And my point is that Apple is perfectly fine selling music without DRMs that are playable on any player. The record companies are the people who are guilty of restrictions in the iPod/iTunes ecosystem. If you have an iPod, you are only obliged to use the iTunes software, which is free, but you are not obliged to buy your music through iTunes. You can buy CDs, through Amazon's DRM-free music download service, convert your LPs to digital form, or obtain music in some illegal fashion if one chooses to do that. Apple would love to have iTunes music DRM-free, but it's the record companies that are making the restriction. Apple is not responsible for supporting other people's products and therefore shouldn't have to support anybody else's DRMs if they don't want to and they shouldn't have to license their DRM which was designed for use with their products.
Yes, I agree with you fully.
But the underlying reason for this lawsuit isn't really about that, it's about thieves wanting a piece of the Apple pie for free.
I have Sony Ericsson W810i that also has a media player, FM radio, camera, iCal and Address Book sync, memory card expansion, etc and here's why I absolutely can't agree with a thing you've said.
1. The media player is unstable and often freezes or refuses to play a song (instead it lets out an unpleasant buzzing noise)
2. Bugs are never fixed because the software update feature doesn't offer any updates
3. It is slow to navigate due to the lack of a click wheel or touch screen
4. It uses a proprietary headphone connector, similar to that used on SE chargers
5. It uses Sony's proprietary MemoryStick cards
I can also think of other reasons why your arguments don't hold up against the iPod and in particular the iPod Touch or the iPhone.
1. All iPods sync with Address Book and iCal and they do a better job of it than any Sony Ericsson phone (you don't even need iSync)
2. You talk about an intuitive interface when in fact the interface borrows heavily from the original iPod interface in terms of navigating menus but lacks an easy way to scroll quickly through long lists
3. Any iPod but in particular the Touch and the iPhone are by far more intuitive than any SE phone's media player
4. Apple provides regular software updates and adds features, SE doesn't
5. SE phones do support AAC in it's unprotected form and therefore tracks bought off iTunes do work on the phone. Protected tracks do not work for the clear and obvious reasons stated above. Let's see your phone play protected WMA
6. The iPhone also pauses your music when you receive a call and, funnily enough, allows you to use a Bluetooth headset
The only plus points you can boast about on your phone are the video camera (would love to know how often you seriously use it though), 3G (what about your browser? hold on, it sucks!), FM radio (LOL!), 3MP instead of the iPhone's 2MP (fair enough, I'll give you that one).
Do you have wireless btw?
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion but I find it hard to believe you can actually defend a Symbian OS and media player over the latest iPods. In my eyes that's pushing it.
I could just as easily write a class action law suite against Microsoft for not supporting Mac users to use any of the DRM enabled Video On Demand services, like 4od, five download, sky anytime etc. Circumventing people who use these services from switching over to Mac I mean COME ON PEOPLE! Who gives a fuck!
If Apple didn't provide support for Windows in the iPod in the first place we wouldn't be hearing any of this shit, Apple users would be happy because we'd have a nice shiny diverse set of media players iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle we couldn't give a fuck about the price because I mean let's face it, if you can afford a mac an iPod wouldn't make the slightest difference.
Windows users would be pissed off because they'd be lumped with shitty MP3 players like the Zune and have people like us waving our middle fingers in the air at them as we drive past in our hummers listening to our ipods and watching Toy Story 2.
Are the non-DRM files from iTunes playable on non-iPod players? No, that is not the real issue.
Erm, yes. Any player capable of playing AAC files will play non-DRM tracks from iTunes. And AAC is a published standard from the same group that gave us MP3, so any player manufacturer not implementing it is just not keeping with the times. A brief look on the internet shows practically all new players supporting AAC.
FYI, as a Mac user I cannot even Purchase Music on the Zune music store. I cannot even USE a Zune with my Mac (not that I would really want to).
When the Mac market is a tenth of the Windows market, this by itself is hardly a consideration. Even from a practical perspective, there's little point in increasing your development costs by a third or more to capture that tiny fraction until they've developed their main market first.
Quote:
Microsoft created a new DRM for Zune that will not play on player's using its own Play for Sure DRM. How bright is that?
Supposedly they did that because PFS was too easily cracked and it's too hard to patch it and fix all the players without breaking them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
No, it does not, necessarily.
