Slashdot Mirror
Apple to Launch Music Service?
discstickers writes "The San Jose Mercury News is running an article about an Apple music service that might be ready to launch next month. $.99 a song with the ability to burn to CD doesn't sound too bad."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
This seems to be the business model /.ers have been yelling at the RIAA to adopt. Let's see if it's actually viable...
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
I have a service called Kazaa that costs 0 cents a song and lets you burn a CD. I like that better.
But if you burn it to CD, will you be able to still listen to it on your iPod. (without ripping that song back from the CDR)
Means I don't have to buy a whole album for one or two songs, the commpanies make just as much money so they're happy, aside from it's not free as in air, what's not to like?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
... and that is why it will fail.
Follow:
99 cents a track.
~12 tracks on a disc.
~12 bucks for the music, and you have to provide the bandwith, physical media, and case. oh, and no liner notes.
Thanks, but I'll go to my local indie store, where they have the media, case, and liner notes all for 12 bucks.
Actually they might make less. They like charging you for filler songs.
I find it interesting that the information comes from an unnamed source at an unnamed company, and no one will comment on it. Perfect food for the rumor sites, but the LA Times and San Jose Mercury?
The new service would only be available to users of Apple's Macintosh line computers and iPod portable music players
.99c and then burn to CD or email to your friends
Which indicates there is something in it that stops the rest of us using it. This would further indicate either a closed format with codecs only for these two. Or DRM on top of something that exists.
Now is that bad ? Maybe not, but I was pretty sure that the Slashdot perfect model was
Download for
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Cripes! Where do these people get their pricing ideas?
For a typical 12 song CD, that would cost as much as the meatspace equivalent. And when I purchase it for $12 at Target, or where ever else, I get to keep a physical token.
I could, however, see using this for hard to find CD's, like the bad plus. A dollar per song would be worth it when I can't find it in stores, or wait for Amazon to special order it.
But for everything else, if they charged $.25 per song, they couldn't upload them fast enough for me. As long as they're a dollar, I'll think long and hard about downloading anything.
*everything* is Orwellian to cats.
I seem to remember Apple having difficulties working as a media business when another older company, Apple Records (The Beatles), is still around. Perhaps they have worked something out.
'innovative' 1-click fraud^H^H^H^H^Hpurchase thingy only, no other way to purchase songs
AC comments get piped to
Although there is no mention of the formats used for this service, I doubt the music industry would give their seal of approval without some form of DRM.
An anonymous slashdot post was the first good description of this whole rumor. No one thought it was reliable, but the fact that it didn't sound like it was written by a two year old helped its credibility.
I'm just waiting for some electronic music distributor to realize that they'll make more money if they distribute MP3s and use social pressures to discourage piracy. If an album cost $4 online, and they'll let you do whatever you like with the music, why would you steal?
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I'm as big of a Mac Zealot as you can get, but I think this too is doomed to failure. $.99 a song? Ripoff. This means that the average CD will still cost $10-$12 to download, and you don't get a CD, a jewel case, or liner notes. Legal music swapping will not catch on until it is significantly cheaper, like around $.25 or less. THAT is a good business model. I assume that this hinges on the record labels and that Apple is just performing as the middle man with these prices. I, for one, will still use Aquisition until the record companies stop gouging me.
>> $.99 a song with the ability to burn to CD doesn't sound too bad.
Sure, and when you like punk stuff like me, a CD can easily contain 30 tracks.
Even for a more normal 10-15 track album, it's still retail prices, with the added bonus that you pay the production cost yourself, with your own burner and media.
If this service was from MSFT or Sony you'd hate it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Well, Apple did pony up that "one-click" fee to Amazon, so it only makes sense. :-()
Hello? Why is Apple the only service that's not trying to force Columbia Records' 1976 purchase plan down our throats?? This is plainly what the market wants.
(On the other hand, iTunes 3.0.1 has a lot of false-positive problems for me with its burn protection for audible.com files... makes me pause.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I would like a service to give money to the artists I enjoy in exchange for the songs I like...
So the big question is (and always has been), are people generally more like you or more like me?
If the service really does offer MP3's for download at $1 a song, then we might get a chance to find out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Personally, I'd be interested if:
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
This would be great and wonderful if people didn't already know about KaZaA/WinMX/Gnutella/etc. As much as you say "Hey, we've changed! Songs are cheap now and you can get them from home!" there will always be those people who say "That's great... but I can still get the same songs for free.". Frustrating to say the least.
I am a filthy pirate.
1. No DRM, beyond that which is already in my iPod, meaning I am free to burn CD's as I please.
2. Catalog choices. If the selection is limited to Top 40 hits of the past ten years, no way. But if the choices are wide and deep (and maybe even out of print songs as was suggested earlier, and
3. Previews, allowing me to edit out the album filler. $.99 is cheap, and most albums only have a max of 4 good tracks.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
This sounds great !
Artists get to promote their music world-wide, and we get to choose what's on the album. Let's say one CD fits 10 songs, it'll be $9.90 which, IMHO, is a fair price to pay.
I'll buy!
I'd definitely check this out, I like to buy my music. The article talks about how it is kind of an odd decision for the record industry to work with Apple because of their low marketshare. The thing is, a significant number of that ~3% have iPods, and I would think that anyone with an iPod has an obvious interest in digital music, and would be more likely to use a service such as this than other consumers. We'll see what happens...
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won..." ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi
If these guys are actually interested in selling music to people, not just pissing them off, then they need to soften their tone just a little bit.
So long as I can preview it before paying for the download, and don't have to pay to re-cownload it if my CD gets scratched... While the RIAA is bitching about piracy, I've bought the same damn Nine Inch Nails CD 3 times at $17 a pop since 1993. I should really stop losing my stuff every time I move...
or at least I would sign up if... We can download in multiple formats: atleast OGG and MP3 *and* We can download CD quality bit rates: 320kb for MP3 and level 5 or 6 for OGG.
1;
heres my thing. when i listen to a band, i listen to each of their albums on a whole. i dont listen to the radio at all, rely heavily on the internet and word of mouth for discovery of new bands. now, when i listen to an album, i listen to it was a single peice of art. i prefer not to listen to 'singles'. not because im some elitist prick, but because i dont like to be pushed into liking a song. while i understand that i might be very unlike the average consumer, i dont think im the only one with this viewpoint. also, unless this product is DRM-free, Apple can kiss my ass, just like all of those other music services.
Basically, I'll believe it when I see it, and even then I won't be able to buy in because I don't have a Mac. Has one of these services so far failed to disappoint?
"Helping honest people stay honest" was Apple's reasoning for their Family licencing for 10.2, it only added $70 to the price, and legally you could install it on 5 machines.
This seems to be the same mentality.
That's a little steep (I'd suggest maybe a quarter a song), but I might buy into it if they have more than just top40 songs.
I absolutely love the system to order prints of my digital pictures through iPhoto. Not only is it simple to order (just a few clicks, apple-style), but the prints arrive lightining quick!
To order music through a similar system of Apple's would be a dream! I hope they're having success in offering a variety of services (.Mac, iphoto ordering, etc), and the addition of music seems a natural step for them to take.
>> the commpanies make just as much money
Umm, no, because before you payed 20 bucks for the Britney Spears album, now you pay a buck for the one song you like. They make 1/20th the profit.
change Britney Spears to whatever artist/group you think is 'cool'.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Gosh, no. If you're allowed to purchase low-value goods piecemeal, you might buy it from someone else next time. That's why you have to buy 500 matches at a time, even if you just need one.
Now, if this is true, people can't bitch about the RIAA to justify downloading free music. Now stealing moves from being a "matter of principle" to just plain stealing. The rationalizations are going to get pretty thin.
Case in point: Evenesence CD, out today.
.99ea, that's $10.89 from this service, just for the music (no case, CD, or lyrics).
-11 tracks @
-Alternately, the CD is 9.96 at my local Target.
-With tax, that's $10.65 (with CD cover, notes, lyrics, etc).
Can anyone then explain which is the better buy, especially after I pay for the DSL connection from home, and the blank CD?
Oh, and if I may add, the cost of the music for taking my friend to the store to get the CD, then rip it and share it with me...$0. Of course, that's just so I can listen to it and decide if I want to spend my $10.65 on it as well ^_^
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Well, Apple will be the first adopter again, apparently. At least they're innovating. Is ACC much better quality wise? Why use this format?
What planet did you grow up on?
World I come from, it costs $20 per full album (which is way more than 4 songs and gives you "professional" packaging).
Not to mention, I already pay a $0.20 tax on each CD I buy that goes to the RIAA, so I'm perfectly legally allowed to download ANY MP3S I WANT TO, considering I've already paid for them.
$.20 per CD is a shitload of a better deal than $5 per song...
Christ, $5 per song is a horrible deal ANYWHERE. Only possible way you could coerce me into buying that is if I was getting vinyls. Something tells me that's not what Apple is selling...
Karma: Non-Heinous
In this post, I'm not going to argue that what Apple is doing is akin to painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Nor am I going to argue that the central preconception in its paranoid style is the belief in the existence of a vast, vitriolic, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial network designed to extirpate the things I cherish. I'm not going to argue those factors, because they're irrelevant. Instead, I will say only that nearly all of the assumptions and statements made by it and its expositors are completely, absolutely, and totally wrong. In the rest of this letter, I will use history and science (in the Hegelian sense) to prove that I, for one, become impatient with people who refuse to recognize the key role that it is playing in the destruction of our civilization.
Apple doesn't want us to know about its plans to treat traditional values as if they were disaffected crimes. Otherwise, we might do something about that. Essentially, Apple contends that there is something intellectually provocative in the tired rehashing of sleazy stereotypes. Excuse me, but where exactly did this little factoid come from? Apple's antics symbolize lawlessness, violence, and misguided rebellion -- extreme liberty for a few, even if the rest of us lose more than a little freedom. The recent outrage at Apple's platitudes may point to a brighter future. For now, however, I must leave you knowing that Apple is always demanding money, sympathy, and the punishment of its critics.
i would pay a quarter tops.
I've got several albums that have ~30 tracks on them, but they're really a single, continuous piece of music (you couldn't stand to listen to any one track by itself - they aren't individual songs, rather something like "movements" of a larger piece).
With this service, would I pay $30 for such an album? or $1 ? Right now I pay $10.99 for it to Revelation Records.
Gee, I hope the people at Apple Music don't mind too much.
According to this (registration required...bleah) article from the L.A. Times, "Users will be able to buy and download songs with a single click and transfer them automatically to any iPod they've registered with Apple....Rather than make the songs available in the popular MP3 format, Apple plans to use a higher fidelity technology known as Advanced Audio Codec."
As seen on macslash
What gets me is the "registered iPod" bit...can't we do anything anonymously anymore? Geeze!
You can't take the sky from me...
I imagine it would be a much higher adoption rate, if it were all this, and the RIAA and record congloms saw $$ coming in.
But in a sense you are right. There will always be those that weren't going to pay for it to begin with.
Someone mentioned one of Apple's good philosophies above.
Kepp the honest people honest by offering incentive such as 5 liscense packs of OS X for only $70 more
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
What ever happened to Apple's agreement with the Beatles? Way back in the early 80s (or so), the Beatles were concerned about trademark infringement against their "Apple Corps" music label, but the issue was settled when it was clear that Apple would not be in the music business. Things got dicey again when music processing became a normal everyday computer-based activity, but I could still see a clear distinction. A service like this, though, would be a likely trademark conflict.
Anybody know what became of that agreement?
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
That assumes that you want all of the songs on a CD. Most CDs, even ones I really like, have at least four or five tracks that are of no interest to me.
Part of the problem the RIAA has been struggling with is that they can't seem to pull themselves away from the "play a single on the radio, get people to buy the single AND another ten songs on a CD for $16" model.
This *may* be a better method. Pay $6 for the songs you really want, and don't pay for the songs you don't want.
Time will tell. After all, this is still just a rumor.
Why is 25 cents always the magic number for people?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
You fucking pricks... as if anyone would care about what you have to say about "business models", the "riaa", "microsoft", "linux" and "joe average".
Please die.
I think they usually charge 99cents a burn too. However, for now they're charging 49cents and you can stream albums and tracks all you want (with subscription). I don't see anything compelling in Apple's service when compared to listen.com other than the support for Macs.
sources close to the situation say at least four of the five major record companies have committed their music.
I hope they let smaller labels come to the party.
I do think the price is a bit high, I think they need to sell cheaper then that for the Kazaa(and other similar applications) users to consider it. I always buy cd's because I like to have the covers and don't we all agree that it feels better to have the original cd then having it downloaded to a [insert storage medium here]. Cut the price in half, then I might consider it.
$.99 is reasonable for all those who own Macs. However, for those of us who don't, the price goes up. Let's assume that I decide that the combination of the 12" Powerbook + the music service is a worthwhile investment. As a result I go out and drop $2000 for a powerbook that will be cool for the next 6 months (with probably 2 years before it's obsolete). Being JoeAverage MusicLover I download about a song a day, say 350 a year. That comes to 700 songs over the next two years, for which I pay a grand total of $693.
Music + Powerbook ~= 2700
Which means that I paid about 3.86 for the song. Of course, the price goes down if I buy an IBook or IMac, and the above equation doesn't consider any value that the hardware has other than playing music/burning CDs (or trauma caused by having a bright neon colored ugly box hiding in my closet). However, I still don't think I can rationalize it.
I recently asked a non-geek who gave up buying CDs a few years back if he would be willing to pay about $0.15 for this kind of service. He said no. This is the same person who spend $60+ on a concert ticket.
The paying for recorded music meme is dying, and there's very little that can be done to prevent it. No law is enforcable when more than about 10% of the population are breaking it, and so they will have to either loosen copyright law, or not enforce it at all. Artists are worth money, and people will pay good money to see them. Recordings are just advertising, and most people object to paying for advertising.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There is another article at the LA Times. The service will be making use of a technology known as AAC or Advanced Audio Codec. There is a project at Sourceforge with an implementation.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Well, the price of a CD if you putting together the album.
I mean, I don't have any problem morally with downloading a couple of songs for free if I don't like the band neough to buy the album. It's just the same as getting a copy from a friend, or recording it from radio or whatever. If I like them, then I get the album, and for 99cents a song, it'd be about as cheap to get the CD, then it's better quality, especially if you were to write the mp3 to CD (two encodes, loses that little bit more quality).
OK, maybe a lot of you are too young to remember the 45 RPM vinyl singles. We used to buy them to get the hit we wanted, without having to buy the rest of the album (33 RPM vinyl recordings). This was the source of many one hit wonders.
There are a lot of situations where I might just want the one song. I'd like to make a CD of my favorite instrumentals (Peaches en Regalia, Green Onions, Tramontane, La Villa Stangiatto, etc.). I might not want to collect all those alb^H^H^HCDs just to get one song per.
Of course, I still have to get over the iPod-only problem (sigh).
Terrycloth Lobster
While I agree that being able to pick song by song would be nice in the short term, I do think it would have some long term consequences that may not be so good.
Imagine some future world where everyone gets their music via these services... you could easily wind up with a situation where every new song is overproduced (and possibly run by one of those 'AI' music-hit detectors mentioned here previously) to try to ensure it is a hit, since any time spent writing/recording it will be 'wasted' if not enough people pay for the song by itself. Right now you have an environment where artists can put some experimental tunes in between the sure-fire hits. Maybe these tracks hit the mark and become huge, maybe they tank, but at least they are trying something different. If everything is per-song I think we'll eventually see even less artist experimentation and artist growth than we do now, and that is scary.
