the other part is that although audiophiles may be a very small number of people, most of them consume a LOT of music
it's a lot more lost sales than just multiplying the average songs per person (3) times the number of audiophiles.... audiophiles will purchase many more songs per year than three
Like a lot of people here, Apple's DRM, even if it isn't as bad as Microsoft's, has been a big turn off for me. I'd also buy more via iTunes if a higher bit rate like 192 kbps were available.
I wonder if it's merely a coincidence, or if the fact that things like JHymn no longer work to remove Apple's DRM has made a difference. Could it be that a statistically significant number of iTunes buyers had been buying from iTunes only because they could crack the DRM, enough to noticeably affect sales when those buyers stopped buying?
I still sample new music using the iTunes store, but after I find something I like there, I buy it on Amazon or elsewhere instead.
I wonder if it's merely a coincidence, or if the fact that things like JHymn no longer work to remove Apple's DRM has made a difference. Could it be that a statistically significant number of iTunes buyers had been buying from iTunes only because they could crack the DRM, enough to noticeably affect sales when those buyers stopped buying?
I highly doubt it as there are several other ways to remove DRM from your iTunes content. MyFairTunes, QTFairUse and DRM Dumpster are the ones I am aware of.
I wonder if it is related to increase of price for albums. Personally, I was very eager to buy music when it was truly $9.99 for almost every album. Now it is so common to see them priced at $11.99 or higher in the US store.. I think the usual suspect is greed on part of the record labels. People just are not willing to pay when they feel like they are being ripped off and they can steal it instead.
The music and other revenue in Apple's statements covers a lot of ground and music is only a portion of it. To really see how music sales are tracking with iPods, you have to plot the actual music sales against the iPod sales, as the chart in the article shows.
Installed base is irrelevant because of the number of older iPods no longer in use. It's far more accurate to plot actual sales of iPods against actual sales of songs. If you do that, you will see that the number of songs per iPod is growing, not declining.
During the 7-month period of Feb to Sept, 500m tunes were sold during a period in which 16m iPods were sold. That's 31.25 songs per iPod. During the period of 1/04 to 1/05, 175m songs sold while 8m iPods sold. That's 21.875 songs per iPod.
It's plain to see that as iPod sales have grown, so too have music sales.
So, a slight Q/Q decline in Music & Other rev means that Other, i.e., iPod peripherals, is declining, not music.
Installed base is irrelevant because of the number of older iPods no longer in use. It's far more accurate to plot actual sales of iPods against actual sales of songs. If you do that, you will see that the number of songs per iPod is growing, not declining.
Though I agree that one must take into account the iPods that are no longer in use (as well as iTunes purchased content being shared on multiple iPods) you can't disregard previously purchased iPods as "irrelevant" if they are still being used.
Though I agree that one must take into account the iPods that are no longer in use (as well as iTunes purchased content being shared on multiple iPods) you can't disregard previously purchased iPods as "irrelevant" if they are still being used.
I doubt if that many older iPods are still in use. I'm just one person but I have 3 iPods and primarily only use one of them. The other two, a 1G and a 2G, are sitting on a shelf. The songs I buy on the iTunes Store are shared but I mostly use an iPod photo. Songs are bought more often by those new to iPod so it seems more valid to plot songs sold against iPods sold in any given period rather than have the songs per iPod ratio dragged down by all the older iPods sitting in drawers or on shelves.
It's also very misleading to leave out all the songs purchased with gift cards. People get them for birthdays as well as for Christmas and Hanukah. Many people also give iPods as presents along with an iTunes gift card.
The simple, inescapable, mathematical fact is that song sales are increasing with iPod sales, not declining.
Research payed for by the maker of Zune, perhaps? Also, better quality downloads would help. 128k is a joke.
Not that again. AAC is a much better codec than MP3 so a lower bit rate for AAC is equivalent to a much higher MP3 bit rate. For example, 96 kbps AAC generally exceeds the quality of 128k MP3.
Like a lot of people here, Apple's DRM, even if it isn't as bad as Microsoft's, has been a big turn off for me. I'd also buy more via iTunes if a higher bit rate like 192 kbps were available.
I wonder if it's merely a coincidence, or if the fact that things like JHymn no longer work to remove Apple's DRM has made a difference. Could it be that a statistically significant number of iTunes buyers had been buying from iTunes only because they could crack the DRM, enough to noticeably affect sales when those buyers stopped buying?
