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Apple Sells Two Million Songs in 16 Days
burgburgburg writes "According to Apple's latest press release, iTunes Music Store has sold over two million songs in the 16 days that it has been open. Quick calculations show this is around 1.44 songs per second. And as was the case last week, over half of the songs purchased so far were purchased as albums. Over 4,300 songs were added to the system yesterday, including older catalog stuff (Doors, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus), new albums (Cold, Lizz Wright, and Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs), prerelease tracks (Michelle Branch, Da Brat, Jesse Harris and Kenna) and more."
Is that there is no mechanism for indie bands and labels to get a piece of this action. This is a neat service, but it really only helps the big guys, while Apple has always been about the littleguy.
best web host ever
2 million songs in 2 days?
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
Sosumi
I hear that some euros have put together a method for using the iTunes store already. This tomfoolery, along with comments from Sony Music that they don't want Windows users to have the same freedom as Apple users do now, makes me think that the RIAA is already getting cold feet, despite the money.
Europeans are too smart, and the RIAA is getting nervous because they don't have control over all those Montenegrins, Serbians, and Andorrans.
When all those German techno records starting moving to the top of the store, Steve Jobs new there was a problem. He put on his best black turtleneck and headed for the server room, but when he looked in the mirror, he realized that he was Dietre from Sprockets.
Man! That was a weird dream!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Seriously, it would be cool if they got big enough as a content reseller to influence the DRM debate in favor of common sense.
There are no trolls. There are no trees out here.
Last night by 7pm I'd delivered 2 pizzas! By 9 pm it was already up to 11 pizzas! Where's my slashdot story?
Also, they still only have part of the Cibo Matto album "Viva! La Woman," and have only two albums from They Might Be Giants.
But it is getting there. I'm very pleased I was able to download Cake's "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" without paying for the rest of the album, which frankly sounds exactly the same as their last three albums, only without the novelty of being fresh and new.
Once the Apple catches up stocking the stuff I just mentioned, then maybe they will move on to the more obscure bands and indie labels.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Since the people downloading mp3s are only doing it for the convenience, not to save money.
...for another year!!
__________
Love conquers all... except CANCER
Eminem sold seven million full albums in 14 days.
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
Anyone have any data on the expected signal loss when going from .aac to .mp3 (or .ogg, for that matter). I know, it depends on lots of different variables (mp3 bitrate, original signal, human range of hearing, etc...) but it is even worth it to burn these songs to CD so I can rip them back to MP3? Anyone tried it? How does it sound?
The iTunes Music Store has to be one of the coolest things Apple has done so far. It's things like this that constantly keep the Apple true believers asking; "What're they gonna think of next?" Yes, I bought a whole load of songs. Only thing is, they keep getting my e-mail address wrong. Somebody's getting my invoices, only I don't know who. Apple insists that they've got my correct address, but to no avail. Whatever, I'll just set up a new account.
But that's beside the point! iTunes rocks! I love it! Now if they would only add the Beastie Boys, I'd be set.
Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.
The poor RIAA! We must come to their rescue!
[/endofsarcasm]
Think about this people: if they did this for a year, there would be 45,411,840 songs purchased in one year... from ONE RETAILER!
1 dollar per song, 45 million dollars. 1 retailer.
Lobby that to your bitches in the government!
Get paid to code OSS
1.44 songs per second. Is that like 2 songs per second squared?
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
Read: Apple has sold 2 million consumer friendly DRM enabled songs, with the big 5 on board and attracting new labels every day. Already the most successful online music distibutor ever, Apple has poised itself to be a major player for years to come in the emerging of the digital hub. In two years the ipod could have a big brother (or may just morph into) that downloads movies using the same basic format. A revenue stream like the ipod/music store combo is a god send and is probably keeping Apple afloat during this G4 debacle -
Oh and iTunes4, with cover art, an intergrated music store, my ipod interface, and streaming (and downloading) capabilities for my friends over the net, please show me the windows app that lets me do this out of the box with a great interface to boot. For 'free' on every mac.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
At two million in 16 days, that's a $125,000 per day. That's 45.625 million per year.
Apple's current market capatalization is 6.781 billion, as of this writing.
Barring continued unlikely exponential growth, this won't "save" the company (to the extent it might need "saving". However, I suspect that it is certainly a profitable aspect of the company, probably already profitable (though hard to tell), so even should The Worst happen, this will probably be spun off successfully; too lucrative to disappear into thin air.
