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Microsoft Prepares Alternative To Apple iTunes
bmarklein writes "According to CNET, Microsoft is working on a version of its DRM software that supports expiration of files on portable devices. Combined with a subscription service like Pressplay (soon to become Napster) that allows unlimited "tethered" downloads, you'll be able to fill up your high-capacity player with new music for a flat monthly fee. Of course it will expire once you stop paying the sub fee, but which do you think is the better deal: $7500 to fill a 30GB player (7500 songs at $1 each) with iTunes Music Store, or $120 a year with the ability to swap in new music whenever you want? How much is it worth to you to "own" the bits?"
Crap, no! :-)
I encode Ogg Vorbis files averaging 6 MB/Song, I can easily tell the difference with everything lower than that.
Jokes apart, this whole matter of "owning" is tricky....
Will I be able to do whatever I want with the songs, before they expire? Can I use them on my portable player, laptop, office PC and home PC without paying 4 subscriptions?
Will quality be crippled?
Will it work on Linux (that would be interesting from Microsoft) ? I have a Linux In-car mp3 player in the works, and my home theater is connected to my Linux Ogg server.
Vacuum cleaners suck. Kings rule.
but that is just me.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Isn't the question really, "Wouldn't it be great to own every song ever created for $10?"
/. utility to bust the DRM protection. ;-) I give it about 4 days after the service starts until someone figures this out. ;-)
How is this possible?
1) Sign up for one month.
2) Download every song in the database.
3) Use the new
4) Discontinue the service.
Whats to keep someone from downloading all the music they want, recording it via the headphone jack to MP3 or ogg, swapping in new music and starting all over? Oh, thats right.. Paladin. I honestly can't say I'm looking forward to the next 7 or 8 years of M$ dominated computing. :(
A small point: Apple's service sells albums for $10 so 15 or 20 songs can cost $10. I have spent a total of $11 on the Apple Music Store, and I can say that the user experiance is very good, and with the "1-Click" feature I could easily spend $100 without even noticing.
Yawn.
...I'd go with Apple. Give money to a company that innovates, rather than copies.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
Watch the verbage. As far as the RIAA is concerned, you never 'own' a song. Unless the consumer has the right to rip, mix, and burn, you can't say they 'own' anything but the right to listen to it, and even then only if they pay a recurring charge. From the looks of this system the best you could call it is renting, and that's a stretch.
-R
Subscription services have already been done. They don't work. Period. iTunes works because you 'own the bits'. That, my friend is why they have sold more music to more customers than any other online pay service COMBINED, and it only took them two weeks.
Some of those 7500 songs will come in the form of full albums, which are only $9.99, and frequently come with more than 10 songs. Put me in the Own My Bits camp.
. . . but already a failure.
Why is it that all of these companies try to change the buyer's habbits? Much akin to groceries on the web, and the original DIVX discs, these schemes too will fail.
None of these services gaurantee that I will be able to burn a disc, when I want, where I want. None of these services gaurantee that I will be able to re-rip a CD when my PC takes a chunk.
All the schemes in the world won't have a chance in hell if they keep trying to shift public habbit.
"Thoughts are more powerful than any weapon, and I don't even let my people own guns." --Joseph Stalin
Just wonder what MS thinks of Kazaa, Gnutella & others. Perhaps they should also provide some service which selects the music according to user profile or offer even some sort of "added value" to the basic idea of downloaded music. Files with expiration date won't do it - what if the internal clock of my PC gets confused etc. Experience tells me MS can't anticipate every possible consumer error behavior.
"Of course it will expire once you stop paying the sub fee, but which do you think is the better deal: $7500 to fill a 30GB player (7500 songs at $1 each) with iTunes Music Store, or $120 a year with the ability to swap in new music whenever you want"
And if this subscripton doesn't have the music you want? What are you supposed to do - SWITCH and lose your existing collection.
And when the price doubles what do you do then? Lose your collection or continue paying!
and how about 5 times? How much can Gates raise the price before you give up your collection?
What happens when the choice is crap and your paying just to play your existing music?
This can go in one of two ways:
If things work out well, we'll have lively competition in the one-song-download business, leading to better, cheaper service.
If things work out badly, M$ will bundle this into the next version of their OS, undercut the competition, and eventually kill the business.
We'll have to wait and see.
Surely not even the RIAA is mad enough to trust Microsoft with the security of its' music? Oh wait...
Can i copy the file to a cd and ply it in my existing MP3 player? No? Gee, try again guys. WHy would i pay you for something with less functionality than I already have that works fine?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
The most likely way something like this would succeed would be for MS (for example) to bundle this with their MSN service, perhaps partnered with Verizon DSL service. Sell it as a stand-alone subscription for $10 per month to AOL and Earthlink users, but offer it "free" to MSN DSL subscribers. Then it becomes a value-added piece of their online offerings and puts them at an advantage over AOL and Apple (Apple is ultimately doomed with the $1 per song fee).
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
I wish that Apple would look into signing contracts with smaller labels so that they can increase the variety of music offered. Most of what I listen to come from obscure bands and I think that the music industry will benifit greatly if more people are aware of the variety of content available. If there was a distributor with the variety offered by Audiogalaxy, I would definitely spend money on it.
If we can get M$ and the RIAA to go head to head, maybe we can kill two turds with one stone.
...err, birds, sorry.
Ironically, the appeal of the Apple music store is that you "own" the titles that you buy for. I believe that many people rather choose to pay for specific offers, instead of subscribing to some service.
By way of example: I pay for cable TV, and I have certain expectations. Especially, I don't expect stuff to be worthwile to keep after (possibly) timeshifting it; if there's a movie, series, mini-series I feel I might watch more than once or twice, I'm quite willing to pay some premium to get (practically) unlimited rights to it. Apple's offer is not unlimited, but it's close enough for me to accept it.
On the other hand, a music subscription service, for me, is full of hassles. I need an Internet connection to have my right to listen confirmed; I might need to stream stuff, at potentially low quality, I can't use the devices I want to, etc. pp. In essence, I don't "own" the music.
A newspaper or magazine subscription is similiar in that I don't care that much about last month's issue (with most publications, anyway), but with my personal interest in music, I want to be able to "own" a recording, and rest calmly knowing that I can listen to it when I want, not when some commerical service deems appropriate.
Frankly, there are some songs I love and want to listen to all the time; these are ones I'd want to "own" so I can have them available whenever/whereever, and be able to demonstrate to others and stuff like that.
And then there's others that I have a sort of periodic interest in, and usually stop caring about after a few weeks. These are ones I'd prefer to "rent", because there's no point in paying more so as to keep them later.
Plus, I'd like to be able to control the difference between these two states easily.
Does *anybody* offer something like that? Not that I can see...
--
viqsi - See "vixen"
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Gee, renting DRM crippled songs, or buying DRM crippled songs.
I'll take buying. Still the better deal of the two, and I'm not helping to support a monopoly.
AC comments get piped to
I'd rather go somewhere else where the music is better, the downloads are virtually unlimited and the sound quality is the best of any subscription service on the net (Lame VBR encoded MP3s).
What am I talking about? EMusic of course.
No, they don't have stuff like Britney Spears and Led Zeppelin, but they have more excellent indie, experimental, electronic, metal, jazz, punk, classical and uncategorizable music than you could ever listen to in a lifetime. If you're sick of Clear Channel bullshit and hungry for something exciting and interesting, it is a feast.
And you get to keep every single file you have downloaded. Permanently.
(I know they had some trouble recently with their new servers wbut that seems to be resolved now)
The article mostly talks about Microsoft trying to improve their DRM so that other companies can use it in their services... not about MS coming up with a service themselves.
I believe MS'd like a consumer service for MSN, and I think it may actually be in the work, but the article doesn't really address it. MS either views the back-end b2b type DRM-provider stuff as more important at this stage or is under a lot of secrecy.
nonsig. unsig. desig.
As soon as they introduce this it'll only be a matter of days (maybe even hours) before there's a program made which will just convert your downloaded payed for time-limited music into a codec of your choice.
And also it's always going to be difficult to actually sell the music to the consumer when the consumer can just download the music he/she wants from KaZaA or whatever file sharing program takes their fancy.
So people are either going to need to be either self-concious enough that they want to pay for their music.... or? Or companies are going to need to make a service that is vastly supieror to the free alternatives, or maybe perhaps you get a certain amount of months of subscription to the service every time you buy a portable player or something?
This seems to me like taking a step up a ladder which leads to a large, half eaten fish. It might be something to do, but what's the point?
With that kind of subscription, their target for this service wouldn't be the same as AMS. Maybe people that listen to the last hit on the top 10 would like to swap their music very often, I don't. I have my prefered bands and music style, i wouldn't want to get rid of them.
But, seriously, a flat rate makes a helluva lot more sense to me than a per-song rate. Some songs are longer/better than others, and I'd hate to have to pay the same dollar for Blur's "Song 2", which kicks ass but is barely two minutes long, as I have to pay for Metallica's "One", which is arguably as good in its own ways and is nearly four times as long.
Penny per Megabyte or flat monthly rate, whichever is cheaper! Every body wins!
How much is it worth to you to "own" the bits?
/.ers, of course, since we always carry things ad absurum!), will never buy that many songs. The player will be obsolete before that happens, and they'll move along to the next platform.
....Bethanie....
Personally, I like having both options open. It goes like this: first I rent the DVD, then if I really like it, I go ahead and buy it.
And truth be told, I think that the cost projection of $7500 to "fill up" a 30GB player is a little absurd (leave it to the marketers!). The vast majority of users (not
Part of the "advantage" of Microsoft's DRM is that the files will expire if you don't pay your bills. So you don't really own the songs. You're subscribing to a service, like cable.
Finding God in a Dog
Why would someont put the time and effort into cracking the DRM for stuff thats available already? Unless pressplay has music unavailable anywhere else.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Anyway, I'd prefer a rental system with an option to buy. I could then fill the device with rental music, and when I decide I like something enough to want it permanently, I'd buy it.
Usenet is the only way to go. I spend $10 a month for 750mb of downloads per day. That works up to 5.25gb per week, and 21gb a month. OK, so it's not as simple as Kazaa, but you don't have to put up with spyware and you won't wind up with partial files. You can place requests and (usually) have them filled pretty quickly. And you'll be exposed to a larger variety of stuff on Usenet, stuff you probably won't see in the P2P communities.
At the moment Usenet doesn't seem to be the focus of any RIAA crackdowns. Just go out and get a good newsfeed (there are plenty which protect user anonymity) and start downloading! You'll never pay for music again unless you want to!
owning the song 'forever' is worth it ...
...
being locked in a subscribtion service 'forever' is not
At the risk of sounding like someone who feeds trolls and replies to flame-bait, you're a scumbag. I for one am NOT a pirate, and have no problem paying for what I want. I'll admit that I have used services like Kazaa and was REALLY into Napster when it was new, but it still is and always has been theft.
