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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.
testing test teste.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
Where are the weapons of mass destruction?
I managed to get all over taht shizit without waking up the cat on my foot.
I @|\/| t3h 1337 CR@PF100d3R!!!
The details were pulled from the first link, before there's even one post. ya'rg! Anyone happen to have visited before he pulled the info?
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\_/ RAPE ME \_/
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I don't know which was faster, the information about the iTunes store on the CDBaby site being pulled or the obligatory post about how slow it is to copy files on an 8600/300.
Here
As in, there should be checks and balances to avoid people spelling cheques wrong.
I know, I know, it's the AMERICAN WAY!!!!
It's still wrong.
Looks like Apple got e-music right, though.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
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.
I saw a similar story yesterday on a popular community-driven geek news website.
You should check it out sometime!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
All the details have been pulled and the following remark inserted:
"And yes, sorry, there used to be more details here. I didn't realize yesterday's presentation was supposed to be confidential. When I found out, I pulled the details. Honest mistake."
Religion and science are both 90% crap..but that doesn't negate the other 10%.
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.
Allison felt a hot flutter in her belly as Jeff's hand eased down
from her waist and slid onto her bottom. She stiffened slightly, looking
around, but nobody seemed to notice.
They were just walking along, on their way home from a basketball
game, she and Jeff, Molly, Peter, Mike, and Evan. It was dark. The
streetlights were few and far between and few of the houses along the
street had their lights on. It was hot, and she was sweating a little,
trying to keep cool by not moving much.
Up ahead Peter and Mike were wrestling on someone's front lawn as
Evan shouted encouragement and Molly looked on.
Jeff's fingers squeezed in against her soft buttocks and he turned
and kissed her lightly. She kissed him back, feeling his lips between
hers as she nibbled on him.
She felt her breasts swelling under her loose white T-shirt and
squeezed her pussy muscles together as Jeff's hand slid slowly up and
down the cleft between her rounded buttocks, rubbing her through her jeans.
She flicked a lock of blonde hair out of her face and smiled, her
soft, full lips parting to reveal gleaming white teeth. A car passed and
she looked away, a little embarrassed.
But there was a limit as to how much she could do with him anyway,
and when his hand slid lower, his fingers easing beneath her buttocks
and over her pussy mound she pulled slowly back with a look of reproof.
It wasn't as if they had even dated or anything, and even though
she wasn't in high school any more and would be back to college in a
couple of weeks she didn't want tales told about her.
She moved forward beside Molly, and Jeff jumped on Evan, bearing
him to the ground alongside the other two. She and Molly exchanged
glances and shrugs.
Molly was her best friend. The two of them were a lot alike in many
ways. They were the same age, had roughly the same taste in men,
clothes, music and food.
They had similar hairstyles, straight, a little below the
shoulders, and parted in the middle. The difference was that Molly's
hair was a bit thicker, and was a deep reddish brown in colour. She also
had bangs. Allison was a golden blonde, and her hair usually looked just
a bit more mussed, a bit less precisely brushed than Molly's.
They were both of average height, though Allison was an inch or two
taller, and both had athletic bodies. They had trim, firm, flat bellies,
flaring hips, round, firm buttocks and nicely sculpted legs.
Molly had bigger breasts, and they were rounder, but Allison's
breasts were good sized and firmer, her small pink nipples actually
sticking slightly upwards in a way that made all the girls in the shower
at college jealous. They were, the girls agreed, the perfect shape.
She had won the unofficial title of best breasts during one shower
session after volleyball, much to Molly's amusement. Molly had come in
second.
"Come on, you guys," Molly sighed.
"Yeah, knock it off," Allison said. "What are you, children?"
Evan pulled himself away from Jeff with a grunt and stood up, hair
tousled. "Hey," he said. "Why are we wrestling with each other when we
should be wrestling with... the girls!"
He leered at them and stalked forward.
"Go away, Evan," Molly sighed, backing up as she eyed him warily.
Instead he growled, then lunged forward. She squealed and turned to
run but he caught her around the waist and lifted her up into the air,
swinging her around.
Then before she could move Jeff rushed Allison, bending low and
grabbing her around the waist. She screamed as he hefted her up and
lifted her over his shoulder, turning around and around.
"Put me down!" she yelled.
"Me got wo-man!" he growled like a cave man, staggering around.
He slapped her bottom and she yelled, kicking at him. He set her
down heavily and she fell down, glaring up at him.
"Dick he
Here's how I see it, apple basically made a really successful proof of concept, but just wait until BMG or Virgin or whoever comes along with a 35 cent version of a similar service using another format and a better bitrate?
I'm happy to see apple made this concept successful, maybe now the value of MP3's won't be based on their album but at the lowest net price available. I do think like the record we may be seeing the demise of the archaic CD media. CD's were supposed to last forever, so long as you don't scratch them or scuff them, what next standard flash media?