1.44 songs per second and less than 20 seconds to download a song means there are 28 concurrent downloads on average. I could handle with just a couple of PCs!!
of course the problem is the spike loads, and I would imagine that for every song downloaded 20 get listened to.
If we figure the peak period is 100 times larger and the lisenting and web services are another factor of 10 in load thats a couple thousand servers.
anyone have a better guess?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It ess time for zee apple money dance!
About time. Apple got a clue. Cheap singles, downloadable, mix and match. Just the formula that's been obvious for years now, just needed to be done on a big scale from a brand name outfit. Any of the big guys could have done this, software side, hardware side, music industry side. People asked them, they knew about it.
Just shows how many bad ideas can get investor money and interest, and how long a good idea can lay there begging to be picked up, even when millions of people are pointing at it, going "hey, look, a good idea!"
And just think the bigger push for better and cheaper broadband now, just from this one move, and it's a "legit" move, too, zero "controversy" about it or it's legality. It would be *nice* if it was cheaper than a dollar,and a scosh more flexible, but all in all it's a good start anyway.
Offer it to windows users and you have potentially 20x more sales. $1B. Offer it outside the united states and you get a whole lot more.
WHAT! This is very impressive, 2 million songs that weren't bought befoe. $50 mil is hardly pocket change, that could buy Steve another jet. That's money that they didn't have before, that could have been downloaded from Kazaa. How many songs have the other downloadable music services sold? This is a Good Thing, as more labels and songs get added, and when this flips to Windows, just how many songs will be downloaded? My question is will the servers be able to scale enough once that happens?
Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of Elderberries!
*Pfeh!*
Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a, you silly Pizza Infidel!
Last year the total number of downloads combined for online music services equaled, 400,000. I would say that two million in two weeks, is a very impressive number.
Apple has what, < 5% of the desktop market share? If these figure hold steady, then the Windows release of iTunes could generate close to a billion (1000 million) dollars.
That's what's impressive. Not that they have a service that could generate $50 million/year, but they have a potential US market (not a world market, but a US market) that is 20x larger to expand into. Start adding in Canada, Mexico, the EU, India, Japan... and there's a amazingly huge amount of money to be made by Apple.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Lets compare this to some other things that people buy:
Coke sells 1 billion Coca-Colas every two days.
McDonalds serves "Billions and Billions Daily".
But the thing to remember is that this is only for 5% of the computer owners market.
>Two million songs is not impressive at all.
Yes, for a company that has only 3% of computer marketshare, and an even smaller percent (85% ? of Mac users use OSX and lets imagine 90% downloaded Itunes 4) For a company that caters to this small of an audience, I would say two million songs in two weeks isn't bad. Macs have often been stepping stones before major software breaks out (I call it getting usability down, think AOL started on the Mac)
>This means total sales for the year would be >about $50 million, which in corporate terms is >pocket change.
It is pocket change. Now lets do some extrapolation of data shall we? 2 million songs in 16 days. Imagine if (when) this software is realeased for free on Windows, as it is currently under development. Lets say 90,000 downloads per day for mac users would extrapolate to be almost 3,000,000 for PC users, (thinking in strict terms of market share) so in two weeks time (after this software is set up for windows) we could see a revenue stream of over $1 Billion a year. Hardly chump change.
>Two million songs means that the average Apple >user is buying songs at a rate of 2-3 a year. >Hardly a figure that would impress anyone.
Are you Alomex, the great spreader of Fear uncertainty and doubt (FUD)? Or do you just wanna be a karma whore? The fact remains that the service has only been available for a little of two weeks, so each mac user downloaded two to three songs in two weeks. A song a week. (using your data)
>The only positive spin out of two million songs >sold is that it does prove that iTunes is not a >dud. Any other implication beyond that is pure >hype.
Positive Spin, in two weeks Apple has become the largest legit online music service company. And they can make money at this. They HAVE the backing of the music industry. They will soon have indy bands.
Please, take a moment to look at what the facts are before posting. I am getting annoyed with Karma whores spreading fake information about Microsoft, Apple, anything that doesn't run on or is Linux. The right tool for the right job.
Damn
Blah Blah Blah.
Right.
Because what the world needs now is more of the copulating cat cacaphony that is Cibo Matto.
That is all, you may proceed with the floggi^H^H^H^H^H^Hmodding down now.