I still sample new music using the iTunes store, but after I find something I like there, I buy it on Amazon or elsewhere instead.
But do the anti-DRMers actually buy music? The only people who have a real problem with it are pirates, who were never going to be customers anyway, or PC people who are starting to realise cobbling together 'open' systems makes them feel technical/clever but is a hiding to nowhere - but they'll come around.
Apple should get iTunes to DRM the ripped CDs to circumvent Universal music's Zunesque iPod tax - after all, eveyone's still got the original CDs - haven't they?
The only people who have a real problem with it are pirates
Wrong. Many of the anti-DRMers are people who legitimately buy music and then wish to be able to play it wherever they like, on whichever device they like (just like you can with a CD - why should an online purchase be any different?), without having to loose any more "quality" (burn & lossy rip of an already lossy format isn't great quality-wise) from a source that is already of dubious quality.
If you're a pirate, why give a crap about DRM? Everything you want is already available for free with no DRM. The main people that DRM really annoys is legitimate users.
If you buy music from iTunes, why should you not be able to play it on a mobile phone (all of them that play music play AAC as far as I'm aware)? On a Roku SoundBridge? On a Sonos system? etc. etc.
DRM doesn't piss me off too much because currently I can get rid of it with no quality loss. But when Apple finally manage to stop QTfairUse working and no replacement is forthcoming, that will really, really piss me off.
There are two solutions, either of which I'd be happy to see:
1.) No DRM
2.) Apple licensing FairPlay so that other devices (like mobiles and SoundBridges) can play iTunes purchases.
DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM!
I'm a long-time Apple fan and I actually want iTunes to succeed. However, I hate having my media, whether music, videos, etc. being locked up by DRM. I HATE DRM! And it's not because I want to share my files with everyone. I just don't think I should have to gain permission from some self-serving corporation before I can listen/watch the media I have purchased legally! AND I don't want to be told what device I can or can't play the music on. Since iTunes came online I've purchased maybe only a mere 20 songs, and I purchase them only when I'm in a bind and need the song RIGHT NOW. Otherwise I go buy the CD and rip it - in the format and bitrate of my choosing and WITHOUT DRM! Soooo... I say let's send Apple and the industry a message: FREE OUR MUSIC/MEDIA!
DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM!
The only thing unfair about DRM is that Apple have to use it but the music companies can still distribute non-DRM CDs. Surely this is anti-competitive! Even more so with some commercial tracks available without DRM on Yahoo. They're not playing by their own rules and they're actually aiding piracy while pointing the finger at someone else.
Either scrap it & start the court cases in anger, or establish/adopt an industry-standard DRM for all media (preferrably updatable to outrun hackers). This would help cross-platform people who want one player (WMP, iTunes or other) but multiple music sources i.e. the people with a legitimate reason to dislike DRM.
Of course the people using P2P can shut up & piss off because we're paying for your music!
Even CD quality is, at best, only mid-fi. Remember that CD was a compromise built with what was the best technology available at the time. They were invented in the late 1970s and the first players and CDs began appearing around 1982-83. The first decent sounding CD player that I heard was a $2,500 Macintosh that appeared some time around 1985. 16 bit 44.1 kHz sampling was a big technical challenge years ago. Those specs were determined sufficient to reproduce sound for the average person?s hearing. But 44.1 kHz sampling is not enough sampling to smoothly and accurately reproduce the waveforms of high frequencies; thus resulting in brittle sound. The 90 dB dynamic range of CD is adequate, but not generous. Symphony orchestras typically have a dynamic range of 70+ dB from pianissimo to forte. Live Jazz is nearly as demanding, and in some cases, as demanding as orchestral music.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. Mostly self-proclaimed audiophile BS with a hint of truth here and there under the BS.
44.1 kHz is perfectly adequate to produce high frequency sounds up to 20 kHz and a little higher. Poorly implemented hardware designs and badly done recordings might not sound as good as they otherwise might, but that's not the same thing as the sampling rate itself being a problem.
Simple-minded drawings of sampled waveforms, made to look all terribly jaggy and very unlike beautifully smooth looking high-frequency soundwaves pictured in the same drawings -- the only "evidence" that there is for this stupid meme that will not die about 44.1 kHz not being "good enough" -- don't tell the real story. Any little bump or bulge on, say, a 20 kHz waveform, represents higher frequency content than 20 kHz.