"Sold more" what? Tracks? CDs? CD-equivalent tracks? If it was tracks compared to CDs, you could sell more but not have higher revenues. And, were these sold in jewelboxes or as downloads? If the latter, via what outlets, considering the record companies have barely any? Anyhow, how could that account for more revenue, considering it is only 10% of overall sales, while physical CD sales fell by about the same amount? And, don't tell me it was video -- that is a small proportion of overall revenues.
The bottom line is, this article is poorly/confusingly worded, and does not say very much.
The numbers don't even appear to be self-consistent. CD sales dropped by 10%. The downloads increased by 45%, but because downloads only account for 10% of music sales, that increase doesn't make up for the lost CD sales. And still, the industry took in 14% more than last year?
Erm, yes. Any player capable of playing AAC files will play non-DRM tracks from iTunes. And AAC is a published standard from the same group that gave us MP3, so any player manufacturer not implementing it is just not keeping with the times. A brief look on the internet shows practically all new players supporting AAC.
This has already been said and discussed. Read before you post.
I cannot play any of the music I purchased from the iTunes music store on it!
This is like me buying a book and only being able to read it in a specific location.
Come on Apple, un DRM ALL your music today, or I'm going to compete...
Gee, talk to Sony, and ask them why Sony Columbia has DRM'ed their music up until now, and why they were the last to drop DRM, even after their crazy attempt to copy-protect CDs. And ask yourself, how many record companies would have joined iTunes if Apple had said, "No DRM." So far, I've updated all my BMI music to DRM-free for a few bucks. The rest are off playing games, making DRM-free music available to Amazon and others, but not to iTunes. Who called for the record companies to give up DRM? Who predicted that at least half of the music would have dropped DRM by the end of this year, but was a little pessimistic? Steve Jobs. Which record execs have reversed their positions, proving Jobs right? All of them.
The lawsuit is about Apple not supporting WMA-DRM, licensing FairPlay has nothing to do with it.
If Microsoft offered their WMA DRM for free, Apple would offer it. Why they should have to pay tribute to a monopoly's closed format is beyond me. Everytime I read about some "cool" new feature in Windows-land, some new video or music service, what do you know? It' s not available for Macs.
And you also lose quality each and every time you do it.
Wait....
Wait....
How in the hell does that magically happen? Unless you set your ripping bitrate lower than the AAC bitrate, there is no loss. You don't lose sound quality burning to CD when you use the CD Quality option in iTunes, then rerip in Lossless.
How in the hell does that magically happen? Unless you set your ripping bitrate lower than the AAC bitrate, there is no loss. You don't lose sound quality burning to CD when you use the CD Quality option in iTunes, then rerip in Lossless.
If you burn a compressed file (AAC) to an uncompressed format (CD) then rip to anything except lossless, then the end product is more lossy than the original compressed file.
To make it simple:
120AAC>CD>360AAC
produces a poorer quality 360AACfile than the original 120AAC. That's just the way it works.
However, most people won't hear the difference anyway.
How in the hell does that magically happen? Unless you set your ripping bitrate lower than the AAC bitrate, there is no loss. You don't lose sound quality burning to CD when you use the CD Quality option in iTunes, then rerip in Lossless.
Written attempts at dramatic pause usually don't work very well here.
Encoding it as loss-less is a waste if its source material is lossy. Re-encoding lossy encoding into a different lossy encoding will almost always reduce the quality, even if it is encoded at a higher bitrate the second time around.
If you burn a compressed file (AAC) to an uncompressed format (CD) then rip to anything except lossless, then the end product is more lossy than the original compressed file.
To make it simple:
120AAC>CD>360AAC
produces a poorer quality 360AACfile than the original 120AAC. That's just the way it works.
However, most people won't hear the difference anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
Written attempts at dramatic pause usually don't work very well here.
Encoding it as loss-less is a waste if its source material is lossy. Re-encoding lossy encoding into a different lossy encoding will almost always reduce the quality, even if it is encoded at a higher bitrate the second time around.
Thank you, I was looking after that comment and I couldn't find a legitimate answer either way. Honestly, I don't bother, I have my Touch with me everywhere I go, it's so much easier for me that way than to deal with physical media like CD's, and since most of my library is either ripped from store bought cd's, bought from Amazon or iTS+ tracks, I don't worry about the couple dozen DRM'ed AACs.
Thanks again for clearing up that misunderstanding.
Come on. If you want to play it on a non ipod buy the stupid CD!
Don't want to buy the CD? Why? Because you WANT TO USE iTunes!!!
So basically
Sue apple because they made a product you want to use.
