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iTunes Music Store sells 275,000 Tracks in 18 Hours
physicsnerd writes "According to this article on Billboard.com, Apple's iTunes Music store sold 275,000 tracks in its first 18 hours of operation. The Register.com estimates that this netted Apple just under $100,000! Not too bad for a 99 cents store."
Impressive considering the connection problems people were having. Remains to be seen what usage will be after the hype settles down.
This is a good thing but I have a feeling that the numbers in 60 or 90 days will have a lot more to say about how viable this is.
They need to sort out international licensing too, This could be huge in the UK where albums frequently cost as much in pounds as they do in dollars here in the US.
Windows users (i.e. 95 %) continue to download stuff from kazaa.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Can't wait for no DRM? That is like saying you can't wait until Best Buy gets rid of those pesky cashiers. Why don't they just trust me to leave an appropriate amount of money for the goods that I walk out of the store with?? They are treating me like a criminal. Wah.
Something I really appreciate about this move from Apple is that they are actually offering the only decent point of comparison with GNUArt :
Besides p2p which is illicit, they are indeed selling professional stuff whereas GNUArtists are sharing their own amateurish but "Open-sourced" stuff ; once people will realize they have to pay 7425$ to fill their new iPod, they'll also want to visit Free galleries such as ours.
So, we can only benefit from this "competition".
Thanks, Herr Jobs !
Trolling using another account since 2005.
This should send (yet another) wake up call to the music industry. Online music trading is so pervasive only because it beats the hell out of paying $18US for a music cd. This is merely a step in the right direction - this is by no means perfect or even viable long term. I don't give this good chances over time - a pioneer is the guy (or gal) laying in the field with an arrow in their back. But, it's a start, and maybe it'll whack some of the riaa/mpaa execs with a cluebat.
Now all that needs to happen is for Apple to go out and get a massive catalog of Indy music they can represent, give profits to the artists and kill the big record labels.
this is funny AND true. ever stepped into the huge conglomerate music stores of late? same music they were selling last year, just with different band names, and song titles......
The state of music today would certainly allow Indy to take over, just because of creativity alone. Apple would be wise to catalog Indy music. (and those profits of 100,000 would be ten fold.)
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
I was very envious today when my friend with his ibook was able to log into iTunes and download 15 songs in minutes. Since it stores you credit card, it is perhaps TOO easy to download songs (Parents giving credit card numbers to kids may find a large bill next month).
I may now have to buy an Apple just to use the service. It's easy to use, has a wide selection, and is everything a music service should be. Only time will tell if they have the pricing right.
I don't know what took the music industry so long.
I started thinking, Why is the price $0.99 versus $1.00? Then I expanded on that and started thinking about how Apple come up with their pricing scheme. What is the optimal pricing? Was $0.99 selected by guess and by golly? What is the right price? Does anyone know how the $0.99 price was actually selected? My guess is that it was a ... guess.
How to Download YouTube Videos
I love macs and all, but what if I want to listen to downloaded music on the equipment I invested in that only supports MP3? AAC wont work in my Aiwa CDC-MP3, will it? NO. Guess I stay with Limewire.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Why so many downloads? I thought Macs had Gnutella clients.
yeah I'm joking
Trolling is a art,
While I don't really like DRM, I can see where the music industry is coming from on the topic, and I suspect that they were the ones behind the whole thing.
What I'd like to see is a per-song DRM, where the artists or labels get to choose whether the song can be freely copied after purchase or not. Perhaps that, coupled with a price change for non-DRM-enforced songs, would push the rest of the industry in the direction we all want it to go. I'm sure the indie crowd would get behind the idea, as well as the brighter label execs and artists.
According to CNet, Apple appears to be looking for a developer to help create iTunes for Windows. Seems like a smart move to me -- the Windows user base is clearly vastly larger than Mac, and Apple will still be getting a slice of online music sales -- plus they give another reason for Windows users to buy an iPod.
I keep hearing great things about iTunes too, in that it's apparantly quite a bit better than most music database software. Personally I'm still looking for a good music db/organizing program for either Linux (preferred) or Windows (thank you samba) - I'm in the process of ripping ~1000 CDs to high bitrate MP3 for my TiVo and am in desperate need for some cataloging and playlist creation tools. From what little I've heard iTunes would fit the bill and do it well... but obviously I still need to find something until then (suggestions welcome).
Once they roll this out for Windows or Linux, I'll have a hard time fighting the impulses. It's only 99 cents, right? Cheap! 15 or 20 tracks later, I'll realize I just dropped $20.
Apple may very well succeed because of the low investment necessary... and because at only 99 cents, the instant gratification may get addictive. Smart move on their part.
For you PC users who haven't seen the store, let me tell you, that place is addictive as crack rock. The default settings are such that you click "buy song" and it starts downloading. With a cable modem, I was able to get an album of 9 Tracks in a few minutes. All without getting my lazy ass up and going to the store.
I expect that within a year, there will be MUG meets where the topic of discussion will be "Music Store Addiction:How I lost my wife and house downloading music".
Just wait till Apple releases iTunes for Windows, so you PC users can join in the fun.
Burn Hollywood Burn
According to Fortune: "The iTunes Music Store will initially offer 200,000 tunes, paying the record companies an average of 65 cents for each track it sells."
Apple gets $.99 for singles, but less for albums (I bought a 20 track album fo $9.99)... and I'm sure that they need to pay the credit card companies some percentage, and then pay Akamai for the servers, and Amazon for the one-click patents... so I doubt they make more that 15 cents per song on average... but that's still a good margin... but more like $40,000 than El Reg's $100,000 estimate
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
...well, almost.
:-)
It might make sense to consider something like a 17" iMac as purely a home-entertainment component. Sure, it's $1800, but you'll probably eventually spend more than that at the iMusic store
Anyone want to bet on how many days go by before someone has reverse-engineered the MaciMusic store protocol and written an app that masquerades as iTunes-on-a-Mac thus allowing Linux and Windows users to purchase music through Apple?
G.
Well, from what I've heard (I can't use the store since I'm stuck with Windows), you can recommend artists. So, go recomend all of your favorite independant bands. Hopefully, Apple will decide to pick some of them up.
If Apple starts selling Indy music, then they can either do it at a lower price, higher profit, or both. Without the record labels in the way, set Apple's cut at $.33, the musicians' cut at another $.33, and that makes for a $.66 song. Pretty good competition for the RIAA, really.
Of course, then they'd have $6.66 albums.