$.99 a song with the ability to burn to CD doesn't sound too bad
Where did this come from? THe article doesn't mention anything about prices per song downloaded.
Also the service will only be available to Apple Machintosh and iPod owners. so in essence to the 97% who don't own Apple products this is worthless.
This might actually work aslong as the quality is good minimum for me would be like 256kbps, if I have to pay 1$ for the song.
And there are ways to burn it to a cd to share it with your friends.
You could use Audio hijack and record and convert it to a mp3.
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.
I have a service called "Armed Robbery" that I access with my copy of "Smith & Wesson .357 magnum". It lets me use every Best Buy and Circuit City as a free CD vendor and costs me 0 cents. It also lets me get all the blank CD's I need for free too. I like that better.
Same price as an already overpriced CD and you get less quality.
Let me give you a little analogy:
I can go a whole day without water, but periodically I get thirsty. In the past, I could stop in any store and get myself some free filtered water (thanks to the goverment for providing cheap filtered water). The stores knew that they made their money doing other things and that giving away free water was both a decent thing to do and a good way to gain people's trust.
These days, I almost always have to buy water. Many places have gone so far as to remove drinking fountains and put in soda machines. The machines may not even have water, but if they do, it will cost the same price as the soda. Of course the soda is an addictive stimulant and when put next to each other people often choose to go with their addiction.
Music is very similar. Although I'm sure some people can go a day without music, I find that its a very important part of my soul. Mind you as a musician I create most of my music and pay to do so (instrument, sheet music, etc). All I want from the public is to help me to play by comming to hear me play and supporting me in other ways if need be. I can't play a concert everyday, and I want people to have access to music when they want. For this I create a CD that let's you get to know me, and I put into it the highest quality possible. Hopefully you'll come to my concert now, maybe buy some sheet music, ask me to teach a lesson... But someone else has decided to sell you a lower quality recording of my art for the price of a bottle of water. I can't control what gets to you, because someone else get's to distribute when, where, and how my recording is played.
You'll probably go get some coke, because really water may be good for you and your soul, but coke is cheaper, addictive, and that is what they want you to buy.
-Rob
Why not go make a subscription to emusic instead?
:)
15 bucks a month with unlimited downloading of mp3s that you can burn. A much better deal
(shameless plug)
if you want to use a GTK2 Emusic album downloader that I wrote, Hot Lead
http://www.emusic.com
arcane for life
so finally someone is to deploy a sensible business model for music where a compromise between all parties has been reached. resonably priced music, to you desktop, without the cruft and fillers.
But its still too much, i hear the whiners. Its cheaper to use kazaa, i hear the h4x0rs.
To all those who have a problem with this, you are destroying the whole effort to stop the RIAA's cartel. You are music to their ears: you dont want music cheaper, you're not concerned about the quality of a CD. You just want it all free. As in beer.
I'll bet that the artists will see less than $0.02 of that dollar.
Pirates will still be able to get music for free.
I'd expect many people will still continue to download for free, as corporate consolidation in radio makes it harder to find stuff that interests them. Broadcast radio is free, I can record radio brodcasts, therefore the same capability should be possible and made better with computers will be the mentality.
Apple might have something if they can guarantee increased value over the current P2P crapshoot.
I for one would pay for a service that provide high quality and allowed you to use the bits for reasonable fair use applications.
I would heartily endorse such a service if they paid artists direct royalties, instead of shafting them the way the record industry traditionally has. If Apple can prove that they're genuinely artist-friendly, the revolution will finally have arrived.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
personally i would love that kind of model but the price is way too high there should be monthly pay or traffic pay (not per track) there should be ability to chose the format (ogg/mp3/...) and the bitrate funny enough there's http://www.allofmp3.com which provides all that there's even legal info: MediaSerives pays out fees for downloaded materials that are subject to the Russian Federation Copyright And Related Rights Law. but this is probably bullshit anyway that's the way i would love the music industry works in the (near!) future plus the albums are all packed (tarred?) and contain the bitmaps of the inlets right now when i buy a cd i usually put it into cd only once - to rip and encode to ogg
Depends. Since they're eliminating CD production and distribution costs, the profit per each track purchased for 99 cents should be quite nice in comparison.
In effect, online sales of music, or any other digitized property, allows the seller to sell the same thing, over and over, with no damage or wear and tear to the original. You'd think this would be a no-brainer.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I mean duh, dude do you know whut a iPod is.
His question wasn't really off the mark when you factor DRM into this. I'm sure he's well aware that the iPod doesn't have a CD player, he was merely asking if copying the track to CD marks the song as 'used' in the DRM system, and thus stops you from transferring it to the iPod.
In other words...maybe you're the one who needs to do a little thinking before posting, jackass.
This makes me think about the settlement between Apple Computer and Apple Recording back when Apple started putting microphones in their computers.
When apple first came around, they made a settlement with the already existing Apple Recording that Apple Computer could use the Apple name as long as they never entered the music recording business. Apple later included Microphones in their systems and Apple Recording sued apple. I forget the outcome but obviously it was in Apple Computers favor ultimately.
Apple releasing an on line music service seems like they are just stepping all over the original settlement all over again.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
The article says, in effect, that in exchange for reduced audio quality, providing your own CD's, a lack of liner notes, you too can make record company executives happy.
If you really like music, you would never accept a lack of subsonic. You buy full albums of artists you like, and you Kazaa / live 365 to find new artists. If you don't really like music, you probably have never even heard of Kazaa. Maybe you will like this service, then.
In a world where costs have been cut dramatically, you can't go on charging the same. Tapes were a step above records acoustically, and CD's were a premium above tapes (despite being cheaper to manufacture). What do MP3's offer? They're cheap. Charge a premium for a lower quality? Nuts.
All you can eat 128k MP3's for 19.95 per month, with 180k MP3's available for 29.95, and lossless CD for 59.95. Why is supply, demand, and competition such a hard concept for record executives?
The ______ Agenda
Check out this article on Apple's latest patents, and the bit about Digital Rights Management.
Once the 90s hit and grunge came on the scene, the music biz has gone downhill. It became harder and harder to find decent music (I tend to prefer electronic music) and by the mid 90s, well nigh impossible. Of course this is all from the perspective of a US citizen (the country with the worst music on radio).
When I first found MP3s back in 1995, my first thought was that this would be the music format of the future. Not MP3 per se, but digital files with no tangible presence. It occured to me that if music was delivered this way, we could have a la carte music distribution. You could just buy the songs you wanted and burn them to a CD.
If this is the model that Apple uses, AND they eventually have (or someone else) have a wide variety of music, then the model is sure to be a hit. They can satisfy everyone from the low brow Eminem, Missy Elliot, Bristina fans to the fey Bare Naked Ladies, Train and Dave Matthews fans, to the highly cutlured but inaccessible David Sylvian, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Stephin Merrit fans.
The key to this whole thing is going to be selection. If any of these companies limit themselves to small catalogs, no one is going to buy. Even if they wind up only selling the "sure bets" like Ugliera and Mathers, those fans already have more than enough of that on MTV. We need one big company with one huge catalog to take a big gamble. I'm certain it would pay off.
Un-news
That is too expensive per song, consider this:
The Clash - London Calling
19 tracks at $0.99 = $18.81 before any tax or cost of CD-R.
Amazon.com price: $9.99 with free shipping.
That's almost 200% markup.
Some people really jump at the chance to buy individual tracks. I don't. When I buy CDs I buy them because they represent a piece of art, as a whole, that I think I'll enjoy. I want all the songs. Buying a single track is like buying a single chapter off a book, as far as I'm concerened. This might be a genre thing, but I'm completely uninterested in purchasing individual tracks.
In fact, I feel pretty unenthusiastic about the whole "buy to download"-thing. I can only see myself using it if I can get my downloads in an unencumbered format (vorbis, or one of the lossless ones -- MY CHOICE!) and get whole albums _very_ cheaply. The delivery system ("site") would have to be good too. No horrible MTV-wannabe flash/javascript/java-hell. It cannot be "IE only".
I don't know where I'm going with this, but to say that I'm not very interested in this development.
I want to buy a cheap physical media in attractive packaging with good content. Figure out how to manufacture-on-demand instead. Make sure things never leave the catalogue. Give me a good price, and I won't download the stuff.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Ugh! That's not what I call a "reasonable"
price. I would hope that they could come
up with a reasonable monthly fee ($10?)
that would allow unlimited downloads.
I guess I'm probably missing something
or just don't "get it".
Kent
If you think popular music is crap now, wait until this business model becomes successful. Artists will be pressured to have every song on thier album a hit to maximize downloads. We'll also face lables promoting even more Britney Spears and N'sync type groups. Perhaps labels will just use the hit-song detecting software and just hire a little T&A to sing it for them
;^)
Well, then again maybe we'll not see a whole lot of change after all
On a completely different note, if you download an entire CD, they should make available a printable version of the cover and liner notes.
OK, let's think this through a little bit more. There aren't usually 15-20 tracks on a CD. There are usually about 10-12 tracks on a CD. So, this equates to $10-$12 not $15-$20 you jackass.
If anyone remembers, Apple Computer was sued by Apple Recording for name infringment. Apple Computer in response made the alert sound (Sosueme). I think its very funny now that Apple is actually competing with a company like Apple Recording. Now maybe Apple Computer can sue Apple Recording?
Dude, just go to a bar and grab a matchbook for free.
will the first song they release be called sosumi?
bgphints - internet routing news, hints and ti
A new medium succeeds if it's better than the previous one in virtually all aspects. CDs beat tapes. DVDs beat VHS. Laserdisc did not universally beat VHS, despite better quality, because it was better in quality, but worse in other ways: had to flip the disc by hand, was bigger and heavier, etc.
So how does this stack up?
- If it's just for iTunes/iPod, it sounds like they'll be using MP3, so it'll sound worse than CDs on my stereo.
- And at $1 per track, something with a lot of tracks (say, Bernstein's recording of Mahler's 9th, with 50 tracks) will be more expensive. Even with only 15 or 20 tracks, it'll be at least as expensive for most albums.
- And, as has been noted, you don't get a physical CD, or liner notes. You can't loan it to a friend. If you don't have an iPod, you can't take it with you.
This might be a nice idea, and it might be good for some people and some music, but it's not the future of music distribution -- just as MP3 on a PC isn't the future of music listening: people still buy stereos and CDs. The best we can hope for, I think, is that it might show the record industry that MP3 != illegal copying.
until they get their first irate customer demanding a refund because all ten Wesley Willis songs he downloaded sound the same.
Wasn't it a part a deal with Apple (The Beatles' record label), that Apple Computer Inc. could continue to use the name 'Apple' as long as they 'stayed out of the music business'? (If you have a better URL, please post it)
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
The problem that the industry KNOWS is presenting itself is the fact that the idea of an album or LP is quickly becoming an anqiquated concept. Before the mid-to-late 70's, LP's didn't sell all that well - record labels made their bones off of 45's which sold for around a dollar, or roughly $3-4 today.
The concept of downloading legitimit music is such a good and strong one that the process will eventually become inevitable, but labels don't have a model where they can profit from this.
When you spend $15-$18 on the latest pop-crap-metal-teen-craze, your not paying for the other 10 tracks you didn't hear on the radio - your paying the dues that it took that one track they did manage to get out there, and even THAT is condisdered a huge success. Even today, only about 1 in 30 signed by a major get to even that point.
For backcatalogs, it's certainly a good idea, but it suffers from "Greatest Hits Syndrome", or where sales have lowered to such a point that it's more profitable to sell the singles than hope they people buy the full record. Same with on-line singles - it's a bottom of the barrel effort that there's no backing away from, and you can bet there going to make damn sure there's not other outlets before defaulting to this.
For new music, it's simply not going to happen. Sure you see a few labels experimenting with this, but not on a wide scale. They know there's no money in it - it's simply another promotion to get the name out there.
What I see happening is albums as we know them dying out, and Apple may be in a good place to present this eventually. It's not going to happen overnight by any means, but if labels realise that they can produce a single, and not have to spend the production on a full 40 minutes of filler, they might buy into the idea.
Problem remains, the artists simply won't. And there's your stalemate. Even crap rockers have SOME integrity, and won't give up on the idea of the LP for a long time coming. It could be that full lenghs aren't even dealt with by the majors, or at least not promoted. They once again become secondary to the process - you push the single, find the best way to get it out there fast and cheap (duh), and let the artist have there little masterwork remain out of the spotlight for those who aren't spending there parents money.
Once teenage girls are paying for downloaded music, it becomes a viable model. But not until then.
Why is 25 cents always the magic number for people?
Probably because it may very well be a magic number. Microeconomics reference: Utility, Substitution and Demand.
SCO to Hell
Personally, I don't intend to purchase music in a digital format if I can't get a lossless or super-high quality format. I would prefer to purchase songs in AIFF rather than MP3 or Ogg. 320Kbps MP3s might be okay. (Yes, I know AIFF is still technically lossy.)
I've had to encode my CDs using 256Kbps VBR normal stereo without removing low frequencies (see iTunes encoding options if those aren't available in your encoder) to ensure unnoticeable quality in all songs. And even then I can sometimes hear a difference in the richness or "sharpness" of the sound. See trumpets and travelling octaves on strings--those are often a place where MP3 was messing up.
I can't find it on the SJ Mercury article... /. postings need to not make assumptions like that.
Remember: Assume = makes an ASS out of U and ME.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
"If people on the Internet are actually interested in buying music, not just stealing it, this is the answer"
Actually, I'm interested in HEARING it before I do either.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Sure, $1 may sound good, but if you want a whole album it could easily be over $10.
.50.
;).
Sure people say that you don't have to download all the songs...only the good ones...
Well...see, I like certain bands that are more than one-hit-wonders...I want to here the whole CD, not just that one Made for radio to be popular song most bands have.
I already believe CD's are way over-priced as is...I won't settle for downloading songs at $1, I want it down to
But this really isn't a problem for me since I don't own a Mac or an iPod
First off, CD manufacturing is less than $1/ea. (some have said as low as 25/ea.) Taking the "plastic token" out of the equation does not represent a significant reduction in cost.
Secondly, it's common practice that when manufacturers break out single units that they charge more. Ever buy a Coke from a vending machine? How much did you pay for it, 65? And what is the cost per unit when you buy a 12 pack from Food Lion? 40/ea.? Nothing new here.
Third, there are real savings here. Yeah, if you want the entire album, you may be better off just buying it from the store. However, if you just want one or two songs, then you have saved yourself $10 or more. I can think of a LOT of songs from the past 30 years that I'd like to buy, but I don't care to get the whole album. There's a lot of one-hit wonders out there, but very few artists that can pack out an album with great material.
I think that the price is right. In fact, if I were doing it, I'd set the pricing as a range, from 75 for the "moldy oldies" to $1.25 for the latest stuff. Really, the only hitch I see so far is that they haven't answered the question of DRM. If there is DRM technology built into this, then yes, you're right that the cost is way too much. I wouldn't be willing to pay more than 25 for songs with DRM, if that.
$4,571.82 for my music stash, not including taxes.