The incentive to buy is exactly the what you mentioned. If you like a band, you buy their music so that you can support them and they'll make more. It's just like potato chips or caffeine vendors, buy their stuff and they'll make more and continue to innovate. Don't buy it and they'll consider the venture a failure and stop doing whatever it was no matter what you thought about it.
It's not about cluelessness about P2P, it's about paying for a product that someone else produces and you're enjoying the benefits of.
Like apple users are doing.
Microsoft would have to pay me to use their inferior Windows Media Audio codec. I could take a crap, and throw it in a blender and come up with something that would sound more realistic. I'll stick to MP3, OGG, MPC, or even better.. a plain old regular CD.
To me, it's not a matter of owning. It's a matter of feeling a sense of freedom. Any time I'm forced to make a long term monetary commitment (a loan, gym membership, etc.) I'm reluctant to do so. This is because there's always that shred of doubt regarding the future. What if something happens and I'm unable to pay this monthly fee?
With a gym membership it's easy: stop going to the gym. With a car loan it's different. You're going to get your car repossessed. Obviously this is not ideal, because you've invested time and energy into this automobile and you'd be losing this.
Getting your music repossessed is the same concept. I've put time and money into this collection, and I'll be damned if some company takes it back if I fail to make a payment. Because the future is unpredictable (especially for me, a poor college student), I'm going to stick with owning my music.
Also, I just want to point out, only singles on the iTMS are 99 cents. Albums are usually 10 dollars, and often contain WAY more than 10 songs.
Apple has shown the industry the way to do it, and (judging by the response) the way consumers want it to be done-- or at least, the way consumers will tolerate it being done.
Since Windows market saturation is complete, from now on Microsoft will always be trying to throw a "you must keep paying" aspect into their products and services-- because they're a bunch of greedy fucks, and because when there's no new people to sell Windows to, it's the only way to keep revenues up.
It looks to me, though, like the buying public has spoken in favor of the ITMS model-- so I'd say that for once, Microsoft's half-assed, "me too" copy of Apple's offering will NOT prevail.
Interestingly enough, you don't own the music from Itunes or buying a CD in a store either.
I already have tons of music ripped. Screw em all.
Contrary to popular belief, I don't actually make my website for other people to look at.
It's digital media, how the hell can anyone really own it? I don't mind paying for a subscription service, but I'm sure as hell not going to buy into one run by microsoft. That's their dream, to make you "rent" their crappy software a year at a time.
I think, eventually, a lot of stuff will come this way. I pay for XFM radio, because it's worth it to me not to have to listen to open air radio. Same deal with this. There are a lot of games I'd rather spend $5 to have access to than $50 to "own".
Still, this is more of a paradigm shift than a solution that can be expidited by simply adding hard DRM to modern services.
Just my (Mostly incoherent) opinion.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Renting music is sort of like having cable TV. You can enjoy whatever the operator happens to make available at that time. But when you own the music (or DVD or book or whatever), you don't have to be concerned about whether the things you want to hear will one day be unavailable because of lack of demand or other reasons.
How much music does a normal person acquire in a year (legally or otherwise)? I have every CD that I own on my 10GB iPod -- plus various MP3s from other sources -- and it's still only half full. The issue as it was framed in this question ($7,500 for ownership vs. $120 a year for rental) is absurb, because people don't buy thousands of dollars of music at once. The real question is whether you want to be committed to listening to whatever a subscription service wants you to listen to OR be able to spend a tiny amount of money on a song or album when you happen to feel like it. The subscription model does at least three bad things: 1) It takes away your ability to legally own music for as long as you want it, 2) It takes away your freedom to time your purchases to your own whims or budget, and 3) It takes away your ability to "vote with your money" to give the market feedback about what you want to buy.
I understand the theoretical allure of a subscription model, but I believe it's one of those things that looks best when it's in theory. In practice, people want to buy what they want when they want AND they want to be able to own it. (You can argue about whether Apple's mild restrictions are too strict concerning what you can do with the file, but that's another argument. For me, Apple's approach basically means that I can do virtually anything that a normal music consumer wants to do with his music.)
One thing that I think people are overlooking is the problem with data storage with MP3s/whatever format. Say someone downloads $500 worth of MP3s, and their hard drive goes bad. Will they be able to re-download these files they PAID for with the new services coming out? Or will they be out of $500 and no music?
About $20.
$120 for a year
120 bucks a year works to 6 CDs a year . I doubt any music company is going to allow such a scheme to go forward.The catch is that the music industry expects a certain amount of money from a person (or family) per year.Apple is paying that money. And I am sure that if MS is too meet that, it would work out to something around 4 or fve times that. To top it you have to factor in the cost of the player (you probably need a portable, a car sterio and a computer ) which need to be DRM enabled.
And I wonder if I have only 6 songs in my playlist and I have license to have 10, can I share my password with my friend so that he can download those 4?
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
Because people deserved to be paid for their work. I agree to this and accept this, and I think iTunes is exactly what the industry needed all this time.
Incidently, who else thinks the music industry messed up big time by not coming out with something like this before napster. Think about it, songs for a buck, easy to get, and consumer grade.
Had they done this, we all would have been "Napster who?".
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Seriously, at an average of 5 songs I like per album, that's 1500 albums! For comparison's sake, I know a guy who's been buying CDs since the 80's and has a very large collection - 600+ CDs. Hell, 7500 songs takes about 30,000 minutes to play - that's 20 days of continuous music! I gues the point is this: filling up a large amount of space with 128Kbps mp3s isn't a reasonable benchmark. Reasonable usage is.
Microsoft's service is akin to buying 12 songs per month on Apple's service, except that, should you stop paying, you have nothing.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I prefer to purchase the song and have it as long as I dictate. I'm not going to spend $7500 on music any time soon, so a puchase-by-the-song model works well for some (many?) of us.
Plus I have little desire to pay additional Microsoft taxes.
At the risk of coming off as a low-down thief (aren't we all...), why on earth would anyone do this? If you have access to a store and you're looking to load items in your pockets, I see no incentive when you can get any item you want, as many as you want, FOR FREE with a quick grab or using one of the dozens of shoplifting techniques now available.
There are, as I see it, some advantages to buying the item (directly support producers, etc.), but what's the incentive to buy this unless the customer is so clueless that they do not even know about shoplifting?
Bitchslapped. Neat.
1) Will it work with an iPod and my Mac? I've got a PC, but I'm not interested in something that I can only listen to on that PC.
2) Will the selection be *way* better than the Apple Music Store?
It looks like the answer is "no" to both questions. Pressplay's selection looks *horrible*. If you're going to get me into a music subscription, your catalog better include every artist I've ever heard of, bar none.
I want you recording bootlegs at concerts so I can listen to bands that haven't even been picked up by indies. Does that sound extreme? Well, for that I'd pay $50/mo, and I couldn't care less about whether I own the music because at that point, I'd be a subscriber for the rest of my life. No doubt about it.
Since Apple is letting me keep the music, I won't ever request that kind of selection from them, but I'm not particularly drawn to them either, because I know they're not going to carry Legowelt, or Neutral Milk Hotel, or whatever. Last I checked, they only had one incomplete Radiohead album. I'm bored already. So, question #2 is keeping me away from Apple, too.
Someday, someone will build the service I'm looking for. I long for the Central Intelligence Corporation.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
OK, so maybe $5000 vs. $120 a year? $5000 would buy you over 40 years of a subscription, which also gives you the ability to swap in new music whenever you want.
At the risk of coming off as a low-down thief (aren't we all...), why on earth would anyone pay for candy at the candy store? If the clerk isn't watching and you're looking to stuff your pockets full of candy, I see no incentive when you can get the jelly beans you want, as many as you want, FOR FREE by stuffing them in your pockets or one of the dozens of bodily orifices available.
There are, as I see it, some advantages to buying the candy (directly support candy manufacturers, etc.), but what's the incentive to buy this unless the customer is so clueless that they don't even know about pockets?
They make a commercial chain reaction of users switching to crippled DRM systems impossible.
No one with one even one brain cell will buy crippled files when they can get the real thing in two clicks; this is what has artificially propped up the iTunes service.
But you know this.
The only thing that would make this service cool would be to make the files non DRM, and high quality, just like buying the CD. But how likely is that? Not, is the answer.
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There are, as I see it, some advantages to buying the CD (directly support artists, etc.)
Only if it's an independent artist that actually gets all the money from CD sales. Otherwise, forget it! And regardless, concerts are a far better way to make money in music.
iTunes allows at least a 30-second preview of tracks at least prior to purchase, which greatly reduces the likelihood of buying something you don't like. still, seasons change and so do tastes; eventually, i'm sure those 'must have' trackes of yester-month will lose their luster and i'd like to dump them. allow a second-hand market to come into being that parallels that which exists currently for CDs. or books. perhaps a trade-in option : get some % for every track returned as credit towards a new purchase.
i want to keep my music but i also don't want to feel *stuck* with music
Great minds think alike.
The $7500 to fill up a 30 GB iPod assumes that you don't own a single CD that you already care about, or an MP3 collection of your own.
Just a small nitpick that drives me nuts whenever the figures are mentioned.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The big question is, which way will the consumers go, Microsoft, where it is cheaper, but your music goes *poof* when you don't pay or apple, where you pay more but get to keep. Obviously there is gonna be some app that will come out that will change the codec so you will be having that music for keeps. Does this mean that apple will lose out? Also how would microsoft react to the app? And what is Emusic doing to respond to both of these contenders?
"Guns don't kill people, bullets do."
Pay $300 for your operating system on CD, so you can reinstall at any time if necessary, or pay $120 a year for a subscription to an operating system that will expire in a year, then HAVE to pay $150 the next year to keep it for another year. Because that's the same model. And who would buy 7500 songs in a *volatile* format anyway? That is about double the size of my CD collection, which cost me $3200 or so (over 18 years). iTunes works precisely because buying a song is an impulse thing, and is particularly useful for stuff that you like but not enough to by the CD: buying 1 song for $1 is a lot better than buying 1 song and 14 bits of static for $15.
I think Microsoft business people are missing one key point: owning things is an intrinsic part of being human.
This does not mean that rental or subscription-based services will fail, it just means that owning media SHOULD be part of the deal. This also means that Apple should (besides selling songs) also contemplate renting songs for a specified amount of time (say, 25 or 50 cents for 1 year?).
In other words, we need BOTH options, since people WILL want to own certain songs, but just rent others. Just look at the DVD market. People buy the movies they love (Matrix, Star Wars), but rent the ones they just want to have a good night with (i.e.: Van Damme and Steve Segal movies come to mind).
When I can pay $1 for an Ogg file (or even MP3), I'll be happy to do so (even from Microsoft). It's simple, and it's amazing nobody gets it: cut the DRM crap, and people will pay for the convenience and legitimacy.