Monopoly my ass.
Should Apple drop DRM? Hell yes as soon as possible. But suing them for using DRM just gives the non DRM posse a bad name. Maybe it's an RIAA trick?
I would suspect, if there's a conspiracy involved at all, that it would be run by the same people who funded that assault on Linux, right? Quick, SCO was funded by...
Since Apple has been embracing non-DRMed music, it's pretty darn hard to blame them, especially when the labels have been dropping DRM but going elsewhere to sell their tracks. And if it's not DRMed on Apple's account, and you can get these tracks at Amazon in the universal mp3 format -- what are these people complaining about? Apple isn't paying MS royalty fees up the bum? Why should they? If Microsoft would be interested in reciprocity, maybe.
Recommendation: if you don't like iTunes and iPods, buy any number of other music players and fill it with ripped tracks and unprotected, 256kb tracks bought on Amazon and playable anywhere. And if you have an iPod, write to the music labels and tell them you want to buy their tracks on iTunes.
When the Mac market is a tenth of the Windows market, this by itself is hardly a consideration. Even from a practical perspective, there's little point in increasing your development costs by a third or more to capture that tiny fraction until they've developed their main market first.
Supposedly they did that because PFS was too easily cracked and it's too hard to patch it and fix all the players without breaking them.
The numbers don't even appear to be self-consistent. CD sales dropped by 10%. The downloads increased by 45%, but because downloads only account for 10% of music sales, that increase doesn't make up for the lost CD sales. And still, the industry took in 14% more than last year?
Well, the other thing is that iTunes is now the third-largest music retailer in the US. Got to pay attention to that. AND it's available on the Mac and for Windows. AND its non-DRMed tracks are playable anywhere, by any music player.
The Plays for Sure gambit was this: they had been offering that copy protection to all hardware makers. Then, when they came out with the Zune, they did improve their copy protection, sure. But they didn't make it available to all the Plays for Sure users. This behavior is typical of Microsoft. If other players are limited to DRM that's been cracked, and the Zune is "safe," who do the record labels sell to? Well, actually, everybody -- IF they drop copy protection and use universal formats.
As for the retail sales figures, they're completely consistent. One thing is, though, that the figures include some that are about total numbers of tracks, and the money paid per song. Profits are up 14% in the industry (higher price per track, layoffs, fewer employees, and dropping DRM(!)), regular CD sales are down 10%, but digital downloads have increased (in number of songs sold) by 45%.
Looks to me like an industry that really, really needs to embrace a new business model. Like unprotected CD-quality sound for $5.00 an "album" or 50¢ a track? Lower the price enough, and at some point hardly anybody will pirate. Fire everybody except talent, sound engineers and promoters. Let artists set up independent production units and keep more of their profits.
This is just another lawsuit that won't stand in a court of law... nothing but a waste of public resources.
CD sales has been declining since the booming browth of digital music. It's not an accident, it's by design... Apple's business model works and the old doesn't. Why keep 1000 CDs when you can store that 1000 CDs in a single hard drive and even within an ipod?
Old school music industry thinkers needs to wake up and stop pointing fingers... if they want to compete than adapt NOT throw around another lawsuit in the hopes of keeping their sad jobs until retirement!
Are the non-DRM files from iTunes playable on non-iPod players? No, that is not the real issue.
i am a bit confused by the quatriple-negative of this sentence but basically,..
AAC is open. meaning you don't have to pay a license fee to use it. so technically all other players are able to support AAC at no cost. WMA, you have to license from microsoft, so it is understandable why apple doesn't want/need to support it.
As for the retail sales figures, they're completely consistent. One thing is, though, that the figures include some that are about total numbers of tracks, and the money paid per song. Profits are up 14% in the industry (higher price per track, layoffs, fewer employees, and dropping DRM(!)), regular CD sales are down 10%, but digital downloads have increased (in number of songs sold) by 45%.
Maybe that makes more sense. Still, dropping DRM in itself shouldn't affect the net other than what is already in the sales percentages.
Given that downloads account for 10% of the current sales, the 45% increase in download sales cannot possibly make up for the 10% loss in CD sales when downloads now only make 10% of the revenue.