If 20 kHz is the highest frequency you can hear (a few people can hear a little higher, most people, including most self-acclaimed audiophiles, are lucky if they can hear beyond 15 kHz), then you can't hear the difference between differently-shaped 20 kHz waveforms and a simply 20 kHz sound wave. Once you properly filter a digital output, within practical engineering tolerances, the only thing that's missing -- stupid drawings be damned -- is stuff that most people can't hear, and that, even for those who can hear it, is of highly questionable musical value.
Show me some double-blinded testing that proves that any but a very small number of people (who would mostly be young and unexposed to a lot of loud noise, and most of whom would not be the same people who think they have golden ears) get any real benefit out of crazy, wasteful sampling rates like 96 kHz -- if they can even detect any differences at all between that and 44.1 kHz -- and then maybe you might have a glimmer of a point to make.
As for CD's dynamic range -- which is 96 dB, not 90 -- consider this: Let's presume that a reasonable audio technology stops at, or just before, producing sound levels at threshold of pain. Between the most quiet sound that you can just barely hear in an otherwise perfectly quiet room and the threshold of pain is a range of about 130 dB. I'll grant you that CDs fall a bit short of this dynamic range.
However, it is very rare that even the audiophiles who are out there buying $1000/meter speaker wire and AC power conditioners and $5000 stand-alone DACs have listening rooms with a background noise of less than 40 dB. To get a listening environment much quieter than that you need to get away from traffic, away from refrigerator compressors, away from buzzing florescent lights, away from cooling fans and hard drives, away anyone talking around you. You'll be lucky to get a 20 dB environment when you listen to music.
Turn up your volume just loud enough to hear the quietest sounds a CD can make over the background noise of a 40 dB room, and then the loudest sounds a CD can make will hurt you. Get yourself a nice 20 dB room instead, and while the loudest sounds won't cause immediate pain, they will be loud enough that you shouldn't listen at levels like that for extended periods of time (20 dB + 96 dB = 116 dB ~= the sound of a jack hammer operating about 2 meters from your head) if you value your ears very much -- something an audiophile presumably does value.
Implemented with decent hardware (and "decent" doesn't require megabuck components and oxygen-free copper wire), and coupled with well-made recordings, the CD standard is far above "mid fi". For the great majority of both listeners and listening environments, 44.1 kHz/16-bit sampling is perfectly suitable for producing excellent sound quality.
There's really only one department where the CD standard falls down: spacial realism. Basic two-channel stereo sound can't produce a fully realistic sound stage (unless you count binaural recordings, which need to be tuned to specific people to fully realize their potential, must be listened to using headphones, and which produce a sonic illusion which is shattered simply by turning your head and having the whole imaginary sound stage automatically and unrealistically turn with you).
While many audiophiles do spend a whole lot of time going on (and on, and on) about the spacial qualities of music, most people don't give a damn. If they care about sound localization at all, it's for sound effects in movies, not seating arrangements of musicians in a band or orchestra. If spacial realism matters a lot to you, fine, but it's hardly reason enough to demote CDs to mid-fi status for their lack of special-effects grade sound localization.
But do the anti-DRMers actually buy music? The only people who have a real problem with it are pirates...
I hate DRM, and I'm not at all music pirate. Every track in my current 5017-track iTunes library has been bought and paid for. I have a small handful of "hear, listen to this!" tracks sitting outside of iTunes right now, given to me by a friend, but I'll either decide to buy that music for myself if I like it enough, or throw it away.
I want non-Apple hardware, like my Roku Soundbridge, to work without worrying about Apple's incompatible DRM. I don't want hassles with authorizing and deauthorizing computers. I'd like to have the choice of using non-Apple software to play back my music, and non-Apple software (like Toast) to burn CDs.
i just created my own christmas album buying from itunes, before i buy music i check itunes, i can't remember when i or my wife bought a cd (ok ok i did buy some christmas cd's but they stunk and went to itunes)
so what's his point??? are otheres killing itunes, i don't think so with the number one player they all have connection to itunes. it was also a way to combat p2p and illegal downloads how about a comment on that success
Hey guess what guys, i want DRM off it too...but we are a minority here. How many people actually know what DRM is? How many people care? i don't think it makes much a difference to most people. It's not like they manipulate and move around files and such as much as we do...