So, letsee... hmmm... [scribbles] wait... hourly rate... [scribbles]...
$9,354.23 searching for my music stash, not including connection costs.
But wait... hmmm.... [scribbles] hmmm... broken marriage... [scribbles] hmmm... gray hairs... [scribbles] inane chats with "chics" from Argentina... [sobs] hmmm... downloading Pink Floyd and hearing some Iranian guy... [sobs]
So yeah, I think I'll pay for it.
[scribbles] ...
Maybe they could do a bulk discount for complete albums. $0.99 per track and get it down to $0.66 per song or something for a pre-existing album. That's about $7-8 per album, about what I used to pay back at the dawn of CDs for vinyl.
Unfortunately I think that the music companies are not looking at their industry as a mature one with limited growth opportunity, but instead are looking for ways to come up with double-digit increases in profits. This means that they'll never trade their sales channels' existing margins and profit levels for another sales channel at the same margins.
It's not like the album concept will disappear. This just gives more choice. I would gladly pay $20 for 20 great songs.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Forget about it being free--it was just easier to go to Napster or WinMX and get the song you wanted. No funny players to install, no crazy licensing software, and all the songs were there.
I believe that if the record companies got together and made millions of songs available for download at prices ranging from $.10 to $1.00 depending on the age of the song, and maybe a subscription that gives you a set number, they'd do well. But it has to be simple--type in the name of the song, click download, and get an MP3.
Let's hope Apple gets it right. (Will this also cause the old lawsuit between Apple Records and Apple Computer to come up again?)
Best Buy can have you arrested
http://www.livephish.com/show.asp?show=260
.99$ per song.
Phish is selling live shows (3 cds) on mp3 for 10$. You can download the cd sleives and cd labels for free though!
13$ for better quality shorten files.
Live shows are much cheaper to produce than albums so the price seems fair at
Although it would depend on the song
From the original post This message was brought to you by the we don't think before we post association (WDTBWP) here on Slashdot so this would mean that the post was SARCASTIC, it was apeing the language used by people who fail to engage their brains before posting or who don't understand the posts they are replying to.
In other words....
Your good self.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The LA Times article says that the AAC files can be DRM locked, but that Apple has required that they can be burned onto a CD, which would unlock them.
Then look @ eMusic you monkey spank!
Be prepared to be proved [wrong].
The way I see things, I'll stick to buying normal CDs. I don't buy "new" music, so I pay about $12 per disc usually. There's about an average of 12 songs on a CD. When you add the costs of bandwidth, blank discs, and the burner, plus the time it takes, it's cheaper to just buy a CD. Plus, when you buy the full disc, it exposes you to other music by artists you like, and this can often lead to you finding great "gems" that you may have never heard if you only burn songs you know and like. This is just my opinion, and it's most likely wrong, but I thought I'd share it.
~Jon~
This space for rent, inquire within.
what's not to like is the fact that you're paying the same price for an inferior product.
- no physical media (you provide your own)
- no artwork/lyrics
- the sound quality of a 128k mp3 is far inferior to a cd
why doesnt anyone see that the recording industry is raising the price of music on us by subtraction?
less product + same price = more profit.
Retail stores charge for convenience, the fact that you can walk down to their store and pick up a CD. Considering the fact that you don't have to leave your house to get this music and you have it instantly, I don't think $0.99 is out of the question.
Fp IDIOTS, VICTORY IS MINE!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!££$^&*$%^* %^&$*$%£&^$%£&"^£$%^£%"£&^$%$£%£%&%$^" !!
then nothing can. C'mon now... Suppose you get 12 songs to put on a CD. $11.88 still less than what you'd pay retail plus you hand-picked the songs!! You've just decided exactly what songs you want, what order they'll be in, and they're yours You don't have to hear the 10 filler songs on a CD with two radio hits. What more could you possibly want, except to have it free??
... I've put thousands of dollars on eqipment, software, etc... and am still not to the point where I can expect a reasonable return on my music because even on my level, people just don't want to pay for music, and it's frustrating...
People are so reluctant to pay for music, but nobody seems to realize that if musicians don't make money, they can't make music. Studio time is not cheap. Equipment is not cheap. Manufacturing, distribution, advertising, all these things take money, but consumers want it free. Even a small-time musician like myself, for example
Who doesn't like free music?
See I have a couple of different reasons why this doesn't hit me as a fair deal from apple. Reason one is that I have an eMusic account, same premise. You pay a monthly $10 fee, and you have unlimited downloads of music off their service (And there is a lot that they offer.). Great place if your into punk music too, Epitaph Records is always releasing titles to eMusic for exclusive downloads.
Why would I pay $1 a track, $15 a cd when I can go to a used Record/CD store, pick-up used copies of the artists I want to hear for about $6-$9 a pop. And lets say that Artist releases 5-6 Songs off said album I got as a used CD, Those with this music service from apple will have to go out, get to the site, log in, find the track, pay for track, wait for confirmation of the payment being recieved, then once that confirm is recieved - download it, and then play it where as all I had to do was find case, open case, remove cd, insert cd, play, enjoy.
Oh and I don't have to worry about falling victim to someone else's idea of "High Quality". Commonly people and services will encode at 128 or 192 to save space on their drives, and if you even remotely concidered yourself an audiophile, such sampling would be really sub-standard to your ears. =)
Besides, I for one am still really leary of any site that wants me to pay for digital downloads, what's really there to stop the RIAA or some of their Brain Washed supportive Artists from coming after members on that service? And what's worse from such acts like in the case of Napster, this time they'll have your Real Name, Real Address, Real Credit Card information, etc where as on Napster you at least had Annoniminity from such worries.
======
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
I could spend a buck buying the song or spend it to dial 10 10 220 and saving on all calls to the RIAA up to 20 minutes and just 7 cents a minute after that to plea bargin my case.
It would be pretty clever if iTunes let you buy tunes. (It even rhymes!) But if said tunes aren't MP3 I think I will need to say no thanks. Burning to CD as a way to convert to unencumbered format will not be acceptable.
sulli
RTFJ.
According to this article not only will the service use DRM, but it will also be futher legitimizing Amazon's one click patent. But regardless, this thread will be full of Apple apoligists, who will say that Apple's music service is "insanely great," and that the company is going in the right direction by ignoring fair use.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Exactly, but your logic is lost on much of the /. crowd, for whom "free" is like a panacea, and they're willing to put up with ungodly amounts of hassle, because it's "free". The times I've tried downloading MP3s from Limewire, Kazaa, et. al. always turns into a time-consuming and frustrating experience. As someone once astutely pointed out, "Linux is only free if your time is worthless".
I think $.99 is a very fair price. I'm certain integration with iTunes will be seamless. You will probably even be able to use iTunes to browse the online catalog before you download the song, using the search capabilities of iTunes to browse by artist, album, genre, etc. Then you find the tracks you want, and maybe a dialog prompts you to O.K. the charge, and it starts playing. Sign me up, I say.
You drank my drink, you drunk!
The reason is that it costs a lot to package and market a product. In the case of matches, it costs a very tiny fraction of a cent to make one, but to package, market and put it on store shelves costs enormously more. So it's not economic to sell something as cheap as a single match, or even ten matches.
Last time I looked, CD singles cost a substantial fraction of what albums cost, and I think that's why albums are popular. If we can reduce the transaction cost, as Apple has, then we can sell individual songs.
I like buying albums, though, because there are at least a few songs in a typical album that I will enjoy that I didn't hear before buying it. For instance, I bought Vanessa Daou's 'Make you Love' CD based on a couple of tracks, and my favourite song happens to be one I didn't hear before I bought the CD. I wonder how you could work around that problem. If people only hear one song on the radio, that's the song they'll buy.
I wonder if this might be a way to eliminate the truly stultifying "we only play three songs" commercial radio experience? It maybe become necessary, for marketing purposes, to play a wider variety!
D
...is because this seems like a pretty good test case: a relaively small amount of users, not too many hackers (or even power-users), and it's a very controlled environment -hardware/os/software, even codecs.
If I wanted to try something this risky - Apple would be my first choice.
When will companies stop pricing things ending in .99? It is deceptive because it is an attempt to disguise the true price of a product ("Oh it's only a couple cents, not dollars."). It is annonying because I actually have to THINK (bog forbid) about it to figure out the real price and it makes it hard to do math ("hmm 3 tracks are .99 x 3 = $2.97" instead of just $3).
Even if it is too much expect companies to change at there very least we can stop perpuating their pricing games in everyday conversation and writing. Next time you post a price, round up!
END OFFTOPIC RANT
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
So you don't have to register:
Top executives at the major record companies have finally found an online music service that makes them excited about the digital future -- but it's only for Macs.
The new service was developed by Apple Computer Inc., sources said Monday, and offers users of Macintoshes and iPod portable music players many of the same capabilities that already are available from services previously endorsed by the labels. But the Apple offering won over music executives because it makes buying and downloading music as simple and non-technical as buying a book from Amazon.com.
"This is exactly what the music industry has been waiting for," said one person familiar with the negotiations between the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker and the labels. "It's hip. It's quick. It's easy. If people on the Internet are actually interested in buying music, not just stealing it, this is the answer."
That ease of use has music executives optimistic that the Apple service will be an effective antidote to surging piracy on the Internet, sources said.
Other legitimate music services have cumbersome technology and pricing plans -- motivated in part by the labels' demands for security -- that make them much harder to use than unauthorized online services, such as the Kazaa file-sharing system.
Although no licensing deals have been announced, sources close to the situation say at least four of the five major record companies have committed their music to the Apple service. It could be launched next month.
As promising as the new service is, however, there is a big limitation. Apple's products account for just a sliver of the total computer market -- less than 3% of the computers sold worldwide are Macs. The vast majority of the potential audience for downloadable music services uses machines that run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software.
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the service Monday, as did representatives from the five major record corporations -- Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment, Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group, AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music Group, Bertelsmann's BMG division and EMI Group.
The new service is so important to Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs that he personally demonstrated it to top executives at all five companies, sources said. More than a dozen music executives have visited Apple since last summer and came away enthusiastic.
The executives also like the massive marketing plan designed by Jobs to educate consumers about the service.
The plan contrasts sharply with Apple's previous marketing campaign for Macs, which rankled many music executives who felt it promoted piracy. Apple's advertisements were emblazoned with the mantra "rip, mix, burn," referring to the computers' ability to copy songs and record them onto CDs.
Although the iPod has been hailed by many critics as the best portable music player on the market, Mac users have been overlooked by most of the label-backed online music services, including Pressplay, MusicNet and Listen.com Inc.'s Rhapsody.
As a result, Mac users may find it easier to make unauthorized, free copies of songs through an online file-sharing service like LimeWire than to buy a copy through a label-sanctioned service. Apple hopes to change that situation with its new service, which is expected to be included in an updated edition of the iLife package of digital music, photo and movie software.
Sources said Apple will make the songs available for sale through a new version of iTunes, its software for managing music files on Macs. Users will be able to buy and download songs with a single click and transfer them automatically to any iPod they've registered with Apple.
Rather than make the songs available in the popular MP3 format, Apple plans to use a higher fidelity technology known as Advanced Audio Codec.
That approach allows the songs to be protected by electronic locks that prevent them from being played on more than one computer. Still, sources say, Apple wants to enable buyers to burn songs onto CDs. That feature would effectively remove the locks.
That's been a sticking point for executives at Sony, sources said. The other four major record companies, however, appear ready to license their music to the new service.
No details were available on the price of the service, although one source said it would be competitive with other services in the market. Pressplay, for example, charges just under $10 a month for unlimited downloads, plus about $1 for each song that can be burned to CD or transferred to a portable device.
While it may be a bargain for those people who only like 1 or 2 songs (or even, as I've read on this thread, up to 4) on an album, it's not as much of a bargain for those of us who tend to like more tracks. Out of my CD collection (right around 500 these days), there are only a handful that I don't listen to beginning to end. Most of the small number of "one track" CDs are compilations that include tracks not released elsewhere (prime example being the "King of the Hill" soundtrack which has a Barenaked Ladies song that I can't find anywhere else). Maybe it's the artists I listen to, but it is rare that I find more than one track on a CD not worth listening to.
JOhn.
In the Apple sound folder, there's a sound called "Sosumi" = "So sue me." It dates back to this event. Good to see that they had a sense of humor about it!
sulli
RTFJ.
This is what I have been waiting for. They finally decide to create something worthwhile. Maybe the media company will also lower the price of CDs along with this. I mean, come on 15-20 dollars for a CD thats a rip.
FOML: Rise to Power
Apple:
Great idea. I'd pay 99c a song to get a lot of the recent stuff I'd like to add to my MP3 collection. Heck, there's a lot of old stuff I'd like as well, that has just never been around, or wasn't good enough quality, on Napster/Limewire/Kazaa/etc. (Assuming they are standard MP3 format.)
But... we don't have, and couldn't afford to add, a lot of Apple hardware to our already full computer room. Why can't you A) offer this service to Windows (Linux too) people as well, stealing market share and keeping the Apple name alive for a lot of people for more than just Quicktime, or B) hurry up and offer OS X for Intel/AMD platform?
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Or for that matter, music selection. It only mentions that it will only be available to people with Mac AND iPOD, whatever that means. Where did the poster get this information? We really need to have a moderation system for articles, with karma influencing bonus @slashdot or something.
$.99 a song sounds like a *LOT* to me.
I'm used to pay $9.99 a month for unlimited download at emusic.com. And they have music that doesn't suck(tm), a format that doesn't suck(r) and it's so simple even your neighbour can use it(r)(tm)(whatnot). *
Download, burn and keep it all when/if you terminate the subscription.
It's all we've been nagging about since napster died.
* Brought to you by the Wote With Your Moeny department. (A fully owned subsidary of The Republican Party) and Hillary Rosens** kidnapped superhero twin.
** Anyone as evil as HR is a super villan evil twin.
- Ost
---- Sig. gone.
add experimental song at the end of the first one and call it the same song. simple.
This per-song format would suck for artists.
They write 11 tracks on a CD and then throw in one "HIT" quality song. This "hit" song usually isn't considered by the band as one of their better songs but they keep it on there because they know that this song is what is going to get people to listen to the other 11.
Maybe people will hear the hit and then try and get the rest of the tracks from the band looking for a similar sound, but I doubt it. I think it's more likely they pick and choose the hit songs from 12 bands.
I don't know how many musicians feel this way, but doesn't selling a CD by the track feel like selling a movie by the scene?
Apple seems to come up with pretty good ideas, then make them worthless to me by forcing me to buy their hardware.
Here in Canada we can now make copies of CDs legally. I borrow my friends CD, copy it, and give it back to him. My copy is perfectly legal thanks to the blank media levy that was introduced. I'm not sure it's worth it, though.
I believe, that there are different kinds of music consumers. On the one side we have the Top-40 audience. They only want the hits. They buy CD-singles and compilations, download single songs from file-sharing services and listen to heavy-rotation radio stations. On the other side we have the album buyers. They buy the full album, adore soulseek, and hate most of the radio stations. I am sure that there are different in-between types of music listeners, but for the sake of simplicity let's just look at these two.
If you only like hits then that is what you will keep buying. I would hope, that full albums will not be priced number of songs*$0.99. So album buyers will still listen to all songs an artist has to offer. A lot of artists will continue to make the music they want to and not only machine-selected hits.
Hank! White!