It's impossible to stop P2P, but P2P is very inconvenient, and people would rather not infringe copyrights. But DRM is much, much more inconvenient, and it shows the company's greed and mistrust of its customers. DRM does nothing to stop copyright infringement, and everything to curtail fair use. Fair use and convenience are one and the same, and and convenience sells.
iTunes is closest to this, but it still has DRM crap, won't work on Linux, etc. Whatever Microsoft does is bound to be a step backwards, because they are talking about expiration, the format will probably be WMA, you won't be able to switch services, your music will die when you unsubscribe, you won't be able to use it on anything but Windows and Microsoft-blessed hardware, etc.
Hopefully something even more open will come along, and do even better than iTunes, and things will become sane.
Litigious bastards
Let's be generous and say there are five songs per CD that you really like. You would need 1500 CDs to get those 7500 songs. That makes me think that 7500 songs is not too realistic. I personally listen to anywhere between 30 and 200 songs until I'm sick of them (that can take a month or two) before I load up a different songlist. Throuhout the year, I listen to maybe 500 different songs; probably less. So why would I need a service that allows me to download 7500 songs (or more) if all I need is 500 of them? Considering that I own more than half of them on original CDs and can rip them at any time (which I did), all I really need is to buy 200-250 songs. That's $200-250 on iTunes, or $10/month using Microsoft's new project. Within 2-3 years (adjusting for new songs I may want to own throughout this period), it will be heaper for me to use iTunes than Microsoft's service.
At the risk of sounding like someone who feeds trolls and replies to flame-bait,
I'm glad you took the risk, because I feel the same way. I wish more people would realize how exactly it affects the industry and what they are doing when they use P2P services.
Think of it this way - when you choose not to purchase CDs and instead download the songs for free, you are inadvertently 'boycotting' the artist. Now, I don't know how well boycotts work, but their intention is to shut down their target. Do you want your favourite artist to go golfing instead of producing music?
The publishing industry needs to wake up and realize it is providing a service, not selling products.
I'm not buying until they get a universal standard DRM - none of this proprietary stuff - that lets me access any 'content' on any device upon which it can be presented (home PC, work PC, car stereo, beach via a portable player, etc) more easily than with a CD or DVD.
I want to read a bit of an ebook off my PC screen, click once to buy it, pick up my handheld reader and find the book already on screen ready to read, jump in my car and have my car stereo read on from where I left off, get to the beach and have it come up on my black-out videoshades as I lie in the sun.
Now THAT I'd pay money for, because they're providing me SERVICE. Content? That's just something they pay people to produce to make their service desirable.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Kazaa has broken some records for number of files downloaded. 229,150,955 is the "official" number.
:
Lets say that each of these users has an average of 200 MP3s on their machine.
That means that there are
229,150,955 * 200 = 45,830,191,000
Fourty five billion, eight hundred and thirty million, one hundred and ninety one thousand MP3 files in the wild.
Apple is selling 125,000 files per day. It will take them 366,641.528 days or 1004 years to sell that many files with iTunes.
Apple has achieved these numbers because there is no viable p2p competition. On windoze there are alternatives to crippled files and paying.
These pay for music systems are doomed to failure as long as free files are available. And I mean free as in free to use as you like, as well as no money.
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I guess. Of course everything can be cracked somehow.
If you look at current MS drm tech though, it's not maybe as sinmpleton as you would think. A service run by microsoft would likely have a lot of tools at it's disposal. While nothing will stop you from attacking a single file and being successful, even current public ms drm tech has the ability to use a seperate key for every asset, or indeed have a bunch of keys for the same asset so that every consumer doesnt even get the same encrypted version of the same song. And of course these files will be tethered or close to tethered, compromised keys can be expired, compromised players can be expired, and since it's a monthly type service they can enforce needing the newest software to continue to participate.
Keep in mind that ms has been planning extensions of the drm system into the rendering chain including the OS and drivers for some time now. I would be surprised if their efforts weren't ultimately related.
Once you put all of these hurdles in the way, the practical approaches to wide scale piracy of the system dwindle. The most likely compromise of a system like this is in the rendering path, either near the driver or actually plugged into the sound out of a computer. Once you've made it so that piracy can only happen at 1x as the song is playing, needs to be re-encoded, possible quality loss, etc. You make piracy really not that appealing.
I worked on a system that was similar in some ways in that it offered a large variety of music on a subscription basis. The trouble with this approach so far has ultimately been liscensing, it is difficult to acquire liscenses to music in this way that allow for everyone to be paid as they believe they should and still provide something affordable to the consumer.
BUT, if you do manage it, the niceness of a service like this is something you truly have to experience to appreciate. Having access to a wide catalog of music was a transformatice experience for me. I have a much broader musical background now and I believe i appreciate music much more as well. If i had simply logged on and pirated my favorite 5,000 songs for $10 and logged off i never would have gotten the best experience out of the system. Indeed much of what i listened to with it i wouldnt have even wanted to pirate. But it was great to be able to play a song you remembered once or twice or explore new music that you might enjoy listening to once (if not again).
Case in point: Out of the experience I ended up with man thousands of albums, all professionally encoded, that i keep on a home server. While storage obviously keeps going down, needing to have a 600gb raid array at home just for piracy is out of the league of most folks. Even then this amount of music only represents about 5% of the US in-print catalog (to say nothing of the international and out of print works). With all of this music at my disposal, i'd still gladly shell out several times the usual expected fee for this kind of service (normally priced at like $5-$15/mo, i would easily pay $50/mo but then i am probably not the typical user) if i could get access to the other 95% of the US music catalog.
Said another way, if the service is designed well and compelling piracy may be a non-factor as you could get much more out of the system using it as it was intended.
Hmmm, all other things being evil, I think I'll go with the music service where all my money doesn't go directly to Satan, so Apple it is!
And speaking of music, that's Satan and not The Great Satan. Don't get those two confused...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Too late for iTunes and whatever Microsoft winds up releasing. I've got at least 500 CDs of music and I'm tired of reading about the latest RIAA atrocity with the feeling that I'm funding it. Artists and labels that give money to RIAA get no more of my business.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
I wish I could mod you up. Because the parent poster is basically saying: "what's the point of being honest?", with the obvious implication that only heavily intrusive technologies will force people to be honest in their purchases.
We've gone over add-nauseaum for years now all the reasons why many people might use P2P. It always boils down to the fact that the RIAA is an old dinausor that is incapable of adapting to consumer wishes.
Apple has an interesting service that makes a very decent step towards giving consumers what they want. Want an analysis? Answer this question then: What's more expensive? Something you'll pay for the privilege of using for the rest of your life, or something you'll buy once for a dollar.
In the end, these people just want gravy trains: products they can charge the consumer for over and over again without adding any new value. Hey, that sounds like taxes.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
That said, I personally don't want anything to do with these particular subs given their reliance upon M$, but as a general model, the sub model does have some appealling points that mean it shouldn't be dismissed entirely just because the iTMS is "better," even though I'd agree it is.
but it still is and always has been theft.
No. It still is, and has always been, copyright infringement.
... because a lot of times Kazaa/etc is a crapshoot. I know I'm not the only person who's downloaded xyz song expecting *That* song... only to find that the person I dl'ed from is an idiot and didn't name the song correctly. Or it's crappy quality. Or it's got a virus. Or get halfway through the download to have the person go offline, never to be found again (along with that rare song I've been hunting for forever and a day). Or it's Madonna telling us to fsck off :)
I'd rather pay a buck a song for what I know is going to be a quality mp3 that's *mine* and is actually the song I want, then have to play roulette on Kazaa. (and I say this as a poor college student!)
And perish the thought... I'd like to support the artist who makes the music. Tell them thanks for giving me good study music.
All of these new DRM-enabled online music services are gatekeeper enablers! Think about it, folks. If this stuff becomes popular, it will become even *harder* for independent musicians to survive because the (now online) gatekeepers will get to pick and choose what music to put on their services. It's all a return to status quo--the artists and consumers getting screwed.
This *should* have been the point all along: to eliminate the middlemen and connect artists directly to their fans; to drastically weaken corporate control of our culture. But that point somehow got entirely lost in the fervor of the P2P scene. So now the RIAA folks have finally woken up and are on the brink of controlling the new media that could have set the market free.
The music world desperately needs a grassroots movement similar to Open Source. Just as warez kiddies were no solution to proprietary software monopolies, P2P will never overthrow the corrupt culture gatekeepers. Independent, consumer / community friendly music is the only viable long-term solution.
"How much is it worth to you to "own" the bits?""
It isn't about owning, it's about control.
Remember, intellectual property was never meant as a means for ownership, but a means for control.
Question everything.
Well, I find the store-theft analogies to be a bit off, because intellectual property and physical property are worlds apart. Intellectual property can be copied and taken without directly taking profits (unless it's done instead of buying a CD), while stealing physical property directly deprives a store of profit, but that's not really the point anyway.
I wasn't arguing for intellectual theft so much as asking why would people do this. I think there are plenty of arguments to counter all of those, really. If you have the ability, you're not going to get caught, and it's essentially the same thing except that there's no need to pay, why not? To support the artists? Most of the profits go to the RIAA anyway, a seriously corrupt organization that exists only to take profits away from the artists. That's a hypocritical argument, admittedly (since by stealing, you're taking profits away yourself), but it does raise the question of just whom you're supporting. As for that fuzzy feeling you get when you do something legally, well, maybe that works for you, but I just get a sick feeling when I pay 13 bucks for a CD that has one or two decent songs, both of which I could have easily gotten free from Kazaa. (Which, yes, this service does attempt to fix, but it still seems overpriced, and there's still the question of where the profits go.)
And finally, I would question just how much the artists get directly from a service like this. My impression is that the artists make a lot of their money thanks to 'filler' on their CDs, and using a service like this, that 'filler' is removed from the system. Take off the profits from the service offering (in this case Microsoft), take off profits for the RIAA, and so on, and just what's left for the artists?
