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iTunes Indie Meeting Notes
BWJones writes "The CD baby! site contains notes taken from the indie music meeting recently held at Apple. Interesting statistics revealed were that there are about 500k songs/week being downloaded from the iTunes Music store and that 45% of songs are being purchased as albums. Other interesting items of note are that Apple is treating everyone as equvalents in that all labels receive equal treatment with the same deal, the same agreements and you work with the same team of people. What's more is that Apple cuts a check EVERY MONTH which is huge for the smaller labels." Wired has another story about iTunes which notes that what Jobs taketh away, the community is bringing back.
I think that Apple's setting itself up as an honest broker of web services in order to try to stay out of Apple Record's crosshairs. If Apple starts preferring one store above another, one label above another, it can be more realistically be claimed to be in the business and thus afoul of its previous corporate commitments. If what they're doing is just providing a deal for the labels to have their content distributed on Apple's web services platform, it's much more arguable that they're in the music business at all.
They say that 45% of the songs are purchased as albums as if itâ(TM)s a great accomplishment, but doesnâ(TM)t that mean that very few transactions are actually albums? For example, if there were about 10 songs per CD, then doesnâ(TM)t that mean that about 5% of all transactions are for an album. Or, in other words, only one out of every 20 purchases is for an album? Personally, I donâ(TM)t find this surprising, but I donâ(TM)t think that itâ(TM)s anything to be too excited over.
What is it with people wanting to make a good thing unavailable? The streaming capability of iTunes seemed pretty sweet to me. But, of course, some jackasses had to figure out the way to use that capability to further steal music. Why? What the fuck is your problem? Are you a kleptomaniac? An anarchist? You just hate other people and don't want them to enjoy things? You're not cool. You're a retard. You are the reason that good things get taken away. Dude, cut it the fuck out. You're no different than the jackass that first took a hair dryer into a shower.
Go ahead, flame away. Mod me down. I have the karma to burn.
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Honestly, I'll bet this is just stage 2 in terms of getting content onboard. They're really still in the middle of stage 1 with the major labels, as much of their more obscure content has yet to be added. In stage 2, they get 100+ of the bigger indie labels onboard. Once that's all going smoothly, they can attack stage 3, getting the smaller indies. After lessons learned from all of this, maybe they can start thinking about dealing with small time artists directly. Maybe.
In any case, baby steps. And they've got a lot of other shit going on too -- iTunes for Windows and getting the labels onboard for that (whole different ballgame), international store and all the licensing issues, etc. This is a big, big job but so far Apple is doing everything right. Let's see where this thing is in another year or so. It won't happen overnight.
It's truely amazing how Apple has managed to hit the nail on the head while the RIAA keeps swinging away futily. The RIAA keeps trying the closed fist approach to stoping mp3 piracy. Shut down as many services as possible. Sue everyone. Badmouth music fans. Unfortunately, any scholar of the internet can tell you that the more somebody tries to force out a popular service, the more the community will fight back with new sites, programs, hacks, etc.
So Apple has come along with the open hand approach. They aren't insulting the music fans. They aren't insulting the technologically advanced community. They're co-existing. Download what you want. Hell, burn it if you want. Get the entire CD cheaper than it will cost you at any store. You can still love your music, download what you want, keep it, and support the musicians. And hell, now they're even saying they aren't playing favorites. IF you're telling me that the RIAA aligned groups get the same cashflow program as small indie labels, then I'm buying.
We've been waiting awhile for a new "music delivery model" that pundits have been pushing for. I'm not saying Apple has the whole thing nailed down. But they're soooo close. They figured out the key of existing without being a slap in the face to the people they want to use their service. And now the RIAA has their tail tucked between their legs, trying to figure out why a bunch of hippies at Apple figured out something their teams of lawyers and PR consultants couldn't: Don't insult your customer.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
The alternative of Apple negotiating & interfacing with multiple providers, for each of these services, just so that you can have a choice ("I'd like my prints from Fuji this time, please.") is simply not going to happen. Apple is an underdog in the larger PC market. Exclusive arrangements are one of the few carrots they have to offer (and allow them to negotiate good rates for their users).
-renard
Why is this so hard to believe?
.99 cents a month on a song. Take into account that occaisionally a record gets bought which would decrease the 1 in 6 number even further.
Assume Apple has 3 million OS X computers with iTunes installed. I'm guessing that number is larger, but lets go with that.
They are averaging 500k songs a month. That means 1 in 6 users is willing to spend
The reason the iTMS is doing so well is that it's very easy to get into, and very non-binding. You don't need a monthly contract, there's almost no barrier to entry, you just pick up a $.99 song and you're done, with no hassle. You come back, or you don't, but because your information is all ready to go, and the store is built into your player, it is very easy....tempting even, to return and get another song for just $.99 later on.
Also, this caters to impulse buying big time. If I hear a song that's good on my way home from work, I can fight traffic and get to the CD store and plop down $12-$15, or I can wait til I get home, get the song I liked, and preview the other songs to make sure it's worthwhile.
Honestly, maybe its hard to believe how easy it is to get lured in until you've actually used the service and seen how easy it is to use, but 1 in 6 buying a song a month seems very believable to me, and I bet it goes up once the selection gets a little bit deeper.
-SC
I'm trying to figure out what the big deal is.
Apple makes a freely available "QuickTime Streaming Server". Download it, install it. And stream your music through it. Its not that hard. Anyone with quicktime can then connect and listen to the music stream. Its not like apple really "forced fed anyone shit."
They just made it slightly harder for the RIAA to hold them accountable.
Hmm, 6-7 million iTunes 4 users and you don't know how they could sell 500,000 $0.99 songs per week? That doesn't seem that unreasonable to me -- I don't buy much music (maybe 5 CD's per year), but I've already purchased 94 songs from iTunes, as of today (maybe 40% of those were full album purchases).
To me, iTunes is like the 7-11 -- CONVENIENT. I have two sons (aged 2 and 4) and a full-time job, so I don't often have time to go wandering around a store browsing for music usually not able to find what I want. I can count half a dozen purchases (maybe half of all the 94 songs) since I started buying music from iTunes that I never would've bought if I didn't have access to iTunes -- I'm stuck at home with the sick kids because my wife has to work, I'm watching a music awards show or music video at 8pm on a weeknight, I see during lunch at work that a hot new artist just released a new album I can get without leaving work, and on and on and on...
I think this is just a revolution of convenience that the music industry needed very badly. Or maybe this is just proof that the Mac market IS actually viable -- you know some people will just refuse to like or accept THAT!
I don't know which was faster, the information about the iTunes store on the CDBaby site being pulled
Well, that was a surprise. I did not think that any of the information was proprietary or "secret", thus my submission of the story. I guess someone must have objected which is unfortunate because the story made Apple look like a real good guy for the smaller indie labels.
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