Anyone who has not used iTunes does not understand just how convenient the store is. It's an entry right in your playlist collection (with a different icon). One click on it, and you're at the intro/overview page (or the last page you visited without quitting iTunes). iTunes' built-in search box works on the online catalog in this mode, type something in and it pops right up. Or you can switch to the categorized column-view browse mode (same button to switch any other playlist to browse mode), which is indistinguishable from browsing your local library except for network lag and the Buy button. Find a song you like, and one more click makes it download directly into your library and start playing. It's seamlessly integrated and completely oriented around impulse buying. I'm sure (I *hope*) for most people, one dollar per song is worth the removal of the time and aggravation cost of using P2P (aside from the time spent downloading on my modem, I can find music in the store faster than it would take to find Limewire on my HD and wait for it to gather a server list).
> Can't wait for no DRM? That is like saying you can't wait until Best Buy gets
> rid of those pesky cashiers. Why don't they just trust me to leave an
> appropriate amount of money for the goods that I walk out of the store with??
> They are treating me like a criminal. Wah.
Sad part is, even thou the above was posted by an AC and modded down to -1 flamebait, he's 100% right and not flaming anything at all.
Those moderators should be ashamed.
The music industry doesnt give a shit.
Think about it.
Under the current system, they press and market the CDs. The retail chains sell them. The retail chains pay for the whole infrastructure for shipping and whatnot.
Aside from production and marketing, there is no overhead for the producers.
If the producers had to set up their own 'online retail' outlets, there would be a massive amount of overhead for servers, software, bandwidth and staff. It would cost them more to distribute the music this way.
Third parties would have to create the e-biz infrastructure, shoulder that overhead, and pay the producers their due royalties. This is what Apple did, and there's nothing stopping someone else from doing it except cash and lack of customer base.
The RIAA/MPAA dont give a shit either way, so long as they aren't losing money on the deal.
Windows users (i.e. 95 %) continue to download stuff from kazaa.
Which means that if a client was availible for 100% of the market, perhaps they could have sold 275,000*20 = 5,500,000 tracks in 18 hours. It's math even RIAA monkeys could figure out.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Here in Canada I can't buy squat from the iTunes Music Store, but I have been playing with it since it 'opened for business' - we can preview, but not actually buy anything outside of the U.S.
.Mac users can peddle their wares through the online store. I hope their selection grows quickly (yes there's a lot of stuff missing right now). I hope they increase their bitrate (I can hear the difference between the streamed previews and actual CD's). The DRM is not ideal, but in practice it's not imposing. Windows version is coming soon. ...And... dammit... bring it to Canada! iWant to go shopping!!!
If I was allowed to buy, I probably would have purchased 10-20 songs by now.
Yes I have Acquisition (a really sweet Mac Gnutella client), and I have the usual assortment of piracy^H^H^H^H^H^H file sharing tools for Windows, but in that sea of file searching it's easy to lose one's vision of a really nice way to download music.
For example: I figured I would try to find some old Tears For Fears music. In the search field I just typed "Tears For Fears". In less than 5 seconds I had a track listing of 6 different Tears For Fears albums, including tracks I never knew they had done (did you know they covered Bowie's 'Ashes to Ashes'?)
Let me say this another way to better illustrate just how cool it is: it was EVERY ALBUM TRACK, listed only ONCE. I pick the song and I get it, really fast. With a file sharing app I pick from a list of thousands of different rips of the same songs, all of varying quality. I hit download, and maybe the host is slow. Maybe I get a "swarmed" download that won't be reconstructed properly when it gets here. Maybe it won't even really be the song I think I'm downloading. Maybe I get "remotely queued". Maybe it looked like a good bitrate before I downloaded it, but it turned out to be a crappy rip.
On the Apple service I hit "play" and I'm previewing the music in real time. I hit "download" and I've got the actual song I want, with no glitches.
Seriously - with these advantages, plus the fact that it is actually legal, I can't see why people wouldn't shell out a buck a song.
Like everybody else I hope Apple creates an indy section, maybe even something iDisk-based so that
By covering all copyright fees, Live365 provides a service which allows you to legally webcast.
Harold
This is a big story outside the 'geekosphere'. How do I know this? The other day, my father said 'So, what do you think of this new music thing that Apple is doing?'
!?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Sorry for the harsh subject line, but I find it difficult to believe that a person can make it more than a few years in life without noticing that virtually every consumer product is priced this way.
$9.99, $99.99, $17,995 (for say, a car). We've had this as long as I've been alive, and from looking into older catalogues it's been standard practice in the retail industry since at least the 60's. EVERYONE rounds their price down slightly, so it appears cheaper when you quickly look at it. In fact, in the past decade many stores have successfully gone to a '95 cents' model, where $9.95 somehow looks more appealing to the shopper than $9.99. A whopping 4 cents less profit, but an amazing increase in sales.
Psychologists have known about this for eons, and marketing types do this routinely. 99 cents just looks cheaper than an even buck, to most people. In fact, it's so bad that if I'm in a store with someone, see something for say $395, I'll comment "wow, four hundred dollars for that?". Almost invariably, the person I'm with will say "no, it's only three ninety five". People are so used to this that rounding up prices just seems wrong, somehow.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I mean, at 20Euro per CD with 10 songs, their offering is very competitive. DRM? Don't care too much: I can burn it on CD and it's usually from a CD that I listen to music. I also have a MiniDisc player/recorder and the DRM has only slapped me in the face once, when a musician friend of mine gave me a CD-R-Audio.
Good idea recommeniding the indy bands... I think I'm going to do that.
[Tracks drop to $0.49]
'Yea its cool and all but I want DRM free music for $0.19'
[Tracks drop to $0.19, DRM free]
'Sure, thats cool and all but I want to be able to buy multiple tracks with a complex pricing algorithm that determines how mcuh to charge be based on my average usage across a limited period of time, plus the moon phase'
[Tracks do the above]
'Ok ok, I give up, I am just shooting holes in anything that is out there because its easier then admitting that someone MAY have gotten something right.'
I can not even count how many people, WITHOUT EVEN SEEING THE SERVICE, have sat around bitching about it. Its hilarious. Now, days later, they are all using it quietly.
As someone who switch to Macs last year, I read about the announcement a little after it happened, downloaded iTunes4 and gave it a test run.
I don't know about the connection errors others were reporting, as I didn't have any. I already own an iPod, so the AAC/MP3 issue isn't one for me as it is for some others making posts here. I also had no problem setting up my account - I had an account when I bought my first Mac a year ago, and just used that.
The biggest thing I noticed when I started it up was the ability to finally buy the 1 song off of a track I wanted. Bob Dylan is OK, but I just wanted "Growing in the Wind". That's it. A buck later, and I had it. Another 2 or 3 minutes later, it was on.