It just doesn't make sense to me, and I think there are millions out there who are going to realize that there are two ways to get music online; you can pay for it, or get it for free. Pick one.
ad infernis is et flammas invenis
since there was never a linux client for napster (?), i never used napster, and never even used kazaa, limewire, et al. actually never. in fact, the only mp3 i ever downloaded was actually for a graduate education class at csu northridge. the prof. wanted us to learn to use multimedia (okay, most of the teachers were technidiots, and my linux laptop floored them, anyways...) i hardly would call people who swap files pirates, as in the "arghh matey", eye-patch, peg-legged, crap. why?
one, digital medium present am entirely new economic paradigm. why? since i'm an econ major, i'll tell ya. there is no scarcity or opportunity cost. (econ 101) scarcity means there is not enough of anything, even bubble gum. if i make somehting, anything, it uses scarce resources, and there is a cost associated with it. if ford makes a new pick up truck, the cost is not making a new taurus. or, to society, the cost is the steel, the plastic, etc., that could have been used for any number of things. that is why, if i steal a car, ford can't "just replace it". the other thing about opportunity cost is that the cost is borne by someone, that the reosurces are gone. they can't be used over and over. somebody actually has to "pay" if you will. however...
with digital music, or anything digital, if i make 1 copy, 1000 copies, or even 1,000,000 copies, the cost is actually borne by me, not the artist or record company. my time, my cpu, my cd-r's, my electricity, etc. now one might say that "but that means people aren't going to buy the albums". we can never kow that people would have bought the album, if they couldn't get the song. predicting consumer habits is mighty tough. and unless you can strong arm them like microsoft, oh, off topic,
the music industry has to face the facts that good artists sell cd's bad ones don't. plus, most cd's have 1-2 spongs on them worth a shit, the rest suck. so that is why apple is probably making a killing selling songs. i remember albums. when you listened to a whole one at home, in your car, knew all the words, the drum riffs, etc. it didn't matter if it was zep or sabbath, maiden or priest, or even parliament and george clinton. every song was good. the record insustry has been peddling crap. they want to blame us and call us pirates.
the biggest beneficiaries of "piracy" are the artists. they make money on the road, not off album sales. so "piracy" helps them distribute thei rmusic, and creates new fans. new fans that wouldn't have been if not for "piracy". but alas, that is what the record companies don't want. because they don't make much from the tours. which is why most of the bitching about "piracy" comes from execs, not artists.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
a couple thousand cd's takes up a lot of space! and, there is always more to buy. i would much rather have constant availability of whatever i wanted to listen to than own it. same with movies. but quality is important, and i am not sure we are quite there yet. perhaps a higher bit rate acc--double 128... how does this change the economics though? do more subscribers at $120 translate into higher earnings than with cd sales?
I think enough people don't care about quality, or only listen to the music from the computer speaker system, that DRM will always be circumvented. All it takes is one patient person to make the digital copy (mp3 or ogg) then it will replicate everywhere.
They require you to use their own proprietary DL manager now, which is designed to run on RH 6 and similar. Their suggestion to Linux users who couldn't get the thing to run on modern distributions was to downgrade! And no, you cannot use third party DL managers (until someone cracks the encryption they've gone to for linking to the downloadable songs).
Here's their most recent email:
Dear EMusic Customer,
In response to your email regarding issues you have had with the new EMusic Linux Download Manager 2.0, we are pleased to inform you that within the next few days, we will be releasing a new version which addresses many of the bugs that have been reported. While we have fixed many of the bugs that were reported, the versions have not changed their system requirements and may not work on all flavors of Linux. In the future, we plan to create new builds of the Download Manager to be functional on other flavors of Linux.
We apologize for any inconvenience the current Download Manager may have caused you and appreciate your patience as we address the issues in future versions of the EMusic Linux DLM.
More information will be available early next week.
Regards,
EMusic Support
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
They get some money per tune. They make the music easier to get than with downloading. You can even download a couple times and not get charged so your money is not wasted.
The DRM approach is foolish. No matter what, people will be able to move the music outside the DRM. Why not get enough cash up front for the whole thing to be worth it?
That is exactly how the current CD model works now and they have made plenty of money doing it.
Streaming via monthly subscription sort of works, if you don't mind sitting at your computer to listen. The Satellite and Cable people have been doing this for a while now and people like it. Think about those systems a bit. The music can still move, but it takes a bit of work to do that. Plus there is some value in their rotating playlists. It would take quite a while to reproduce a couple days of their service in a way that makes sense. So, people pay.
Subscription DRM where you basically give up all your rights to your own damn hardware are not going to fly when perfectly workable business models exist that work with what we have now.
Seems to me Apple has understood something most companies don't. Though, they could save some time and read Slash. Most of us have this down cold for a few years now... Heh.
BTW: I purchase DVD media instead of rent and or pay per view because I do want to have some ownership of the bits. Costs more that way, but I find it very worth it.
Blogging because I can...
im surprised apple has done nothing to use their music store to entice people to subscribe to .mac. although there is plenty of free music in your idisk. they could have a 10 free songs a month for .mac subscribers, or something to that effect. or maybe im just crazy.
I want 2D games back.
Why not buy CDs used and digitize them yourself? Maybe you won't be able to find this second's "hot" sound, but if your aural palate likes diversity, this is probably the most economical (legal) way to solve your tune jones. Some of my best finds fall in the $1.99 to $4.99 range, so I'm still beating the iTunes price... Besides, Microsoft's the Devil.
I hope Apple gets its Windows version of iTunes quickly. Microsoft has a habit of making mediocre software available quickly, taking advantage of its large installed base, eliminating competition, then ceasing improvement.
People will pay for music, as they've demonstrated. Provide them a good interface and give them a reasonable deal and they'll pay. I think a lot of people find $1 per song to be a reasonable price, and iTunes is far easier to use than Kazaa/Gnutella. Most people don't want to hack, they don't want to circumvent DRM, they don't want to wait forever to download music, and they sure don't want spyware. They're happy to pay a fair price for the service.
My worry may be misplaced, because unlike other Microsoft placements, this won't be free. Even if it comes on your computer for free (and people are upgrading much more slowly than they used to, so just providing it with the OS doesn't provide the channel that it used to), you still have to sign up and pay. Microsoft is pretty good at tricking people into doing so; the service will assuredly use Passport and they can be very...insistent about signing up for a Passport account.
But a lot of people won't pay, because it's too much trouble for them. Many of those who will pay will go the extra step to get Apple's software. That is, of course, assuming that Apple gets the software out. It's claimed it for the fall, but Microsoft can probably get its software out at least that quickly and into a "service pack" for Windows.
That also assumes Microsoft intends to actually develop the software at all. Microsoft doesn't even need to develop software at this point. Many users will read the announcement and forget about Apple's take on it, because they'll assume it'll come free with their next computer.
It won't make them happy, but my basic assumption in marketing is that users are lazy. Look at the number of people whose home page is still MSN because they never bothered to get a different browser or even to change the home page to something they care about. Users will put up with a lot of crap if it means no effort. It takes a very smart company to work around that laziness.
I hope Apple can be that company, because it's the best shot I've seen at getting music to people and money to musicians I've seen yet. It's not perfect for a host of reasons (mainly due to the record studios and Clear Channel), but I think it's the right compromise today.
you get to purchase a new player. One that will probably accept your existing music, but will never give it up again...
Maybe the player will be nice, but you still need to buy another one.
Blogging because I can...
Every time i read an article in the bookstore without buying the magazine, ill give them the 5 bucks anyway.
Also, whenever i hear music being played anywhere, i will immediately send the RIAA a check.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
how can you not own the bits. Afterall to enjoy them you have to have them right?
In order for the subscription model to work, you are going to need to change your general purpose hardware into specific purpose hardware.
Is that really worth it?
It's is really *hard* to do pay per experience or use or whatever. Why not find ways to make money doing what our machine do now?
We all will have more rights that way.
I get the distinct feeling that this is nothing more than a way to sell DRM to everyone in a way that is not possible with software right now.
Blogging because I can...
This seems typical of Redmond.
Rent rent rent. This is the current plan, when the customer stops paying - *ZIP!* they're screwed.
It's exactly what is on the cards with Palladium (NGSCB), no longer do you own your copy of MS Office, but you rent it, leaving yourself liable to increases in the rental cost that started out oh-so-reasonable (XBox Live anyone?).
Should you fail to keep up with payments then all of your work for the last couple of years (documents, letters, spreadsheets, project plans etc. etc.) is down the drain... gone. It is all part of a very obvious strategy to lock people tighter and tighter into the godawful overrated buggy mess that is MS software...
And the worst thing is that *the average Joe does not see this*!
Now, Microsoft see's another company (Apple) which has worked incredibly hard, battling against the stubborness of the 5 big labels, encoding hundreds of thousands of songs, doing all the groundwork, figuring out the streaming system to get high-quality streams to anyone anywhere in the world instantly for the previews etc. etc. Microsoft see's this company (GASP!) actually reap some monetary reward for this hard hard work and surprise, the fat and greedy "software" company wants it... all of it.
Why, Microsoft, if you wanted to get into the online music business, was it not YOU that took the risk of being first, why was it not YOUR money on the line opening a new market to users, why was it not YOUR reputation in the balance of a high profile gamble???
I know this is Slashdot, and I know this is repeated many times a day, but believe me, never with more spirit and emotion than I feel now - when will the consumer teach Microsoft a lesson?
Has the semi-failure of the XBox been the first high-profile dent to MS made by the consumer at large? Perhaps... it is sure to say that the consumer is resisting these monopolistic practises... but how long will this last... MS has the cash to pay out for an XBox 2 and an Xbox 3 until Sony and Nintendo are gradually put out of the game for the sheer fact that MSoft's bottom line can go deeper than theirs?
It remains to be seen... perhaps this will be one of those half-hearted assault on a competitior like iMovie versus Windows Movie Maker (hehehe). We DO know that Apple's traditional strengths (design, quality, usability, friendliness, media-related software) are the things that Microsoft has the most difficulty in achieving.
-Nex
This sig has been deprecated.
But Microsoft's spiffy new DRM doesn't exist yet. We're all debating the merits of something that they might not even be able to bring to market. This reminds me of all the discussion prior to iTunes. Even though the broad strokes of the Apple Music Store were fairly well known, the devil is in the details. It wasn't until the product launched that anyone could really tell how useful it would be.
Microsoft's number one goal here is to thwart Apple's Windows version of the Music Store before it even launches. The best way for them to do that is to float various alternatives, watch the responses, and adjust accordingly.
While this is in keeping with their corporate character, it's also not the sort of approach that leads to a well-integrated user experience. The Apple Music Store was obviously built around making consumers happy, and it shows in all the little details. Microsoft is racing to catch up to Apple in this arena, and at this point the only way they can gain some momentum is by comparing vaporware to the Apple Music Store.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
got it right the first time, did not go under, and the whole thing works on the open hardware and operating system I use now.
It just does not make any sense otherwise. I can do what I want on my current hardware. Why replace that for the right to do as I am told?
Put me in the own the bits camp. Life will be better that way.
Blogging because I can...
All you have to do is look at the history. MS's idea has already been attempted 50 times over by many companies. People want to be able to copy it whereever/whenever. This is the sole reason Apple is winning right now. Remember the music companies said they would have been happy with a million in a month though so even a "failure" may constitute a solid business plan to the RIAA.
...is that Apple makes its service available to all platforms. I'm waiting for it (Linux user) and I would definately buy music that way. I'm not an audiophile and I don't mind a bit less than CD quality. Especially if I can get an entire album for $10 instead of $25 (in The Netherlands).
