iTunes Arrows for Illegal Muisc Downloaders?
I noticed the arrows for each song, etc, and I thought to myself...these are just stupid and annoying, who the hell would use them. And then it occoured to me. If someone illegally downloaded a song the enough information would be in iTunes to track it down in the music store in the hopes that someone who is sampling music would then buy it.
And this is somewhat true. Studies have shown that people who illegal download more music per month also buy (legally) around 6 times more music than non-illegal downloaders per month.
And this is somewhat true. Studies have shown that people who illegal download more music per month also buy (legally) around 6 times more music than non-illegal downloaders per month.
Comments
Oh, and as a sidenote, if you really don't like the arrows you do have the option of turning them off.
Originally posted by tdnc101
That's extremely interesting, I hadn't heard that statistic before.
Oh, and as a sidenote, if you really don't like the arrows you do have the option of turning them off.
I know that...I just hadn't really noticed them untill one day where i accidentally clicked on it.
Originally posted by JeffDM
The iTunes program doesn't care what the source was, if it was ripped by the program, brought in from an existing non-infringing library or if it is an infringing copy. I think it just takes the information from the field and perform a search at the music store.
That wasn't really my point.
If someone had bought a song they would just type in the info, and wouldn't want to find it in the Music Store to buy it again (duh). If someone illegally downloaded a song, and then wanted to buy it, the arrows would give them easy access to that song in the music store for them to then buy. So in a way, it seems that Apple is supporting illegal music downloading in order to increase iTMS sales.
Originally posted by icfireball
That wasn't really my point.
If someone had bought a song they would just type in the info, and wouldn't want to find it in the Music Store to buy it again (duh). If someone illegally downloaded a song, and then wanted to buy it, the arrows would give them easy access to that song in the music store for them to then buy. So in a way, it seems that Apple is supporting illegal music downloading in order to increase iTMS sales.
Not really. You could also use the button if you want more stuff from the same artisit, or another version of that song or album etc. Besides, it is paradoxical to say that they are supporting illegal music downloading when the button gives a legal download. I see your point, but I wouldn't read that far into it to say that they are happily making money from illegal downloads.
Originally posted by icfireball
That wasn't really my point.
If someone had bought a song they would just type in the info, and wouldn't want to find it in the Music Store to buy it again (duh). If someone illegally downloaded a song, and then wanted to buy it, the arrows would give them easy access to that song in the music store for them to then buy. So in a way, it seems that Apple is supporting illegal music downloading in order to increase iTMS sales.
Apple isn't supporting illegal downloads. At most they are making a profit off them, but even that's a stretch. More to the heart of the matter, the only reason any digital music stores exist is that illegal downloading proved it a worthy distribution medium. Everyone's just trying to get profit out of something that was formerly a liability to the music industries business (regardless of how illegal downloading actually effects record sales). So if apple were supporting illegal downloads you'd think they'd buy out Acquisition and build it into iTunes.
[/rant]
What I meant was:
By having those arrow buttons, Apple [appears to be] accomodating those who do illegally download music, so Apple can 1) Increase sales of music and 2) Turn an illegal downloads transaction (no transaction) into a legal download transaction ($0.99 via iTMS).
When I said supporting illegal music downloads, I was refering to their support of the downloads [potential habit] to download music illegaly to sample is and then (where Apple comes in on this) to translate an illegal music download into a sale.
what I mean wasn't the suggestion that someone would buy a track to legitimize what they have, but the link could be used that information to help find similar tracks. If you click on a link for a certain band, what iTunes seems to do is read that part of the ID3 tag and does a band search to get a list of the albums and tracks they offer. Of course, there may be people that do try to legitimize their collection, but that wasn't my argument.
I really don't see how iTunes software knows if a given track is a legitimate self-rip or an infringing downloaded copy. If Apple benefits from the infringement, then it is incidental.
Originally posted by JeffDM
icfireball;
what I mean wasn't the suggestion that someone would buy a track to legitimize what they have, but the link could be used that information to help find similar tracks. If you click on a link for a certain band, what iTunes seems to do is read that part of the ID3 tag and does a band search to get a list of the albums and tracks they offer. Of course, there may be people that do try to legitimize their collection, but that wasn't my argument.
I really don't see how iTunes software knows if a given track is a legitimate self-rip or an infringing downloaded copy. If Apple benefits from the infringement, then it is incidental.
I wansn't implying that iTunes knows whether songs in the Library are legal or not. So granted that some people might click the album arrow or artist arrow to see other songs by the artist, but the fact remains...the only way to get indiviudal songs from an album or artist is to download legally from iTunes or another similar service or to download illegally. If I had the album and loaded the songs onto my computer, I would have no use to access to music store in relation to any of the songs from that album for which I imported. Therefore, only indiviudal songs from an album or artist in iTunes would be with the arrow feature. Again, if someone had bought the song through iTunes, they would have no use to go back to that song in the iTunes music store to explore more music by that artist, because presumably, when purchasing the song through iTunes they would have already browed other songs by that artist. If someone had illegally downloaded music and imported it into the iTunes music library...theymight then want to find more songs in that album or by that artist, or buy the illegally downloaded song to to legitimize their possession of that song.