a service when I can get all of my music for free but there are people who will use this feature. My aunt cant download music because she just feels too guilty about it, I am sure many others feel the same.
If Apple can provide this service at all then there will be some people that use it. By simply providing this service they draw attention to themselves in the media and people will take notice...it is good for their image.
if this becomes wildly popular and then someone hacks it [inevitable] and the major labels sue for compensation,
who pays damages?
but the music industry is getting hammered and is missing out on much of the electronic music download demand.
if Apple can supply a solution that finally bursts open the dam of legit music downloads i think it could be a good thing for record labels and independent artists [crosses fingers] alike.
The Recording Industry is going to keep fighting. They are going to make sharing more and more difficult- pushing it more into the realm of hackers. They'll threaten copy protected CD's. They are talking about viruses. There are a lot of people who will look for an easy, safe and guaranteed way of getting songs, even if they have to pay. Its a good move for Apple. If nothing else, it is an insurance policy for the future of iTunes, iPod and the Digital Hub. I'm among those who don't give a damn about the majority of major labels catalogs. Let's hope they find a way to include and push small labels and independent artists.
I should add that I also do not pirate my music because those obscure bands I like really do need the money. I would have no compunctions to screw over Brittney & Co., but these guys live off of the oney generated from constant touring and the sale of their CDs. So I buy their CDs, preferrably through their web site.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And I should add to that that downloading music by obscure bands is not piracy if you then go and buy the CD. That's why we offer MP3s on our site. (Actually, only unauthorized publication is piracy.)
I think of it more as a really sweet marketing tool for people who can't afford marketing. Albums that bomb in the file-sharing community tend to bomb in the marketplace, but the most popular album on the file servers was also the #1 seller (Eminem's latest). Of course there's abuse, and there are actual pirates and freeloaders (generally the same demographic that was taping albums back when home taping was going to kill the record industry), but frankly I'd rather have college kids doing the abuse than record execs. A single abusive record exec can do far more damage.
I personally would rather wait and see what's going to come of this. We don't know any of the details and before we go panning it out of hand, I'd prefer to hear more about it. While the record companies, no doubt, have their own motives, Apple probably has other motives. The fact that the two sides could agree to something that's inevitable anyway (we all know that something is coming) and it's not MS cow-towing to further entrench their position, is interesting.
Apple, of late, has been about open standards. I see this as a shot across the bow of DRM and WiMP proprietary crap. It's looking like Apple's making a move to make AAC the format of choice for the near future. Something's going to happen to the mp3 format for sure. Just what is anyone's guess.... And if I had a choice about who I'd like leading the way, it's Apple.
Doesn't anyone buy second hand CD's anymore. Probably morew than half my discs are used, the pruices were good. Now, it's beome more of a rare disc thing, and the pices have gone up again.
This reminds me of cigarettes in Ontario. A few years ago prices hd risen to about 50 bucks per carton. Contraband cigarettes became all the rage, boatloads came across the great lakes every day. The only thing that the gov't could do to curb it was to drop the cigarette tax back down to reasonable levels. Cartons then dropped to about 19 dollars before tax, 23 total. If CD's went from about 20 bucks, to 5-7, this problem would go away right now. Few few artists make even a dollar a disc, pressing and distribution doesn't cost more than another buck or so (in quantity), why should I pay the corporate tax on a disc? The author o a book is generally much better off than the recording artist. I can get 8-12% royalty on a basic book deal. That's anywhere from .60 to 3.20 per copy, already much better than the vast majority of recording artists. Of course, less people read books, and there aren't any dollars from air play, soundtracks and merchandising, but as a stricktly per unit metric, the artist is getting reamed most of the time.
edit: WOW, I typed this message on a shitty IBM keyboard in a freezing library, holy-schiznit, the typos, egads, ah well, too lazy to fix them.
[quote] Doesn't anyone buy second hand CD's anymore. <hr></blockquote>
No I stopped buying used CD's when I realized how they were jackin' folks. You'd sell a CD and get like $4 and then they'd turn around and sell it for $9. I'm all for profit but File Sharing has made even Used CD's worthless
most of the new stuff i buy my kids is less than 10 bucks...maybe it is new mexico pricing, but it seems that CDs are getting cheaper...i am off to get the new Ataris cd for my daughter...just released today and it is 6.99 at best buy and 5.99 at target...Queens of the Stone Age was 8.99 last week and the chevelles was 7.99...luckily they aren't into more mainstream music which is usually 13.99 or 11.99 on sale....g
i am happy to pay around 10 bucks for a cd...i would happily pay half that to download and burn it myself.....g
No I stopped buying used CD's when I realized how they were jackin' folks. You'd sell a CD and get like $4 and then they'd turn around and sell it for $9. I'm all for profit but File Sharing has made even Used CD's worthless</strong><hr></blockquote>
You do know how much it costs to run a store and pay people right? That's why big stores buy cds at $9 and sell them for $18 and why you can find the same cd online for $11
I don't mind retailers making money. I realize they have people to hire, and bills to pay, and the ones I prefer tend not to have much in the way of economies of scale. If they have helpful, knowledgeable people, they have to pay even more. So I don't begrudge most local stores their markups. I'd much rather pay a bit more to have a local, well-staffed store where I can try things out and take things in for repair (which, I've noticed, they're willing to be nicer about if you bring in something you bought there).