Here's the secret to immortality:
The MS service has a lower entry cost, and better provides immediate gratification (for the first few months).
It is equivalent in price to owning 12 CDs, or 120 songs per year at the Apple service. Presumably one would use the Apple preview abilities to only buys what they like, and to roughly prioritise buying what they like most before buying other options that they like less. The average consumer buys more than 12 CDs per year, but usually receives less than 120 of their favourite songs per year, due to how CDs bundle good with poor songs. So, a person who buys more than average quantities of music, or would prefer to, given the economic means, would receive superior value, initially, from the MS service. A person who buys less than average quantities of music would receive better value with the Apple service, always.
So, for the above average consumer, who sees better value in the MS service, they have to ask themselves:
- Will the service price increas, at least proportionally over the Apple service? Since the Apple service provides more revenue for the labels, one could assume so.
- Will the collection disappear for any reasons other than discontinuing paying the service fee, such as MS service being discontinued, MS Windows 2005, 2008, 2011... being required to run the service, in effect having additional hidden monetary, hardware and labour costs.
- Will the collection disappear from not paying the service fee anymore. For those who follow the law that has a simple answer, no, but for those willing to bend/break the law, that might be resricted by technological concerns, outside of the user's control.
- Psychologically, most consumers prefer the feeling of "owning" objects, rather than "leasing" them. The feeling of ownership is one of having increased tangible wealth, which makes one feel successful in a consumer society. Leasing an object is alright for short time periods, as little attachment has occured, and so the loss is not as noticeable, at least for small ticket items like individual songs. The feeling of losing wealth when a big ticket item, like a ferrari, or a 30 GB music collection is suddenly taken away, is not a pleasurable feeling. This affect is worsenned in the case of the MS service, because it proves its economic superiority only in the long-term for mot users. This one single psychological reasonning will undoubtedly be sufficient cause for many users to pay a price premium to own any product.
So, depending on how the user can answer the myriad of questions, the MS service might be worth-while. That complexity of reasonning might tip the balance to the Apple service. Look for very simplistic marketing from MS, targeted at base, short-term neurosis, and immediate gratification to push their service.
So yeah, I'd rather pay much more and OWN my music than stick my dick in Palladium. I don't want to RENT something I BUY. Anythying otherwise should be forced to advertise itself as a LEASE, just like cars.
As a matter of coincidence (fuck spell checking) I got the new 15GB iPod last week and I'm spending a quiet Saturday afternoon sipping on beers and sorting-retagging all 1500+ mp3's. A lovely way to pass an afternoon or three if you love music. Check the iPod out. It's sweet, you will luv it.
End of rant.
I can't believe what I am reading.... People are actually saying that it's ok for me to pay $10 month for me to listen to music.
I am sorry, I would rather "own the bits" so that I can listen to the same songs over and over and over again without having to pay a fee just to do so.
I will stick with the iTunes service. I can see it already, you can listen to your music as long as your paying for the service.
Knowing MS, any CD you burn will self destruct if you cease being a member (that is if you are allowed to burn CDs without paying some additional fee).
Neither is the better deal for me. I won't go in for any pay service until the following occurs:
1.I can actually afford it....i'm sorry, but i'm a broke college student, and while I wish I could support the starving artists, I need to support starving me first, and I'm not willing to give up music to do so when I am able to get it for free, but once I can afford it, i'd be happy to.
2.They have the music I want....Sorry, Britney and Eminem don't cut it, I listen to a lot of electronic music and what I want is full DJ sets, such as those from the BBC's Radio1 Essential Mix. The only way I've found to get those so far is to download them off P2P apps. But god would I die for a high bitrate version that had the tracks available seperately, but still in mix form so I don't have to have one 100 MB file for a 1 hour set, but rather many smaller tracks that blend together seemlessly so that I can skip around the set easier.
3. Apple makes a version of their service for Windows. Right now, there's not a chance in hell I'd sell my soul over to M$. Sorry, but if a better service comes along that steals the show from M$ and Apple, I don't want to have my entire music collection evaporate (sorry, it wouldn't evaporate, it would still be there taking up space, just useless) just because I have found a better place to spend my money.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Because Apple is pay-as-you go, and EMusic is subscription... why not do both?
As for myself, I dislike recurring fees and there is not quite enough music I really like on EMusic whenever I look around to pull me in. But I certianly would be more likley to use EMusic where I control the music I get rather than an MS service where I have to connect back to a server to keep playing music.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll stick with my local library. They actualy have lots of CD's that I can borrow for free for 2 weeks. Plenty of time to rip into whatever format I want. No new releases, but thats OK I think most music is crap these days. Most CD's I check out I already have the tape stuffed in a box somewhere. I actualy buy new music CD's that I like after I have sampled enough of the disc dfrom kazaa etc.
It's great for audiobooks on CD. I can listen to them at my leisure without worrying about late fees. I don't look at it as theft, more as maximizing my libraries circulation capabilities. I could renew them for 4 weeks, but if I return them after they are ripped some other poor schmoe can borrow them. Buying an unabridged audio book on CD is WAY to expensive for me to only listen to them once. I;ve noticed lots of new audiobooks are being released as MP3's burned on CD now. I wish they'd fall in price though. I'd pay $10 for one in a heart beat, but not $49.95 (SK's Dreamcatcher on three MP3 cd's).
What you're missing is that MS can pay the music industry $.10/song/month that you download (since it's all tracked), subsidizing costs to acquire market share.
The ironic thing is that it still wont work! Expiration of digital files in no fun, and consumers won't buy into it. People expect to buy music and keep using it, and hang onto it far after they've lost interest... just go out and look at garage sales with all of the tapes people still have from the 70's. Tapes! The 70's!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ok, back about 20 years ago, we were under the dillusion that we actually owned the music that we bought in a typical store. You paid money, you got music. It's was what we thought a simple concept, even the little disclaimer that it was for private expoition only in the rare cases an album actually had one. Still, there was a level of simplisity of it all.
However based on what I read about many contries, it's been established that you don't own a copy of the song to do with as you please, but rather you own the media but not the contents, making it illegal to make a copy (aka a backup) for use in other media players.
The apple i-tunes system gives you music in a file that can be placed on a CD if desired. This sounds very simple like it was in the 20th century. From what I can see, you buy a file, not the media. I assume you own the file and have the right to private use. Too me this is fair and reasonable.
I would not support a microsoft system where files have an experation date. While I've never been an audiophile, I do own some tapes, CDs, vinyl, and the odd 8track. I own them, they are mine. While there is some argument about end user rights, I can if I so desire it place media on a player and play it when ever I wish without additional license fees, cause I bought a copy.
While I am a fan of the idea of something subscription based... what I desire is the ability to actually support the folks who made the music. I would pay money for stuff I downloaded in order to get a jewel case, and an offical sleave for a particular release. Only diffrence being, I don't have to go to the store.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I would much rather buy my music. I like to listen to older music, but you can't get that usually. On the ideaofrenting the music industry controls what will be available. They will control whatpeople listen to more this way. It is bad enough now with the radio stations. it is almost impossible to hear what you want to hear you have to listen to the crap they let you hear. If you have to rent it, the music industry will have the control as to weather somethingis available or not and they will be able to pull the music even if you already downloaded it and it is still on your hard drive. Itwill just stop working because there is new stuff now. At least if you purchase you can control how long you want to listen to someone like Roger Miller :)
with this sort of innovation media payer will be unstoppable.
... dont think i am going to see that with media payer.
but seriously, i run itunes4 and share my collection out to people and theirs to me
i can disable the 'apple store' and it never shows up. as if media payer will give that option.
i could go on and on but then i would seem too anti microsoft, i must admit they have some nice codec support out there.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Like a toddler, Microsoft can't seem to ever let anyone succeed without having to try to steal the concept and thunder. Always playing, "Me too" get's kind of tiresome.
Anything Apple does, Microsoft always seems to HAVE to beat them at it. It's worse than sibling rivalry.
I suppose if Apple decided to sell hamburgers at their stores, Microsoft would ave to buy all of the cows in the world to prevent Apple from suceeding in that venture too.
sheesh...
Leveraging their 90% marketshare of the desktop this will become yet another monopoly for Microsoft. I say we wait until this thing gets going full scale and then file a class-action suit against them. Once this takes off -- there will be no alternatives on the Windows platform. Millions of lemmings will run right off the cliff and just start using this service because it is built right into the OS.
Apple gives you access to exclusive tracks, and a better selection the Press Play. I personally would rather pay a little more, own the selection for life, have more digital rights with the music, have access to more music, and not be teathered by a monthly subscription like Press Play.
I would have thought the iTMS would have made it clear by now what people want in a music service. With a very small user base in a very short time, Apple has greatly eclipsed all the other services where you rent your music. Now MS thinks that rehashing Pressplay's model with probably even more restrictions is going to defeat Apple! WTF? Personally, I can't say I'm upset. Their service will end up going in the toilet and the Windows iTMS will blow them away. It will be fun to watch.
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
Can Apple do anything without Microsoft copying them?
I'd rather buy and own. That goes for anything - The house that I live in, the car that I drive, the clothes that I wear (unless I'm attending a one-off function) THE MUSIC THAT I LISTEN TO etc.
Kinda like do you get married or rent a woman...
Ok, so this is slashdot...
Of course, I also own cds, so maybe I'm just strange =P
I share the same opinions as most of the /. crowd, in that if i feel a product is worth it, i will buy it. I've been screaming for years about how if the RIAA wants me to buy more CD's, they need to offer more for what is already an obviously bloated pricing situation, or offer me a cheaper medium that i can access directly from home. Generally, when it comes to music,
1) Download a few tracks from kazaa at home.
2) Spend a few days listening to it.
3) Go purchase the album / Download the remaining tracks, or disregard the music as something not in my taste.
I currently have about 10 albums sitting in the corner of my bedroom that have not even been opened, with the music residing on my PC.
I also have no problems downloading albums that i have purchased (sometimes, 3-4 times) even though i dont currently posses a copy of the CD... due to theft, scratched cd's, whatever. The RIAA would have you believe that i am a thief in doing so. I believe the RIAA can lick my scrotum.
At any rate, I think MS's plan would end up being worthless. As i've stated before, i feel that if i pay for something, i *own* the rights to posses it, no matter what. I once made the mistake of encoding one of my albums in WMA. The CD melted in my car... and since this was a couple of formats ago (yes, i run windows :p) I've found the files to be useless, because windows feels i dont "own" those wma files. The absolute LAST THING I WANT is for MS to be in control of what it feels i "own" and dont own.
Expiration of files on portable devices can only happen, if the portable
device has either
- a real time clock (RTC), or
- a communication channel to a server, or
- non-volatile memory for counters.
Otherwise it would suffer from the "same state problem". That is, everytime
when you ask it to play a song, it would not know if you ask the first time,
or the 100th time.