From there, I wound up spending $20 on the service. No problems, except that it didn't have everything I wanted (I'm still trying to get Queen's Bohemien Rhapsody). But I spend more in 2 days than I've spent on music in 1 year.
Is is perfect? No, but you don't need an iPod - you can burn the music to a regular audio CD if you like, and either rerip this to MP3 (with a loss of quality), or just play the CD in a regular player.
But so far, it's 95% of what I've wanted with online music sales. Hopefully they'll get more music on there, maybe even some game/anime music (as that stuff is *way* more expensive than it needs to be), and more players out there will start support AAC. I'm not worried about the latter - since its part of the MPEG-4 standard, that should only be a matter of time and a firmware upgrade later.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
This is a good thing. Someone had to take the risk of trying something like this, and now that we have this initial success the record labels really have to reconsider some of their decisions regarding internet distribution.
Most of us may not agree with the use of DRM and AAC files, but progress is best made by a series of compromises. Considering what the music labels really want to shove down our throats, I think Apple has provided a pretty consumer-friendly compromise. Now that they have set this precedent, I think we can feel a little more secure that things can't get any worse, but hopefully better.
Now they just need to begin the slow process of removing the big evil record labels from the picture by offering independent artists that are self-produced or produced by small labels. Of course since becoming redundant is the real fear held by the RIAA and their ilk, this "compromise" may be harder to achieve.
I would be one of the people downloading a tune, but I don't own the hardware. I'd like to see the stats on what songs were downloaded.
Anyway, I got this in my email box this morning from Michael Robertson of Lindows and former CEO of MP3.COM. I find it coincidental after this Interview session, and I find his comments about Apple selling out intersting. The text of his (mass) email follows:
Most of you probably know that my former company was MP3.com, which was instrumental in bringing digital music to the masses. One of the things we stood for at MP3.com was the consumer's rights over their own music collection. Our belief was that consumers who purchase their music should have the ability to convert that music into a format they like and put the music on any device they desire. We even tried to get a law pushed through congress affirming this (we did not succeed in that attempt). The last five years have seen multiple attempts to limit consumers' rights via DRM (digital rights management) technology. These are schemes which add "big brother" restrictions to what you can do with your own music library.
It's no secret that the major record labels want to embed restrictions into music and force those restrictions onto customers, but recently they've been getting help from some surprising sources -- namely Microsoft and Apple. While I was the CEO of MP3.com, Microsoft repeatedly offered millions of dollars to us to convert the library of tunes at MP3.com from consumer friendly MP3 to Windows Media format. We always politely declined. Microsoft's strategy was that if they could get the whole world to convert to Windows Media, then they could get the record labels to pay them huge sums to limit how consumers could listen to their music. Thank goodness that hasn't happened yet, because having your music "expire", disappear, degrade in quality, not be able to burn to CD or load onto your devices is an awful consumer experience.
Microsoft is at it again though, trying to use their money and dominance in the OS to get a foothold in music by selling out consumers. Recently, news.com reported that Microsoft is cozzying up to the leading CD restriction company. This means we're one baby step away from all music CDs ONLY playing on Microsoft Windows XP. Imagine having to buy a copy of Microsoft Windows XP for every music device just so you can listen to your own music, and even then being restricted from making a compilation CD for your car!
Apple has understandably succumbed to pressure from the music labels to bolster their chances of securing music licenses for their iTunes music service by trampling music buyers rights. The 2.4% of the world which use Macs will find out that all the music in their newly announced service is wrapped in a digital padlock. This gives Apple (or the record labels) the ability to control what a buyer can do with the music they purchase. The user doesn't get to pick which computer they can listen to their music on (Macs only). Forget any device that isn't an iPod, like my current MP3 player (tiny, no cables, rechargeable battery - nice). Don't even think about burning a disc full of 100 MP3s to play in your DVD player. (Have you noticed virtually all new DVD players will play MP3 files?)
Straight ahead of us is a world where CDs will only play in Microsoft Windows XP computers. Digital songs you buy online will only work with Apple software or an Apple sanctioned portable player. You will not be able to burn any of the music you've purchased onto an MP3 CD to pop into your DVD player. That's a sad and expensive world for music fans because labels and large corporations will extort money from their users who just want to enjoy their own music.
When you pay for music, you should be able to enjoy that music in all the different and convenient ways available. I'm still a big believer in the value of MP3 because it ensures that the
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
The RIAA would first multiply the number based on the speed and number of your cd drives, and the barometric pressure in Thailand :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Call me old fashioned but I personally like the idea of 'Albums'. With decent bands you get what the artist wanted...A collection of songs that represents an time/place/idea. As a cohesive whole it sounds better than a single and has a much better listening experience.
With that in mind I would like to be able to download whole albums off iTunes and while that is happening they ship me the pysical CD/Vinyl as well. I wouldn't even mind paying retail CD prices + Postage. This way I get a CD/Vinyl which is superior to any downloadable music format and the convienience of instant listening gratification.
Until this happens I will still buy 99% of my music from the store.
[Please type your sig here.]
Because some of us actually want to reward the artists for their hard work. How would you feel if your employer just stopped paying you? Would you feel appreciated and want to continue with your work? Are you that much of a samaritan?
I didn't think so.
Pooty tweet
Geez, there is always one! They could price it at a penny, and someone would say - that's just too expensive, maybe at half a penny I'll buy!
The point is that for $20 I can get the EXACT 20 songs I want. Not $15 for 3 songs I want and 10 I could care less about. A regular CD cost (street price) $12 - $17 new, usually $8 used. Even buying used, if you like less than 8 songs on the disk - you are paying more than Apple's service.
I think they should increase their bitrate 1 notch - to better compete with CDs. But the price is pretty fair.
Someone else that we know has been getting behind the action of it all. Microsoft has been distributing content with their own DRM through ALTnet on Kazaa.
PressPlay is already on the same path using Microsoft DRM.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Not exactly, DRM affects me after I've paid for something, a cashier doesn't.
Whether you buy the music online or from Best Buy, so long as the producer makes the same amount of cash, they dont give a shit. Really.
.com bust. You can fault them for a lot of things, but not for being pragmatic when it comes to doling out investors cash.
What slashbots keep saying, though, is that the RIAA should "wake up" and invest billions in a new eCommerce infrastructure that they must maintain, because it might be profitable. Why would they? Especially after the
Build it and they will come. Apple built it, and they came to the tune of $100,000. I'm sure setup costs were at least a magnitude of order greater than that, and they're still in the hole. But so long as it's Apples gamble, the RIAA could give a shit. They're out to make money. Whether they make it from online sales or from plastic spinning discs, they dont care.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Evidently you've missed out on the self-checkout lanes which are starting to become popular.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Never underestimate the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field(TM).
