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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.
Perhaps the record labels had a problem with the streaming, and so Apple pulled it - expecting that someone would just hack their code to bring it back.
What with all the fuss about internet radio and royalty fees, it's not too far fetched that the record companies didn't like people legitimately streaming the songs they had legitimately purchased.
IIRC, Tivo & others have similar hidden features that the masses are unaware of that would probably annoy the TV companies if it were publicised.
While the CD Baby page has not been taken down, its been neutered - all relevant info has been removed and I think its obvious why.
Apple only gets about 6-12 months to have their innovations be innovations before someone else copies them.. putting out the info now, instead of in the 90ish days when the details will all be public, only gives MS and Real a head-start on their idea copying.
I'm perfectly willing to wait and see.... tho other sources have already noted that Apple has mentioned a iTMS Compression tool to allow Indie's the ability to compress their own music on their own machines to make their music ready for sale on the iTMS.
and if that's true.. that kicks fscking ass.
Go Apple, you guys r0x0r.(note: i'm not bashing their copying of Apple's ideas, i'm only stating fact)
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Man, I hope CD Baby works out a licensing deal where CD's from CD Baby's catalog are also sold on iTMS. I plan on selling an album through them this summer and I would love for it to be available in iTunes as well.
(a little OT)
Thanks to companies like Apple, the smaller labels will really reap the benefits of getting their music out there without heavy tampering to 'prevent' piracy.
I work for a music publication, and it's interesting to see which companies ignore the 'threat' of piracy, and which ones try to fight it.
For example, the new Cradle of Filth arrived with a hand-signed number on the CD, and a b/w CD case with a skull and cross bones on it, warning me (the music critic) that "this disc is watermark protected" whatever that means.
Meanwhile, the new Type O Negative arrived with a 10 second commericial attached (i.e. spliced into) each song ("Your listening to the new Type O Negative, in stores next month"). This CD will NOT get press in our publication, since it's hard to get into a CD when every 3-4 minutes some recorded message comes on; nice job, record executives. Way to prevent piracy!
One of the things I've been wondering is, if an indie label wants to make their own songs available without DRM, will Apple let them do so on the iTunes Music Store, or is DRM absolutely required? What if the band wants to sell unrestricted AAC files? What about MP3?
Of course I expect most of them to want the DRM, but some may not.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Apple has somewhere around 15 million unbelievably loyal customers in the United States. Of these, about five million have seen the light and upgraded to OS X. Of these, probably three million are actually using iTunes 4. Of those, maybe half (1.5 million) are actually buying from the iTMS.
1.5 million highly intelligent, mostly creative people who love things like music and movies and art.
I don't find it at all surprising that 1.5 million people can buy a three million songs a month. That's only two songs ($2) per customer per month average.
In particular, if you look beyond the "rock" genre and "current" stuff, you will find a wealth of really outstanding older material (not as much as one might wish for, but a HELL of a lot more than any record store has!).
For example, I've been using the iTMS to cherry-pick my own "compilations" of the best of Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Duke Ellington and others. I'm never going to buy the "greatest hits" because they never have all the songs I want, nor I am prepared to spend $12-15/cd on "old" music like this. But for around $12 I can grab 12 of what *I* think are each artists' best efforts and make my own unique compilation.
(PS to audiophiles: Fuck off! It sounds great!)
It's well worth the money to me, and allows me to "catch up" on great artists that are hard to find/don't need every little thing/out of print etc.
Actually, I have a number of albums (yes, vinyl) that I haven't replaced with the CD version. When iTMS was up, those were the first I looked for. I've taken "ripped" some of the vinyl to mp3 or ogg but considering what my time is worth iTMS is much cheaper.
Most of my vinyl is available as CD but now I doubt that I'll ever buy it as that. I can buy the AAC's from iTMS and then burn a CD from my playlist (which I have done). The sound -- while admittedly not CD quality -- is better than my ears are and I have yet to find any sonic imperfections. And, it's better than the quality of my albums no matter what. (Yes, I took very good care of my albums but you pick up hiss and scratches no matter how careful you are!)
I've also purchased new music that I have neither the CD or album for. It was a quick, simple, and inexpensive way to get the music and I got to sample it first. I doubt I'll buy many more pre-recorded CDs now that I have this option.
My point is, yes it is an economical solution for replacing pre-owned music in some formats. For people like me, it's an easy way to "switch" my music collection to a digital format.
"There is no spoon." - Neo
"Spoooon!" - The Tick
The music companies and Microsoft are pretty much unwilling to let go of DRM. Microsoft builds DRM they way they do because that's what music companies thin they want. And then the music companies use that DRM because it's there.
And meanwhile Apple cleans up on all of the online music business because they are the only ones trying to build something the customer will want to use instead of the music companies. So even though another company could come along and undercut Apple (like RealMedia is trying to do) they always present some aspect to their system that screws things up and makes the service unappealing to consumers.
Also, the secret spice in Apple's store is that it's not web based and uses a custom interface. So you get not only easy searching and purchasing, but management of your songs all at once. Kind of the way IE came into being as the dominant web browser, it was just there with the OS... and the player you use for music has more music waiting to be bought and enjoyed right there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One of the things that MS has going against it is that such deals are predicated on trust. The labels have to trust the technology vendor not going to screw them. Putting aside the jihad of whether or not it is deserved, MS has a well established reputation for shady and illegal business practices. Why would you ever do business with a company like that if you don't have to?
There's a great value added benefit to dealing with a technology company that is headed by an entertainment company CEO (Steve Jobs, of course, runs his own movie studio called Pixar). As long as Steve continues in his post, Apple will continue to be able to extract a few pennies extra in profit versus any deal MS will be able to make.
Exactly the point. If us lowly mac users everybody shits on can generate this much talk (and this much real profit for record labels), just think what'll happen when iTunes for PC hits the market.
I'd also love to see iTunes on setup top boxes. God, the thought of a big white multimedia box with a few hundred gigs of space and a high def display, digital output and a friendly engraved apple gets me all excited about my sound system again.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
The really cool, really good thing Derek is doing is that he is providing an early path for everyone to get their music onto iTunes.
I totally understand Apple's position on this. They don't want to get swamped by tens of thousands of indie labels seeking individual contracts for their music. A lot of artists these days are self-publishing, and Apple doesn't have the ability to deal with each of them individually.
The big question in my mind is how CD Baby is going to be able to afford to submit their artists' materials to iTunes. Will they charge an up-front setup fee? Will they snag a commission on each song sold? It all remains to be seen.
My guess is that they'll charge a few bucks to encode your songs into the iTunes format and submit them, and then take $0.05 to $0.10 per song sold to help with processing checks and such.
I guess we'll all just have to wait a few months for this all to get sorted out.
I'm pretty sure that Apple Records and Apple Computer have ironed out their trademark dispute, because Apple Computer has owned the applemusic.com domain name since 1997:
Domain name: applemusic.com
Registrant Contact:
Apple Computer, Inc.
NOC Apple (Apple-NOC@APPLE.COM)
+1.4089961010
FAX: +1.4089741560
1 Infinite Loop
M/S 60-DR
Cupertino, CA 95014
US
Created: 11/19/97 00:00:00