I sure hope Apple will continue to get access to more trance and other music, especially as the record companies wake up, if they wake up, and realize that this service is getting closer to how people want their music. Personally, I still want the best quality, as in CD quality, but at $.99 a pop with the ability to burn the songs to disc, I guess it's doable.
Harold
When apple incorporated as apple they supposedly signed an agreement with apple records not to go into the record production bussiness.
from Wikipedia:
At one point, Apple Records sued Apple Computer for trademark infringment because the computer company broke their earlier agreement not to add sound to its computers. The case was settled out of court. Apple computers ever since have included a sound labelled sosumi ("So, sue me").
The label became successful, surviving the legal dissolution of the Beatles in 1974, and continuing to issue new material till 1976, although the holding company, Apple Corps., Ltd., is still in existence. The label was resurrected around the time of the Anthology for use on all Beatles CDs.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The fact remains that the service has only been available for a little of two weeks, so each mac user downloaded two to three songs in two weeks.
.
No. Songs are being purchased at a rate of two-three a year.
This is not the same as 2-3 songs per user in two weeks.
Like Coldplay's Parachutes album. It's priced at $11.99 -- WTF happened to 9.99 albums? But it's only 10 songs (one of which is a whole 46 seconds long). OK, so buy them individually. Sorry, nope. Track 10 is marked "album only." The other Coldplay Album is 10.89 for 11 songs, basically the price per song.
Now perhaps the record labels are forcing these limitations on Apple. Maybe they are the reason that a CD of 18 songs is for some reason missing one track and available "partial album only" so you have to buy all remaining 17 songs at 99 cents per. I mean, how can you sell some albums like Dream Theater's Scenes from a Memory or 6DOIT which are complete album-long epics and offer it as "partial album only?" Heaven forbid I get 70 minutes worth of music for only $9.99. If you sell little 3 minute songs you can get over 20 songs on a CD that way... That's less than 50 cents a track. Oh my guiddy aunt, can't allow that.
(Maybe I *will* go back to aquiring my CDs the old fashioned way after all... Maybe the record labels want that to happen. Maybe they want iTMS to fail. Maybe I will fail to clarify what I mean by "old fashined way" with respect to aquiring my CDs.)
Mod this up to high, it's cute.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
We haven't seen much in the way of results yet, and it's still okay to be a little skeptical. It'd make me feel better to see a new category full of smaller labels introduced with some fanfare.
In general Apple'd be smart to add big new sections of content -- "We're opening a new such-and-so wing of the store" -- rather than adding the Doors one day and Alanis Morissette another, in dribs and drabs. It'd be better press, and get my attention. (They could even just re-cast existing categories in new groupings for effect: we're opening the "American Songbook" store, you know? No reason you shouldn't use it like the database it is.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
$50 million PROFIT is NOT corporate pocket change! Considering that that's just the US mac users that those 2 million song were sold to only those running OS X and only to those in the US, which is a very small percentage given that that is probably less than 1 % of the WORLD digital music customers. There's still a huge potential for profit considering the rest of the 99% International market. Hypothetically, even if you assume the current sales to be just 5% of the WORLD digital music sales, the potential profits total to $50m * 19 == $450 Million PROFIT or close to a BILLION in revenue!!! Point:
According to this osOpinion.com article Apple claims 5 million users for OS X (as of January, this year). Assuming no one else started using OS X since then (pretty poor assumption, but whatever), we see that 5 million users downloaded 2 million songs in 16 days. This is a rate of 125,000 songs per day. At 365 days a year, we see 45.6 million songs per year. Spread across our 5 million users we see 9.12 songs per year. Admittedly not huge, but still 3x larger than your numbers.
Admittedly, this is based on some schetchy assumptions. 1) Purchasing rates won't remain at this level. 2) The number of OSX users I'm sure is higher now than it was in January.
But still, not what you claim.
You can't get a blue screen on a black and white monitor.
seriously, way to name three things missing. Newsflash: they aren't gonna have everything. Not after two weeks, not after a month. Probably never. I'm still waiting on this brazilian band Timbalada, etc. Why did you bother to post?
Apple claims 5 million users for OS X
I had assumed that all Apple users could access the iTunes music store web site, however upon reading your comment I went to the Apple web site and indeed it seems you need OS X to access the iTunes music store...