'Sensible' is a curse word.
> How about 'an open format' ?
Concidering everyone else is still stuck on MP3, which is not open at all (and is even more expensive than AAC to use) you can hardly fault apple for this.
Their option is no worse than what anyone else is using.
Its amazing, apple offers many features that everyone conciders great, and on this one feature they do basically the same thing (use a closed format like everyone else), and thats the feature that gets bashed.
MP3 is closed, and requires licencing to make encoders or decoders.
redbook (audio CDs) are also closed format and requires licencing (Though i dont know about the costs for that one)
AAC is closed.
Seems to be you should be bitching at EVERYONE that isnt the 0.01% of the population that uses a computer and OGG, not just apple.
Apple states that the 128-kbps AAC "combines sound quality that rivals CDs with smaller files sizes (compared to MP3s)." Someone reported that Apple said during the original PR event that some of the tracks actually sound better than the original CD tracks because they went back to the original master recordings to encode. Ok, I'll buy all that. AAC offers better compression and higher quality at lower bitrates. Fine. If really true, I might even consider re-ripping my CDs to AAC and saving some disk space. IF it's really that good. But as I said, the proof is in whether I can hear a difference. All other technical mumbo jumbo is meaningless.
I previewed a number of songs the first night it was operational and was fairly impressed. Definitely much better than 128 kbps MP3. Then I put my headphones on and started to notice possible compression artifacts. I wasn't sure if I was imagining these or whether I was really hearing something, so I started listening to the previews of tracks I already have, ripped from original CDs. I compared the preview tracks to my MP3 copies, which are high quality VBR averaging a little over 200 kbps. I went back and forth between the store preview and my copy numerous times, and always felt like I heard compression artifacts in the previews. I wanted to setup a true blind test to make absolutely sure I wasn't being biased by knowing which sample was which, but I haven't had time this week.
Apple's Discussion board for iTunes has numerous topics debating the quality of the AACs. Some people swear that the previews are lower quality, and what you get when you buy is perfect. Others say just the opposite. Apple itself says of the previews, "You'll hear a 30-second sample that rivals CD quality sound." Doesn't exactly say that the preview is the same quality as the purchased track, but kind of implies it too. MacInTouch has tons of reader reports that are interesting as well.
I suppose ultimately I'll have to spend $0.99 and see for myself what happens. I'll try to choose a track that I have, and whose preview sounds pretty bad. If the purchased track is indistinguishable from the CD, I'll be a happy camper. But if it's the same as the preview, I'll be severely disappointed. I'd so love for this to take off, as it is the future of music buying. I think Apple has done a good job of balancing consumers' fair use rights with the rights of the copyright holders. If this flops, it'll be more fodder for the RIAA to push legislation through that protects their dying business model. (sorry, had to get political for a second there)
But mainly I'm excited about the prospect of buying music this way. Hopefully in the near future, they'll have liner notes, etc available as a PDF when you buy. And lots more artists, including any that are out of print. That would so rock. So many CDs on my wishlist now are so hard to find, and I'd buy them in a heartbeat if they were available this way now. So please, Apple, don't let us down on quality! And if the quality really is subpar, let's all send them feedback (link at the music store main page) until they listen!
Say hello to zMac.
The other big news yesterday was that Steve Jobs confirmed that Apple is going to start putting up independent music once they get all of the big label music they negotiated for uploaded:
from: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,4 48048,00.html
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
That analogy is flawed. DRM is more like Best Buy sending a security guard home with you to make sure you don't use the products you buy in any way they don't approve of. For instance, I can play CD's I purchase in any number of players, copy them to my various computers, enjoy them on my portable player, and so forth. My music server is a Linux box, though; I cannot use it to play DRM-encumbered music, because Apple has not chosen to make Linux software available for their protection scheme. That's their prerogative, but it means that their music isn't terribly useful to me.
I applaud Apple's effort to be reasonable, but DRM is still unacceptable. I wrote a short essay on why I believe this; it's on my site.
Furthermore, sharing is a fundamental part of experiencing music. I believe that noncommercial song swapping should be fully protected under copyright law.
-John
Here's something that I'd like to know (I don't have a Mac and can't use the store) - does the ASM track which music you've bought in the past so that if your hard drive blows up/gets stolen/damaged/or anything else which causes your music that you bought and downloaded to be lost you can download the songs again?
$45 per U Colocation Special
I think this is going to be a major "stye in the eye" of all those who claim that Napster et al are nothing more than common theves. When people are clammoring to buy a product that can be stolen fairly safely, I think that's saying something (read; most people don't mind anteing up for what they use).
Interestingly enough, this could VERY easily be viewed as a Very Good Thing by all the IP-based companies. Proof-positive that people will climb over each other to buy your product if you just let them but they'll obtain it by other means if you don't.
But will the RIAA & company view it as such? No. Why? Because what they want more than revenue is control. Because control, in their current model, is equivalent to a sustainable business. When they start loosing control of how the product can get to market, when they lose their status as the so-called gatekeepers of IP whose ass you must lick to be heard, they're screwed. You can't abuse people when you aren't the only game in town.
Then it becomes a buyer's market. Which, trust me, is the last thing these people want.
My
Limekiller
I notice a lot of people who haven't used it are complaining about the low bitrate .aac's. Well, I actually bought a Live Phish track today that I have also ripped at 192k mp3 and level 6 ogg. I listened to all three with my MDR-EX70 neodymium driver earbuds, and guess what? They all sounded pretty much the same.
And evidently you've missed out on the shocking revelation that those self-checkout lanes have been something of a disaster, as they facilitate theft (gee, who'd have thought?).
Apple owns a portion of Akamai, doesn't it? If anything, them using their servers is probably a lot less of a cost factor than one thinks.
And the Amazon 1 Click charge also gets factored into their Online Store sales as well and hopefully its not a Per-Click Charge.
It will seem like pennies but 100 pennies equal a dollar and so forth.
The iTunes Music Store is a nice service and something I've been waiting for and hoping someone developed.
And just about anyone that says $.99 is too much, they're probably expecting to get everything for free. And if they're expecting that... they're probably pirating music.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this... eck.
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
...of this conflict with the Kazster crowd.
Somehow, if people don't make purchasing something as convenient and cheap as you expect it to be, you have the right to take it.
In the case of utilities with true monopoly on the electric power coming into your home doubling their price in a two month period, I could see the justification in say altering your meter to cut the price back down to where it was. This wouldn't seem unjust to me.
