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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.
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.
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.
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?
Surely not even the RIAA is mad enough to trust Microsoft with the security of its' music? Oh wait...
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?
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!
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
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.
chill out...they need time to expand...they have alreadytalked about adding indi lables.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
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.
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.)
i agree.
besides i only have 1.43GB of 44.1khz 16-bit 128kbps vbr oggs (692 files) and about 110 of those were individual songs I selected from listen.com when they had their $0.49 per song deal. i can't imagine possibly filling up more than about 5GB let alone 30GB with songs I actually WANT to hear. So Apple's deal sounds like a better deal to me personally.
$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"
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.
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
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
I'm guessing you're ignoring Windows Media Lossless, because it doesn't lose anyting. I use WM Lossless for recording before converting to another format. By the way, MP3 (not pro) is far worse in quality at the same bitrate as WM8 or WM9 Lossy compression. WM8 and WM9 Lossy use the same frequency separation technique with two types of compression as MP3pro. I agree with your politics, but politics do not determine the quality of a format. The parent poster is just another troll.
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?
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.
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.
but it still is and always has been theft.
No. It still is, and has always been, copyright infringement.
"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.
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.
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...
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.
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
...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.
CD: $10.
Song from iTunes: $0.99
Not paying a cent to Microsoft: Priceless
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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!
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).
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
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
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)?
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.
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
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
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."
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.