The small matchbox/pen-sized MP3 players have no RTC. Their comm channel
is established only sporadically (when you're fed up with the songs and
push new ones). The only possible way is to use the non-volatile memory.
I don't consider this a particularily good solution. It's easily hackable,
and works only for those devices that integrate and virtualize their storage.
Otherwise you could just take out that CompactFlash card, connect it to the
PC and make a backup of all files (including the DRM counters). You could
restore the backup after 100 playbacks (effectively resetting the counters),
and then "give back" the files from the DRM MP3 player to your DRM PC
with 0 playbacks used.
Obviously M$ is targetting at players with more sophisticated hardware.
It appears to me that they will fail like with their Smartphone initiative.
All the extra constraints on hardware make those devices non-competitive.
They are heavier, bulkier, waste more battery energy and all for the
sole purpose of enforcing more restrictions to the user.
Marc
I think the OP is referring to the fact that if he buys music in form of a CD, or from AMS, then he is free to use it and listen to it forever - whereas with the MS service, it appears, like Pressplay and the rest, that you need to keep an open subscription in order to listen to them.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
it is crazy! because they start with a low fee to start with and once they've cornered the market hit you with the price-fixing later on. It's not about money, it's about control. if they own all control THEN, and only THEN can they hit you with the price-fixing. Economics 101, control, if you own it all there is sweet-fa your competitors can do about it. Especially if you own the government too.
it means alot.
-
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have seen a lot of logic among mere mortals that they want to own stuff - software, music, etc, and do whatever they want with it other than copying.
:)
When I explained the "one computer, one copy of Windows" to a friend of mine, he thought Microsoft was nuts.
Why? I think it comes down mostly to tradition - an unwritten rule.
Ever since we've had recording devices, people have been able to BUY (not rent) a version of whatever it was that they had, and use it however they want. Things have only changed in the last decade - and they changed without telling anyone. The industries are trying to sneak the changes in without anyone really noticing until it's a part of the culture.
I don't think this will pan out at all. On the other hand, it's a way to get more people pissed at microsoft (for suggesting it).
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
You're deluding yourself if you think buying CDs actually supports artists. The vast majority of CD sales go directly to fat-cat CEOs. Personally, not only do I feel no qualms about ripping them off, I feel morally obligated to do so.
There's a reason they're called 'royalties'.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Anyways, not trying to be OT, but for those people who aren't sympathetic to the twisted billionaire fuckfaces at RIAA et al, it's a great thing.
the biggest beneficiaries of "piracy" are the artists. they make money on the road, not off album sales. so "piracy" helps them distribute thei rmusic, and creates new fans. new fans that wouldn't have been if not for "piracy". but alas, that is what the record companies don't want. because they don't make much from the tours. which is why most of the bitching about "piracy" comes from execs, not artists.
Artists on major labels make a bit of money on tour, but they hardly make any profit. The money goes to pay off their debt. Most artists on major labels go on tour to pay off the advance they got from the record label, or to pay off the recording costs of the album which the record label also makes them pay back. And artists on indie labels make nothing on tour..they're usually lucky to have enough gas to get to the next city.
The only way artists make money on major labels is to first make a hit record, then renegotiate the contract when their terms have been fulfilled and ask for a bigger cut of the profits. The only exception to this is if the band has already become popular before signing to a major, and thereby has some leverage during the contract process.
Bands that have a sizeable fan base but are signed to an indie label can usually make out better than if they were on a major. This is because they can record their album for far less, and they usually have a fairer contract. When you're on a major, the label puts you in the most expensive studio they can find, hires a "known" producer and engineer, and then tells the band they'll have to pay it all back later.
My main problem with the Apple Music Store is that it rewards the major labels for basically doing nothing to make it happen -- they aren't doing promotions, they aren't paying off radio stations, and they aren't pressing and distributing the music. Apple hosts all the files and did the technology to make it happen. The artists should be the only ones (besides Apple) making money off the digital music sales.
I don't support pay-per-bit, pay-per-song, pay-per-album or pay-per-time. What I'd like to see is pay-what-your-willing-to-pay. Setup an auction-like system like eBay for music. Sell full albums. Sell individual tracks. Get rid of minimum prices. Let's see what the market will support in a completely user-driven market.
Worse yet, I searched for the kind of music that I'm interested in - and the kind of music that stands to gain most from this kind of distribution. That is, the stuff that is a bit out of the mainstream. I'd love a place that I could download samples of Messiaen, Ligeti and the like to sample and see if I want more, a place that I could get several variants of (fer example) Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" - I already have all the published CD's of that, I think - making performances available - even if not the best quality - would be wonderful.
Being able to download a sample of an artist or composer cheaply enables people to taste things that they might not otherwise try. Making the fringe, obscure stuff available relatively inexpensively could encourage recordings of performances that would otherwise vanish at the doors.
So I did a bunch of searches (probably 50 or so) and got exactly zero matches. Some of the things I was looking for were :
- Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians
- Einstein on the Beach - Philip Glass
- Nixon in China - John Adams
- Harmonielehre - John Adams
- - Axiom of Choice
- - Carla Bley
- Passion - Steven Sondheim
- Sweeney Todd - Steven Sondheim
- - Messiaen
- Crawl - Ulcer
- "Waiting for the Electrician" - Firesign Theater
Some of this stuff is obscure. But thats probably the best area for such services to work in. If Celine Dion (say - or whoever is the manufactured popular choice of the day) puts out a new song, everyone will listen to it and there's a guaranteed set of buyers already. And I expect that that audience is pretty much saturated already. But there's much to be gained by building new audiences off on the fringes a bit - its risky, of course. But making some of this music more widely available could pay off nicely.Of course it will expire once you stop paying the sub fee, but which do you think is the better deal: $7500 to fill a 30GB player (7500 songs at $1 each) with iTunes Music Store, or $120 a year with the ability to swap in new music whenever you want? How much is it worth to you to "own" the bits?"
:
Which of these is a better deal?
1) Pay $1 now, get the one song you want to hear, keep it forever.
2) Pay $10 now, get the one song you want to hear, keep paying $10 a month for the right to listen to it.
Apple pretty clearly has a better deal if you buy ten or fewer songs a month (or 120 songs a year). I suspect that this suits a very wide variety of people.
Beyond that is a grey area, where the better deal basically depends on how much you value the convenience of not having to pay a monthly fee whether you use it or not.
At the other end are those who could conceivably want to download (say) 30GB of music in a month, which is certainly more than I can listen to in that time. Ignoring bandwidth costs on both ends, these users are probably just as likely to use P2P services and not pay anyone at all!
The emphasised ability to 'swap in' new music implies that every month you'll want to download all-new material. Not bloody likely, in my experience. But then, if you don't download new material, what exactly are you paying for? The right to listen to music you already paid for!?
The worst part about this kind of scheme is some people can actually be suckered into it.
[This post also makes the rediculous claim that filling up a 30GB iPod is going to cost you $7500,
which ignores the fact that nobody is going to actually do that. At some point, even your average idiot realizes that it'll probably be cheaper rip CDs he already owns, (and those newly purchased -- yes, even people with iPods still buy CDs from time to time!) -- it makes me wish I could mod the whole story as a Troll.]
I am interested in hearing realistic scenarios in which the subscription service actually is a good deal, but I've yet to hear one thus far.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
I think the ideal service would offer both becuase each model offers something different. With a subscription service you lose the music when you stop paying - but while you are paying you have a *huge* (unlimited?) music library. You can try out any song or artist or listen to any song you just have a momentary hankering to hear but wouldn't necessarily consider worth purchasing. On the other hand there are some songs you want to "own" that you know you'll listen to years into the future and don't want to have any limitations on.
I could see a "premier" version of iTunes where you pay a small monthly fee and the streaming 30 second preview tracks switch to being full length and can be added to your regular playlists (but go away when you no longer subscribe). Unpaying users would still have access to the same service they have now.
This is one more example of how Apple understands "people" and Microsoft is antisocial. Truly, the Steve vs. Bill show has been funny lately.
It really comes down to this: How do people feel about handing out their credit-card number, knowing their entire music library will be held hostage for a monthly payment vs. paying a buck for each song they like and keeping it forever without strings attached.
It doesn't matter that the buck a song model is more expensive, human beings have a pack-rat like instinct to put things they want under their own protection away from "scavengers" or whatever... The idea of a monthly commitment is really just too much... The idea that all of your music can go "poof" if the monthly commitment isn't met is just too much...
Music palladium will fly like a lead balloon... iTunes for Windows will simply destroy it...
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
quality, selection, guarantee... Soon, as media capacity keeps growing, we'll all have every song ever produced as a wav file on our cell phones and this won't matter, but for now, the guarantee that the song I want is going to be there at decent quality, and named correctly, would lead me to buy a song for 99 cents rather than "steal it" (hypothetical). If I was given the lyrics and scores along with the songs I purchased I'd be even more inclined to by them all as one package for 99 cents. I might even pay 10$ for a set of the song, its lyrics, scores, and all remakes of it with the same information.
I don't mind the idea of 'renting' the music, but the price is too steep for the amount of music I would listen to. Seriously, how many people have 7500 songs they listen to on a regular basis? Is there a subscription service where I can pay to rent by the song by the month (to the tune of a few pennies per month per song)?
Exactly what species are you? Thinking generously I can only account for 9 orifices. Of those, only 6 are capable of accepting or retaining jelly beans without injury to the orifice. Of those, only 5 are useable at once as you need one to remain available for the passage of air to and from the lungs.
Or are you somehow planning to enlarge your pores so you can stick a jelly bean in each one?
But to further your argument... if your of the mindset that theft is tolerable as long as you don't get caught, then why don'y you simply eliminate the candy store clerk? Sneak up and whack the clerk over the head with a blunt onject. Then you can simply fill all the bags you want with candy and leave fully stocked. No-one saw you bludgeon the clerk, so what's the harm?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
With all due respect to the mods, how is this a troll?
/. types recognize that this is stealing (or maybe everyone does, and only /. types care, it doesn't matter), but the general public could not care less.
He's right; maybe
To the average joe, Kazaa is free music, no consequences, no risks, easy, and generally high-quality (except, perhaps, to audiophiles). So, why is a typical Kazaa user going to switch to iTunes or MS's new system or whatever? Maybe if the prices respected the fact that we're talking about INTELLECTUAL property, that is, property that can be copied without cost (at least digitally), there might be more people willing to pay (reliable downloads, higher quality, licensed, etc.) but until that point, Kazaa is going to be infinitely more attractive to almost everyone.
ad infernis is et flammas invenis
Let's see... A Certain Abusive Monopoly has only been doing this for decades:
Every time their competitor comes out with a new, innovative service, they create some poor excuse for a copy and sell it as "New, Improved, Innovative." Most people are too god-damn lazy to see through it, and go along with the Party says.