In the case of charging too much for music (not food, not power, not water, CDs), and not making it available online with massive bandwidth and high-bit rates for cheap, I can't really see how this entitles you to buy one copy and distribute it to 400 people, any more than waiting five minutes at the QuickMart entitles you to a free magazine.
How does this work?
True, it doesn't facilitate theft, but then you have to compare that against the 4 or so cashiers that you didn't have to hire.
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With this announcement, it has been unequivocally proven that RIAA missed the boat big time.
This is what happens when an industry fails to innovate. They can play the blame game all they want, they lost because they didn't keep up with what consumers wanted.
Apple did and is going to win this round.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
If you haven't noticed, you can burn the AAC files to CD. Then, pop the CD back in and rip the MP3s off.
AAC sounds fantastic. I usually rip MP3s at 160-192 kbps, using VBR. This makes very nice sounding MP3 files, and I can't tell the difference between the MP3 and the CD. The only draw back, is that they are kinda large, but with a 20 Gig iPod, I'm not too worried.
AAC actually sounds as good, as far as I can tell, as my MP3s do. So all this talk of "low bit-rate" and "DRM-sUckS!" is ridiculous. If you don't like the DRM, burn a CD (or 10 before changing the playlist), and re-import it as MP3s and never think about AAC again.
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
Do you think Apple could make a physical presence in music stores a possibility?
Much like the Software-2-Go kiosks in stores, there could be a Music-2-Go kiosk. You would create or sign into your AMS account and purchase music. An extra $2.50 or so for the on-site burning, cover art, etc. I don't think it could do the booklets, but maybe...
Of course, you would also be able to burn music you already own. You fly across the country, stop into a music store, burn a CD for $2.50, and pop it into your rental car's CD player.
It's an interesting thought.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
4 tracks a second means 120 million tracks a year or roughly about 3% of all retail tracks sold by the music companies which have licenses with apple. my guess is that for every 1 apple owner, there are 100 CD player owners. So an average Apple owners are buying three times more tracks than an average CD player owner is buying in retail market! Indeed amazing if the trend continues.
Does anyone here recall when Apple released the iPod? The story here on slashdot contained two sentences after the submission. One of which simply read (and I quote): "Lame."
I think it's fair to say that "Slashdot wisdom" concerning these things isn't exactly a great indicator of success or failure. Everyone here on slashdot either has an iPod or wants one. Yeah, even if it doesn't run Linux.
Slashdot readership as a whole may contain a lot of knowledge and wisdom. That's why I come here. But it certainly doesn't have a finger on the pulse of consumer-oriented technology.
And for the record, I think Apple has gotten this thing about 95% right straight out of the gate. Clearly it is going to be the model for how this is done for everyone else. Kudos to them. They deserve it.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Even aside from your odd sentence structure, the word "quickly" must mean something really different to you than it does to the rest of us. Maybe it means "slow and frustrating"?
You mention P2P stuff, but you don't seem to have looked for anything less common than Britney's latest hit... I had a little Limewire phase, but dang it if I have the time to hassle with that.
But I agree, the parent was a Pollyanna post. I also gotta notice that a lot of people bought music on this service fast. Maybe you should be wondering why instead of flaming away, you know? Hint: the answer is not "Those Mac people will believe anything 'cause they're zealots." Maybe it has something to do with Apple seriously thinking about how to hit the sweet spot so they could satisfy the customers and the labels. You think?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
At the self-check out lane at my grocery store, the conveyor belt actually detects an object passing through (there is a scanner halfway down the belt). If you haven't scanned it, and it detects more objects than you scanned, it stops, backs up and calls an employee.
Apple's DRM only makes it more difficult for the masses to share the music after purchase. What Apple and the Music industry is banking on is the impulse buy. They have priced these songs at such a level that people don't think twice before just purchasing a $.99 song. The impulse buy is the entire concept behind this store. It's just as easy now to acquire the song for "pennies" as it is to go download it over your favorite P2P.
Apple is betting that they can watch the actions of the people who are using the service, and figure out how to make it even better. Right now they're tracking customer tendency, and with the customer data being completely real-time and digital, they can analyze and react. They're banking on making it easier and more attractive than P2P sources.
I wouldn't be surprised to see AAC at 160kbps, a Windows version of iTunes 4 (it's already being worked on), and a slightly lower price per song, in the near future.
This is a serious assault on the idea that you couldn't use online music distribution. Take it serious, stop judging it, and see if it works. Even if it fails, it's bound to show us the path to making it effective and viable.
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
...that new song by Madonnna where she just cusses and swears all the time?
Apparently Michael Robertson hasn't yet been informed that iTunes will burn regular audio CDs that you can play in pretty much any CD or DVD player in the world.
I am sure he will issue a correction and an apology as soon as this fact reaches him.
While reading Walter Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal I came upon this paragraph:
"The standard cable still hooks into a FireWire, or 1394, a port many Macs have but few Windows PCs include. So, Apple offers an alternate cable for $19 that plugs into the USB 2.0 port that's standard equipment on new Windows PCs. It will also work, albeit much more slowly, with the older USB ports found on nearly every Windows PC in the past four years. This opens up many more Windows computers for working with the iPod."
Went to the Apple website and sure enough - The new iPod dock can now connect to a USB 2.0 port on Windows machines. What is more - you can also use a USB 1.1 port for _really_ slow transfers!
From Apple Website:
"USB 2.0
For PC users, the iPod will be able to sync files via USB 2.0*, which transfers data at up to 480 Mbps and comes standard on the latest Windows computers. USB 2.0 is also compatible with USB 1.1, although data transfer speeds are much slower."
Looks like a smart move...
Adi Gadwale.
the first comment to this hint gives the format for queries to the apple music store.
Imagine a replacement for the traditional jukebox found in Bars and Billard Halls. Set up a kiosk running iTunes that excepts money and voila, you have a jukebox that you'll never have to go out and buy cds for. Think of all the money the owner could make.
Is that the 30 second song "sample" is just viral enough to infect co-workers.
Someone in your office you don't like? Give them 30 seconds of Air Supply. They'll be humming "Making Love out of Nothing At All" ALL DAY LONG!!!
Tee-Hee
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
I guess I am a Corporate Rock Scumbag.
There is no reason for it to exist other then 'Its not apple'.
Think real hard on these two lines.. see if you can spot the flaw.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Anyone want to bet on how many days go by before someone has reverse-engineered the MaciMusic store protocol and written an app that masquerades as iTunes-on-a-Mac thus allowing Linux and Windows users to purchase music through Apple?