There is already a great program for downloading movies and music on the mac. It's called Giftbox. Giftbox utilizes the openFT protocol. This thing is fast like the fasttrack protocol used in Kazaa, but is opensource. It is still in beta now, but it is the best file sharing client available for the mac. Better than limewire, aquasition, and iswipe. It's free and fast. A network supported by apple will not be necessary with the openFT network out there.
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com
Seems a little short sighted... I mean, when you buy a good $18 jazz CD you often get four 15 minute songs. When you buy a "best of" cd, you get more like twenty 3 minute songs. Seems like they should charge by length or at least have a ranged cost.
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
With these online p2p places, the cost of all 3 is nil. Nothing to manufacture; the distribution is what the network does; and word of mouth (or IM) takes care of advertising.... if it is good.
$0.99 per song isn't too bad -- but who wants to bet this'll be a .Mac service?
irb(main):001:0>
99 cents doesn't fool me for a second.
But always fall for 95 cents.
Sure, you don't get the liner notes or the case. You know those things that people with 400+ cd's throw away to make room for more stuff.
You're also making an assumption that it's cheaper for the record company to distribute the songs over the net. The cost per song of delivering music to the record store is pretty low. You know the old saying about a station wagon and back up tapes? Try changing it to a semi-truck and CDs.
$1 a song? So long as I can burn it onto a CD myself, why not? Same download cost as PressPlay, but without the membership fee.
Personally I'd use this service to download singles if:
1) shn or flac is available
2) I can re-download the songs later for free (i'm always messing with my computer and I only have partial mp3 backups)
oh yeah, I don't own a mac or an ipod so apple would have to support windows/linux...
it is still a matter of principle unless the business plan changes. it is silly to try and convince people they are getting a good deal when 15 songs at 99 cents comes down to 14.85, and i have to download them onto my own cd. this is more expensive than buying the 12.99 album at circuit city. this will no longer be a matter of principle when the record companies provide better value than what they currently offer, which they could do based on new means of distribution. however, they are not doing this. i buy albums from good bands, whom i want to support, which means i buy albums very infrequently. i only download songs from one P2P: furthernet. as a matter of principle. people screw the record label when they pir
the german news site der spiegel reports the format will be "Advanced Audio Codec", not MP3.
0 0. html
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,238718,
use babelfish to translate...
My next comment will be ready soon, but moderators can beat the rush and mod it up early.
Can you download a song to your Mac, then export to your Ipod, then upload it on another computer ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
filler songs? oh! crapy bands.
It's been awhile since I sat down and listened to a full cd of a band I really like and said to myself "Only the songs that are played on the radio are good. These other ones suck."
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Think about it. Even if a $16 CD has 16 tracks on it, that doesn't mean each song is worth $.99. When you buy a CD, you're buying an "archival quality" medium with accompanying documentation and other tangibles such as disc art, case layout and the ubiquity of being able to play anywhere.
Plus you're buying intangibles, such as the pride of ownership. Yeah, I said pride. Owning a CD means you're more of a fan than somebody who has an mp3, even if they paid for it. CD collections are important things that impact a person's perceived personality and lifestyle. First thing I do when I visit a person's place for the first time is check out their CD collection. And yes, having a collection of all burns does negatively impact my perception of them.
This isn't to say I think it's necessarily a bad idea. I am a subscriber and an avid downloader from eMusic, and I don't feel their price is too expensive if you like what thy offer. My biggest complaints with the emusic model are the 128 kbit mp3s and the lack of major label catalogues, though they have a lot of great second tiers. If Apple does this right, they'll adopt a similar model, or at the very least offer volume discounts.
I don't think I'd ever buy a _single_ song on mp3, mostly because I feel a lot of work and effort goes into making an album into an artform that transcends simply slapping a bunch of tracks on a disc. I'd DOWNLOAD a single song, if it wer popular, to see if I'd like the album, but after I've already got it I'm certainly not going to pay for it. Catch-22.
Now maybe if they combined it with an "uncapturable" radio service, with the option to "purchase this song," they'd have a winner. Apple realizes the important of second string artists (as evidenced by the mp3s you get "gratis" on a new mac...fantastic stuff, without a Nelly or Britney track in site).
Hey freaks: now you're ju
. . . you decide to download a few Dwarves albums. :P
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Oh, I didn't realize this would be the only way to purchase music from this point forward. I guess we better grab those CDs before they're recalled and all the brick and mortar music stores shutter their doors.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Better yet, go to Kazaa. All of the above with no monthly payment.
and
Here's a summary of replies that understandy why this is better than a ~$15 CD:
A) You are paying for 12 songs you want, not 2 or 3 songs plus a few OK and a few crappy ones (depending on artist).
B) A benefit of point (A) - you don't have to buy 12 songs of the same artist or genre. Part of the price is flexibility.
C) You don't get a physical CD (or "token", as you call it). Extra manufactured crap (plastic) taking up space in my room, car, and office is not what I need. Obtaining 1000's of songs without taking up any more space than my iPod is much more effeciant, let alone environmentally sound.
D) Try before you Buy. Few retail chains allow you to try the music before you buy it, and those that do are generally limited to more mainstream music. This method allows you to preview the music, AND have the instant gratification of owning it the second you click "buy". Sure, you can preview music on CDNOW, but then you have to wait for your purchase to be delivered.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
FYI, according to other stories, a sizeable chunk of music (60,000+ tracks from the majors, probably 2x this from the indies) is available on LiquidAudio (for Wintel) today for $.99/track or $9.99/album. They've got both WMA and AAC. The $9.99/album is nice when you want an 18 track album and don't want to pay ~$18. Also, I think all of the $.99/$9.99 stuff is CD burnable.
Unfortunately not all the majors are doing the same thing. UMG seems to be leading the pack in terms of consumer friendly pricing and burning. I've purchased a handful of tracks from Liquid and the quality is definitely better than Kazaa.
I'm never going to use any kind of online subscription service if there is any chance of the vendor tracking my purchases. I use good old anonymous cash to buy CDs now in meatspace record stores as it is. Sure, I might pay a one-size-fits-all online access price which means, for $x dollars per x-time period, I can download whatever. But if there is any hint of tracking of my selections, you've forever lost me. When are businesses ever going to internalize these external costs and realize that many of us just don't ever want to pay them? So, the cost isn't just 99 cents per song. It's 99 cents per song plus xx-cents lost privacy = TOO EXPENSIVE.
It is totally impossible to steal music using the Internet. Check into the meanings of the words stealing and theft.... you find that creating a duplicate of something and then taking that duplicate does not meet the definitions.
Which part, the part about stuff costing more when bought in single units instead of bulk quantity, or the part about Slashdot being full of cocksucking wankers?
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Although .99/song is fairly reasonable, this is still about the same as the record rabble are charging now.. only there is less overhead. I'd prefer not to support them at all.
Also, being an Apple product, I would never touch it. That worthless company will never get a dime of mine.
Anyhow, if you really want to pay for music, head down to a used CD store; you can usually get a CD for $3-$5 dollars.. that is actually reasonable.
There's not just the manufacturing costs...there's shipping, inventoring, stocking and checking. A middleman such as Best Buy has to charge enough to cover all those costs, plus enough to make a profit. Whereas with online downloads, there's nothing to ship, nothing to store physically, and no inventory cluttering up the warehouse. Which is cheaper: have an album that takes up 100 megs on a server thats downloaded a million times, or selling one million physical albums? Sure Apple will be the middleman and will make a profit, but they will have zero physical costs. When you look at it that way, $.99 per track is still a bum deal.
let's not forget that to get songs onto an ipod you need a computer, and to get them back off the ipod and onto the computer again (or another computer, as in perhaps, a work computer or laptop) all you need to do is copy the mp3 or aiff files to the ipod's hard disk (from the finder, not itunes). sure you can't listen to the tracks when they're stored in 'hard disk' mode, but with up to 20gb of storage, i'd imagine for someone taking music to work or (god forbid!) trading music with someone else via an ipod/macintosh connection, this 'firewire disk mode' would work ok.
:-)
but that being said, it is the message on apple's part that is to be respected. it's not impossible to do, but apple didn't make it too easy, and let's not forget the little sticker that comes on all new ipods "don't steal music."
i don't have a sig.
Copying music through downloading has never been theft. In all likelihood, it will never be theft or stealing of anything. Copying just does not meet the definitions of actual theft or stealing. Try using more accurate, less charged words.
It still seems awfully steep.
As has been pointed out, $1 a song may get you an album full of songs you like, but it still doesn't get you liner notes, the album's artwork, or a jewel case.
What this comes down to is that the industry will be making just as much money per album, but it virtually eliminates their distribution, middleman and (physical) production costs. Why isn't the consumer's price being lower, accordingly?
Apple deserves kudos for taking a step in the right direction, but if I'm going to have to supply my own bandwith, make my own liner notes, and buy my own discs and jewel cases, I'd just assume deal with the mislabeled files on Kazaa and spare myself the cost.
I don't think this will really catch on until these services are offering DRM-less files that have full ID3v2 tags at 192 VBR, and are charging $0.50 (or less) per song.
While I'm not for fooling customers it is a proven FACT that more consumers will buy a $99 flashy shiny sale tag before they plop down a $100 bill.
It derived from the CA excise tax on gas going to 20.4 cents (?higher now), after that many states adopted it (the .4 cents) - the gas companies squeezed extra profit out of the half cent and at the same time saw that they could compete while being a tenth penny lower.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
That's very expensive!!! With a purchased CD I get the media, a box, artwork etc, and the music in FULL cd quality, and because the disc is pressed, nor burnt, it's more likely to last longer. I can also copy it, make mix CD's, make MP3 cd's for the DVD player etc.
If I pay for a download I want the price to reflect the work I'm doing, and the cost of my internet connection. I want full quality music, not compressed - but compressed as an option. I want all my fair use rights - to make a backup, to put it on mix cd etc.
And I want most of the money to go to the artist.
If I don't get all of these, I'm not paying - and I'd suspect that most people feel the same.
It's time to stop getting screwed by the music industry, and time for them to stop screwing artists.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
Also please take note...if this rumour is true, then Apple is throwing their weight behind AAC. Once again Apple is ignoring all of us calling for Ogg Vorbis support.
I will vote with my wallet. I'll support whoever comes out with an ogg-capable portable.
You haven't been to The Gap lately, have you?
No one ever steals music online. It is impossible, as copying is not theft. Have more care in choice of words.
I'm interested about your sig. Do you have something against a company profiting?
I think this is a great start! I would have no problem with $0.99 for a burnable song that I want. It does NOT translate to $15-20 per cd, because there are only two CDs that I own that contain all good songs (Nirvana's Nevermind and Metallica's Black Album--FYI). I could see depositing, say, $20 or $30 into a debit account on Apple, or maybe integrate it with PayPal or something, and then when I want a song or two or three, wha-la!
Of course, as soon as other companies jump in line, maybe they'll have some songs for $0.79, and competition should keep things either reasonable or monopolized, in which case people will continue trading.
I don't condone music piracy, but I feel like I've been being cheated for years by the RIAA. If they want to continue, they must ADAPT, and this seems like a viable model to me.
Of course, I could see the final price being $2.99 or $4.99 or something, in which case all bets are off.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
How does one follow the other? I don't listen to the radio. I don't watch MTV. But the CDs I buy still have bad songs on them.
Actually, that whopper of an inaccurate word sort of distorted the entire posting.
And the distributer will claim it costs them 98.9 cents per song, so the writer and artists get to split the remaining fraction of a cent...
By U.S. law, the songwriter can demand 8 cents per track from the record label, which the songwriter usually splits 50:50 with his publisher (source: Songwriting FOR DUMMIES, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting, and most of the surrounding books at my local b&n store). So if you want to make money in the music business, write your own songs.
But does the law even let you write your own songs? It's possible for a songwriter to get sued and lose for writing a song that, in his best judgment at the time he wrote it, was original, but in fact was accidentally plagiarized from another popular song.
Will I retire or break 10K?
How will this effect the balance between Apple computers (Steve&Steve Co) and Apple Music (Beatles, etc.)
I thought that the ability to use the name "Apple" for the company was only allowed because a computer company could not be mistaken for Apple, the music company?
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
Want OS X? Want this service? Want all the other things you get with an Apple product? Buy their hardware.
Why should Apple support people who don't even own their hardware? Should every company make their services available to everyone else, even at a loss of revenue?
I think not. Again, this is what you have access to with Apple hardware. You get what you pay for.
Doesn't this bring Apple a little closer to the Apple music label?
Could another court battle come from this.
Imagine some future world where everyone gets their music via these services... you could easily wind up with a situation where every new song is overproduced (and possibly run by one of those 'AI' music-hit detectors mentioned here previously) to try to ensure it is a hit, since any time spent writing/recording it will be 'wasted' if not enough people pay for the song by itself.
First, it is illogical to think that any music that isn't a hit is useless. Think of all of the television out there that is not as popular as Friends and the movies that are not as popular as Pretty Woman. Second, fans of great musicians really like it when they experiment. They are just as glad to buy the experiments as the hits (as long as the experiments aren't failures). Third, artists will be encouraged to experiment because you never know when an experiment will become a hit and open up a whole new genre. See also "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The AI hit detectors can never predict future trends. Also, with per-song downloads, artists have a better sense when they are giving their customers what the customers want.
What albums are these? Sounds interesting.
Actually, there are a fair number of bands whose deep cuts I like far better than the songs played on the radio. Never thought I'd say this, but Tori Amos is being overplayed, and that song is weak compared to her other work. Likewise (don't laugh) Abba's non-disco stuff is rather good - but the "greatest hits" album didn't have a single song I could even tolerate.
Given a choice between me not buying an album because of filler, or me buying one song - they make more off one song.
That's about $7-8 per album, about what I used to pay back at the dawn of CDs for vinyl.
How much money do you earn now vs. when you bought vinyl?
Compact Disc technology is 20 years old. Assuming 3 percent annual inflation of wages, $8 in 1983 dollars is worth $8 * 1.03^20 = about $14.50 in 2003 dollars.
Will I retire or break 10K?
That's all well and good for Phish fans, but what if you want a band that doesn't suck?
Ok, calm down people, I was joking, I haven't even heard enough Phish to criticize it. But I find their fans pleasantly tauntable.
$1/track strikes me as a pretty good deal. I imagine the price is not imformed so much by Apple (while you may think their stuff is expensive, this scheme does nothing to directly contribute to their bottom line, i.e. hardware sales), as it is likely informed by whatever potential deals they want to strike with the existing content providers.
The pieces are all there - Akamai's hooked up, hell, the whole QuickTime network must be in bed with several studios already with the movie trailer video streaming service (easily the best on the net). One wonders if they have already laid the groundwork for those music-based partnerships.
And, lets not forget QuickTime. It's fantastically powerful and flexible, and they could package their media any way they wish. Some have mentioned the lack of liner notes, artwork etc. I would consider that moot if they provided, some real digital packaging. In Mac OS X, you can assign graphic files to the background of windows, you've got those 32bit 256x256 icons... if I could browse through my MP3 folder and have those icons sized nice and big with the appropriate artwork, fully tagged ID3-wise, and it's a high-quality file... yeah, I'd bite. Absolutely.