We're not buying any numbers about the rate of sales to "the average Mac user" unless you've got a source or a much clearer description of your supposed stat -- what population are you using, please? -- but let me ask you this: What would "impress" you? Apparently a profitable online method for music retailing that convinces the big labels to allow unintrusive, intuitive DRM in the files and a per-song sales model, that doesn't impress you... Not when it's only selling around 90 songs a minute or around 1.4 songs a second.
In 16 days, Apple's store has more than doubled the sales from the other "legit" online music resellers put together last year. I wonder if they're at all impressed. If not, we shouldn't expect them to try to move to a similar sales model...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
They need to have a system to tell users when songs are added. Several songs I want (Led Zep, latest Allman Bros etc) were not on the store when I checked. I would get them when they are available but I will not check every time I hear they added songs.
...you also have to consider how many ipods/Macs the existence of this service will sell. Not that I'm arguing that it will save the company or anything.
Also, keep in mind that they are planning on having a Windows version out soon, which could tremendously increase the market. If it scales linearly with marketshare, that will be a pretty big number.
Liberty uber alles.
As everybody probably agrees, this is a great step in the right direction. This is exactly the kind of system that will bring "MP3s" (i know they're not MP3s, but that's what everybody actually means when they say "digital audio" or whatever) to the masses, legally. However, there are a few problems.
These songs are all AAC. Now, a good deal of the "new" or "lesser-known" formats that Apple has picked up on, they've turned into pretty much ubiquitous formats, for all systems. So, the fact that AAC is largely unsupported by most media players, hardware players, and other audio utilities is only going to be an issue for a little while. Once Apple has propogated AAC all throughout the PC world, it'll be just as popular as Vorbis or MPC. But there are several problems with this. Number one, as everybody knows, it's all DRM. That means that i'm paying just about the same price as a retail CD (or probably a little less, but not much), but i can only play those songs on approved hardware. (I haven't read up on Apple's AAC DRM scheme, but i assume it's much like WMA's.) So that's one problem. Another problem is, AAC is lossy, and not everybody likes it, for that reason and others. If i'm paying for a song, i want it in full, crystal-clear, lossless quality, so that i can encode it into my lossy format of choice, in order to make it compatible with my desired hardware/software. Or, at least, i'd like the option to (i understand that not everybody wants to download a full lossless CD). Of course, if they ever did go lossless, they'd have to get rid of the DRM (or it would be mostly pointless).
But i think, realistically, everybody knows that that's not going to happen. No matter how far the music industry goes with this, the music will ALWAYS be DRM. There is never going to be a service that offers just plain MP3s/Vorbises/FLACs/WAVs/<insert desired audio format>. It's always going to be restricted-access media, because the RIAA can't bear to let their content go freely to the user.
In other words, it's a step in the right direction, but i think it's the last one.
Dude, you're using OS 9 on an ancient machine. Upgrade to OS X and get new hardware...THEN you'll see the light!
Ever heard of Neo? It's a Mac version of the Kazaa client, developed by Michael Thole in 2002. Unfortunately it doesn't support the rampant spread of computer viruses plaguing the PC clients. Us Mac users are always getting ripped off!!!
not to mention you need to be in the US. There is parts of the world outside of the US, in fact most of the world is outside the US.
Dude, the OS 9 is larger than 64 megs. you're running on fumes. you would not even be running if it were not for virtual memory. I'm surprised you can write 16 megs in a day, let alone 20 minutes.
Do you have any clue what size bbedit and bloatscape are? A bloody miracle it does not just crash.
Of course all your other apps crack. they are swapped out on disk. (NT had much better virtual memory management than OS 9, but you must be sucking fumes if you think a 4 meg NT machine would outperform the mac)
dude get a clue
We shall roast their stomachs in hell!!!
Mmmmmm.... roasted stomach pizza....
Eminem should replace Steve Jobs as CEO. I can see it now. Instead of "Think Different" Apple's new slogan will be "Bitch, I'm gonna kill you!"
If you do any productive work then I assume (when you are not copying mp3s at work) you must write to disk at least 160 meg per day (inbox mboxfile changes, saved changes in bbedit, virtual memory, and netscape cache files).
by your stats this takes you 200 minutes = 3.33 hours when you cant do anything else.
if you are paid $100 dollars an hour including benefits then you waste 333 dollars per day minimum.
Also you delay the completion of your projects by 2 days every 5 days. if anyone else is being held up by your slow progress then add that cost in too.
time to buy an $800 OSX e-mac.
If your too cheap to spend the $10 it costs for 64 more meg of memory then down grade your computer to 8.0 which uses less memory.
