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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."
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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!!!
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?
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.
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."
sure, for 12 bucks you get media, a liner, 2 good tracks and 10 you didn't want anyway.
so for my 12 bucks (and providing my own media at $0.35, liner if i want it), i get the equivalent of your buying 5-6 discs.
hmmm. $12 vs. $60 doesn't sound so bad, does it?
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.
I don't understand how this is different from rhapsody from http://www.listen.com Listen.com has a plan where you pay $9.95/month, then you can preview as many as you like. You can also download and burn as many as you like for an additional 49 cents per track. I've seen someone use it, and it works really well. it also has links for other artists that are similar, and some history and info on each artist. It's not perfect selection, but pretty darned good, and it's legal AFAIK.
Maybe you should stop buying shitty music.
I can't recall the last disc I bought that had more than a single song on it that I didn't like.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
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.
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.
...
Is that because you might actually pay for something that is otherwise available for free if the quality of that product is offered at a price you consider worth spending on it? Gasp
"Old man yells at systemd"
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.
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.
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?
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
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...
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
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.
Right... $.99 a song, but how many CD's are filled with good song's? Isn't that one of /.'s biggest complaints about the music industry? Selling out and putting out a crappy CD with 1-2 good songs on it?
:(
Honestly, how many bands put out good CD's anymore? All I can think of is Godsmack, Linkin Park, and Bad Religion. Even on those Godsmack/LP CD's, there's 3-5 songs I don't particularly like.
It's not a bad idea IMO. Although I would prefer $.50 a song, but Apple's always overpriced
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.
-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?
Do you like every song on the CD? Every song? If so, then true, you won't benefit from this service. But if you only bought it for 1-2 songs, then you've just saved $8. And can you seriously include the cost of DSL/Cable in there? Would you not have the high-speed connection otherwise?
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
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.
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?
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
The Yahoo! article specifically mentions that the new service will use AAC, which will be great. If you have QuickTime Pro, you absolutely have to create a 128K AAC file; it is reference quality, and even a 64-bit file sounds much better than a 160K MP3 or a 128K OGG. As for DRM, remember that Apple doesn't oppose DRM, they only require that DRM not interfere or inconvenience the user's fair use rights. Thus, Audible's DRM was approved because it lets you transfer your Audible files to any number of Macs that you own, transfer them to your iPod, and transfer them onto CD. I would expect this service to use a very similar technology
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
I should get into progressive rock again...one of DJ Venom's new mix CDs has 99 tracks on it. Ugh $98.01? Then again, you have to wonder what kind of music this service will offer...if they let Apple's marketing guys decide on it then it's sure to be stuff niether of us would want.
As for doomed to failure, plenty of people (suprisingly) use
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
The question is, will the content mafia actually go for it? Many have already pointed out that the available info is suspiciously vague and inconsistent. (e.g., some stories are reporting "unlimited downloads for $10 mo. subscription, plus 99c per song if you want a burnable copy," other stories are just straight 99c per song, etc.) I doubt that in the end, Apple will be able to bring the content mafia around to the key user-friendliness points that are necessary to wean music lovers from P2P - most important among them, the ability to burn CDs.
So I'll add mine to the growing chorus of predictions: Yes, if Apple actually does this, it will be quite popular. But it will never actually happen, because the content mafia will be unable to shake their ingrained stomp-on-the-customer mindset. At the last minute, they'll all gang together and insist on some kind of booby-trapped format that will make the downloaded music useless, and Apple will go back to chanting "rip, mix, burn" to the P2P masses. Summary - this will be yet another "greatest opportunity an obsolete, copyright-abusing, customer-despising industry ever missed."
(and just for context, I own over 2,700 CDs, have owned and sold many more over the years, paid for them all, and at present have ripped about 3,000 high-quality MP3s onto my home server for use through portables and stereo. I don't share those files P2P, and have no inherent inclination to do so. But my new policy is - every time I buy a CD that turns out to be booby-trapped (turns out I have about 5 of them), I'll be cracking the encryption where possible and ripping the whole thing into a P2P share directory, plus 5 other CDs from that same label. When the content mafia started selling booby-trapped CDs that won't work on computers, and lobbying Washington to force more booby-traps into my computer, they made an enemy of one of their best customers. I hope they go down in flames, and artists start selling directly to the public. Maybe Apple can help facilitate that, after it realizes the content mafia is just dangling a fake carrot.)
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
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...
You can instead find it on a search engine, click on the "Buy now!" button, and within seconds (or hours, if you're on a 56k connection), you'll have it to listen to. You didn't even have to leave the house.
Instant gratification. No, it's not always going to be what you want, but you'll want it often enough for this to work.
FWIW I occasionally nip down to Borders and browse the CDs they have, and see the occasional bargain and grab it, but I do most of my shopping via Amazon. If someone had said to me five years ago that I'd be doing that, I'd have laughed at them. "Why would I go to a website, order a book, pay more when you take into account shipping than if I'd gone to a bookshop, then wait two weeks to actually get it, when I can just walk into a local bookshop, browse, and get what I want." I guess it's kind of opposite to what I describe above, in that the instant gratification aspect is reversed, but the truth is both are useful to me, and it's ludicrous to suggest that one makes the other irrelevent. You appear to be implying that because you can occasionally find music you like at a second hand store that you could not possibly find a service that provides music to you on demand useful. I respectfully suggest you're wrong.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
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.
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.
Who in hell wants to pay a buck a pop for compressed/lossy audio? I don't get it.