It is up to Amazon to make the deal with each company individually, not the association. Just like Apple has with EMI.
If the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA (the CRIA) is serious about protecting copyright and stopping piracy (as well as making money for their members' shareholders) then they will give people like me who wish to pay for music but abhor DRM an option to obtain music legally. They should push for a deal like the one the RIAA approached Amazon for MP3 sales.
I don't care who the music retailer is. So far, my only option for mainstream DRM-free music is iTunes, and only for EMI songs.
I never buy music from iTunes because of the DRM. I browse for music there because it's a great shopping experience. When I find something I want, I head to amazon to buy it DRM free. Apple has lost about 10 album sales from me due entirely to DRM and low bitrate encoding (not iTunes plus). It's not a lot, but I'm not alone either.
I've never bought downloaded music from iTunes (or anywhere else), because of low bit rate music encoding. I still prefer to buy CDs and rip whatever I want. Nothing really beats flipping through CD bins when looking for music, although that experience is less common these days. So, there are a few online CD stores I use instead. It's nice being able to compare prices and save Wish Lists for later purchase. I also prefer to buy SACDs whenever possible.
We may be Mac users, but that doesn't mean that other companies should like being in the grip of Apple.
While I'm not happy about what the companies are doing because I'm an Apple stockholder, I have to admit that they have the right to want to regain control over their own distribution channels.
As long as what they're doing is legal, they have the right to do it.
Is it really just competition, or is there record label collusion involved? I'm not entirely sure that it is legal, but I'm not a lawyer. It smells fishy to me in any event.
Sure, this does give more consumer choice, especially for those who are more focused on the drm issue than audio compression format. Personally, I'm far more interested in the latter, so I don't see any benefit from this added competition.
As to the other typical benefit of competition that is supposed to drive all parties to improve their product/service, what benefits have iTunes customers realized from this new "competition"? What changes can Apple realistically make to iTMS to adjust to the new competitors?
To say that this is what competition is all about glosses over issues beneath the surface that make this a very unusual case imo.
Is it really just competition, or is there record label collusion involved? I'm not entirely sure that it is legal, but I'm not a lawyer. It smells fishy to me in any event.
Sure, this does give more consumer choice, especially for those who are more focused on the drm issue than audio compression format. Personally, I'm far more interested in the latter, so I don't see any benefit from this added competition.
As to the other typical benefit of competition that is supposed to drive all parties to improve their product/service, what benefits have iTunes customers realized from this new "competition"? What changes can Apple realistically make to iTMS to adjust to the new competitors?
To say that this is what competition is all about glosses over issues beneath the surface that make this a very unusual case imo.
If Apple thought they would get a benefit by bringing a suit against these companies for illegally forming a cartel, believe me, they would have. Apple isn't shy about such things.
Apple could make any changes to iTunes they wanted to. They don't want to. You could say that Apple exerts an undo influence over the media companies distribution, and sales because of their size in the download market. That would be a fair thing to say as well.
What issues doyou see as being glossed over here?
I'm taking this from an objective standpoint, which is difficult, considering how much stock I have, and its price today. Make very sure you're doing that as well.
[QUOTE}And I hate DRM on music. I don't want to be locked into listening to it on Apple's products. With unprotected music, I can listen to it on all my devices which include an iPod, a PSP, two TiVos and a PS3. I hate DRM on video downloads for the same reason because they all currently lock you into one hardware vendor's equipment.
DRM on DVD and Blu-Ray discs doesn't bother me at all. I can pick up a DVD or Blu-Ray player from numerous manufacturers and get the features I want without the lock-in that all DRM'ed download formats currently possess.[/QUOTE]
DRM doesn't bother me at all with music either. I don't have multiple devices from different vendors for playing music. I choose to own an iPod and iPhone. Buying them had nothing to do with music sold through iTunes. Previously, I had a Creative Jukebox (before the iPod), and it was too big, too heavy, and slow. The iPod sold me over, as it did with millions of other people. People were buying the iPod before the Music Store and DRM-encrypted music existed.