However it is not an official client, nor is it likely to be the majority of the kazaa clients in use. So no matter how many mac clients stop connecting to the kazaa network it will likely have little impact on the overall network health. Hence the comment is still relativly meaningless in reference to kazaa.
in fact most of the world is outside the US.
Yes, but most of Apple's user base is in the US, and many (although not most) of the people who can afford 99c a song are also in the US.
I still can't believe that, in a n effort to make the service look fresh and not stagnate, they aren't putting more new releases on the service. Wouldn't it be cool if they had some big artist's new CD avaliable on the ITMS 3 days before it was released on CD? And since they have DRM built in the record labels could be a little less worried about letting them go ahead with it.
And they don't have any White Stripes or the FREAKING BEATLES. c'mon!
Even more likely he's a troll who posts the same freaking comment on every Apple discussion.
Nah, it's not BS. MacOS before X just plain sucked for the kind of work he's trying to do. It sucked at copying files from place to place on the same disk. It really sucked at virtual memory. MacOS 9 multitasking was horrible. You could do one thing, and one thing only. This guy's got Netscape, BBEdit, file transfer, music playing, etc.. Something that OS 9 just can't do. Watch a DVD, and the DVD gets 100% of the freaking CPU, and yet the sound still loses sync. Nope, it won't drop a few frames here and there to let your background processes run.
Thankfully, MacOS X, with its new architecture based on open systems and open standards, is much, much better.
A solution to the problem with music today
Okay, let's not get carried away. India and Mexico are unlikely to have the purchasing power and Internet infrastructure to present a market comparable to the US, Canada, EU, or Japan.
It would be very interesting to know the percentage of broadband users among the customers of the iTunes Music Store. I would suspect that it is close to 100%.
True that. Some people, no matter how much logic and evidence you throw at them, insist that the earth is flat, Elvis is alive and copyright infringment is a form of theft. The litmus test is, has there been a loss of property to some other individual? No loss of property, no theft.
the crime known as "copyright infringement" is a special class of the general activity known as "theft."
No. Just because something is a crime doesn't mean its theft. If I burn down your house, is that committing theft? After all, I have deprived you of your worldy possessions. But wait, its not theft because neither you nor I have possession of your property because it has been destroyed. That's why we call it arson, because it has vital charachteristics that make it a completely different crime than stealing. If I copy your research paper behind your back and pass it off as my own, thats called plagerism. If I bring a 20 dollar bill down to the copy shop and xerox a few for some extra cash, its not theft. Its forgery. It's highly illegal and I'll be scrwed if the Secret Service catches me, but just because something is illegal doesn't mean its theft. If you are an artist and I make copies of your music and give them to my friends without paying you, thats copyright infringment, because you still have possession of all of your property. Again, no loss of property, no theft.
take: to get into one's possession
Nice that you left out the relevant explanation of that definition:
a. To capture physically; seize: take an enemy fortress.
b. To seize with authority; confiscate.
If I capture, seize, or confiscate your property, I have control and possession of your property while you lose it. That is the point you cannot see. If I don't take, or remove your property there is no theft. There might be copyright infringment, forgery or plagerism, but there is no theft without a transfer of possession.
But if that's not good enough for you, perhapse you'd like a few more. While you're noting the complete absence of any copying of so called "intellectual property" from any of those, check out how many specifically say "taking and removing". Thats because theft is concrete. I've either stolen your car from your garage or I haven't. I've either removed some stereos after breaking into Radio Shack or I haven't. That doesn't apply to downloading a copy of Office XP without paying for it, because there is no guarantee that I would have bought it in the first place. And even if it was guaranteed, MS has only "lo
Think Different is too old anyway, and I think Eminem would have to change the line to "Bitch, I'm gonna switch you!"
(or maybe "Bill, I....", forget it).
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
It's even worse. You really don't want to know how bad the situation with broadband in some countries of the EU is. And I'm talking about Germany. If you're really lucky and live close to a larger city you "might" be able to get 1.5 Mbps for 25-30 Euro/month...