Comments
And my point is that Apple is perfectly fine selling music without DRMs that are playable on any player. The record companies are the people who are guilty of restrictions in the iPod/iTunes ecosystem. If you have an iPod, you are only obliged to use the iTunes software, which is free, but you are not obliged to buy your music through iTunes. You can buy CDs, through Amazon's DRM-free music download service, convert your LPs to digital form, or obtain music in some illegal fashion if one chooses to do that. Apple would love to have iTunes music DRM-free, but it's the record companies that are making the restriction. Apple is not responsible for supporting other people's products and therefore shouldn't have to support anybody else's DRMs if they don't want to and they shouldn't have to license their DRM which was designed for use with their products.
Yes, I agree with you fully.
But the underlying reason for this lawsuit isn't really about that, it's about thieves wanting a piece of the Apple pie for free.
I have Sony Ericsson W810i that also has a media player, FM radio, camera, iCal and Address Book sync, memory card expansion, etc and here's why I absolutely can't agree with a thing you've said.
1. The media player is unstable and often freezes or refuses to play a song (instead it lets out an unpleasant buzzing noise)
2. Bugs are never fixed because the software update feature doesn't offer any updates
3. It is slow to navigate due to the lack of a click wheel or touch screen
4. It uses a proprietary headphone connector, similar to that used on SE chargers
5. It uses Sony's proprietary MemoryStick cards
I can also think of other reasons why your arguments don't hold up against the iPod and in particular the iPod Touch or the iPhone.
1. All iPods sync with Address Book and iCal and they do a better job of it than any Sony Ericsson phone (you don't even need iSync)
2. You talk about an intuitive interface when in fact the interface borrows heavily from the original iPod interface in terms of navigating menus but lacks an easy way to scroll quickly through long lists
3. Any iPod but in particular the Touch and the iPhone are by far more intuitive than any SE phone's media player
4. Apple provides regular software updates and adds features, SE doesn't
5. SE phones do support AAC in it's unprotected form and therefore tracks bought off iTunes do work on the phone. Protected tracks do not work for the clear and obvious reasons stated above. Let's see your phone play protected WMA
6. The iPhone also pauses your music when you receive a call and, funnily enough, allows you to use a Bluetooth headset
The only plus points you can boast about on your phone are the video camera (would love to know how often you seriously use it though), 3G (what about your browser? hold on, it sucks!), FM radio (LOL!), 3MP instead of the iPhone's 2MP (fair enough, I'll give you that one).
Do you have wireless btw?
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion but I find it hard to believe you can actually defend a Symbian OS and media player over the latest iPods. In my eyes that's pushing it.
Whew. Slam. Dunk.
If Apple didn't provide support for Windows in the iPod in the first place we wouldn't be hearing any of this shit, Apple users would be happy because we'd have a nice shiny diverse set of media players iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle we couldn't give a fuck about the price because I mean let's face it, if you can afford a mac an iPod wouldn't make the slightest difference.
Windows users would be pissed off because they'd be lumped with shitty MP3 players like the Zune and have people like us waving our middle fingers in the air at them as we drive past in our hummers listening to our ipods and watching Toy Story 2.
That's my 2 cents!
Are the non-DRM files from iTunes playable on non-iPod players? No, that is not the real issue.
Erm, yes. Any player capable of playing AAC files will play non-DRM tracks from iTunes. And AAC is a published standard from the same group that gave us MP3, so any player manufacturer not implementing it is just not keeping with the times. A brief look on the internet shows practically all new players supporting AAC.
FYI, as a Mac user I cannot even Purchase Music on the Zune music store. I cannot even USE a Zune with my Mac (not that I would really want to).
When the Mac market is a tenth of the Windows market, this by itself is hardly a consideration. Even from a practical perspective, there's little point in increasing your development costs by a third or more to capture that tiny fraction until they've developed their main market first.
Microsoft created a new DRM for Zune that will not play on player's using its own Play for Sure DRM. How bright is that?
Supposedly they did that because PFS was too easily cracked and it's too hard to patch it and fix all the players without breaking them.
No, it does not, necessarily.
"Sold more" what? Tracks? CDs? CD-equivalent tracks? If it was tracks compared to CDs, you could sell more but not have higher revenues. And, were these sold in jewelboxes or as downloads? If the latter, via what outlets, considering the record companies have barely any? Anyhow, how could that account for more revenue, considering it is only 10% of overall sales, while physical CD sales fell by about the same amount? And, don't tell me it was video -- that is a small proportion of overall revenues.
The bottom line is, this article is poorly/confusingly worded, and does not say very much.
The numbers don't even appear to be self-consistent. CD sales dropped by 10%. The downloads increased by 45%, but because downloads only account for 10% of music sales, that increase doesn't make up for the lost CD sales. And still, the industry took in 14% more than last year?