For its part, Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris says 'the conclusion that iTunes sales are slowing is simply incorrect.' Apple does not provide any financial details related to its online music store, but says 1.5 billion songs have been sold in the store. Kerris added that iTunes sales are 6% of all music sold in the U.S., making it the fourth largest music retailer."
Comments
it's a lot more lost sales than just multiplying the average songs per person (3) times the number of audiophiles.... audiophiles will purchase many more songs per year than three
I wonder if it's merely a coincidence, or if the fact that things like JHymn no longer work to remove Apple's DRM has made a difference. Could it be that a statistically significant number of iTunes buyers had been buying from iTunes only because they could crack the DRM, enough to noticeably affect sales when those buyers stopped buying?
I still sample new music using the iTunes store, but after I find something I like there, I buy it on Amazon or elsewhere instead.
I wonder if it's merely a coincidence, or if the fact that things like JHymn no longer work to remove Apple's DRM has made a difference. Could it be that a statistically significant number of iTunes buyers had been buying from iTunes only because they could crack the DRM, enough to noticeably affect sales when those buyers stopped buying?
I highly doubt it as there are several other ways to remove DRM from your iTunes content. MyFairTunes, QTFairUse and DRM Dumpster are the ones I am aware of.
NO! That's a fallacy!
The music and other revenue in Apple's statements covers a lot of ground and music is only a portion of it. To really see how music sales are tracking with iPods, you have to plot the actual music sales against the iPod sales, as the chart in the article shows.
Installed base is irrelevant because of the number of older iPods no longer in use. It's far more accurate to plot actual sales of iPods against actual sales of songs. If you do that, you will see that the number of songs per iPod is growing, not declining.
http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog/u...tunes-full.jpg
During the 7-month period of Feb to Sept, 500m tunes were sold during a period in which 16m iPods were sold. That's 31.25 songs per iPod. During the period of 1/04 to 1/05, 175m songs sold while 8m iPods sold. That's 21.875 songs per iPod.
It's plain to see that as iPod sales have grown, so too have music sales.
So, a slight Q/Q decline in Music & Other rev means that Other, i.e., iPod peripherals, is declining, not music.
Installed base is irrelevant because of the number of older iPods no longer in use. It's far more accurate to plot actual sales of iPods against actual sales of songs. If you do that, you will see that the number of songs per iPod is growing, not declining.
Though I agree that one must take into account the iPods that are no longer in use (as well as iTunes purchased content being shared on multiple iPods) you can't disregard previously purchased iPods as "irrelevant" if they are still being used.
Though I agree that one must take into account the iPods that are no longer in use (as well as iTunes purchased content being shared on multiple iPods) you can't disregard previously purchased iPods as "irrelevant" if they are still being used.
I doubt if that many older iPods are still in use. I'm just one person but I have 3 iPods and primarily only use one of them. The other two, a 1G and a 2G, are sitting on a shelf. The songs I buy on the iTunes Store are shared but I mostly use an iPod photo. Songs are bought more often by those new to iPod so it seems more valid to plot songs sold against iPods sold in any given period rather than have the songs per iPod ratio dragged down by all the older iPods sitting in drawers or on shelves.
It's also very misleading to leave out all the songs purchased with gift cards. People get them for birthdays as well as for Christmas and Hanukah. Many people also give iPods as presents along with an iTunes gift card.
The simple, inescapable, mathematical fact is that song sales are increasing with iPod sales, not declining.
Research payed for by the maker of Zune, perhaps? Also, better quality downloads would help. 128k is a joke.
Not that again. AAC is a much better codec than MP3 so a lower bit rate for AAC is equivalent to a much higher MP3 bit rate. For example, 96 kbps AAC generally exceeds the quality of 128k MP3.
See AAC Audio
I forgot to mention that Podcasting can be adapted for PDFs.
So instead of subscribing to a magazine, you subscribe to its PDFcast.
iTunes will auto-magically download the latest issue in PDF format and sync it to your Apple eBook.
& the new Leopard voice synth sounds great! (could convert/be dropped into iPod)
Like a lot of people here, Apple's DRM, even if it isn't as bad as Microsoft's, has been a big turn off for me. I'd also buy more via iTunes if a higher bit rate like 192 kbps were available.
I wonder if it's merely a coincidence, or if the fact that things like JHymn no longer work to remove Apple's DRM has made a difference. Could it be that a statistically significant number of iTunes buyers had been buying from iTunes only because they could crack the DRM, enough to noticeably affect sales when those buyers stopped buying?