Jeez I'm getting 100Mbps on fibre optic line for 5000 Yen (37 Euro)/month in Tokyo and 12Mbps ADSL for around 3000 Yen all around Japan.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Those figures usually only relate to sales to stores and chains. It doesn't mean that people actually bought that many CDs. Eminem could sell 10 million CDs to stores, but if no customer would get them they would eventually end up in the bargain bin. He would have nontheless gained his gold/platinum/whatsover status...
www.emusic.com/tmbg/
Positive Spin, in two weeks Apple has become the largest legit online music service company
Are there any stats around on what other online music retailers are selling? That's the downloadable music kind, not simply ordering CDs. I do suspect the iTunes music store sales to slow down in time, but are apple outstripping other retailers by 2:1, 10:1, or more? Is their one million songs in the first week really that impressive in relative terms?. I find it pretty good going in absolute numbers, considering there's such a tiny percentage of computer owners actually able to use it.
I love the way iTunes work through the store and hope it succeeds with a bigger & better catalogue, but the skeptic in me wants to know the numbers!
you can't expect that these numbers will remain constant once the newness wears off.
On the other hand the market keeps growing. In that same million dollar first week only about one million mac users downloaded the new iTunes. There are however 25 million mac users in total. I suspect there will be a spike the first couple of weeks as early adopters/geeks try it out. Immediately after that it will fall off for a few weeks/months but going forward it will continue to grow as the installed base continues to grow. I think it's possible that in the end the numbers may be even *better* than they were in the first week. In other words 25 million people occassionally buying music at the average rate may be a higher daily number than only 1 million people caught up in an "opening day" surge.
Dude, you're replying to a generic troll that someone posts to every Apple article...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
OK, I'll grant you Mexico - but India is a huge country. From what I've seen and heard, it's in pretty much the same situation as the US w/regard to broadband - there are areas of excellent connectivity, and other areas where even a dialup connection is hard to get. Even if you scale down music prices to accomidate the relative cost of living in India, I suspect there's a large enough market there that it would be worthwhile pursuing.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
don't forget...you're only taking into account American, OSX enabled users (I'm not sure if Canadians are allowed to buy through the store yet).
In Europe and Asia OSX enabled users are not yet allowed to purchase through the store.
When these regions are allowed to purchase Apple can expect the sales to increase (significantly I would hope but who knows).
All that to say that by the end of the year when Apple can count European and Asian regions as well as the Windows market share there should be a pretty healthy annual profit for the kids in Cupertino.
dreadz1
Apple also has decent sales in Japan and the EU, zones which also have enough free cash to afford the legitimate purchase of music.
C'mon! It's informative, not offtopic - someone asked!!
Sure. I didn't say it wasn't worth pursuing, just that you don't want to expect similar revenue from India.
The US has a 10 trillion dollar GDP, about 200 million telephone lines, and 166 million Internet users. India has a 2.7 trillion dollar GDP, 30 million telephone lines, and 7 million Internet users. Consider also that the lower price you suggested will increase the gap further, because you don't make as much money per sale, assuming the same percentage of Internet users purchase music in India.
I got a Fela Kuti album (Confusion/Gentleman) that has four songs, all of which are close to or over 10 minutes in length (one's like 25 minutes long or something), for 3.96.
Admittedly, Fela Kuti may not be exactly super-popular, but maybe that's the point.
I do hope they fix the "Partial Album" problem though, it's a real PITA. I am curious to know whether that's a licensing or technological issue.
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
If I keep repeating it maybe it'll sink in.
So no matter how many times you, personally, try to narrowly define what "theft" means, it's not going to work.
How is wanting to call something exactly what it is, as opposed to something its not, "narrowly defining" something? You must be an RIAA exec, because they are trying to widen the definition of theft to include copyright infringment.
Dude, stop it, okay? Just stop it. Everybody here "grasps" the "gulf" between infringement and theft. It's just that we "grasp" it in a way that's (1) different from yours, and (b) based on simple definitions of common words. Your whole "I'm smarter than you" schtick isn't going to get you anywhere.
First you argued on definitions, and I shot you down there. Now your trying to argue some "more common defintion". Who's? You get this from www.riaa.com/gullible/propoganda.html?
Read it yourself: theft is the act of stealing. (Cross-reference "stealing" to see what that means, to wit, "To take and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully; as, to steal the personal goods of another." Nothing in there about deprivation or material possessions, is there?
Now who's cherry picking? Fine, lets ask the average Joe about this. I break into Joe's house while he's away and copy his entire dvd collection. You try to tell Joe that I've stolen stuff from him, to which he replies: "but everythings still there!" I've trespassed on his property, probably guilty of breaking and entering, but I haven't stolen anything from him. Bam! You lose sucka.