However, you cannot play unprotected (AAC) music on your TiVo. This bothers me as well because I don't know why TiVo hasn't offered a software update to support AAC files. MP3's are so outdated. When I play music through my stereo, it is streamed through an AirPort Express and controlled with the Remote app on my iPhone.
If Apple thought they would get a benefit by bringing a suit against these companies for illegally forming a cartel, believe me, they would have. Apple isn't shy about such things.
Apple could make any changes to iTunes they wanted to. They don't want to. You could say that Apple exerts an undo influence over the media companies distribution, and sales because of their size in the download market. That would be a fair thing to say as well.
What issues doyou see as being glossed over here?
I'm taking this from an objective standpoint, which is difficult, considering how much stock I have, and its price today. Make very sure you're doing that as well.
Despite the aggressive nature of Apple legal, I don't see them bringing a lawsuit even if they could make a case. That would cast a shadow over their efforts to strike more deals with video content providers imo. As for iTunes, I really don't see what changes they could make. Apple already lobbied publicly for an end to drm'ed music, but their existing contracts don't allow it (except for EMI). They could lower prices, but without re-negotiated contracts, that would come out of Apple's pocket. As a shareholder, I wouldn't want to see this, but I also don't believe the labels want lower prices anyway.
"Glossed over" was bad wording on my part. I would say that on the surface it appears that there is simply more competition in the digital music retail market, but beneath the surface it's a bit more complicated. It's not as though someone invented a better widget, or came up with a better business model for selling widgets, or constructed a more popular marketplace for selling widgets. It's the widget industry giving more favorable terms to one retailer in order to undermine another retailer (my opinion, but not an unpopular one).
It's like the record labels giving more favorable terms to Wal Mart than they do to Target (something they may actually do). Is this legal and/or ethical? Perhaps it is. As a Target customer though, I don't have to like it. Back to Apple and digital music, I certainly understand the labels' displeasure over the singular success that Apple has enjoyed and the market power that comes with that, and if it were anyone other than the record labels, I might be sympathetic. In this case, I think that Apple did the record industry a huge favor by creating a business model and digital marketplace to sell music that previously was being stolen. They (sadly) did it so much better than everyone else that it gave them more market power than the labels can stomach. I still think it stinks.
Well, we do need to give you bolonga because an MP3 at 256 *IS* equivalent to an AAC at 128. AAC is actually MPEG4, which provides better sound quality at a lower bit rate, than MPEG3, which is an MP3 file.
Sorry for being one of those people who pick up on incorrect information but...
1. MP3 is not MPEG3. MPEG3 does not exist. MP3 is the file format for a MPEG-1 Layer 3 file. It's just about the specification name. Just because a number is higher doesn't necessarily make it better (look at megapixels).
2. There is no real data on which is better, 256kbps MP3 or 128kbps AAC. But Apple's line has always been that 128kbps AAC is about the same as 160kbps MP3, not 256. In fact, in the iTunes encoder, the term "High Quality" is used for both 128kbps AAC and 160kbps MP3.
2. There is no real data on which is better, 256kbps MP3 or 128kbps AAC. But Apple's line has always been that 128kbps AAC is about the same as 160kbps MP3, not 256. In fact, in the iTunes encoder, the term "High Quality" is used for both 128kbps AAC and 160kbps MP3.
Not only that, Amazon uses variable bit rate on every track I checked. Every iTunes track I checked was constant bit rate. That can reduce some of the difference. VBR allows the encoder to assign more bits to more acoustically complicated segments of a track and take them away from the less complicated segments where not as many bits are needed.
I can't believe that their are no scienctific tests on codec quality at different bitrates available. Anyone with the equipment and know how want to do some testing?
I can't believe that their are no scienctific tests on codec quality at different bitrates available. Anyone with the equipment and know how want to do some testing?
The point is that even though you can do scientific tests, they don't account for the way in which the brain perceives sound. Some people's brains are more attuned to the compression than others. I love high fidelity sound, but I can rarely tell the difference between a well-encoded LAME MP3 at low bitrates than some higher quality ones, or AAC. I prefer AAC but to some extent I think that's psychosomatic.