Anyone want to bet on how many minutes it will take for the RIAA or one of the major labels to send a cease-and-desist letter alleging violation of 17 USC 1201(a), claiming that the presence of a Macintosh® computer is an access control mechanism?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Here's the rant I sent to Apple, here's hoping they improve. Or feh, we can just follow some people's example and use eMusic.
:30, your clip is over and you never get to hear her sing! I should think her beautiful voice would be a great selling point!
:41, which is 11 seconds past your preview clip.
---
Hi! I am a big fan of Massive Attack, and am pleased to see you feature them in your "Exclusive" section in the "Music Store" section of iTunes4.
However, I cannot decide whether to buy the new exclusive album (or any tracks from it), because your 30-second preview is not a reliable indicator of what a song is actually like.
How do I know this? Because I already own some of the songs you preview.
For example, I bought the CD by Massive Attack "Protection" when it came out, so I know that your 30-second preview does no justice at all to the songs.
"Better Things" is a perfect example. Tracey Thorn doesn't start singing until 1:09, but by
Also, why is "Protection" the song not featured for download from the "Protection" album by the same name? That's the very best song on the whole disk, and it isn't there at all. Even if it were, the preview would do no good for it, either, because for this song, Tracey doesn't start singing until
If you want to sell songs, you need to put in the extra work to grab the part of the clip that is most likely to get the listener's interest.
-c
99 cents is the right price. I feel totally comfortable blowing 99 cents multiple times for music. 99 cents is the cost of a cheap hamburger at McDonald's. And, most pop music today is about as disposable and meaningful as a hamburger at McDonalds. And as for quality, this is unimportant to me as well. We're talking about pop music here, not the Taj Mahal or the Mona Lisa. It's disposable, useless fluff. Of course I would want better quality if it were offered, but will hearing Whitesnake or New Kids on The Block in better quality improve the music any?
Next I notice one great benefit of buying music this way is you don't get a jewel case or liner notes. That's right, you heard me correct. I actually don't use either. Pretty much every CD I've bought in the past year has been immediately ripped into iTunes, the CD with liner notes stuffed in an envelope and the jewel case tossed. The CD essentially only exists for me as a backup medium. I can't remember the last time I even felt the need to look at the disc jacket. Saving the time of me chucking the box and the materials is easily worth 99 cents, and the 9.99 for an album is a steal. I hope to never set foot in a record store again, nor pay Amazon to ship me a bunch of crap I will never use, including the CD.
Secondly, one thing that is awesome about the new version of iTunes is the Rendevous capability. I crack open my iBook, and the entire library of mp3s on my main Mac appears. Holy cow ... now I can have one copy of my entire library and serve it up without lifting a finger.
Then, I read you can do the same thing, over the net. Meaning, I can be at work on my mac and have access to my entire mp3 library. Holy cow again.
I can hardly wait until they slap Airport on an iPod and do the same thing. Can you imagine just walking down the street and a new playlist shows up on your iPod from some guy walking buy you... arrrgh I'm foaming at the mouth.
The Apple Music Store: I'ts cool.
The point is that without the paltry DRM that they did implement, the record lables would not have given them song one to sell at their store. This DRM implementation is about the fairest and most lenient compromise that you will ever find. I mean, come on! All it really does is add a few extra steps between the user and a totally DRM-free file. This is just to prevent casual copiers (which make up the vast majority of listeners) from making copies without thinking about it. And it prevents people from easily making thousands of CDs to sell.
If you really want to remove the DRM then, as others have said, it is very easy to do. And you can burn as many damn CDs as you want with these files! DRM not fair? Please! About the only thing you cannot do is copy a file to more than three computers. That's it. And you can even do that if you burn then re-rip it. So quit yer whinin'!
But if even this does not satisfy you, then by all means stick to Kazaa. I'll probably still use P2P services for those odd Pogues, Coil, or Webb Wilder tracks that I cannot get from the iStore. But if they ever get around to adding them, I'll pay for them.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
Who says Apple can't remove the iTunes-mandated DRM from their files, or start offering MP3's with their service? Apple is playing a good middle ground. They're trying to make a popular service without opening themselves up for litigation.
As much as we hate it, the DMCA pretty much requires Apple to actively move to protect the labels' interests, or risk lawsuits for 'contributing to piracy'. If we assume that MP3's are right out, I can't imagine that they'd even want to deal with the legal hassle of providing music to Linux or Windows users at all -- the only real DRM formats (WMA, RM) belong to their competition and would require them to basically duplicate their entire library in addition to paying royalties. And let's face it, they're not going to get anyone on board for MP3.
RIAA: "Apple, by providing unencrypted, easily copied MP3 files to Personal Computers, a known bastion of music theft, has materially damaged our business model and violated our agreement."
Apple: "But it's what the consumers wanted."
RIAA: "So what? You are on the way to destruction. For great justice, All your base are belong to us."
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
Perhaps we might eventually see this sort of self-serve stuff at regular retail outlets?
Not until they can figure out how to make the user interface tell you about all the great features of the optional product protection plan that can be yours for such a low low price, because you know the %device_purchased% you have selected is known to have a %random_negative_adjective% %random_part_name% which tends to go bad in %random_time_interval% and if you don't purchase one of our completely optional (no obligation to buy but I'll continue to drone on and on until you buy one or make me stop) product protection plans then you'll have to send it off to one of their repair sites located in %random_third_world_country% and it usually takes %random_long_length_of_time% and costs %price_times_two% so you're really better off paying the small amount, only %price_over_3% now because you'll save money in the long run.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
>I'd like to see the stats on what songs were downloaded.
you can see that in iTunes:
Top Song Downloads
1) Stick in a Moment (U2)
2) Beautiful Day (U2)
3) I will Follow (U2)
4) Lose Yourself (Eminem)
5) Soak Up the Sun (Sheryl Crow)
6) Clocks (Coldplay)
7) The Way I am (Eminem)
8) Save and Sound (Sheryl Crow)
9) January Stars (Sting)
19) These Drugs (Eminem & D12)
Top Album Downloads
1) Sea Change (Beck)
2) Thankful (Kelly Clarkson)
3) C'Mon C'Mon (Sheryl Crow)
4) Away from the Sun (3 Doors Down)
5) Elvis 56 (Elvis)
6) Greatest Hits (Fleetwood Mac)
7) Eminem Show (Eminem)
8) Get Rich or Die Tr... (50 Cents)
9) All that you Can't leave behind (U2)
10) The Joshua Tree (U2)
You can see more in iTunes, but these are the two top ten lists. Pretty interesting.
In the past 18 hours, 275,000 new AAC encoded songs appears on Kazaa.
Note that full albums are MOSTLY 9.99, which is cheaper than in-store CDs.