I still sample new music using the iTunes store, but after I find something I like there, I buy it on Amazon or elsewhere instead.
But do the anti-DRMers actually buy music? The only people who have a real problem with it are pirates, who were never going to be customers anyway, or PC people who are starting to realise cobbling together 'open' systems makes them feel technical/clever but is a hiding to nowhere - but they'll come around.
Apple should get iTunes to DRM the ripped CDs to circumvent Universal music's Zunesque iPod tax - after all, eveyone's still got the original CDs - haven't they?
McD
But do the anti-DRMers actually buy music?
Yes
The only people who have a real problem with it are pirates
Wrong. Many of the anti-DRMers are people who legitimately buy music and then wish to be able to play it wherever they like, on whichever device they like (just like you can with a CD - why should an online purchase be any different?), without having to loose any more "quality" (burn & lossy rip of an already lossy format isn't great quality-wise) from a source that is already of dubious quality.
If you're a pirate, why give a crap about DRM? Everything you want is already available for free with no DRM. The main people that DRM really annoys is legitimate users.
If you buy music from iTunes, why should you not be able to play it on a mobile phone (all of them that play music play AAC as far as I'm aware)? On a Roku SoundBridge? On a Sonos system? etc. etc.
DRM doesn't piss me off too much because currently I can get rid of it with no quality loss. But when Apple finally manage to stop QTfairUse working and no replacement is forthcoming, that will really, really piss me off.
There are two solutions, either of which I'd be happy to see:
1.) No DRM
2.) Apple licensing FairPlay so that other devices (like mobiles and SoundBridges) can play iTunes purchases.
DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM!
I'm a long-time Apple fan and I actually want iTunes to succeed. However, I hate having my media, whether music, videos, etc. being locked up by DRM. I HATE DRM! And it's not because I want to share my files with everyone. I just don't think I should have to gain permission from some self-serving corporation before I can listen/watch the media I have purchased legally! AND I don't want to be told what device I can or can't play the music on. Since iTunes came online I've purchased maybe only a mere 20 songs, and I purchase them only when I'm in a bind and need the song RIGHT NOW. Otherwise I go buy the CD and rip it - in the format and bitrate of my choosing and WITHOUT DRM! Soooo... I say let's send Apple and the industry a message: FREE OUR MUSIC/MEDIA!
DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM! DOWN WITH DRM!
The only thing unfair about DRM is that Apple have to use it but the music companies can still distribute non-DRM CDs. Surely this is anti-competitive! Even more so with some commercial tracks available without DRM on Yahoo. They're not playing by their own rules and they're actually aiding piracy while pointing the finger at someone else.
Either scrap it & start the court cases in anger, or establish/adopt an industry-standard DRM for all media (preferrably updatable to outrun hackers). This would help cross-platform people who want one player (WMP, iTunes or other) but multiple music sources i.e. the people with a legitimate reason to dislike DRM.
Of course the people using P2P can shut up & piss off because we're paying for your music!
McD
Even CD quality is, at best, only mid-fi. Remember that CD was a compromise built with what was the best technology available at the time. They were invented in the late 1970s and the first players and CDs began appearing around 1982-83. The first decent sounding CD player that I heard was a $2,500 Macintosh that appeared some time around 1985. 16 bit 44.1 kHz sampling was a big technical challenge years ago. Those specs were determined sufficient to reproduce sound for the average person?s hearing. But 44.1 kHz sampling is not enough sampling to smoothly and accurately reproduce the waveforms of high frequencies; thus resulting in brittle sound. The 90 dB dynamic range of CD is adequate, but not generous. Symphony orchestras typically have a dynamic range of 70+ dB from pianissimo to forte. Live Jazz is nearly as demanding, and in some cases, as demanding as orchestral music.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. Mostly self-proclaimed audiophile BS with a hint of truth here and there under the BS.
44.1 kHz is perfectly adequate to produce high frequency sounds up to 20 kHz and a little higher. Poorly implemented hardware designs and badly done recordings might not sound as good as they otherwise might, but that's not the same thing as the sampling rate itself being a problem.
Simple-minded drawings of sampled waveforms, made to look all terribly jaggy and very unlike beautifully smooth looking high-frequency soundwaves pictured in the same drawings -- the only "evidence" that there is for this stupid meme that will not die about 44.1 kHz not being "good enough" -- don't tell the real story. Any little bump or bulge on, say, a 20 kHz waveform, represents higher frequency content than 20 kHz.