I have done scientific tests, believe it or not... I took some uncompressed music, compressed it using different codecs at different bitrates and then used audio software to subtract one from the other. What you're left with is the noise difference. Naturally there was more noise on MP3 than AAC at similar bitrates. High AAC and VBR MP3 both faired extremely well. But the whole point of audio compression is that the sound that is removed is what most brains won't miss, and so it is very possible that some brains will appreciate MP3 more than AAC, and some vice versa. It's a personal preference really.
Just as most of us here are arguing for AAC over MP3, I have been on other forums where the argument is comletely opposite. Most people hate iTunes encoding MP3 compared with LAME, which I believe is an old problem and that was what I proved in my tests (iTunes is a much better encoder than it used to be).
The only thing we'll ever all really be able to agree about is lossless, natch.
The point is that even though you can do scientific tests, they don't account for the way in which the brain perceives sound. Some people's brains are more attuned to the compression than others. I love high fidelity sound, but I can rarely tell the difference between a well-encoded LAME MP3 at low bitrates than some higher quality ones, or AAC. I prefer AAC but to some extent I think that's psychosomatic.
You might not be able to account for individuals, but you can do systematic tests on populations. Properly performed tests can weed out a lot of psychosomatic responses, the only indications you should have are from the audio itself.
There is a website that has a system for testing individuals that does the proper blind comparisons so people can test themselves. They test a lot of people at a lot of different bitrates and codecs.
But beyond that, different encoders do encode differently, each potentially leaving their own subtle imprint on the signal.
Comments
It is up to Amazon to make the deal with each company individually, not the association. Just like Apple has with EMI.
If the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA (the CRIA) is serious about protecting copyright and stopping piracy (as well as making money for their members' shareholders) then they will give people like me who wish to pay for music but abhor DRM an option to obtain music legally. They should push for a deal like the one the RIAA approached Amazon for MP3 sales.
I don't care who the music retailer is. So far, my only option for mainstream DRM-free music is iTunes, and only for EMI songs.
That is the only reason why people claim to hate DRM.
that is straight up bullshit. people who pirate don't care about DRM, they're too busy pirating.
My order of preference, when I music shop:
256 kbps AAC (iTunes Plus) - no DRM
256 kbps MP3 (Amazon) - no DRM
128 kbps AAC (regular iTunes) - has DRM
128-192 MP3 (I think I'll pass!) - no DRM
If the MP3s are 256, that's acceptable, and DRM-free is extremely welcome, but I'd rather have MP4 (aka AAC).
Deutsche Grammophon sells their catalogue in 320 kbps MP3 with no DRM.
I'd prefer AAC, or better yet, Lossless. Especially with classical music, since this is where you can easily hear the difference.
For instance:
http://www2.deutschegrammophon.com/c...String=4777440
I never buy music from iTunes because of the DRM. I browse for music there because it's a great shopping experience. When I find something I want, I head to amazon to buy it DRM free. Apple has lost about 10 album sales from me due entirely to DRM and low bitrate encoding (not iTunes plus). It's not a lot, but I'm not alone either.
I've never bought downloaded music from iTunes (or anywhere else), because of low bit rate music encoding. I still prefer to buy CDs and rip whatever I want. Nothing really beats flipping through CD bins when looking for music, although that experience is less common these days. So, there are a few online CD stores I use instead. It's nice being able to compare prices and save Wish Lists for later purchase. I also prefer to buy SACDs whenever possible.
This is how I rip 'em:
Lossless = Classical, Jazz, World Music
256 AAC Variable Bit Rate = Pop/Rock
Give me DRM-free lossless tracks for $1.29 and I'll buy.
me too
__________________
What's wrong with that?
It's what competition is all about.
We may be Mac users, but that doesn't mean that other companies should like being in the grip of Apple.
While I'm not happy about what the companies are doing because I'm an Apple stockholder, I have to admit that they have the right to want to regain control over their own distribution channels.
As long as what they're doing is legal, they have the right to do it.
Is it really just competition, or is there record label collusion involved? I'm not entirely sure that it is legal, but I'm not a lawyer. It smells fishy to me in any event.