Erm, yes. Any player capable of playing AAC files will play non-DRM tracks from iTunes. And AAC is a published standard from the same group that gave us MP3, so any player manufacturer not implementing it is just not keeping with the times. A brief look on the internet shows practically all new players supporting AAC.
This has already been said and discussed. Read before you post.
...
I cannot play any of the music I purchased from the iTunes music store on it!
This is like me buying a book and only being able to read it in a specific location.
Come on Apple, un DRM ALL your music today, or I'm going to compete...
Gee, talk to Sony, and ask them why Sony Columbia has DRM'ed their music up until now, and why they were the last to drop DRM, even after their crazy attempt to copy-protect CDs. And ask yourself, how many record companies would have joined iTunes if Apple had said, "No DRM." So far, I've updated all my BMI music to DRM-free for a few bucks. The rest are off playing games, making DRM-free music available to Amazon and others, but not to iTunes. Who called for the record companies to give up DRM? Who predicted that at least half of the music would have dropped DRM by the end of this year, but was a little pessimistic? Steve Jobs. Which record execs have reversed their positions, proving Jobs right? All of them.
The lawsuit is about Apple not supporting WMA-DRM, licensing FairPlay has nothing to do with it.
If Microsoft offered their WMA DRM for free, Apple would offer it. Why they should have to pay tribute to a monopoly's closed format is beyond me. Everytime I read about some "cool" new feature in Windows-land, some new video or music service, what do you know? It' s not available for Macs.
And you also lose quality each and every time you do it.
Wait....
Wait....
How in the hell does that magically happen? Unless you set your ripping bitrate lower than the AAC bitrate, there is no loss. You don't lose sound quality burning to CD when you use the CD Quality option in iTunes, then rerip in Lossless.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60784 <- again....Apple explains how.
Wait....
Wait....
How in the hell does that magically happen? Unless you set your ripping bitrate lower than the AAC bitrate, there is no loss. You don't lose sound quality burning to CD when you use the CD Quality option in iTunes, then rerip in Lossless.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60784 <- again....Apple explains how.
If you burn a compressed file (AAC) to an uncompressed format (CD) then rip to anything except lossless, then the end product is more lossy than the original compressed file.
To make it simple:
120AAC>CD>360AAC
produces a poorer quality 360AACfile than the original 120AAC. That's just the way it works.
However, most people won't hear the difference anyway.
Wait....
Wait....
How in the hell does that magically happen? Unless you set your ripping bitrate lower than the AAC bitrate, there is no loss. You don't lose sound quality burning to CD when you use the CD Quality option in iTunes, then rerip in Lossless.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60784 <- again....Apple explains how.
Written attempts at dramatic pause usually don't work very well here.
Encoding it as loss-less is a waste if its source material is lossy. Re-encoding lossy encoding into a different lossy encoding will almost always reduce the quality, even if it is encoded at a higher bitrate the second time around.
If you burn a compressed file (AAC) to an uncompressed format (CD) then rip to anything except lossless, then the end product is more lossy than the original compressed file.
To make it simple:
120AAC>CD>360AAC
produces a poorer quality 360AACfile than the original 120AAC. That's just the way it works.
However, most people won't hear the difference anyway.
Written attempts at dramatic pause usually don't work very well here.
Encoding it as loss-less is a waste if its source material is lossy. Re-encoding lossy encoding into a different lossy encoding will almost always reduce the quality, even if it is encoded at a higher bitrate the second time around.
Thank you, I was looking after that comment and I couldn't find a legitimate answer either way. Honestly, I don't bother, I have my Touch with me everywhere I go, it's so much easier for me that way than to deal with physical media like CD's, and since most of my library is either ripped from store bought cd's, bought from Amazon or iTS+ tracks, I don't worry about the couple dozen DRM'ed AACs.
Thanks again for clearing up that misunderstanding.
Don't want to buy the CD? Why? Because you WANT TO USE iTunes!!!
So basically
Sue apple because they made a product you want to use.
Monopoly my ass.
Should Apple drop DRM? Hell yes as soon as possible. But suing them for using DRM just gives the non DRM posse a bad name. Maybe it's an RIAA trick?
Come on. If you want to play it on a non ipod buy the stupid CD!
Don't want to buy the CD? Why? Because you WANT TO USE iTunes!!!
So basically
Sue apple because they made a product you want to use.
Monopoly my ass.