On another note, there is DRM of a sort in the iPod, specifically for the Audible content, but I think that is unique to their format and not system wide.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Regardless of how crooked attorneys change it, the fact is that "duplication" does not meet the actual definition of theft. Troll? It is more like trolling to use words where they don't belong for effect.
The attorneys who got this into copyright law should be spanked, since the action is never theft or stealing at all. The word theft should be used for actions that really are stealing.
You're not paying for duplication, or for distribution. The idea that you can pay the same thing as you did 20 years ago, and get less in return, is not perhaps as unreasonable as you seem to imply.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
discstickers writes
...no. $12/CD does not sound like any progress whatsoever. Me? I'll sign on to such a service when:
...they do not need to market to me anymore. I have been given the ability to roam and find what suits me. In other words, I'm selling music to myself. The RIAA now has a dream database of who-likes-what. Rather than shoving a band down our throat they can just pimp the artists that people are gravitating toward. In other words, they can ride a wave naturally instead of buying a new wave machine every week.
"The San Jose Mercury News is running an article about an Apple music service that might be ready to launch next month. $.99 a song with the ability to burn to CD doesn't sound too bad."
You're right -- that doesn't sound too bad, it sounds terrible! The music industry has just eliminated all shipping, storage, storefronts and sales personnel and the price is still $12 for a 12-song CD?
There is a fundamental problem here, and that problem is marketing. I won't name names, but there are bands that the vast majority of people wouldn't listen to if they weren't beaten senseless with marketing and a lack of choices. That money has to come from someplace. If you eliminate marketing, then a much smaller number of people are going to be interested in [insert band here] on their merits alone. Ok, so we can't eliminate marketing.
So where else can we slash the price? The RIAA fat cats' wallet? Hehehe. Ooo. Good one. I made a funny.
The bottom line here is that the music industry influence is eroding. This is due to many factors including, but not limited to, piracy, the economy, the internet and the opportunity it offers to find new sounds without going through the "approved gatekeepers." But the music industry has a scapegoat and we all know what that scapegoat is. If they were to lower their expectations (read; bring them in-line with reality) then this would show that piracy really isn't the root of their problems, it would be their prodigious waistline (pardon the double entendre) and the corpulent approach to art.
Wow. I just went on a rant, didn't I? Oh well.
So
(a) I can purchase songs at 30c/each AND;
(b) the ability to get a partial refund -- say, 90% -- for songs that I download but don't enjoy. So lets say that I download 200 songs in a given month and I decide a third of those (65) of those are worth keeping. I'd pay $19.50 for the ones I keep and another $4.95 for the ones I "returned." Frankly, I'm not going to bother spending 10 minutes of my life tracking down that song I just returned to them on Kazzaa to save 30c.
What does this mean from the RIAA's perspective?
* They have sold me roughly 5.5 CDs and they receive about $25 in return. About $5/ea.
* There is no need to purchase packaging or inserts, no need to store or ship or assemble the product, no need to have a storefront to sell the music and (this is the big one);
*
I realize that last item might seem bonkers to an advertising exec but probably not to many slashdotters. We know what we like and even more importantly, we tend to realize that there is more out there to be liked. If the RIAA et al could just get their little pinheaded brains around the notion that humans actually enjoy music without the shoehorn, maybe this would look more rational to them.
Am I holding my breath? No. Do I think the RIAA doesn't have a choice in the matter? No. It will happen. The RIAA can come along willingly or it can get trampled under the tracks. I really don't care which.
My
Limekiller
I am guessing that the Service works very similar to how their deal with Audible.com works. You have a login name and password that you use to download music that is encrypted to you. Then, the first time you use iTunes, you have to tell iTunes what your Login and Password is. From then on, it automatically decrypts everything for you. You are allowed to transfer anything you want to your iPod, which also knows your L/P & decrypts the files itself on the fly.
You cannot burn a CD of MP3's, but, you are able to burn a normal music CD anytime you want.
This way, the files themselves are always encrypted, but are really easy to use on the mac and are easy to take with you in the car.
I love Audible's service and have been very pleased to be able to legally download Books on tape at a reasonable price. ($10-$20 a book as opposed to $50-$80 if they are on tape.) Also, because it is based on your L/P, if you have more than one computer, you just have to tell each computer's version of iTunes who you are, and they all work fine.
But, at the same time, it does prevent you from easily giving away your files to someone else, because each file that you have only works for your L/P. and though they can reset their login and password to yours, to play your files, do you really want to give someone else your L/P for your music service, so that they could download music as you and therefore charge it to you? If they really set it up similar to their Audible.com Model, I think they will do very well.
Another problem: my PC is 866 MHz, but my fastest Mac is a 75 MHz Performa 6230CD manufactured in 1995 or so. I don't buy enough CDs with just a few good singles to make dropping $800 for an [ei]Mac worthwhile.
Will I retire or break 10K?
-TrollBridge
I'd bet it isn't compatible with the only Mac I have, which is an ancient (1995) Performa 6230CD with a 75 MHz processor and 16 MB of RAM. So tack on an extra $799 for a new Mac.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If it is so flexible, how come every time I install it it automatically forces itself on every file extension so even a web page with one little wav crashes with a Quicktime message? If it is so flexible, then where is the option to NEVER ask to upgrade when it keeps begging?
If it is so fantastic, then how come the user interface is barbaric, like something from Windows 3.1.... and how come it is so bad that I uninstall it after every time I am forced to use it to play the rare
As a PC user, QuickTime is my main exposure to how Mac does things. And it is not a good introduction, as it is so unfriendly and obtrusive.
You're not paying for duplication, or for distribution.
Then what's that $50 a month you pay to your cable company or to your telephone company?
Will I retire or break 10K?
First, let me point out that I am in agreement with your assertion that this is a reasonable price for a reasonable service.
However, your argument that this is worthwhile because your time is worth $60/hour is a fallacious one. Unless you would be working otherwise during the time that you spend chasing songs, what your relaxation time is worth has no definite relation to what you make.
That is to say, suppose I make $50/hour, and work 40 hours per week, and you make $100/hour and work 40 hours a week. That does not mean that if someone wanted me to work an extra five hours, I would do it at that $50/hour rate... that is dependent upon how highly I value my leisure time, and I value it more highly than that. If they want me to work 60 hours a week, they'd better pay me MORE for those additional hours, even if they're not required to by law.
Then again, I know of a person who work two jobs, one for $15/hour (40 hours a week) and one for $10/hour (10-15 hours a week. Is his time worth $15/hour? If so, why is he taking the second job? Maybe it's only worth $10? Basically, he's decided what he'll sell his leisure time for, and it doesn't bear any real resemblance to what he makes in his primary job... it's whatever he can get.
If you assume that my time is worth $150/hour because I did my last big contract at that rate, then there are a LOT of things that I wouldn't do for myself that I'm perfectly happy doing.
It's just not a useful way of looking at things.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
In other words...maybe you're the one who needs to do a little thinking before posting, jackass.
You mean thinking, like, "Hmm, did I remember to close that italics tag?"
I think your stuck in the 90's
The fact is that I'm stuck in 2003 rather than 2007 which is the standard quoted time when some phone companies and some cable companies plan to make broadband available in some areas. Most people don't have $200,000 to buy a house in an area that gets broadband and pay for other moving expenses.
It's also an extra $30 per month vs. dial-up.
Will I retire or break 10K?
No one has really hit on how this could be "limited" to Apple software and iPods yet. The obvious answer is that it would be integrated into the next version of iTunes, like photo printing is integrated into iPhoto, or iTunes's existing Audible.com integration (full disclosure: I have never used or even looked at this). There would be a "Buy music" menu item, which brings up a search box or some sort of simplified web portal. You find a song you want, click Download, iTunes spins for a while just it does when encoding or burning a CD (completely asynchronous and leaving you free to keep using the app/computer), the new song shows up in your library and starts playing. There's no step 3!
Anybody notice this service is only for Mac and iPod owners? No way will this do enough volume to turn a profit. If Apple was smart, they'd make it platform neutral and increase their potential customer base 30 fold.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Because there's no markup that has to be paid to a retailer.
Oh, you think Sam Goody sells music because Sam was bored and said "gee, I'd like to sell music to all my pals!".
No. Probably 1/3 to 1/2 the purchase price goes to a retailer.
So if Sam doesn't need his cut, then the price should be 1/2 of what it is today.
Plus, when I own a CD, I get to do whatever I want with it...loan it to a friend, make a copy, listen to it, store it in my vault.
In your world, we pay more money for "less" because....because... we're all fucking stupid? I mean, help us out. Throw us a freaking bone here.
You ever get a song in your head, something from years ago, or something from a radio station, that you like? Sometimes I'm interested in hearing their other music, so I want a CD. Sometimes I just want that song. I used to get it off Napster, now I normally just don't bother.
For example, sometimes some of the cheesy Top-40 stuff is catchy and would be fun to have in the background while I'm at work.
I'll likely sign up for this. When I want to hear a song, I can buy the song.
Sure, if I want to buy a CD from someone, I'll go to a store (or Amazon.com), and get the CD. Then I get the CD, rip a version for iTunes/iPod, burn a copy with CD-Text for my Jukebox, and keep the original for in a friend's car or just to hold on to.
Don't thing that this REPLACING buying an album, the RIAA isn't interested in replacing the business model of member companies. They are looking to "curb piracy." When they get a popular song out there, some people buy the album, others go and download it off one of the piracy networks. Now, Apple users (who have shown that they are willing to pay for something that they consider quality, by virtue of owning an Apple) have a third choice. They can go and buy the song and have it really soon.
If you want an album on CD, buy the CD. If you want 1-2 songs, you can now buy the songs.
Alex
I get sick of hearing about "oh, no liner notes." Half of the local artists around here never bothered to spend the money on anything more than a 1 page liner note/j-card anyway. They just slapped lame artwork and a band photo on a j-card and called it good.
Somehow, I really don't see the big value..
Also, your "indie store" might not be so "indie" after all... check into it.
I thought the record label apple (of beatles' albums) had a legal issue with apple computers using the apple name, but it was decided b/c they were two seperate markets, there would not be confusion. So if Apple (computers) starts selling music, will this get them in trouble with the Apple music publishing company?
Okay..... check out this thread, specifically this post from that story about Madonna iPods from 3 months ago. This AC seems to be talking about the same thing.
99 cents a song? Might as well buy the frigging CD. I mean after all, how much does it cost to burn a disk and put it up on a site as digital music? I think this is STILL the "music industry" trying to rip fans off. Screw that, I'm back to kazaa.
First we have Napster and other services being attacked and now we have companies like apple and AOL starting up services.
:-)
Remember how everyone a year or two ago mentioned how the RIAA is behind the times and are playing catch up? Well.. seems they are still playing the game while other's are moving forward.
Slashdotters were right. It's a great idea. Our prophecy has been proven correct
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Is this typical slashdot postings based on not actually reading the linked article or am I just blind?
Hello, hello? Is this thing on? Hello?
Attention: I started this rumor. It was me. I made it up.
Guys, I'm not sure if anybody is going to believe me or not, but I started this rumor way back in December. I made it up. It was all a big lie. I posted it because it sounded reasonable enough to me, and because I wanted to get people talking about it. I wasn't trolling in the strictest sense; I just posted something that I knew to be false but that should have been true.
I'm posting this anonymously because I'm a pretty well-respected poster here on apple.slashdot.org. I post a lot, and it wouldn't be too hard for you to guess who I am. I'm a little embarassed to admit that I did this, but I did.
The post got modded up to +5, and somebody sent a link off to MacRumors.com and other rumor sites. Nobody believed it at the time, which makes sense because I made it all up, but a couple of days ago MacRumors.com pulled it out of storage and posted it on their front page. Now the Merc has picked it up.
Look, one of two things is true here. Either (!) this is just complete crap that I made up and that a lot of other people have been fooled by, or (@) this is all really happening, and I fucking called it months before anybody else.
Either way, I'm feeling pretty fucking powerful right now.
The major breakthrough is ease of use though, it will be interesting to see if usability can distinguish this service from the others and actually turn a profit. Also, will indie labels and artists be able to compete on the same level as the majors? All this is good until at the very end when the idiot journalist just can't resist pointing out:
Apple's products account for just a sliver of the total computer market -- less than 3 percent of the computers sold worldwide are Macs, according to market research firm IDC. The vast majority of the potential audience for downloadable music services uses machines that run Microsoft's Windows software.
Apple is a hardware manufacturer, NOT an operating system developer. They developed their own operating system because they were the first to create one. They continue develop operating systems because it helps to sell their hardware, it distinguishes them from the endless sea of faceless PC manufacturers, and because Windows doesn't work.
Another great quote from the article:
If people on the Internet are actually interested in buying music, not just stealing it, this is the answer.
Please, insult potential customers by calling them thieves.
...it has more value to you. Sure, I can download a mess of songs of artist X, from many different albums, and make a CD of these songs. Or, I can buy X at their peak, or X's last album, or X's first. Somehow I just get more out of the songs when this is the case.
I will provide the same service. All payments must be made in advance. Add you will need to install a special download manager by the name of Kazaa.
reenigne
You can buy burnable tracks from Liquid Audio right now for $.99 per song or $10 per album:
http://store.liquid.com
The tracks are (unfortunately) only in WMA and Liquid Audio formats. Still, I think this is a good deal.
One point here, if the artist wants to release a song the record label considers a 'hit', its 99c, if they want to also throw some experimental material out there, package it for free with the download of a priced song...
No kidding. Instead of hearing people complain about the CDs they buy "with one or two good songs," I'd like to see someone actually list the CDs they buy that meet this qualification. Because, dammit, if you're buying the latest Natalie Imbruglia album, you get what you deserve. I'm not a music snob by any means, but I don't have to hear something on the Top 40 in order to like it.
This may have been said already in relation to the article, but the bigger purpose of this service is to push Macs and iPods, discs being unimportant to the final product. So at least in that respect you're not being asked to pay for physical media. Liner notes, artwork, that could be delivered by a website... but again, if there isn't a jewel case in the first place, why print those at all?
The cost of the AAC distribution (and it gets funny, because the cost of distribution is only really optimized for semi-popular material... too popular and the bandwidth costs start to eat into the profit, not popular enough and the storage space starts to eat away too) would probably average out to 0.20 a track (based on the specs I built a year ago for a similar project). That leaves (theoretically, since the actual price is uncertain) 0.80 for Apple and the copyright holder(s).
The argument that 0.99 is more for a song than you pay now is possibly true, but keep in mind that the money is not all going to the music industry. Apple is paying for distribution and taking its own profit in there, so what IS the music industry left with, once that's all done? Is it more or less than what they were earning before?
I would have to say that Apple is doing this Mac-only because it can run the service without losing money, and if it's catchy enough it will draw people who were fence-sitting about iPods and iBooks straight into the Mac fold. If I could pay $0.99 or thereabouts for a high-quality song for my iPod, I would start buying music again. And it's been four years since I bought a CD.
The world's only surviving livewriter.
Or you might see chinese menu packs where you pay 0.99 for hit stuff and 0.50 for stuff that doesn't make it onto the radio. There's no reason that pricing has to be flat across an artists entire inventory of songs.
Since electronic distribution makes changes easy to make, I can see a lot of experimentation done in terms of pricing. I can even see a lot more artists not going through record companies at all because they can make more money recording for on-line services like Apple's.
If you can find CD's for $10-12 bucks tell me what store you shop at!