Sure, this does give more consumer choice, especially for those who are more focused on the drm issue than audio compression format. Personally, I'm far more interested in the latter, so I don't see any benefit from this added competition.
As to the other typical benefit of competition that is supposed to drive all parties to improve their product/service, what benefits have iTunes customers realized from this new "competition"? What changes can Apple realistically make to iTMS to adjust to the new competitors?
To say that this is what competition is all about glosses over issues beneath the surface that make this a very unusual case imo.
Is it really just competition, or is there record label collusion involved? I'm not entirely sure that it is legal, but I'm not a lawyer. It smells fishy to me in any event.
Sure, this does give more consumer choice, especially for those who are more focused on the drm issue than audio compression format. Personally, I'm far more interested in the latter, so I don't see any benefit from this added competition.
As to the other typical benefit of competition that is supposed to drive all parties to improve their product/service, what benefits have iTunes customers realized from this new "competition"? What changes can Apple realistically make to iTMS to adjust to the new competitors?
To say that this is what competition is all about glosses over issues beneath the surface that make this a very unusual case imo.
If Apple thought they would get a benefit by bringing a suit against these companies for illegally forming a cartel, believe me, they would have. Apple isn't shy about such things.
Apple could make any changes to iTunes they wanted to. They don't want to. You could say that Apple exerts an undo influence over the media companies distribution, and sales because of their size in the download market. That would be a fair thing to say as well.
What issues doyou see as being glossed over here?
I'm taking this from an objective standpoint, which is difficult, considering how much stock I have, and its price today. Make very sure you're doing that as well.
that is straight up bullshit. people who pirate don't care about DRM, they're too busy pirating.
Then what is your reason why people hate DRM? I can't wait for your bullshit answer.
DRM on DVD and Blu-Ray discs doesn't bother me at all. I can pick up a DVD or Blu-Ray player from numerous manufacturers and get the features I want without the lock-in that all DRM'ed download formats currently possess.[/QUOTE]
DRM doesn't bother me at all with music either. I don't have multiple devices from different vendors for playing music. I choose to own an iPod and iPhone. Buying them had nothing to do with music sold through iTunes. Previously, I had a Creative Jukebox (before the iPod), and it was too big, too heavy, and slow. The iPod sold me over, as it did with millions of other people. People were buying the iPod before the Music Store and DRM-encrypted music existed.
However, you cannot play unprotected (AAC) music on your TiVo. This bothers me as well because I don't know why TiVo hasn't offered a software update to support AAC files. MP3's are so outdated. When I play music through my stereo, it is streamed through an AirPort Express and controlled with the Remote app on my iPhone.
If Apple thought they would get a benefit by bringing a suit against these companies for illegally forming a cartel, believe me, they would have. Apple isn't shy about such things.
Apple could make any changes to iTunes they wanted to. They don't want to. You could say that Apple exerts an undo influence over the media companies distribution, and sales because of their size in the download market. That would be a fair thing to say as well.
What issues doyou see as being glossed over here?
I'm taking this from an objective standpoint, which is difficult, considering how much stock I have, and its price today. Make very sure you're doing that as well.
Despite the aggressive nature of Apple legal, I don't see them bringing a lawsuit even if they could make a case. That would cast a shadow over their efforts to strike more deals with video content providers imo. As for iTunes, I really don't see what changes they could make. Apple already lobbied publicly for an end to drm'ed music, but their existing contracts don't allow it (except for EMI). They could lower prices, but without re-negotiated contracts, that would come out of Apple's pocket. As a shareholder, I wouldn't want to see this, but I also don't believe the labels want lower prices anyway.
"Glossed over" was bad wording on my part. I would say that on the surface it appears that there is simply more competition in the digital music retail market, but beneath the surface it's a bit more complicated. It's not as though someone invented a better widget, or came up with a better business model for selling widgets, or constructed a more popular marketplace for selling widgets. It's the widget industry giving more favorable terms to one retailer in order to undermine another retailer (my opinion, but not an unpopular one).