The ripoff isn't the $5 the store tacks onto the CD, it's the way the labels do business with their artists, and the prices they charge the retailers.
Unfortunately, there's not much in the way of used CDs around here. There's one OK store for used vinyl, but their CD selection is pretty thin.
Another interesting wrinkle in all this is the fact that iLife encourages us to use our music collection in our homemade movies and DVD's. Will Apple's licensing terms address this? Will I have to pay for a song each time I burn it to DVD as part of my movie? What about if I post a movie on the web?
<strong>Top executives at the major record companies have finally found an online music service that makes them excited about the digital future ? but it's only for Macs.
......Although no licensing deals have been announced, sources close to the situation say at least four of the five major record companies have committed their music to the Apple service.
........Apple's products account for just a sliver of the total computer market ? less than 3% of the computers sold worldwide are Macs. The vast majority of the potential audience for downloadable music services uses machines that run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software.
.........That's been a sticking point for executives at Sony, sources said. The other four major record companies, however, appear ready to license their music to the new service.
]</strong><hr></blockquote>
And here-in lies the sticking point for any Mac music service...
Microsoft (being the master of mimicry) and Sony are almost sure to combine forces and release their own version of this service because of the market share Windose platform enjoys and therefore cripple any chance of a perceived massive "switch" to the Mac platform by music fans.
This combined force of two mega multi national companies can only have a damaging effect on Apple keeping the other music companies interested in the Mac platform, therefore you could see a "switch" by other music vendors back to Windows/Sony style music sharing, ultimately ending in either the abandonment of Mac users and/or lesser quality-pricier music downloading becoming the norm.
Maybe this is an apocalyptic view, though I believe its very possible.
Since when did "Whoever does it first" count for anything?
Plenty of "done it first" companies have died because someone has copied their idea, bettered it and made it more accessible.
What really counts is "survival of the fittest". ie. Apple being able to keep ]all the music vendors on board and offering a better quality and widely accessible service.
Apple is to launch an online music service, perhaps as early as next month, sources cited by the LA Times have claimed.
According to the sources, a new version of Apple's iTunes jukebox software will download tracks from the service which simplifies buying, almost certainlt using the 1-Click technology Apple has already licensed from Amazon.
Eschewing the MP3 format, Apple's service will be based on Dolby's AAC (Advanced Audio Coding not Codec, as the LA Times report mistakenly states) in order to tie each track to a specific Mac and thus prevent unauthorised duplication. Users will be able to copy tracks to an iPod, suggesting that an update to the music player's software is in the works too.
Apple's spin, relayed by the LA Times' over-enthusiastic and, we suspect, quasi-official deep throat, is that music executives are excited over how easy to use the new service is. The irony is that Apple has had such a move forced on it by an industry increasingly employing copy protection schemes, almost all of which support only PC playback. The major labels' online music sales sites are Windows only.
If the majors won't bring music to the Mac, Apple has to, or risk its platform looking increasingly unattractive as a digital media hub.
And at the same time, Apple builds for itself yet another revenue stream designed to exploit its user base, just as has with its .mac email service. Mac OS X is full of 'click here to buy' links that, as yet, Apple has not fully exploited.
Indeed, the music industry lack of interest in the Mac community actually provides Apple with a potential monopoly over online music sales to Mac users. The LA Times source claims the service will be "competitive", but where else can most Mac punters get music online?
Illegal file sharing remains a possibility, but copy-protected CDs and file-sharing poisoners may one day limit that option. ®
I have no idea why I should care unless I get a high speed connection...right now I'm backing up all my MP3s when I get home...and the latest copy of iTunes with it... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
<strong>Crap! I tell you, crap. Right now I have a disc, I pop it in, I rip it, I enjoy it when I'm away from home. Now labels want me to pay for something without even giving me the physical media? No, but not for that reason, provided the cost is reasonable, this could be good. However, what will not be so good, comes when Apple builds in a bunch of agressive copy protection into future versions of iTunes and you either have to keep using an old version, or get a third party player.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I guess you do not agree with the business model that <a href="http://www.audible.com"; target="_blank">Audible</a> has either?