Even the LOWEST prices for new albums is around $16 on the internet.
It seems apparent to me that you did not. Go back and re-read it.
But you know what the stupidest part is? This is just a rumour. It's unconfirmed. Here we are, wasting space posturing like any of this nonsense MEANS anything! Over what? AN UNCORROBORATED RUMOUR! What a bunch of pinheads we are.
The new service would only be available to users of Apple's Macintosh line computers and iPod portable music players, who have been largely overlooked by the legitimate online music services.
How does that work? What exactly are they selling? What about format? What about digital rights management? Where does it say you can burn? Oh, right - nowhere. Because the "industry" will start selling unencumbered full digital WAV files available for burning when one of the two following conditions are reached:
1. Hell freezes over
2. Someone else starts thrashing them in the marketplace doing it first.
Other stuff this doesn't solve: conventional publishing screwing artists. The consolidation and dumbing down of what's produced and what's available. The functional elimination of internet radio as a viable broadcast medium for the hobbyist level individual.
Low on facts, misrepresented and no comment from Apple. Vapor. Can't wait until the next corporate sponsored online music "solution?" Then go to my damn homepage and send me an email saying that you'll review the draft whitepaper of the M.A.P.S. project, fercryin'out loud!
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
One thing that I've noticed about Mac users is that many of them are in the business of creating content (graphics, music, writing, etc.)
.. these users understand the costs of creating content and that someone's making a living doing it.
This is the perfect market to test this pay-to-play scheme
If this scheme doesn't work with Mac users, it won't work with a larger audience...
does this now. they have a special promotion letting you burn songs for 49 cents.
www.listen.com
rolldeep
I'd say the single/album system currently manipulates things in reverse to the way you invisage - bands making consessions that the record companies demand for their 'single' tracks.
:) but still...
In the future, the concept of 'album' might fall apart and songs be released in streams where they are a geniune flow of creative consciousness...
That probably won't happen
You're assuming that record companies have some need to put out 12 songs on each album under a per-song download system. The only reason that 1 or 2 song albums are mearly singles right now is that they've got to put more than 10 songs on the CD to charge what they do for it. If we're paying by the song, then they'll just stop spending money on the tracks that currently just take up space on the disk, as we'll have moved from an album driven system to a single driven one.
On the other hand, there are a lot of bands out there (even many pretty popular ones) that record their own songs (for less money) and are actually emotionally tied to their own music. Those artists will keep putting out whatever they want, because it'll mean that people hear their music. There will be some pressure to cover recording costs, but if they just put it up and don't heavily promote it, that won't be too hard.
Narrative
STFU
There is no loyalty between trolls
Just ask Debbie Gibson
eh... a little from column A, a little from column B.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Losslessly compressed in an open format, no DRM.
A good selection, especially classical and jazz.
Quality control, no truncation, pops or glitches of any kind.
I would pay up to $2/song, $10/album.
(Note: I don't use p2p: even if were legal, even if I didn't have to work around campus firewalls to get it, even if it were lossless, there's still no quality control)
Apple has already begun to embrace AAC encoding. It is the default audio encoding for MPEG4 files, which Apple's QuickTime supports nativley. It's compression is as good as Ogg/Vorbis and WMA, and it is seen (perhaps by apple) as another MP3 competitor. As far as I know it is an open standard.
.sig error: carrier signal lost.
for how long now have people wanted this service to buy music, sure .99 a song is a lil high, and people are moaning it equals out to be the same price per cd as now. But you dont have to buy all the crap songs you dont want, you can go get the 2 songs off cd X you like then 3 off cd Y etc. and end up with 15 songs you Want instead of buying 5+ cds at 15$ per to get the same songs... how hard is that to figure out? i think the bottom line people complaining want to keep using kazaa and stealing(yes its stealing) and any price offered would be rejected as too much, people want 10$ for unlimited downloads... the bandwidth and storage alone for that would be insane if you download a few gigs. has anyone lookd at hosting costs lately. and that would leave no money going to the artist again. i used to hear people saying they want th artist to get paid blah blah, now noone is even willing to step up and try this, instead wanting things for free again. wed end up with a system where the artist has to eat the cost of hosting a song and if theres anything left over they get to keep the pennies. pay the 1$ per song prove to the world that you want to be nice and support the music you listen to daily and your not just interested in a free ride. if its free it wont last very long just accept life. no thing is free and putting music out for free in any model will not work. adopt the new service use it and pay bug them for a moderate price break down the road once They see people are willing to use it.
If you had RTFA, you would have realized that the article doesn't mention any price. The $.99/song price tag is a mere guess/wish by the story submitter.
As far as cost, .99 cents is beyond cheap. Remeber, most "CD Singles" are 3.99 or more, and it's basically one popular track, and filler. Egad, it may cost $12-$15 to get a whole cd - and most of those who complain about it are ones who have forked out $150 for a bigger hard drive to store their MP3 collecion......
Moreover, has anybody tried to buy any CD that is not on the Billboard charts lately? $19 for a SoupDragons CD is par for the course, and I dont even want all of it!
And some of you complained about other costs... like media... Media! Oh my!!, $.12 a CD, Maybe $.50 if you go with the ultra high end media. What next, are you going to start amortizing the cost of your broadband, processor and RAM into it? Get over it. If you are reading it here, these are not real costs for you.
Further, .99 (or whatever) gets you one thing, at least, that KaZaa never will. It gives you guaranteed consistent quality and availability. I cant tell you how many songs I have from the various P2P services that:
- a) sound like they were recorded in a machine shop from a badly eroded 8 track,
- b) have clipped beginnings or endings, or are so poorly compressed that you can't listen to them on a good speaker system without cringeing.
- c) are completely the wrong song.
- d) get remotely queued for 2 days
That is what your *GASP!* $1 a track gets you, along with accurate and complete ID-3 tags, and consistent and CORRECT naming.There will ALWAYS be a market for KaZaa and its ilk... I was a starving college student not all that long ago, and $1 a track was a lot when I could go get it for free, but now, I dont mind paying a little bit for convenience and reliability.
$1 a track, for no headaches, no bad copies, no spyware, no hours spent rewriting ID3's and sorting and deleting bad and truncated songs is not a bad deal for me, and probably not for a lot of other people.
And as always, if it sucks, it wont work. Its the American way, not all great ideas are successful, but all the lousy ones go broke eventually.
I love downloadable music because I can quickly find those songs I once heard at a friend's party 15 years ago. You just can't find the Crucifucks at HMV.
But what about those songs that are just too subtle to like the first time you hear them, but grow on you? I hated the Police's Behind My Camel the first dozen times I heard it. Now, I'll never again listen to crap like "Do do do do, da da da da", but there are a few gems on Zenyatta Mondatta, an otherwise terrible LP, that I quite dig. Only because I was forced to buy the whole thing.
In a download-only universe, I'd have been a teenager downloading only the hits. A year later I'd no longer be listening to the hits, because they were facile crap that doesn't hold me. I'd also not be listening to the cool stuff in between.
Music is already ridiculously hit-driven. But at least there's space for artists to slip an interesting song on a CD here and there. I don't think there's going to be much of that in a download-only universe.
it would be nice to see itunes for windows! i hop back and forth between my tablet pc and a tibook. it makes zero business sense to ignore such a large chunk of potential customers. even as a mac user, if the files aren't portable between a mac an ipod and a pc, i'm not paying a buck a tune!
What's the current price of the average CD? I guarantee you're paying more that $1 per track now. If this helps bring the cost of the CD down, it would be a great thing. The ideal advertising for that would be "Buy the whole CD for $9.95, and get the liner notes, artwork, etc., along with all the songs for less than paying for each song individually."
I'm sick of all this whining about 99 per song=$12-14 per album.
.Mac members" or some such thing that highlights tracks recorded by Mac users, not just über-chic stars-of-the-moment.
The whole point it, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY THE WHOLE ALBUM! This isn't meant to replace gonig to the store and buying a CD. It is supposed to COMPLIMENT it. Buy one song. If you like it and feel comfortable buying the whole CD, why on earth WOULD you sit there downloading inferior quality files to burn to a generic CD-R without any liner notes? Look, wookies don't live on Endor, OK? IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!
The whole point is to let people choose a few songs here or there. Or to give a band who can't get the $ together to record a whole album a chance to have their music distributed AND receive some money from it. And do you think it'll just be major label music? Let me tell you this - if this whole thing DOES go through, you can rest assured you'll see a "featured
And as far as the whole "I can get it for free on KaZaa" argument - well, have it then. When the DOJ comes knocking on your door after the RIAA's spyware tracked u down after downloading a bugged file, let me know how that free prison food is. Besides, the kind of music I like generally isn't available on KaZaa, because KaZaa reflects, for the most part, a large portion of society that listens to really bad pop music. If I were to trust any company to make cool, obscure music available to the masses, its Apple.
So before you start bitching and whining about price and convenience, please know what you're talking about. They're not trying to replace going to your local record shop to buy a new album. They're trying to offer a NEW service that will be easy to use, fun to explore, and relatively inexpensive considering the years of joy that a single song can bring.
I want to set my niece up with a kazaa account so she can download music. Even with the passwords/filters provided by KaZaA. (diet, Lite, whatever) There are still plenty of songs that come up that I think her parents wouldn't want her downloading. (not to mention the risks involded with P2P) A service like this would be great at a lwer price than $.99 per song. (Then again, I have no clue what the average allowances is these days... :)
It may be a bit redundant, but it's not a troll.
IT HASN'T BEEN ANNOUNCED YET!!!!!
There are a lot of options here, and the truth of the matter is we don't know what, if anything, Apple will unveil. Hell, maybe they'll charge .89 for a song, or maybe 1.59. Or maybe they'll run a buy two songs get one free, or maybe they won't do anything. Maybe it will be Wndows compatible and maybe it will only be compatible with OS 9 (okay, so that one is a bit farfetched)
The only thing that is certain here is that no matter what happens...a journalist will find a way to say that this signals the death of Apple Computer.
Will comment on this at 4:30, if you care. This is according to the following message left on MOSR's site:
update projected at 4:30.
The MOSR head claims to have some new info to back this up.
Ditto. I am tired of getting burned with CDs that only have maybe 1-3 songs I like. I also hope they figure out a way so we keep access to the download, in case the mac or the iPod gets screwed up.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
How can you listen to that crap?
If a dozen eggs cose $1.20, what basis do you have for saying $0.10 is too much to pay for an egg?
If a single song cost less than 1/Nth the cost of an N-track album, then why wouldn't you just download all the songs individually, and save a little money?
I challenge any of the whiners out there to present me with an example where you pay *more* for a set of something than you would buying them seperately.
If you pay $12 (or more) for a 12-track CD, there is no way to say paying $0.99 a track is a rip-off, except for the hardcopy/liner-notes argument, which in my opinion is offset by not having to go to the store or wait days for Amazon.
Kevin Fox
...are fear, surprise, and fanatical dedication to the Jobs-man!
Or something like that.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Frelling? Watching too many Farscape episodes on DVD?
And what kind of music selections can we expect? will this just be the usual crap we hear on the radio, or will there be music Genres of the more un-conventional variety like Psy Trance, Jungle, House, Techno, Goa, Ambient...
If you buy a bright neon-colored ugly box (I personally think they're cute, but whatever) you're probably paying about $300 used, which gives you a very different value proposition. ($300 for a used iMac, $693 for music, $1000 total (approximately), or 1000/700 = dollars per song.
No, I don't think buying a new Mac (or even a used one) just to play music on it is rational. There are, however, other reasons, and this would just be one to add to the list.
I already have an old PowerBook that I got for free, running MacOS 9 and iTunes, hooked up to my stereo on one end and a wireless network on the other, and running MP3s (all legal) off of my server in the other room. I would've paid $200 for it... and given that this laptop will never run X, that's about what it goes for these days.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
one-click --> store.apple.com got it? I will say it again apple uses one-click @ store.apple.com once again store.apple.com for one-click
Means I don't have to buy a whole album for one or two songs
I have to point this out to people all the time : If the artists you're listening to can only make one or two good songs, then they suck. It doesn't even matter who you're listening to -- if you only like trendy pop or underground hip-hop or whatever -- if you only like one or two of their songs, then they aren't worth buying.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
It costs 50 to print a 4x6 image with iPhoto's Kodak printing service... a unique, PHYSICAL printout. Yet it's assumed that music from this service will be $1 per (EASILY REPLICATED) digital track.
Does anyone else see the bullshit in this?
This was news in December when an Apple employee leaked the information in a Slashdot forum post.
I wonder if he's still around?
This is a test of the idea that so many people have been yelling about for so long.
If, in fact, the reason (some) people don't like paying for CDs is because they have to pay for a bunch of songs they don't want in order to get a few they do, then this model works great.
If, in fact, the reason people don't like paying for CDs is because they want free stuff, then this idea won't go anywhere.
Of course, there are other things that could make this fail, and I'm sure everyone will be keeping a sharp eye out for them. But on the whole, this is a grand test of veracity.
Personally, I don't hold out a lot of hope. But I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
the commpanies make just as much money
you buy your music from companies? sheep.
I recently bought a mac and one thing that surprised me is the lack of a kazaa client or alternative. There are gnuetella clients like limewire and there is an excellent port of direct connect, but nothing with the vast amount of music kazaa has. So here comes apple with an atractive, most likely easy to use music setup. It's already shown that apple has a niche market and the type of people that buy a mac will be thrilled to pay 99 cents a song, I think this will be as big a hit for apple as in can be. I know I'll try it at leat once.
...will be Joan Baez tracks. Damn you, Steve Jobs!
You must think in Russian.
By that, I'm guessing you mean the post I replied to, so the answer is yes, I did.
Why is that? I did read it. And I even re-read it. It seemed as if you were forgetting that Apple has more costs than what you were assuming. They can't just set the cost at whatever they want because they have to set it at least as much as it will cost them. The cost of licensing the songs will be more than licensing for most of the stuff on eMusic if they want to carry the "big" names in music. That was my point.
Speak for yourself. ;-)
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Unless they make low-qual versions of the songs (I'm talking 56k, low enough that nobody would want it) available for free, then you still end up paying whatever (even if it's only a buck) for each song, and you have no idea if you'll like it or not.
In addition to this, everyone who says they want the songs DRM free, there's a problem with that.... you know that the first thing everyone who pays a buck a song would do is put it in their shared folder and let it fly. same songs, same quality, for free on kazaa, imesh, etc = low money for apple = goes out of business quickly.
I'm not saying DRM is good, I'm just saying that it may, in the long term, be necessary.
So the main poster says 'It's unreasonable to expect to pay only $7 per album today, when that's what it cost 25 years ago and there's been inflation.'
And I say, 'Ah, but you're not getting everything you paid for back then... no album cover, no distribution costs, no actual tangible item, and so forth. So $7 wouldn't be an unreasonable price for them to ask.'
And you say 'You're paying $50 per month to your cable company!'
If you used a bit of context, and thought for 4 seconds, you would realize that my argument was that the $7 for an album DOESN'T INCLUDE distribution, so they don't have to charge as much in that price. I.e. 'when you're paying them $7 you're not paying them for distribution'. But no, leap first, foot in mouth and jaws firmly closed.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Phish has recently started selling their recordings online. They are the live show soundboard recordings. Very high quality, and you can download in SHN or MP3.
the price is around $10-15 depending on which show you get and how many songs the download has in it. They average about 2-4 CD's per download set after it is decompressed from SHN and burned to audio CD.