From what I've heard (here on /. included), quite a few people like O'Reilly's Safari subscription service. There may just not be a good reason to "own" the music if you're not going to be interested in it after a few months, or if you like a *lot* of music, and want to have that variety without paying for it. Personally, when I was in tech, I loved Safari. I'd probably like this new service too, if I had all of these new gadgets and broadband. I'll probably use something like it in a few years when the technologies mature.
Of course it will expire once you stop paying the sub fee, but which do you think is the better deal: $7500 to fill a 30GB player (7500 songs at $1 each) with iTunes Music Store, or $120 a year with the ability to swap in new music whenever you want?
Where in the article does it say anything about $120/year?
Are we supposed to be so gullible as to believe that a subscription service would allow unlimited "rentals" for a flat fee of $10/month? What kind of an asinine business model would that be? Does anyone really think that the recording industry would ever make such an offering?
Mark
The artists should be the only ones (besides Apple) making money off the digital music sales.,/i>
i totally agree, except that most artists don't own the music. (like we're gonna "own" the music we buy, hell, if the artists don't own it...) the money goe to the owner, i.e. the company. the artist is paid for performing. now we know the "the day the music died". how i long for bands and albums. today, you make a few videos, sell some pimple cream, and get arrested. and everyone loves you, and doesn't even know WTF you do. you sound like everyone, and nobdy cares. oh, for the days of great bands, great albums. well, i still have mine, and you kow what, rush sounds as good today as ever!!!
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Where exactly did you hear that? I've not heard anyone say that Apple's AAC files are set to expire. What would that accomplish, other than pissing people off?
Really, though, if you're so worried that your music will expire, at least you have the option to burn it onto a CD. As far as I know, CD audio has no time limit.
Lastly, there's no reason to be all gloom and doom about it. You said "when Apple's model fails" like it was a foregone conclusion. You shouldn't go through life being so negative all the time. Cheer up. You're bringing me down, man!
-------
And we also have a cancel button...in case you don't want toast.
i totally agree, except that most artists don't own the music.
As far as major label acts you're right, except for the really big artists who have the clout to demand their own terms. A lot of indie label bands own their music though. I hope that Apple takes this into consideration when they pick up indie label bands. As much as I support indie labels (with my cash), I don't think they should be getting a cut of the profits in this case.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
It also gives you the right to use the music you've purchased for non-commercial soundtracks to slideshows and digital movies that you produce. A subscription service would obviously not work in this model.
The only rational way to approach it is to purchase the rights to the music for use in your own creations. Apple has done the legwork in getting the labels to accept this model; they know that the video of your daughters confirmation, set to Madonna's "Like a Virgin", isn't likely to gross big bucks and step on their commercial licensing terms. Remember, this is about individuals applying music they've purchased, and the DRM is in place only to deter large scale duplication.
At the end of the day, I want to use my music the way I want to. I dont want to be held hostage by microsoft. According to the artical, if I stop paying, MY songs stop playing. If I payed for something I want to be able to use it no matter when I want to use it. Thats why I say, wate a little wile till apple' s service comes to PC, or even better yet, go and get a new Mac!
On the subjeect of ownership of music and all..
I have a CD...
Its starting to skip and deteriorate quite a bit now, seeing as I have already bought the music, am I able to write to the record company asking for a replacement cd for the cost of the media ??
James
Not just for music. Why should I have to pay a monthly fee to HBO or Showtime just to watch the one or two programs they have that I like? Why should I have to pay a subscription fee just to WSJ.com to read the odd article? And I'm certainly not going to swith to AOL just to read the content on ew.com!
Not that I object to paying for content. Content creators have to pay the rent. (Perhaps RMS would understand that if he lost his McArthur pension!) Voluntary payments, help, but not enough. Same goes for advertising, and besides, advertisers like to control the content they pay for.
Thing is, there's this huge establisment that controls the creation and distribution of that content, and they don't want to give up that control. So they hassle anybody with an alternative distribution model, and lobby for ever-restrictive IP laws, even as technology makes those laws irrelevent. And of course they attempt to offer feeble substitutes, such as online "subscriptions".
I also suspect them (and/or the financial industry) of stifling the development of technologies that would support a pay-as-you-read model, but I don't really have any evidence.
I used to assume that the internet would simply make this issue irrelevent. But the content establishment has done a good job of maintaining its control. It's lost a little ground, but not nearly enough to satisfy me. Maybe things will change when everybody has cheap, portable bandwidth. Remains to be seen.
Has the semi-failure of the XBox been the first high-profile dent to MS...
Seeing as it has the highest attach rate (more profit per console sold because of the attach rate) and an incredible XBox live customer base (based on percentage of customers), I wouldn't call it a failure of any sorts.
MS has the cash to pay out for an XBox 2 and an Xbox 3 until Sony and Nintendo are gradually put out of the game for the sheer fact that MSoft's bottom line can go deeper than theirs?
You mean, more cash to dump into a console than Sony - a multinational, extremely diverse, multibillion dollar company? MS must answer to shareholders, and they can't just dump money for the sake of market dominance. For the record, the total amount spent for the XBox is nowhere near what Sony invested in the Playstation - it's an expensive market to break into. Do some googling - education is better than fanatacism.
And don't worry about MS breaking into this new market. Apple has the unique edge of having the hardware already in place - and very good hardware at that. Apple's success is based on a total "turn key" solution. Something that MS doesn't have (at least for now).
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
"Microsoft Prepares An Unworkable Business Model"
The only way it will work is if they "integrate" it with the next version of their OS and force users to buy a subscription to activate it. Actually, I hope they do that so more people will stop using Windows.
I can't afford a sig!
Why even spend the $10? If you violate the terms of the EULA, the $10 you spent won't cover your ass. You might have well have just gone online with LimeWire and downloaded everything imaginable for free.
Legally, you would be in the same situation either way.
They carry *no* Spears albums at all. That's double plus good in my book!
seriously, these DRMed download services that won't even let you burn to a standard audio CD are a crock. don't expect them to catch on enough to stop CD sales. even if they do, what are the chances that said CDs have anything you want on them?
(apple's service at least lets you make a CD from which you can rerip into mp3 if you have tons of time on your hands).
From the RIAA's point-of-view...
The subscription model has been tried and has fallen flat.
Apple's model, where the consumer virtually owns the digital file, is an unanticipated runaway success.
In the subscription model, the RIAA pockets $120/yr. per user.
In the Apple model, there is NO price ceiling; some consumers may very well spend thousands a year.
So, seeing as how the ceiling-less model is a hit with consumers, why would the RIAA be so quick to cut their own profits by going back to a subscription model? It doesn't make sense. I would say that subscriptions do have a place, but that's years down the road, after the mainstream consumer has toyed around with the Apple model and begins looking for cheaper alternatives.
Does this mean all my outlook mail is going away if I ever stop paying the M$ tax?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
they did this for obvious reasons. previously the ".emp" or ".rmp" files were simple XML documents with temporarily active URLs to the tracks hosted by mp3.com. scripts could easily rape & raid a huge amount of emusic (ie: not what they intended). Now the ".emp" is still the same xml thing but encrypted with the decryption key embedded in the download manager.
i disliked the change as well. i had written my own downloader that i would use once or twice a month to get another 10 or so albums. so much for that idea. but their download manager combined with their 'my stash' function works fine for me so its no big deal.
interesting tidbits after a little poking around:
The emusic download manager 2.0 appears to be watermarking the mp3 files that it downloads. To check this for yourself, run tcpdump while the download manager is running and get the URL to the actual mp3 that emusic uses to download a track. Fire up wget on this URL and compare what you downloaded to the one the download manager saved. note the corruption + differences. (my own tests performed using the emusic dlm 2.0 for linux; i haven't compared the same track downloaded by two subscribers to check if it really is a watermark or just a bug. it would be difficult for them to screw up otherwise so its likely a watermark indicating who downloaded the track)
also note that the ancient mpg123 player doesn't like many download manager mangled tracks (mpg321, xmms, and everything else i've tried are happy; mpg123 is presumably buggy about skipping bad frames/data)
You still get unlimited downloads in an unencumbered format of high quality VBR music. quit whining and praise them!
I predict that the next way that the digital music market is going to be segmented is not going to be a resurgence of subscription services (although that will gain popularity down the road, I'm sure)... rather, if Microsoft was smart, they'd look at offering songs at differing bit rates at differing costs. The biggest complaint about Apple's AAC files is that they are encoded at 128 bits, and $0.99 doesn't seem like such a great deal for a rock song that sounds like hell on your home stereo system. So what Microsoft should do is to offer 128 bit songs at $0.99 OR 256 bit songs for $1.50 or even $2.00.
Look at how wlidly popular Apple's system is right now. It's a perfect opportunity to position the 128 bit files as the low end, and upsell, upsell, UPSELL! And as long as Microsoft was the only place to get higher quality rips, then Microsoft inspires consumer loyalty. I can't believe all those ivy league MBA's at Microsoft don't see this.
Anyway, I'd prefer a rental system with an option to buy. I could then fill the device with rental music, and when I decide I like something enough to want it permanently, I'd buy it.
So, you are willing to give M$ the equivalent of $6000 of your cash for songs that will go poof into the eather just as soon as M$ bellies up on declining windblows sales? Yeah, try buying the "rental" music for a buck a song then, sucker.
All of this is going to blow over. The RIAA will soon realize that they have been "giving" away music on the radio forever because it drives sales. They will soon figure out that sales can be driven by free MP3s too. They will also notice that their Gestapo techinques to stamp out music sharing have failed. None of this crap will survive the colapse of the record companies and their obsolete business model except gimped boxes you can't use anymore.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Guys, be more realistic, you think a college kid or most of us will spend $75k per year for music?!? I doubt only professional DJ will do that.
$120 per year sounds more reasonable to me. The only concern is that the word "unlimited download". We all know that people will download like crazy when they saw the word unlimited. When M$ finds that their bandwidth bill is more than they are willing to play, we will see $120 per year with 100 songs per month...
There is an alternative for those who want to have their cake and burn it, too: EMusic. For $10/month, subscribers can download reasonably high quality, VBR MP3s and do with them as they wish, short of sharing them with the world.
The catch: if all you want is the latest ClearChannel dreck, you'll have to look elsewhere. The labels on EMusic are not the Big 5/Top 40 pablum. However, if your taste runs to the esoteric and the adventurous, as well as to college station material, you may want to check it out. 30 second samples of their entire collection is available for visitors to sample.
I don't really know why this service doesn't get more publicity. IMHO, it's close to the perfect model for online music.
Aw, shoot...me and my big mouth...
But honestly, I doubt they're worried about it. It's not as easy to explain as P2P, and it's certainly not as sexy. And there are probably 100x as many people using P2P than Usenet.