If I have music, I want to listen to it, mostly, in my car, not just at my computer. If I buy a song like this, I'm gonna want it on a CD to play in my car. Just to save room in my car CD case, I'll rip two albums of the same band and re-burn them onto one disc, if they will fit. I'll import the most listened to albums anyways. If Apple does this, and it's too handicapped, then I won't use it. Most of the music I listen to I get at local shows anyways, from a kid in the band selling burnt CD-Rs for like $5, slid between a folded piece of paper, with photocopied liner notes.
[quote]Just how many times over do record companies think I'm going to pay for content?<hr></blockquote>
I think the record companies have been quite clear on this. They want you to pay for a CD. They want you to pay AGAIN if you want any of those tracks on your computer. They want you to pay AGAIN to move those tracks to a portable player. If they could figure out how to do it, they'd want you to pay every time you LISTENED to a song.
Remember, this is the industry that tried to shut down second-hand CD sales because they weren't getting a cut of the revenue. I'll never forget the surreal sight of Garth Brook$ testifying that second-hand CD sales were putting him in the poorhouse.
Comments
If Apple can provide this service at all then there will be some people that use it. By simply providing this service they draw attention to themselves in the media and people will take notice...it is good for their image.
if this becomes wildly popular and then someone hacks it [inevitable] and the major labels sue for compensation,
who pays damages?
but the music industry is getting hammered and is missing out on much of the electronic music download demand.
if Apple can supply a solution that finally bursts open the dam of legit music downloads i think it could be a good thing for record labels and independent artists [crosses fingers] alike.
[ 03-04-2003: Message edited by: murk ]</p>
<strong>
I should add that I also do not pirate my music because those obscure bands I like really do need the money. I would have no compunctions to screw over Brittney & Co., but these guys live off of the oney generated from constant touring and the sale of their CDs. So I buy their CDs, preferrably through their web site.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And I should add to that that downloading music by obscure bands is not piracy if you then go and buy the CD. That's why we offer MP3s on our site. (Actually, only unauthorized publication is piracy.)
I think of it more as a really sweet marketing tool for people who can't afford marketing. Albums that bomb in the file-sharing community tend to bomb in the marketplace, but the most popular album on the file servers was also the #1 seller (Eminem's latest). Of course there's abuse, and there are actual pirates and freeloaders (generally the same demographic that was taping albums back when home taping was going to kill the record industry), but frankly I'd rather have college kids doing the abuse than record execs. A single abusive record exec can do far more damage.
Apple, of late, has been about open standards. I see this as a shot across the bow of DRM and WiMP proprietary crap. It's looking like Apple's making a move to make AAC the format of choice for the near future. Something's going to happen to the mp3 format for sure. Just what is anyone's guess.... And if I had a choice about who I'd like leading the way, it's Apple.
This reminds me of cigarettes in Ontario. A few years ago prices hd risen to about 50 bucks per carton. Contraband cigarettes became all the rage, boatloads came across the great lakes every day. The only thing that the gov't could do to curb it was to drop the cigarette tax back down to reasonable levels. Cartons then dropped to about 19 dollars before tax, 23 total. If CD's went from about 20 bucks, to 5-7, this problem would go away right now. Few few artists make even a dollar a disc, pressing and distribution doesn't cost more than another buck or so (in quantity), why should I pay the corporate tax on a disc? The author o a book is generally much better off than the recording artist. I can get 8-12% royalty on a basic book deal. That's anywhere from .60 to 3.20 per copy, already much better than the vast majority of recording artists. Of course, less people read books, and there aren't any dollars from air play, soundtracks and merchandising, but as a stricktly per unit metric, the artist is getting reamed most of the time.
edit: WOW, I typed this message on a shitty IBM keyboard in a freezing library, holy-schiznit, the typos, egads, ah well, too lazy to fix them.
[ 03-04-2003: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>
No I stopped buying used CD's when I realized how they were jackin' folks. You'd sell a CD and get like $4 and then they'd turn around and sell it for $9. I'm all for profit but File Sharing has made even Used CD's worthless
i am happy to pay around 10 bucks for a cd...i would happily pay half that to download and burn it myself.....g
<strong>
No I stopped buying used CD's when I realized how they were jackin' folks. You'd sell a CD and get like $4 and then they'd turn around and sell it for $9. I'm all for profit but File Sharing has made even Used CD's worthless</strong><hr></blockquote>
You do know how much it costs to run a store and pay people right? That's why big stores buy cds at $9 and sell them for $18 and why you can find the same cd online for $11
The ripoff isn't the $5 the store tacks onto the CD, it's the way the labels do business with their artists, and the prices they charge the retailers.