If 20 kHz is the highest frequency you can hear (a few people can hear a little higher, most people, including most self-acclaimed audiophiles, are lucky if they can hear beyond 15 kHz), then you can't hear the difference between differently-shaped 20 kHz waveforms and a simply 20 kHz sound wave. Once you properly filter a digital output, within practical engineering tolerances, the only thing that's missing -- stupid drawings be damned -- is stuff that most people can't hear, and that, even for those who can hear it, is of highly questionable musical value.
Show me some double-blinded testing that proves that any but a very small number of people (who would mostly be young and unexposed to a lot of loud noise, and most of whom would not be the same people who think they have golden ears) get any real benefit out of crazy, wasteful sampling rates like 96 kHz -- if they can even detect any differences at all between that and 44.1 kHz -- and then maybe you might have a glimmer of a point to make.
As for CD's dynamic range -- which is 96 dB, not 90 -- consider this: Let's presume that a reasonable audio technology stops at, or just before, producing sound levels at threshold of pain. Between the most quiet sound that you can just barely hear in an otherwise perfectly quiet room and the threshold of pain is a range of about 130 dB. I'll grant you that CDs fall a bit short of this dynamic range.
However, it is very rare that even the audiophiles who are out there buying $1000/meter speaker wire and AC power conditioners and $5000 stand-alone DACs have listening rooms with a background noise of less than 40 dB. To get a listening environment much quieter than that you need to get away from traffic, away from refrigerator compressors, away from buzzing florescent lights, away from cooling fans and hard drives, away anyone talking around you. You'll be lucky to get a 20 dB environment when you listen to music.
Turn up your volume just loud enough to hear the quietest sounds a CD can make over the background noise of a 40 dB room, and then the loudest sounds a CD can make will hurt you. Get yourself a nice 20 dB room instead, and while the loudest sounds won't cause immediate pain, they will be loud enough that you shouldn't listen at levels like that for extended periods of time (20 dB + 96 dB = 116 dB ~= the sound of a jack hammer operating about 2 meters from your head) if you value your ears very much -- something an audiophile presumably does value.
Implemented with decent hardware (and "decent" doesn't require megabuck components and oxygen-free copper wire), and coupled with well-made recordings, the CD standard is far above "mid fi". For the great majority of both listeners and listening environments, 44.1 kHz/16-bit sampling is perfectly suitable for producing excellent sound quality.
There's really only one department where the CD standard falls down: spacial realism. Basic two-channel stereo sound can't produce a fully realistic sound stage (unless you count binaural recordings, which need to be tuned to specific people to fully realize their potential, must be listened to using headphones, and which produce a sonic illusion which is shattered simply by turning your head and having the whole imaginary sound stage automatically and unrealistically turn with you).
While many audiophiles do spend a whole lot of time going on (and on, and on) about the spacial qualities of music, most people don't give a damn. If they care about sound localization at all, it's for sound effects in movies, not seating arrangements of musicians in a band or orchestra. If spacial realism matters a lot to you, fine, but it's hardly reason enough to demote CDs to mid-fi status for their lack of special-effects grade sound localization.
But do the anti-DRMers actually buy music? The only people who have a real problem with it are pirates...
I hate DRM, and I'm not at all music pirate. Every track in my current 5017-track iTunes library has been bought and paid for. I have a small handful of "hear, listen to this!" tracks sitting outside of iTunes right now, given to me by a friend, but I'll either decide to buy that music for myself if I like it enough, or throw it away.
I want non-Apple hardware, like my Roku Soundbridge, to work without worrying about Apple's incompatible DRM. I don't want hassles with authorizing and deauthorizing computers. I'd like to have the choice of using non-Apple software to play back my music, and non-Apple software (like Toast) to burn CDs.
i just created my own christmas album buying from itunes, before i buy music i check itunes, i can't remember when i or my wife bought a cd (ok ok i did buy some christmas cd's but they stunk and went to itunes)
so what's his point??? are otheres killing itunes, i don't think so with the number one player they all have connection to itunes. it was also a way to combat p2p and illegal downloads how about a comment on that success
12/12/2006
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris says 'the conclusion that iTunes sales are slowing is simply incorrect.'
So much for "65% decline".