Once they kill KaZaA, THEN we should worry. ^_^
How many times does this have to be explained...information can't be owned. Next thing people will start insisting 1+1=3, it's just as stupid to say.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
So, what does running a music service have to do with a computer software company? Oh, right, absolutely nothing. Apple went in a completely unexpected and innovative direction with the iTunes Music Store.
So, why is Microsoft getting into this business? Oh, because Apple did. And Apple is a competitor and must be crushed and destroyed by every means possible. Right, I forgot.
No, folks, no monopolistic behavior to see here, move along, move along.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm still trying to get a grasp on what it means to "own" a song I bought from the iTunes Music Store. What legal restrictions does Apple place on your ownership?
For example, if I buy a CD, I can sell it to somebody or give it away as a gift. Can I do the same with a song I purchase from Apple?
The "Terms of Service" says, "You shall be authorized to use the Products only for personal, noncommercial use."
Seems like giving a song away would violate the "personal" part and selling it might violate the "commercial" part.
If i could keep te music if i cancelled my subscription and could play it on hardware that soesn't support DRM (b/c i already own it) I'd be all over this. $10/month for unlimited dl's is fair, but i don't want to have to deal with restrictions when i can get unrestricted music free. That's what these companies are missing. I was talking to someone who wanted to dl music. He was willing(and would have preferred) to pay, but only Kazaa Lite offered the features he desired.
I got the DLM running as well after a bunch of fiddling around, but I still feel like whining. I didn't have to do any fiddling around before. Plus, there are other ways they could have gone about preventing data mining, even up to including reasonable download limits. I'm just bitter, but perhaps I'll get over it.
Thank you for the mpg123 tip. I was wondering why my burning script suddenly quit working. Looks like its time to learn another program.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I have been keeping an eye on CD prices since the iTunes Music Store went up, and I think that it may have had an effect on the price of real CDs. I have purchased more CDs in the last month than I did all last year. The reason being the I could buy the CD for the same price that I would pay for it on the iTunes Music Store. The upside being that I now own the full quality CD, and I can rip it at whatever bit rate I like. I have purchased some individual songs, and a few albums from the store when the cost was less than buying the CD, and I much prefer owning the song and being able to do with it what I like, as opposed to having it go away if I unsubscribe.
-- Charles A. Plater
come up with a bad idea, hype it up, make it look like its making money, and M$ is sure to fall for it, integrate it into their OS and never realize why people look to Apple and Linux for alternatives.
Repeat until the OS sucks so badly that not even a PHB would buy it.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
In other words, donations optional. Sort of like how it works now. Except include a more convenient method for donating...?
Plus, there is a reason why more people have a used the Apple Store than any of the subscription services. They have made a easier to use more inatuitive product, besides the fact that Apple users will use anything that Apple designs.
More important, after each passport fiasco, will anyone, both users and record labels, want to use a product designed by Microsoft? The labels will be afraid it will be to easy to crack, and users will fear that their music will disappear, even if they do pay the fees.
Remember that RIAA only represents the top 1% of shitty music in America. The rest is free of their tyranny. You can support independent artists. For every average run of the mill band you hear on the radio there are a 100 indpendent artists that can pull off the sound much better. The labels that sign these bands take care of them as best they can (Lets face it they are all dirt poor). Its a good honest industry worthy of your support and you have everything to gain. Save money (concerts and CD's by these kinds or artists are normally under 12 bucks) support a starving artist directly, oh yeah... and enjoy music far better than the shit they feed you on the radio. Check out www.pitchforkmedia.com and www.insound.com. You'll fall in love with music again, and you won't think of stealing music again.
Alright, 7500 hundred songs, let's assume an average of 4 minutes per song, that's 30,000 minutes of music, or 500 hours. now, let's say the average person is awake for 14 hours a day, and for the sake of argument, he was a zealotlike fan of music, so he only spends 6 hours a day without music (on average). At 8 hours a day (and I think anyone's willing to admit that's way more than most people listen in an average day) he can listen to his 7500 songs for more than two months at that rate and that's if he NEVER listens to a song more than once, in that 50 day period!
I guess my point is, can you really fill 30 gigs with music that you actually want to listen to? (thinking music is 'good' and listening to it regularly are two totally different things)
Just my two cents I guess... I've been doing mp3s since probably 96, but the thing I never understand about my mp3 junkie friends, is that they'll burn 50 gigs of mp3's and maybe 10 of it ever makes their playlist and probably only half get's listened to on a regular basis.
My take on this is that it's pure vaporware. By some accounts Apple has taken two years to line up deals with the music industry. How on earth could MS do such a thing in such short notice? They can't.
So, one has to wonder about this. Hmm... could it be yet another attempt by Microsoft to scare potential customers away from what they perceive as a successful venture by announcing their own similar service COMING SOON! So whatever you do, don't get all tangled up with that other service because you know you want to stay on the winning MS team! Don't bother with that other stuff until our kick-ass music service is up and running, say in... um... late 2003 *cough cough* 2006 *cough* *cough* 2008 *cough* never.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
during the last 20 years .. It must be part of their business plan.
/klang
As a moderator who's giving up his points.. I just bought Primus: Sailing the Seas of Cheese from iTMS AND it sounds as good as I remember it from CDs!
Best experience, best quality, best value for money spent, just the best.... no equal. 'nuff said.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Be fair: the Democrats are right-wing and the Republicans are far right-wing. Surely that's enough choice for anyone?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The key is to stick a custom proxy between the DLM and the net, then extract the URL's and pass them to wget. Much more reliable... plus no watermarking (if that's indeed what's going on).
Have a look on my site under java/emusic...
You're missing the one key point about the whole Apple iTunes vs. MS Bagware issue: there are no good music management for Windows. I've tried every popular media-related program, like Sonique (absurd Winamp ripoff), Winamp 2 (player only, no management), Winamp 3 (horribly horribly broken player with hacked-on 'management'), and my current preference, WMP 9 (clumsy, often blatantly stupid, interface, but some of the features are there).
If Apple releases iTunes for Windows, and it looks, feels, and works the same as it does on the Mac, it will be a better player. If it's still free on Windows, or is at least Quicktime-style trialware (but preferably not nagware), people will download it, and they will like it. The interface is simple and intuitive, and things work the way they should. It will very quickly take the music playing market away from Media Player, Winamp, and the like. Of this I have no doubt.
Then, people will sign up for accounts with this service, because it's free to do so. Then, when they want to get some song, they'll think to themselves 'Hey, let's see if this really works', and they will. Maybe they'll buy, maybe they won't, but if they do, they'll enjoy the fact that they can move the songs around and everything. Copy here, move there, and if they stop wanting to pay, they stop paying. No loss of music at all.
If there is a superior product for a similar price that does what people want, all you have to do is show it to them, and they'll switch.
--Dan
then stop fooling yourself by listening to any frigen lossy format and BUY a god damn cd. if you realy gave a shit about sound then you would be paying for CDs not grabbing 256 kbps mp3s (which you can never find).
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
you shut the fuck up
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
There's a difference between fact and flamebait. Just because you disagree with my argument doesn't mean you can call it flamebait. Apparently Slashdot doesn't like people who think outside the slashdot box - maybe I should have mentioned Linux or ripped on Microsoft...
-dbc
What if it was open source? Using Ogg for example? The real question here isn't MS or technology, it's the labels and the licensing. Truthfully, this is vaporware at this stage anyway. But we have been pitched by the services to implement something like this on our device. Now originally, I puked all over the idea, but the reality is that if you can fill up your PC with thousands of songs for $10 a month, its like music on demand for $10/mo. Every service already offers burning or "permenant downloads" for a $1/ea anyway, this would be IN ADDITION to that. If the rest of the service is in order (Codec, complete catalog) I'm kind of coming around to the idea.
If you're going through hell, keep going -Winston Churchill
Hey,
I wish I could mod you up. Because the parent poster is basically saying: "what's the point of being honest?", with the obvious implication that only heavily intrusive technologies will force people to be honest in their purchases.
I would have thought that intrusive technology would encourage circumventing. There's a risk the rent will go up or new MS technology will force you to change to the new (Rental only, or course) version of Windows. A change in system configuration or purchase of a new couputer could also cause problems.
I wouldn't feel my investment was secure unless I had some DRM-free backups (I think backups might even be a legally protected right).
Just my $0.02,
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Do people trust Microsoft? No.
Will they use a Microsoft service because it comes installed on all new pcs? Yes.
New services like this should be regulated if they are to be installed on new systems provided by a convicted monopolist organization.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
With subscription service the record companies don't care whether or not you download x songs a month or not. The only care that you keep on paying. This leads to a situation where there is no incentive to produce wildly popular music where people will truly demand it. With records a major star will cause people to go out and buy a CD. With a subscription popularity won't increase revenue from sales. Since the subscription revenue isn't ubiquitous yet the effects won't be felt. But if it were we'd probably see the smaller labels rise even higher. Either way I don't care because I listen to music almost exclusively from indy labels like www.warprecords.com www.mille-plateaux.net www.tigerbeat6.com www.thrilljockey.com etc.....
Photos.
i suspect their arrangement with mp3.com for handling all of the distributed music hosting doesn't allow for easy server side download limits.
fyi - mpg321 is a drop in replacement for mpg123 i believe.
People keep bringing up that "but it costs SO MUCH MONEY TO FILL UP AN IPOD" argument. Frankly, whether it would theoretically cost $5000 or $7500 is kind of silly. First of all, you have to figure people already own music, and they'll be converting it to mp3 and loading it on their ipods. Second, no law says you have to fill it up, any more than you're obliged to stream every song on a music service. (Personally, I want that 30GB iPod for file storage and transfer -- it's an elegant little portable drive!) Third, I don't know about you all, but I happen to work in an office where you're not allowed to stream audio. I have a bunch of mp3s on my hard drive ripped from CDs and downloaded from Emusic, and that's it. If I couldn't own my bits, I'd have no tunes.
Another thing... I don't like this DRM nonsense getting in my way. I'm happy to pay a reasonable price for music (As I said, I subscribe to Emusic) but I don't want a bunch of complicated restrictions on what I can and can't do with it. I feel that Apple has done a pretty good balancing act here. Streaming audio is great -- if you have high bandwidth -- but that's what Shoutcast is for. Sure, you're not going to get specific songs on demand, but not knowing what an online radio station is going to play next is part of the joy, at least it is for me. (I've discovered a lot of great music through BoombasticRadio.com)
I highly doubt they will be still there after even a few months. Given they even used the non-commercial of Qt for developing their program (you can check that by downloading it , the dll is the qt*nc.dll one), why should I give those morons any of my money ?
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
...or one of the dozens of bodily orifices available.
If you live in Texas, those will be the ones left after the clerk has opened fire on you with a bloody great gun after stuffing the first six orifices. Not to mention you could stuff your accomplices orifices. I'll stop now before this gets out of hand.
Too late...