Should Apple drop DRM? Hell yes as soon as possible. But suing them for using DRM just gives the non DRM posse a bad name. Maybe it's an RIAA trick?
I would suspect, if there's a conspiracy involved at all, that it would be run by the same people who funded that assault on Linux, right? Quick, SCO was funded by...
Since Apple has been embracing non-DRMed music, it's pretty darn hard to blame them, especially when the labels have been dropping DRM but going elsewhere to sell their tracks. And if it's not DRMed on Apple's account, and you can get these tracks at Amazon in the universal mp3 format -- what are these people complaining about? Apple isn't paying MS royalty fees up the bum? Why should they? If Microsoft would be interested in reciprocity, maybe.
Recommendation: if you don't like iTunes and iPods, buy any number of other music players and fill it with ripped tracks and unprotected, 256kb tracks bought on Amazon and playable anywhere. And if you have an iPod, write to the music labels and tell them you want to buy their tracks on iTunes.
When the Mac market is a tenth of the Windows market, this by itself is hardly a consideration. Even from a practical perspective, there's little point in increasing your development costs by a third or more to capture that tiny fraction until they've developed their main market first.
Supposedly they did that because PFS was too easily cracked and it's too hard to patch it and fix all the players without breaking them.
The numbers don't even appear to be self-consistent. CD sales dropped by 10%. The downloads increased by 45%, but because downloads only account for 10% of music sales, that increase doesn't make up for the lost CD sales. And still, the industry took in 14% more than last year?
Well, the other thing is that iTunes is now the third-largest music retailer in the US. Got to pay attention to that. AND it's available on the Mac and for Windows. AND its non-DRMed tracks are playable anywhere, by any music player.
The Plays for Sure gambit was this: they had been offering that copy protection to all hardware makers. Then, when they came out with the Zune, they did improve their copy protection, sure. But they didn't make it available to all the Plays for Sure users. This behavior is typical of Microsoft. If other players are limited to DRM that's been cracked, and the Zune is "safe," who do the record labels sell to? Well, actually, everybody -- IF they drop copy protection and use universal formats.
As for the retail sales figures, they're completely consistent. One thing is, though, that the figures include some that are about total numbers of tracks, and the money paid per song. Profits are up 14% in the industry (higher price per track, layoffs, fewer employees, and dropping DRM(!)), regular CD sales are down 10%, but digital downloads have increased (in number of songs sold) by 45%.
Looks to me like an industry that really, really needs to embrace a new business model. Like unprotected CD-quality sound for $5.00 an "album" or 50¢ a track? Lower the price enough, and at some point hardly anybody will pirate. Fire everybody except talent, sound engineers and promoters. Let artists set up independent production units and keep more of their profits.
CD sales has been declining since the booming browth of digital music. It's not an accident, it's by design... Apple's business model works and the old doesn't. Why keep 1000 CDs when you can store that 1000 CDs in a single hard drive and even within an ipod?
Old school music industry thinkers needs to wake up and stop pointing fingers... if they want to compete than adapt NOT throw around another lawsuit in the hopes of keeping their sad jobs until retirement!
Are the non-DRM files from iTunes playable on non-iPod players? No, that is not the real issue.
i am a bit confused by the quatriple-negative of this sentence but basically,..
AAC is open. meaning you don't have to pay a license fee to use it. so technically all other players are able to support AAC at no cost. WMA, you have to license from microsoft, so it is understandable why apple doesn't want/need to support it.
As for the retail sales figures, they're completely consistent. One thing is, though, that the figures include some that are about total numbers of tracks, and the money paid per song. Profits are up 14% in the industry (higher price per track, layoffs, fewer employees, and dropping DRM(!)), regular CD sales are down 10%, but digital downloads have increased (in number of songs sold) by 45%.
Maybe that makes more sense. Still, dropping DRM in itself shouldn't affect the net other than what is already in the sales percentages.
Given that downloads account for 10% of the current sales, the 45% increase in download sales cannot possibly make up for the 10% loss in CD sales when downloads now only make 10% of the revenue.
Good point. Look at Vista and all its different versions.
Recommended retail prices for full versions:
Windows Vista Home Basic -- $199.95
Windows Vista Home Premium -- $239.95
Windows Vista Ultimate -- $399.95
Exactly! Windows, you get less features for paying less. Or to phrase it differently: Windows Vista costs less the more it is crippled.
Vista Ultimate is also crippleware, just less so than Home Basic or Premium