Apparently, they plan on releasing previous shows and all future shows in this format. It's a nice change from the $25 each for the live albums they had put out previously.
Maybe some day, other bands will follow suit.
For those of you who just want one song, and are willing to pay MORE than it would cost at the CD store just so you only pay for one song, you should probably start listening to better music that isn't on the top 40. top 40 is just a measurement of how much the CD stores were force fed that particular album by the record label, it isn't a measurement of quality or popularity by any means.
If this new service has all the songs from all the labels, full length and in a reasonable format for both lossy and non-lossy compression (read: not encyrpted for DRM), it might be a decent thing. But at 99 cents a song, only lossy downloads, and probably not many artists signed up for it, add the fact that it will say DMCA and DRM all over the package, and I doubt this service will do any good.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
The problem is that imperfect selection. People don't want mom and pop corner stores access to music, they want an online Walmart where everything ever made is in the catalog. You don't even get that with Kazaa, and if someone in the music industry would get off their ass and stop bitching about people ripping them off and consolidate their catalogs for cheap they might even access to everything themselves right back into control of the market. The only drawback is that I shudder to think of what the advertising would be like on a site with that many mouth's to feed.
I'm not slamming Macs, just pointing out that creating a service that deliberatley excludes 97% of computer users doesn't seem like a smart move. Looks like Apple is more interested in selling hardware (big surprise), than revolutionizing the music business. Yeah, they might open it up to everyone later on, but why not just do it right off the bat? Hell, they might do a lot of things, but I'm just going off what's in the post. Pardon me for not being psychic. Of course, what do I know? Apple has never made a mistake before, which is why their market share continues to expand.....doesn't it?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Apple already previewed their upcoming service in a commercial a long time ago. There's nothing to download. Using the iTunes interface, you schedule live acts (Smashmouth, Lil' Kim, and George Clinton were part of the beta stage testing) to play a private show in your own auditorium. You get to arrange the order of the acts and ask request of each. Or something like that...
"Form should follow function...unless it's just plain ugly."
The two radio tracks have to exist to promote the album. The rest are sufficient, the label hopes, to make consumer feel the money was well spent. This is not new. It has been the way some artists have made albums for at least 20 years. When I find an artist that uses this tactic, I do not buy any more albums. There are enough artists out there that care about their product, and are deserving of my support, that I do not need to support those artists that don't. I have no problem paying $10-15 dollars for a well made music. I have paid multiples of that for well made sets, mostly classical music.
So, your scenario may come to pass, and will just exacerbate and already bad situation. Or, perhaps, artist will realize that half an album is not good enough and try to figure out how to meet market demand. Perhaps this means that they can't put out an album a year. Perhaps that means that they have to go back to playing small clubs. I don't know.
Also, as some people hare pointed out, sometimes an album tanks because the artist is trying to do something too new; though the quality is there, the market is not. My response to that is that if you are going to produce a mass market album, much like if you wish produce mass market food, you can't do anything too wild. My hope is that music services such as this can create a market for such wild music, in the same way that local clubs and festivals do.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Until they get the sound quality up to par with my vinyl collection, I ain't messin with this mp3 jibba-jabba. It's about fidelity people!
Nothing from nowhere I'm no one at all
That depends. But CDs don't have a fixed number of songs. They do however have a relatively fixed price (new releases cost the same; so do older ones). To tell you the truth I don't really look at the price tag when shopping for music. I have a general feeling, what I am going to pay but I am definitely not a price conscious shopper. Anyway--I just found a receipt for CDs I bought recently. I guess that the prices vary from country to country. Here is what I paid in Austria (currency: Euro)
Johnny Cash--American IV: The Man Comes Around. EUR17.99, 15 Tracks, ~EUR1.2/Track
Turner--A Pack Of Lies. EUR16.99, 13 Tracks, ~EUR1.3/Track
The Hives--Barely Legal. EUR15.99, 14 Tracks ~EUR1.14/Track
Terranova--Hitchhiking Nonstop With No Particular Destination. EUR15.99, 12 Tracks ~EUR1.3/Track
?1 is pretty close to equal $1, but stuff like taxes makes a one to one comparison pretty difficult. If $1 per track is really cheaper than what I pay now then I'm all for it. Some albums may have up to 30 tracks though, while others may have eight or less. If the number of tracks would influence the price of the album then a lot of people would be inclined to produce even more filler material than they might do now.
If the billing is handled the same way as it is with .Mac then I would probably end up paying the same as people in the US (FYI: $99.95 translated to EUR96.20 on that). If it is the same as the Apple store then I would end up paying a lot more ($29.99 vs EUR42).
Offtopic: Does anyone know how to get the euro-symbol to work from a mac in slashdot? If I write it in here it gets changed to a question mark. € doesn't work.
Hank! White!
Dude, you can live off lawn grass and rain water for free if you like, and yet, for some odd reason, you're not doing it. Grass is largely cellulose, which isn't digestible. Rainwater isn't a good idea either, ever heard of acid rain? Then of course you'd be vitamin deficient as well. Any further questions?
-insert a witty something-
Quite simple, really...a quarter is a token price; you can find one on the floor. "Hey whoa! A quarter! I can legalize another song!" Now that I think about it, that might be a great way to get people to legalize their collections. Honestly though, that's dirt cheap. Arcade games don't even cost 25 cents anymore...I pay 50 cents to play Dance Dance Revolution and listen to a 1:30 cut of a song once, even! =)
-insert a witty something-
This could lead to Artists being pressured to shorten the length of their songs. The song meat by moe. is 45 minutes long. Would this cost the same as Storm Troopers of Death's Anti-procrastination song which clocks in around a whopping 8 seconds? They should charge by the MB instead.
I remember last year hearing rumors about an iPod that could support Bluetooth and Rendevous. Instead of physically docking your iPod into your car stereo, you just need to have it in your pocket. The car stereo and your iPod auto-discover each other and share tunes!
cpeterso
Bascially this sounds like Apple taking over more of the music market. They are going todo it at a cost, but you will have it in better-than-mp3-quality. One thing I would like to see is the lyrics also being bundled with the song somehow, or every song having a GUID that will let you easily get the lyrics. And previewing the songs would also be a big must have. Maybe a search for songs by lyrics too? I find myself typing: "Lyrics la la la la" into google looking for song names, so adding lyrics search would also help out. I am getting my Powerbook G4 somtime this week, so I am very excited to see this.
Who in hell wants to pay a buck a pop for compressed/lossy audio? I don't get it.
The method of distribution has a huge effect on the music itself. The reason pop songs are usually only a few minutes is because of the original recording/playback materials were limited to short periods of time - 2 1/2 minutes, originally. Eventually, songs which were traditionally ten, twenty or more minutes long were displaced with much shorter versions or new songs and the songs generally became less localized culturally. The result of distributing music on a song by song basis are not clear, but if it does indeed replace albums as the next major method of distribution, there *will* be ramifications on the music itself and on culture.
Richie Hawtin - DE9: Closer to the Edit - 31 tracks, $18 -- ~58 cents/track ;-)
Of course, that's a very different kind of CD. So, let's take another example... (/me pulls a CD off the top of his stack)
Sander Kleinenberg - NuBreed 004. 24 tracks, $21 -- 88 cents/track
Of course, what we really should be measuring is $ / time, but that would make rock music look even worse, as the usual tendancy is to only fill a disc to 50 or so minutes and call it quits. In the land of electronic music that's called an EP Single, not an LP!
$1 per song is too much. (i think most of us agree on that). i'm willing to pay, maybe $0.25 to $0.75 per song if i'm downloading it and it's not CD quality, plus i'm not getting any liner notes or anything.
Full albums should be discounted (e.g. emusic used to do $1 per song, but $8 to $10 per album.) i.e. a whole album, downloaded, should cost less than buying a CD in a store, i.e. $12 or less.
a lot of people say 'i'm paying $15-20 for a CD with only 2 or 3 good songs on it'. the songs they play on the radio. the way radio works, you only get to hear those few songs from an album, and i've found in many cases, the songs they don't play are often better. most bands dont just try to write 2 hit songs, and 10 filler songs (unless they are trying to cash in or whatever, in which case they usually suck anyway).
if i had access to any song from any major label, for about $0.50 per song or $10 per album, even if i could only listen to it on my mac and my iPod (which is what i do for the most part anyway), i'd be very very happy.
That's DRM folks!
Post
If you think about it, it's sort of an obvious idea, after all...
Hard to imagine that they won't eventually do it in some form.
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
I program all day...haven't even burned a CD yet, don't need to...but .49/track for this month + $10/month, so get on it!
Google for a coupon...they're out there...
Of all the online music providers, this should be a greater success.
:)
My reasons for being reluctant for this technology to become commonplace mainly center around the specifications for the audio file's quality, and its ability to be backed up. All of the current online providers only offer MP3, WMA (shudder) and Real, none of which offer anywhere near acceptable listening quality for me to pay for. (any of these formats is acceptable for preview purposes)
In this respect, using AAC sounds like a great idea, and although AAC files can be DRM-enabled, Apple has required that every song have the ability to be burnt to CD (which effectively eliminates the DRM).
A dollar a song is still somewhat expensive, but again, as with everything Apple, you pay for quality. Hopefully the catalog selection is decent, otherwise it is doomed to fail under the weight of the crap pop that's out there now.. Out of print stuff would be ideal
Liner notes (perhaps in PDF) will hopefully be offered as well.
It's a bold move by Apple, one that will be interesting to follow.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=45870&cid=4739 008
Why did the link get stripped ?
-- My Weblog.
But at least the artists get something (.02 is greater than zero).
The way I figure it, the artists need to fight in order to get more, but how can they fight without money? Of course, how can they fight when you are giving the people they would be fighting against the lions share of the money... my only counter to that is that the artists must band togther and rely on efficiency of money spent.
But in the end, I want to say that I like a certain artist and give them something. I don't feel comfortable stealing the music if I really like a certain artist (more than one song), even if most of the money is going to slimeballs.
There again we see the difference - are people more like you or me? It's the same question again.
What people who care need to do is figure out how to take money away from people like RIAA without taking money away from the artists, like a twisted game of Operation. That way you could buy a song for $1, give the artist $0.02, but take away $1.02 from the RIAA.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, the customer does pay for distribution, but only for half of it. The online record store pays for the other half.
That said, I wouldn't buy a whole album through this service. I would buy the songs that have the most Utility to me. If an album with three good songs is just barely worth $12, a compilation album with 12 good songs is worth well over the $22 ($12 for CD plus $10 for this album's share of the marginal cost of home broadband vs. dial-up).
I hope I thought more clearly this time.
Will I retire or break 10K?
As a record label exec. this is the best deal in town. Think from their perspective how much they pay for one CD to make it to the shelf. The labels have a supply chain to distribute their CDs or they sell off their CDs to distributers, then to CD stores who have to sit in inventory for the marketing department to bring in people to sell the CDs. This new system puts the only distribution cost into a Datacenter and maybe a web development set-up costs.
- Kill Yourself, spare us all! -
--In this life, or the next, I will have my vengeance.
Less of it or even its unlikely extinction would certainly displease fans of crap, as well as its bankrollers. But that is a problem for those parties (negotiable very simply through alteration of the outmoded profit model). It's neither a social problem nor a musical one.
While I certainly appreciate the flexibility here, I can't help but wonder if this will lead to some bad music listening habits. An album is a complete artistic whole. Even if you don't like particular songs, they can often be integral to the body of the work. Further, particular songs can easily grow on you as you listen to the complete album a few times. When I bought the latest Tori Amos CD (Scarlet's Walk) I didn't really like a couple of the songs. But I've listened to the CD more than a dozen times now, and I must say I now like many of the ones I didn't the first time through.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I think that all the figuring out that needs to be done is to support local artists instead of the ones on the radio.
I know it some people might see this as EVIL, but if I could get that kind of service along with all the other .Mac stuff. That might push me over the edge and get that .Mac account. I know that the last I wanted to create a CD for my son of his favorite songs I had a hard time finding any service that would sell me just the songs. I ended up buy a few CD for just one song here and one song there. And recording a few off the raido and moving them to my iBook to burn the CD. It was non-trivial task.
Well my $0.02
-S
It is said that a child learns wisdom from the parent,
but the truly wise parent learns joy from the child
Wow, you asked one person if he would be willing to pay, and he said "No"? Based on this broad sampling you have concluded that nobody will pay for recorded music. Recordings are just advertising? That's a good one. You sir are an idiot.
This is a great point. However, as long as some sort of "album" compilation still exists, this could be an impetus for the making of better albums as well. (I sure hope albums remain. I love listening to old Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd albums that were written as ALBUMS, not as a collection of random songs)
:)
If an album sucks, bands will be lucky to get $1-$2 dollars per album, depending on how many "hits" are on it. If an album is good, more people will buy the whole thing. If bands have to sell a certain number of full albums to make a profit, they might be more likely to try to make a good album, as apposed to a few good songs which will make them 1/5 as much money or less.
The experimentation/song quality effect is already in existence with the current market the way it is. Record companies would rather have bands create duplicates of their previous albums than experiment. However, the public will only put up with so many crappy duplicates. Most people learn to trust a band and are willing to pay for songs that they have never heard (because the "fillers" aren't played on the radio). If a band produces a few "so-so" albums, people will be unlikely to buy their latest album without hearing it, but if their previous albums were full of good songs, people will buy their latest album without thinking about it, thus creating opportunity for good bands to experiement.
Of course all this depends on the ratio of people who are into the bands/groups they like to the the poeople who only want to hear the few songs that are currently being played every hour on the local Top 40 station. Hopefully, the latter is limited to junior high students.
Give me a break on the audiophile stuff. First, 256kbps has been judged identical to CD in double-blind testing with audiophiles. Since you're a pro, I'm sure you've read the sites. Plus 192 is perfectly fine for the iPod or any device where you're not sitting in a room with perfect acoustics.
256k is ass. It's right on the line marked "ass" as a matter of fact, where "ass" is defined as "when used as background music while drunk, not so obviously artifact-ridden as to cause physical pain."
Anyone who says 256k is perfect has a tin ear, ulterior motives, or both, period.
192k is absurdly stinky ass. It's like fortified wine for the ears. Mentioning 192k without laughing disqualifies the speaker from commenting on audio reproduction, no pun intended.
But how are you going to know which songs to buy, if you have to pay $1 per song to sample it?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
This may mean that Apple is the best suited to kick off a new kind of record lable. Unlike regular models, Apple is restricted from ripping off artists publishing rights (and money), yet are still able to extract a fair profit by hosting direct sales of the artists material to a savy audience.
Of course, for this to work, Apple would have to start dealing with the artists and their management directly, bypassing the dinosaur labels. The artists would be stuck with funding their own productions, but could stand to share a greater amount of profit than the old way. And, with the amazing advances and sheer amount of audio gear produced in the last decade alone, there are more than enough tools out there to produce quality music very cheaply if necessary.
a valiant attempt...
You are correct about the audible.com encrypted downloads.
.aa file. A dialogue popped up, I provided my audible.com username and password, and the files were decrypted and available to iTunes.
.tar file of the .aa files.
.aa files and imported them into the iTunes on my laptop. Same dialog, same username and password. No network connection.