But the big thing is: These are CHEAP tracks. Keep in mind that the majority of CDs out there have 2-3 good tracks and the rest is crud.
So if the CD is $12, you're paying $4-6 per track that you actually want. The other tracks are irrelevant in many cases. For example, I really like "Big Yellow Taxi" by Counting Crows, but I'm wary of buying the CD because I haven't heard anything else on it.
If I had ITMS access, I would've bought that track days ago.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
...and neither does Apple. You want to burn 1000 CDs of your new track? You can. You may have to make a slight alteration to your playlist every 10 burns, but you can do it.
You want to copy your new file to 1000 computers? You can do it. Just burn it to a CD, then rip it off as an MP3, OGG, or unprotected ACC. The loss in quality is absolutely negligable. And you can then even more easily burn it to 1000 CDs.
This DRM scheme amounts to little more than a gentle, one-time reminder that you shouldn't do those things. But it by no means prevents you from doing it. What more do you want?! Oh, yeah- free music.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
Everyone on the "we finally get it" bus is waving goodbye to you.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
If any other company, MS, and RIAA member, or even the FSF opened a music store and choose a closed proprietary format over MP3 or of course Vorbis this /. crowd would be all over them. If this was Warner Brothers Music people would be screaming how AOL was trying to destroy open formats with DRM that restricted yadda yadda yadda.
but no, its apple, so everyone creams in their pants and begs for more. I can't understand how a company whose practices go against everything FS/OS stands for in such a drastic way is so loved by the same crowd.
Imagine what the world would be like if MS had the monopoly *and* the control apple has over its products and customers. man I'll leave the over priced/ closed / hardware-software lockin at the door thank you very much.
Apple's AAC (m4p) format uses security to protect the track from being played on more than 3 computers. Yet, you can copy the AAC file to as many iPod's as you desire. Do the iPods have a global key, or is the data in the AAC not encrypted and the iPod simply ignores the security feature? Has anyone dug around on their iPod to see how the songs are stored on the iPod disk once copied to the iPod from iTunes? I need to do that when I go home today. Hmmmmm, seems like that could be a possible loop hole in the security, which makes the tracks vulnerable to showing up on Kaaza for the world to copy.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
$275,000 is the gross. After paying the record companies they clear $100,000. That is not "NETTED", the is still more to cover like the bandwidth, the servers, rent, support staff, for the day. 275,000 songs is approximately 805 GB of bandwidth. That is a sustained bandwidth of about 100Mbit/sec. If they clear $10,000 for the day, they will be lucky. Plus this is the opening day. On average a grand opening well marketed does about 5x then an average day. So if Apple breaks even on this they will be lucky.
Apple computers cost more... not for an equivalent machine, but because they don't have low end machines. This results in price senstive customers going elsewhere (BTW: I moved my office to OS X, I don't think that the machines are overpriced).
As a result, Apple, with 4% of sales (and probably 6%-8% of the online market, as Apple machines tend to stay deployed longer), Apple has a thriving Shareware market, and now an online music market. While Apple is a SMALL piece of the desktop computer market, the users are more interested in purchasing things.
This results in that 4%-8% of the PC market POSSIBLY being anywhere from 10%-50% of the potential online music buying crowd. The iPod, clearly the "best" if not expensive MP3 player, is 50%-50% Mac-Windows sales. So while the iPod is special (Mac users tend to actually LIKE Apple), music may be similar.
I LOVE iTunes 4. A bunch of us upgraded at the office, and we can play each other's music which is cool. I bought a few tracks of songs that I find catchy but don't like (nice background music when zoning or at the gym). I won't rerip my existing CDs, but new CDs are going to be AAC encoded.
iTunes 4 is a great program, almost makes a Mac worthwhile. There are other little apps like that that make the Mac a nice platform.
Alex
OK, so unless something has really changed, the RIAA gets nothing. Some music companies get something. And this, I think, is the key point: the labels that have the most to gain from this are the small ones that you are less likely to find on your local store's shelves. And, moving beyond that, a viable buy-online system *not* run by a label will make it far more likely that unsigned acts can get a better deal.
And I really do think this will help bands in a major way. While you're listening to the song you'll probably buy, you can't help look at the box on the right that says "people who bought 'Ana Ng' also bought 'Funky Périphérique' by Les Sans Culottes". [Disclaimer: neither song is currently available at the site although they certainly should be.] To be completely honest, a working online music buying system will really be the end of the big labels as we know them.
Babar
The arguement against OGG for compatibility can be used against ACC too. The only player that is compatible with the new service is the ipod, the ipod is perfectly capable of playing OGG, so there is no reason why Apple couldn't use OGG from a customer perspective. The real reason why they didn't use OGG is because it didn't have a DRM layer built in.
However, it is ridiculous that there should be *any* loss at all; I've paid for the music, so I should be able to listen to it with any software I choose, without losing quality.
I felt the same way about my vinyl. It's ridiculous that there was a quality loss when I taped them to cassette.
Seriously, I'm not sure where this whole concept of "I am entitled to master-quality recordings that I can copy an infinite number of times" comes from. The fact that you can copy a digital version of a song with either zero or very little quality loss is actually quite new.
Relax. Not that long ago, you wouldn't have been able to copy music without a very LARGE loss of quality. Right now we are in a flux where the companies and the market are tugging back and forth.
Eventually the companies will provide what the market wants in a digital music product. This is just the first step.
DRM is not sensible if ties you to one vendor or platform. You can only play purchased files on Apple computers and Apple players, unless you want to burn CD's. This is only a sensible approach if you live in a world where all your computing products and mp3 devices are made by Apple, for most of us this is not the case.
So, I've got 14K songs in my MP3-based iTunes library, replicating my CD collection. I'm a mini-van driving work-from-home 32 year old married father of two who wasn't cool in the day, and certainly am not cool now. I don't have a tattoo, ride a Vespa, or compile kernels from source.
But, to my surprise, I'm revealed to be an elitist indy music prig! To test the new service, I sorted my iTunes library by play count so I could compare the quality of my current rips with the new service's previews.
And darn it off if pretty much all the music I listen to isn't from one of the majors! In order of "play count":
Sleater-Kinney - nope
The Hives - yep (one album)
The White Stripes - nope
Husker Du - nope
Man or Astroman - no
Len - just three tracks
Rancid - no
Veruca Salt - yep (two albums)
The Clash - pretty much everything
Riverdales - no
Screeching Weasel - no
Beastie Boys - no (an on a major, I thought)
Cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - nope!