It's like the record labels giving more favorable terms to Wal Mart than they do to Target (something they may actually do). Is this legal and/or ethical? Perhaps it is. As a Target customer though, I don't have to like it. Back to Apple and digital music, I certainly understand the labels' displeasure over the singular success that Apple has enjoyed and the market power that comes with that, and if it were anyone other than the record labels, I might be sympathetic. In this case, I think that Apple did the record industry a huge favor by creating a business model and digital marketplace to sell music that previously was being stolen. They (sadly) did it so much better than everyone else that it gave them more market power than the labels can stomach. I still think it stinks.
NOT 1 CENT!
me too
__________________
you guys are really willing to pay a 30 cent apple tax?.....
oh thats right you guys are used to over paying for your jesus products.
you guys are really willing to pay a 30 cent apple tax?.....
I think you didn't properly read the post you replied to.
Please do show us where we can get legal, lossless, DRM-free music tracks from the big four labels for 99 cents. Or in fact, at any price.
Well, we do need to give you bolonga because an MP3 at 256 *IS* equivalent to an AAC at 128. AAC is actually MPEG4, which provides better sound quality at a lower bit rate, than MPEG3, which is an MP3 file.
Sorry for being one of those people who pick up on incorrect information but...
1. MP3 is not MPEG3. MPEG3 does not exist. MP3 is the file format for a MPEG-1 Layer 3 file. It's just about the specification name. Just because a number is higher doesn't necessarily make it better (look at megapixels).
2. There is no real data on which is better, 256kbps MP3 or 128kbps AAC. But Apple's line has always been that 128kbps AAC is about the same as 160kbps MP3, not 256. In fact, in the iTunes encoder, the term "High Quality" is used for both 128kbps AAC and 160kbps MP3.
2. There is no real data on which is better, 256kbps MP3 or 128kbps AAC. But Apple's line has always been that 128kbps AAC is about the same as 160kbps MP3, not 256. In fact, in the iTunes encoder, the term "High Quality" is used for both 128kbps AAC and 160kbps MP3.
Not only that, Amazon uses variable bit rate on every track I checked. Every iTunes track I checked was constant bit rate. That can reduce some of the difference. VBR allows the encoder to assign more bits to more acoustically complicated segments of a track and take them away from the less complicated segments where not as many bits are needed.
I can't believe that their are no scienctific tests on codec quality at different bitrates available. Anyone with the equipment and know how want to do some testing?
The point is that even though you can do scientific tests, they don't account for the way in which the brain perceives sound. Some people's brains are more attuned to the compression than others. I love high fidelity sound, but I can rarely tell the difference between a well-encoded LAME MP3 at low bitrates than some higher quality ones, or AAC. I prefer AAC but to some extent I think that's psychosomatic.
I have done scientific tests, believe it or not... I took some uncompressed music, compressed it using different codecs at different bitrates and then used audio software to subtract one from the other. What you're left with is the noise difference. Naturally there was more noise on MP3 than AAC at similar bitrates. High AAC and VBR MP3 both faired extremely well. But the whole point of audio compression is that the sound that is removed is what most brains won't miss, and so it is very possible that some brains will appreciate MP3 more than AAC, and some vice versa. It's a personal preference really.
Just as most of us here are arguing for AAC over MP3, I have been on other forums where the argument is comletely opposite. Most people hate iTunes encoding MP3 compared with LAME, which I believe is an old problem and that was what I proved in my tests (iTunes is a much better encoder than it used to be).
The only thing we'll ever all really be able to agree about is lossless, natch.
The point is that even though you can do scientific tests, they don't account for the way in which the brain perceives sound. Some people's brains are more attuned to the compression than others. I love high fidelity sound, but I can rarely tell the difference between a well-encoded LAME MP3 at low bitrates than some higher quality ones, or AAC. I prefer AAC but to some extent I think that's psychosomatic.
You might not be able to account for individuals, but you can do systematic tests on populations. Properly performed tests can weed out a lot of psychosomatic responses, the only indications you should have are from the audio itself.
There is a website that has a system for testing individuals that does the proper blind comparisons so people can test themselves. They test a lot of people at a lot of different bitrates and codecs.
But beyond that, different encoders do encode differently, each potentially leaving their own subtle imprint on the signal.