Unfortunately, there's not much in the way of used CDs around here. There's one OK store for used vinyl, but their CD selection is pretty thin.
[ 03-04-2003: Message edited by: murk ]</p>
<strong>Top executives at the major record companies have finally found an online music service that makes them excited about the digital future ? but it's only for Macs.
......Although no licensing deals have been announced, sources close to the situation say at least four of the five major record companies have committed their music to the Apple service.
........Apple's products account for just a sliver of the total computer market ? less than 3% of the computers sold worldwide are Macs. The vast majority of the potential audience for downloadable music services uses machines that run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software.
.........That's been a sticking point for executives at Sony, sources said. The other four major record companies, however, appear ready to license their music to the new service.
]</strong><hr></blockquote>
And here-in lies the sticking point for any Mac music service...
Microsoft (being the master of mimicry) and Sony are almost sure to combine forces and release their own version of this service because of the market share Windose platform enjoys and therefore cripple any chance of a perceived massive "switch" to the Mac platform by music fans.
This combined force of two mega multi national companies can only have a damaging effect on Apple keeping the other music companies interested in the Mac platform, therefore you could see a "switch" by other music vendors back to Windows/Sony style music sharing, ultimately ending in either the abandonment of Mac users and/or lesser quality-pricier music downloading becoming the norm.
Maybe this is an apocalyptic view, though I believe its very possible.
Plenty of "done it first" companies have died because someone has copied their idea, bettered it and made it more accessible.
What really counts is "survival of the fittest". ie. Apple being able to keep ]all the music vendors on board and offering a better quality and widely accessible service.
[ 03-04-2003: Message edited by: MiMac ]</p>
Apple gears up to sell music online
By Tony Smith
Posted: 04/03/2003 at 18:18 GMT
Apple is to launch an online music service, perhaps as early as next month, sources cited by the LA Times have claimed.
According to the sources, a new version of Apple's iTunes jukebox software will download tracks from the service which simplifies buying, almost certainlt using the 1-Click technology Apple has already licensed from Amazon.
Eschewing the MP3 format, Apple's service will be based on Dolby's AAC (Advanced Audio Coding not Codec, as the LA Times report mistakenly states) in order to tie each track to a specific Mac and thus prevent unauthorised duplication. Users will be able to copy tracks to an iPod, suggesting that an update to the music player's software is in the works too.
Apple's spin, relayed by the LA Times' over-enthusiastic and, we suspect, quasi-official deep throat, is that music executives are excited over how easy to use the new service is. The irony is that Apple has had such a move forced on it by an industry increasingly employing copy protection schemes, almost all of which support only PC playback. The major labels' online music sales sites are Windows only.
If the majors won't bring music to the Mac, Apple has to, or risk its platform looking increasingly unattractive as a digital media hub.
And at the same time, Apple builds for itself yet another revenue stream designed to exploit its user base, just as has with its .mac email service. Mac OS X is full of 'click here to buy' links that, as yet, Apple has not fully exploited.
Indeed, the music industry lack of interest in the Mac community actually provides Apple with a potential monopoly over online music sales to Mac users. The LA Times source claims the service will be "competitive", but where else can most Mac punters get music online?
Illegal file sharing remains a possibility, but copy-protected CDs and file-sharing poisoners may one day limit that option. ®
I have no idea why I should care unless I get a high speed connection...right now I'm backing up all my MP3s when I get home...and the latest copy of iTunes with it... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
<strong>Crap! I tell you, crap. Right now I have a disc, I pop it in, I rip it, I enjoy it when I'm away from home. Now labels want me to pay for something without even giving me the physical media? No, but not for that reason, provided the cost is reasonable, this could be good. However, what will not be so good, comes when Apple builds in a bunch of agressive copy protection into future versions of iTunes and you either have to keep using an old version, or get a third party player.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I guess you do not agree with the business model that <a href="http://www.audible.com"; target="_blank">Audible</a> has either?
<strong>
Mac OS X is full of 'click here to buy' links that, as yet, Apple has not fully exploited.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Unlike WinXP?
I bet he hasn't even checked what Get Mac OS X Software links to.
[ 03-04-2003: Message edited by: JLL ]</p>
I think the record companies have been quite clear on this. They want you to pay for a CD. They want you to pay AGAIN if you want any of those tracks on your computer. They want you to pay AGAIN to move those tracks to a portable player. If they could figure out how to do it, they'd want you to pay every time you LISTENED to a song.
Remember, this is the industry that tried to shut down second-hand CD sales because they weren't getting a cut of the revenue. I'll never forget the surreal sight of Garth Brook$ testifying that second-hand CD sales were putting him in the poorhouse.