I created an audible.com account, supplying a username and password. Then I bought the three volumes of "Learn Japanese in Your Car," (I guess "Learn Japanese on the Plane" just doesn't sound as catchy...) downloading the @47MB files in MP3 format, which were actually stored locally as "x_mp332.aa" files, where "x" was the selection name.
From within iTunes, I selected "File->Import..." and selected the
Next, I activated the Software Base Station option on my tower, brought my TiBook laptop within range, did "arp -a" to find the IP address of the Tower, and scp'd over a
Later, with the Software Base Station disabled, I untarred the
The only complaint that I have about the audible.com content is that it doesn't fit nicely into the "artist/album" views for sorting data. I found it useful to make a new playlist for the audible content, so that I could find it again without too much searching.
But it's a great show. I'm gonna miss it.
I just don't happen to believe that there's any justification for $1/song. So far nobody's given me any reason to believe differently. *shrug*
MP3s have ID3 tags.
Do AAC files have their own little chunk of code dedicated to name and track information?
I have started to peruse sites like CDbaby.com and try to buy things from smaller artists... I also like buying band promotional stuff.
But some of the bands I like are already signed, and if I stop buying CD's altogether the drop in sales (if everyone acted that way) could be taken to mean the band should be shelved, and then I won't hear anything from them until they can fight thier way out of the system!! That holds true no matter how many t-shirts I buy.
That's actually another problem, I have too many t-shirts already... really what I want is to pay a band for thier music, but it's also inefficient to wait for a band to play near me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm digging the new single from this Trapt band (single: Headstrong) so I thought I'd check out their website. You can buy their whole album for only for $7.99, and they will mail you liner notes and an autographed poster! 128 or 192 Kbit MP3, obviously no DRM, free to burn, etc. Intriguing eh? I am considering buying it just to support the concept.
Random is the New Order.
Steve has pretty good taste in music - I think we'll see his touch on the opening set at least...
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
after a collision of two people....
"you got fidelity in my convenience!"
"no! you got convenience in my fidelity!!"
*both hold up iPods to the camera*
*queue music* (two great tastes that taste great to-get-her!! Apple's iPod music cup!!)
(sorry - go ahead - mod me down)
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Audiogalaxy.com recently -re-launched their a new Rhapsody service which does exactly this: You can burn tracks for a buck each.
The best bit though is that for a subscription of $10 a month you can stream ANYTHING off their site (from a huge collection) as much as you like. If you're on the net all the time then this is great as there's no need to download/burn most stuff.
And the artists gets paid their royalties. it's a win-win situation.
Windows-only client at this stage though.
Now that I have seen an alternative, I am not so interested in what the content providers provide. I like mixing and sharing with my friends. I like listening to songs from the latest concerts (downloaded) mixed with originals (purchased). I like to mix songs sung by friends with songs by megastars. I want new age on the same album as celtic.
I am happy to pay but I would be very unhappy going back to only official releases.
What is the definition of a song. My indian classical cd has 3 long tracks about 20 minutes each. So I could get the whole cd for $3?
If the artists you're listening to can only make one or two good songs, then they suck.
You know, Monet did a whole series of paintings of water lilies, but I only really like one or two of them. Guess Monet must have really sucked as a painter.
Yeah. Either that, or... your reasoning is completely and utterly screwed up. One of those two. I'm not quite sure which.
I write in my journal
Dude, I made up this story back in December (yes, it was all a big lie) and I didn't say ninety-nine cents. I said a dollar per song. I'm not sure who changed it from a dollar to ninety-nine cents, but it certainly wasn't me.
I want to set my niece up with a kazaa account so she can download music. Even with the passwords/filters provided by KaZaA. (diet, Lite, whatever) There are still plenty of songs that come up that I think her parents wouldn't want her downloading.
Let me get this straight. You're concerned about the fact that some songs have bad words in them or whatever, but the whole "you are breaking the law by doing this" thing doesn't bother you?
Listen, I'm all for keeping kids away from content that their parents deem unacceptable, but get a sense of perspective, man! Downloading copyrighted music is against the law!
I write in my journal
You must be talking about Reel to Reel and not Compact Cassettes. Tape speeds below 7 IPS just didn't make it. Checked the flatness and frequency of a good 1-7/8 IPS cassette lately? No deep bass and not much above 10K.
Now a 1/2 inch 15 IPS deck does a great job.
The truth shall set you free!
iTunes could do so much more!!
How about including an iTunes Plug-In that shows videos of the songs as the same time you're playing it? Or photos of the band with the slow Ken Burns zoom effect? Customized techno visual effects?
Why is fun to buy CDs, or especially vinyl? The album art. The visual feeling of the band to go with the music. Let's bring this concept to the 21st century.
Sure, it makes sense to be able to get a couple of specific songs from an album if that's what you want. $.99 for this seems reasonable.
But how about adding value to the album as a whole and make it worth $14.
Just a thought.
The term "outside the box" is squarely within the box at this point.
This would be great in the UK given the current exchange rate! CDs over here are still very expensive.
Typical 12 track CD here is on average £13, but at $1 a song this would equate to less than £8 for a CD.
I would be downloading like crazy!
~~~~~~~~~ "I must create my own system, or be enslav'd by another man's." William Blake, Jerusalem.
Sigh. Even Apple seems not to notice that nobody except RIAA wants DRM. Furthermore it's way too expensive, buying music online has to be much cheaper than CDs to compensate the disadvantages.
Kosi
NT
Your sarcasm only serves to highlight your short-sightedness even more. If corporations screwed their customers overnight, they'd go out of business. Part of the trick is to do it day by day.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
"or you could pay 8.3 cents for me to email you an individual page of text, what would you do?"
You mean radio stations have only been playing what amount to isolated pages of a book?
Your analogy is silly, because each song can stand on its own as a creative work in a way that a page from a book cannot.
A better analogy is if the book were an anthology of short stories, and you could purchase individual short stories. In this case, I would at times enjoy buying individual short stories, either because I particularly like them, or because I want to create my own custom anthology. (mix/burn)
Kevin Fox
"Anyway, as a final comment to this nonsense i did go ahead and waste some time trying to find a reference (though much like your president you are going to dismiss it)"
Jesus. You must be really unpleasant to be around.
Ditto
I'm not about to dismiss anything; I'm going to debunk. There's a difference.
Semantically, but what you do is dismiss. First there is your nonsense that only the San Francisco march is somehow relevant, which - to put it bluntly is crap. The other big demonstrations around the world were also covered from the sky. Second, is the nonsense about diving it by 4 because you feel more comfortable by trying to dismiss the large numbers.
As I said before, I really don't mind if you want to bash my country.
And as I said before I don't, but your jingoism seems to blind you to certain facts - or perhaps you have trouble reading.
But I think it would be a good idea on your part if you were to understand just the most basic of facts before doing so.
Like so many, you seem to think that if one doesn't agree with you its because one doesn't understand something. Those people are usually hopeless.
But I think it would be a good idea on your part if you were to understand just the most basic of facts before doing so.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This will be great.
/. crowd is one of the major proponents of on-line distribution-
Here's something to keep in mind. Which labels will Apple be able to distribute using this service?
Music is distributed on a label basis, not an artist basis, (at least for "signed" artists), so if Virgin doesn't sign on to join the service, you can't download willy nilly from the Virgin catalog (which mostly sucks ass anyway it seems).
You may be able to get a couple tracks from their current flavor of the week, but not something that was done a couple years ago probably.
But, never mind that, here's a more important question, given that the
"When was the last time you actually bought music from an on-line service such as mp3.com?"
And yes, you can buy "signed artist" music, and not just indie music from some of these existing services.
Just once, I'd like it if someone called me "Sir".
Without adding, "You're creating a scene."
What about those long instrumental pieces? And these tracks that are linked together and make a whole? Will there be different price structures? I hope not, I find that most of the time the longest tracks are the best... Hmmm, Tubular Bells for 99 cents...
First there is your nonsense that only the San Francisco march is somehow relevant, which - to put it bluntly is crap.
Hoo boy. Did you read? The San Francisco protest is the only one for which we have even remotely reliable attendence numbers. If you know of another, then say so. Don't just say, "The other big demonstrations around the world were also covered from the sky" if it isn't true.
Just blatantly making stuff up is not a good way to win an argument.
Second, is the nonsense about diving it by 4 because you feel more comfortable by trying to dismiss the large numbers.
The San Francisco protest was estimated by both organizers and police as having about 250,000 attendees. The actual number was 65,000, with a 10% margin of error. That means the estimates were off by a factor of four. I'm not dividing by four because I feel like it. I'm dividing by four because I'm trying to get an approximation that is even remotely close to the truth.
But truth evidently isn't a big deal for you, huh?
I write in my journal
Hoo boy. Did you read? The San Francisco protest is the only one for which we have even remotely reliable attendence numbers.
So you keep saying since you need to maintain that fallacy to back up your illusion that only a few people were in the streets.. But its not true. The police monitored the demonstrations in all the Western cities.
Don't just say, "The other big demonstrations around the world were also covered from the sky" if it isn't true.
It is true, it was show on TV for instance. Of course I wouldn't be suprised if they don't show that over there - disrespectful to the president an all.
Just blatantly making stuff up is not a good way to win an argument.
Oh, hello Kettle.
The San Francisco protest was estimated by both organizers and police as having about 250,000 attendees. The actual number was 65,000, with a 10% margin of error.
Estimated before or after? Before it was irrelevant, if its afterwards it just goes to show that the San Francisco police are pretty nearsighted. But then how did they arrive at the 65,000 number? Did they tell everybody raise their hands and be counted?
If you have any kind of source for this by all means disclosed it - we'll see if its credible or more spindoctoring.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Jesus. I understand that English is not your native language. I understand that we are having a communication problem. I will try one more time to make this as clear as I can.
The police said there were about 200,000 people at the San Francisco protest. They were wrong. There were about 65,000. We know this because of aerial photographs.
We do not have aerial photographs of other protests. We have only police estimates. Because the San Francisco estimate was off by a factor of four, we divide the other estimates by four, too. This is so we can get numbers that are closer to reality.
Estimated before or after?
After.
if its afterwards it just goes to show that the San Francisco police are pretty nearsighted
There were two estimates. The estimates were independent. One came from police. One came from organizers. Both estimates were initially around 250,000, and were later revised down to 200,000. Both estimates, which were completely independent, were wrong.
But then how did they arrive at the 65,000 number? Did they tell everybody raise their hands and be counted?
Basically, yes. Try this article for a good overview of how the survey was conducted. This provides more detail.
I write in my journal
Bah, I knew that line would get misinterpreted. I wasn't trying to imply that an artist objectively sucks if you only like a few of their songs.
What I meant was that if you only like one or two of an artists' songs, it doesn't behoove you to buy the album. Or, if you discovered this only after you bought the album, it should be a hint not to buy the next.
What I'm really saying is that I'm sick of people bitching about being "forced to buy" albums that they claim to know are mostly crap. If you bought the last four Foobar records and didn't like them very much, it should be a pretty clear sign that you aren't a big Foobar fan and shouldn't buy the fifth.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Jesus. I understand that English is not your native language. I understand that we are having a communication problem. I will try one more time to make this as clear as I can.
And I understand that you are just trying to be insulting.
The police said there were about 200,000 people at the San Francisco protest. They were wrong. There were about 65,000. We know this because of aerial photographs.
We don't KNOW this, they surmise this based on some examination of Arial photographs.
We do not have aerial photographs of other protests. We have only police estimates.
As I told you earlier the all the TV stations were airborn with television cameras, and I seem to recall the newspapers having Arial photographs. But either way, just because the SF police were bad at making an estimate doesn't mean everyone else was. You choose to believe so because it helps to maintain the illusion of whatever it is you believe.
Try this article for a good overview of how the survey was conducted.
Somewhat intersting. Somewhat interesting. Of course if you want to play with numbers there is the generally held statistical belief that for every person showing up, there are 10 who would have liked to attend but were unable because of various reasons (work etc).
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
We don?t KNOW this, they surmise this based on some examination of Arial photographs.
Um. We're not talking about vacation snapshots here. These are detailed aerial surveys. They are quite accurate on their own; compared to on-the-ground estimates, they are incredibly accurate.
But either way, just because the SF police were bad at making an estimate doesn't mean everyone else was. You choose to believe so because it helps to maintain the illusion of whatever it is you believe.
I believe so because there's no evidence to the contrary. All the evidence we have says that on-the-ground estimates of crowd size are absurdly inaccurate. This one instance-- again, the only one we have so far-- indicates that the on-the-ground estimates were four times the actual attendance. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it's reasonable to act on the assumption that other estimates were similarly flawed.
If you want me to believe any of the other attendance numbers, you're going to have to produce evidence of them that's on the same level as aerial surveys. On-the-ground estimates, adjusted based on the San Francisco data, yield a total worldwide attendance of less than one million; figuring in the margin of error, the total may have been slightly over one million. It is definitely not "millions."
Of course if you want to play with numbers there is the generally held statistical belief that for every person showing up, there are 10 who would have liked to attend but were unable because of various reasons (work etc).
You're going to have to produce evidence of such a "generally held statistical belief." I believe that you are making it up.
The point, of course, is that for the very reasons that we're having this conversation, mass protests about war or any other subject don't mean a damn thing.
I write in my journal
And I'll agree with you about the online record store paying half for distribution, although I would contend that, even assuming equal volume, that's going to be significantly cheaper than running CDs to every town in America.
As for the album's share of the marginal cost of home broadband vs. dialup, that MAY be accurate for you, but you're in a pretty tiny minority around here where that is concerned... it seems to me that very few people on Slashdot would even try to live without broadband if they had any choice in the matter.
And at that point, the album's share becomes either very small (if you look at it from a mechanical bandwidth point of view) or, more properly, $0, since you've got broadband anyway, and if you're like me the fact that you're downloading something in the background doesn't slow you noticably.
Also, bear in mind that back when I had a modem connection, I used to download some pretty huge things. As long as my connection was fairly reliable (it usually was), I didn't mind starting the download, going to bed, getting up in the morning and going to work, and then coming home that next evening and making sure everything was correctly set up. Of course, that does require either that you don't do it very often or that you have an actual unlimited dialup, but I probably won't be tempted to download more than one album's-worth of songs per month, so it wouldn't be a big problem for me.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
And at that point, the album's share becomes either very small (if you look at it from a mechanical bandwidth point of view)
Not if you live in an area where the monopoly or duopoly home broadband provider imposes a 3 GB monthly limit on transfer, making the service roughly equivalent to a 14.4 modem burstable to half a T1, and charges $$ per gigabyte or fraction thereof over the limit. Even after noiseless data reduction, an album usually won't get below 400 MB. However, most caps in the United States and the United Kingdom are 10 GB/mo or higher.
I didn't mind starting the download, going to bed, getting up in the morning and going to work, and then coming home that next evening
And having your significant other unable to make or receive telephone calls.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sure, that's Apples business model. They can keep doing it as long as they want to.
But, that doesn't mean that we (consumers, potential customers) can't ask for them to modify their business model. I think that they would make money (from me, personally, and from many others) if they offered this service to Windows users before another service comes in and consumes the market.
OS X seems decent. But if I wanted *nix with a pretty GUI, I'd probably use Xandros instead.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Bittorrent works perfectly under OSX
Smooches,
Chesh
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.