You've got an agenda to push here, and that agenda includes the obliteration of the notion of property.
Pfft. My only agenda is to get people to call things by their proper names and not fall for the **AA propogada. If Vader can come back from the dark side, why can't you? And what we need to do is avoid this idiotic "intellectual property" bs and get back to what it actually, histrically is: a social contract for exclusivity, enforced by law. Thats why none of this is theft, because you are INFRINGING on that right of exclusivity.
When you copy that book without paying for it, you take money RIGHT OUT OF HIS POCKET.
Scud: 4, AC 0
BTW I'm leaving for the weekend. Why don't you take that time to read up on what copyrights and patents actually are.
Here's another point. Apple sold two million tracks in the first two weeks. Their only advertising was the initial PR, the web buzz and coverage in the press. The advertising for the store didn't start until late in the second week (on Thursday, during Friends). A healthy portion of their user base (home iMac users) hans't even heard of the store yet.
I'm going to be very interested in what the sales figures do after the advertising kicks in.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Mr. Mathers sold about 10-11 million CD's in 3 years. That's actual sales, not inflated hype. In any given week, the top selling CD is under 300,000 units. That's tracked sales by Soundscan. Record companies and PR flaks put out lies. Have you ever noticed that every act that comes through has a million selling record? They're trying to sell tickets and puff up sales.
There wasn't much point in anecdotally telling everyone four random groups that weren't properly represented. But I wanted to list them all to show how cool my musical tastes are. Apple is really lacking in their music store if they don't have these few things I mentioned.
Of course, these groups are sort of my guilty pleasures. I would call them sellouts because more than 25 people have heard of them.
CLITORIS CHOPPERS. Hi there you fucking Islamic career clerics, doctors of death, Waffen Schutzstaffel doctor Josef Mengele is a patron saint compared to you fucking ragheads. You suck. You aide and abet terror and death. You are partially responsible for the deaths of other fellow men. For this fratricide you shall pay dearly. Your soul is black with the stains of inaction, ineptitude and sympathies to those who walk the dark side. Your foul life is full of sins, not religious, just heinous, your karma is low, you don't confess, and you aren't in prison where you belong. You are your own dark, kept secret. I see through you, the worthless academic, the pseudo intellectual, the unproven unpublished un patented WASTE OF FUCKING FLESH. You are a drain on society, you are a member of the 1st world but pretend to not be. I hate you, you are a stained man.
Hi clitoris chopper, you islamists support clitoris carving. You are Islamic, and of course are a fucking animal. I hate you you pull-start camel jockey lover. Towelheads, Camel Jockies, Sand Niggers, Ackmids, Abeebs, Carpet Flyers, Dune Coons, Rag Heads, Sand Scratchers, Habeebs, Abba-Dabbas, Camel-Humpers, Demi-niggers, Fig-Gobblers, Hucka-luckas (hucka hlacka ghalcka ghugh), Lefties (If you steal, you lose the right hand so, since they are thieves...) Ocnods, Pull-Start-ables (imagine pull starting Ossama's dirty rag like a Briggs and Stratton), Roach-Ranchers (habibs cant kill roaches by a tenant of Is-slum), Sand Moolies.
Shut up all you dirty fucking Islamic pigfucking swinehundts and the pigs, the communist fuckin Islamic terrorist supporter.
Take your fucking Koran and cram it up your ass. The sooner the earth sees Islam leave it, the better off it will be. Your Koran is Goat Piss.
I hope if there is a God and a Hell, you have to drink the liquidy shit from a Pig's ass, and Jewish Rabbis defecate on you.
I hate the stupid ISLAM fucks who read into the trash they come up with. Saddam Hussein [who needs to take a dirt nap] is higher on my sanity list than fucking Muslim "clerics." In fact, I like Saddam more than most of the other Arab leaders because he is secular. We should fucking nuke the Saudis and Mecca and Medina and turn it into rubble, then tell Saddam to remove the heads of all the buttfucking "royalty" in the area.
I want to wipe my ass with Mohammad's shroud. I want to grind his body up into bone meal and fertilize my garden with it.
Our tortured dead scream out in HORROR, asking for vengeance:
Nuke their countries to hell.
Nuke them again.
Death to Islam.
I piss on Mecca. I wipe my ass with the Koran. I shit upon Mohammed. I wipe the cum for a freshly fucked pussy with Mohammed's shroud then throw it in the pig sty so it can mire in pig shit as it decomposes.