Fugazi - no
Renegade Soundwave - no
Gang of Four - no
Luscious Jackson - yep
Pop Will Eat Itself - just one album
Tricky - lots of stuff
X - just one album
So, of my top twenty-by-listening bands (which is surprisingly different from what i would have guessed they would be), only 4 have a substantial body of their work available among the 200,000 tracks available through iTunes.
My video compression blog
Hey! I get it! When you wrote "Store" you replaced the S with a dollar sign, indicating money! Wait, wait... don't tell me... you were trying to associate the iTunes Music Store and the Apple Store with money, right?
That makes sense, I guess, seeing as how both the iTunes Music Store and the Apple Store sell things.
Kind of a lame joke, I suppose. But I can see how it will come in handy. Like, for example, I can write this:
¥ou're £ame!
See? It's fun to use punctuation as words!
Not when I live within walking distance of two, and bicycling distance of many. I'm sorry you happen to be a slave to a motor vehicle. I should realize that not everyone is as lucky as me.
Hee hee hee! You sound like the guy from the Onion article who didn't own a television set.
"Are those celebrities you're discussing? I wouldn't know - I don't know who any of those people are. I don't own a television set. I'm sorry the rest of you are addicted to that sort of thing."
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Are you sure that the AAC files will play in any device that understands AAC? Since you're limited to three Macs for playback, my guess is that the file is encrypted and only Apple hardware will understand it.
The "three macs for playback" restriction is a function of iTunes. The files are not encrypted, and once burned to CD can be played anywhere.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
If you want to sell songs, you need to put in the extra work to grab the part of the clip that is most likely to get the listener's interest.
How on earth are they supposed to do that when they have 200,000 songs? Not to mention the fact that there are going to be lots of different opinions as to what the best part of the song it.
I can imagine being the customer service rep who has the job of sifting through emails like that.
"Dear Apple, I am very angry. My favorite song is 'Silver Squeeze' by the Banana Peppers. But you only have 'Toxic Shock Syndrome' and 'Gaetulian Iarbas' by them, and both of those are off a different and lame album! Also, they cut off 'Toxic Shock' right before the awesome vibraphone solo, and really the sample should be between 0:47 and 1:17 for the best effect. This is NOT FAIR to my favorite band. I DEMAND that you fix this IMMEDIATELY or I won't spend my $0.99 on you!!1!"
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Not good arguments. If you really want a cd to carry around, burn your apple bought tracks to a cd. If you really want the liner notes, cd case, and album art, then hey be my guest and go buy yourself a cd. If you're old enough to remember though, when CDs first came out, people bitched that the covers were too small, nobody would buy tiny liner notes and cover art. My point is, what is more portable than a computer file. When you really get into mp3s you'll see how wasteful even a CD is. It's too damned big, heavy, and those cases are a hindrance!
Da Blog
Yep. One great thing about digital distribution is that an album can sell 500 copies and still be profitable! In the long term, this will be good for niches,
For another example, check out CustomFlix, who does on-demand DVD replication and distibution. I've made a tidy bundle selling the DVD-R supplement for my book through them. It hasn't sold anywhere near the 500 copy minimum that a mass-market duplication would have required, but I started netting a profit from them after selling the first SIX copies.
http://www.customflix.com
My video compression blog
Anyone who willingly purchases Celine Dion, April Wine, Shania Twain or Bryan Adams should be put on a "watched" list.
Pooty tweet
18 hours nets $100,000, after a year that's around $46 million (US).
Of course it probably won't stay at that rate, but it's even money if it goes up or down.
I'd call that a big success, and a big bullet in the back of the head of the argument "people won't download music and pay for it".
Screw you RIAA. Get going on your server farm, we're waiting to DL from you too.
Omai fahk'n Goahd dood!
Totally fahk'n bzah - I wuz jus' think'n tha same fahk'n thing, Gai!
Pissah! Say h'lo t'da m'ssus fah me.
Sinseahly,
- Lef Summavl 2 fahk'n yeahs ago
I hate Grammar Nazi's
Then I bought about 184 songs and albums (combo number, I think it was about 6 albums and various singles). All I've got to say is I've spent more on music since this store came into being than I have in YEARS. I don't mind the DRM nonsense. I've got nothing to hide anymore, this just adds to my big ass collection of music. I've burned a few compliation albums for my brother, but otherwise I just use my Ipod and FM transmitter for music. I think it's a great service. Personally, I'm glad I don't HAVE to steal the singles anymore from the P2P places. I dig being able to click, download and be happy real fast. Without a virus being attached (Kazaa), broken songs (all the P2Ps), wrong songs (All), etc.. They've got one happy customer here in NY peace
I'm not entirely sure $100,000 dollars for a venture like this in 18 hours is that great. Sure, compared to what you or I make, 100,000 dollars in 18 hours is incredible, but if you factor in the amount of money they've put into running and creating the store, paired with the normal profit for a large scale commercial venture, I'd be interested in seeing exactly how well it has done in the grand scheme of things.
It's been a long time.
So where is the backup to data CD funtionality on iTunes? The only way you can do is manually.
Um... try selecting "Data CD" as the type of CD to burn in the CD burning preferences of iTunes 4? Amazingly this "confusingly titled" option makes iTunes burn a - get this - data CD. Wow!
--- What?
check this out from a time article
"TIME: What about independent labels? Will they follow suit?
Jobs: Yes. They've already been calling us like crazy. We've had to put most of them off until after launch just because the big five have most of the music, and we only had so many hours in the day. But now we're really going to have time to focus on a lot of the independents and that will be really great. "
here is the article.
THE ARTICLE
As a test, I downloaded a song in AAC format from the iTunes store that I already had ripped at 192 VBR MP3.
At first comparison, I thought the AAC file was good - until I listened on my "mastering headphones" (Grado SR325s, which rock, by the way - http://www.gradolabs.com ). Lots of bizzare compression artifacts.
So there I am, thinking AAC is garbage, until I remembered something about an "Enhancer" feature in iTunes. Sure enough, I look in preferences and there it is. I turned it off, and many / most / all? of the compression artifacts I heard went away.
So, before you try to asses whether you think AAC @ 128 is better than MP3s at 192, turn this "Enhancer" feature off, then judge.
In my opinion, AAC is living up to the hype.
No, "loosing" your music was when you put them on the p2p network...
Liberty uber alles.
The practice originally started in retail stores with cash registers. Clerks tended to ignore the new-fangled machines for purchases in whole numbers, so the numbers were changed to persuade the clerks to use the cash register to get the penny change. It didn't become popular in other forms of retail, such as catalog purchases, until about 50 years later.
This was pointed out by Bill Bryson in one of his books; I think it was Made in America.