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
But the above post describes a machine that could never run OS X.
OS9 and below sucked - They had an ancient core, I'm not surprised you had multitasking issues. OS X is lightyears ahead. OSX is one good reason that some people might choose a Mac.
And this article isn't about their hardware, it's about Apple's iTunes Music Store service. Which is currently Mac-only, and is enough to push some people "over the edge" and get a Mac. I know I've been VERY tempted to buy a used Mac just to be able to use the ITMS. (I'm currently a PC user myself, and going to stay that way unless Apple caters more to DIY types - yeah right.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
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.
I've checked the Google cache too, NOT THERE
Religion and science are both 90% crap..but that doesn't negate the other 10%.
One interesting note I remember from reading it: No independant artists. You have to come in through one of the independant labels. Apple pays the label. The label pays you.
Boom Shanka
I can get bad quality mp3s ripped incorrectly, many distorted on purpose, on KaZaA. Just for fun, I tried to download one song from a pop artist the other day. It took me 30 minutes on my broadband connection to find and download one of decent quality.
I got an invitation to go to Apple's office for a presentation/meeting today (June 5, 2003) about how to get independent artists into the iTunes Music Store. There were about 150 people there, representatives from the best independent record labels and music services, in this invitation-only conference room. Steve Jobs came out and started a two and a half hour presentation/seminar/Q&A about iTunes and the benefits of independent labels making their music available there. I type fast and had my laptop, so I wrote down all the major points of their presentation as they went.
NOTE: I've skipped the super-basic introduction to iTunes and what it does, because that can be found so many other places. This is the stuff that I felt was most important to musicians:
The basics
* The basics of iTunes Music Store are covered in many places, so if you haven't used iTunes Music store yet, read these links first:
* Apple's iTunes Music Store website.
* Great video showing the service.
* NOTE: iTunes is not a website! It can only be accessed from the iTunes software run on Mac OS X (now) and Windows (by the end of the year.)
* I highly suggest trying it for yourself. If you don't have a Mac, use a friend's. Enter your credit card info and actually buy a song. Tell it to store your info for future purchases. Buy a few more songs with the one-click system. I'm serious. You should try it yourself to really experience how amazingly cool it is.
* They're using a DRM called Fairplay to make sure you can't put these songs on the internet and have them play on another player.
Current Stats:
* There are 6-7 million copies of iTunes in use.
* 3.5 million songs sold so far. Selling about 500,000 songs a week now.
* More than 75% of songs have sold at least once. There is a wide breadth in purchasing. This is not only fueled by hits.
* 45% of all songs have been bought as an album. In other words: don't worry about the death of the album format. 45% of people prefer to buy as an album anyway, even though they always have the option to only buy per-song.
* 90% of sales are 1-click downloads. (1-click is where customer has credit card stored on file, so that as soon as they click a song title, it starts downloading and their credit card is automatically charged.)
* 10 previews (free 30 second listen) for every purchase. Meaning: 10 listens per buy.
Price of music on iTunes
* Songs must be 99 cents each.
* Full albums are recommended to be $9.99 or lower.
* Album price must be less than or equal to the sum of their tracks. So if you have a 5-song album, it can't be more than $4.95 to buy the full-length album.
* Apple strongly recommends going even lower than $9.99. They'd like to see that price drop to make the full-album purchase even more desirable.
* Only exception: if a song is over 7 minutes long, they won't offer it as a separate download. It will be available as part of the album only.
* There is no cost to put your music on iTunes.
* There will be no up-front advance from Apple.
* Details on the wholesale price to the label will be mailed to us, later.
Sales report to SoundScan
* Apple is reporting all iTunes sales to SoundScan!
* SoundScan measures per-song not per-album.
* So if someone buys your whole album, each track on the album is reported as a song sale.
* SoundScan requested to do it that way. It was their idea, not Apple's.
About positioning and getting attention on iTunes
* Apple has hired an editorial staff with backgrounds in music to decide what gets featured.
* Editorial team makes decisions every day as to what goes where.
* Big labels don't get preferential treatment.
* "We pick music we like, and we think everyone else is going to like."
* "We've had a lot of people offer money", but A
shame on us / for all we have done / and all we ever were / just zeroes and ones
Cd Baby reports on itunes meeting re: indy music.
Posted by leflaw on June 6, 2003 at 7:44 AM EDT
Apple iTunes + independent music
I got an invitation to go to Apple's office for a presentation/meeting today (June 5, 2003) about how to get independent artists into the iTunes Music Store. There were about 150 people there, representatives from the best independent record labels and music services, in this invitation-only conference room. Steve Jobs came out and started a two and a half hour presentation/seminar/Q&A about iTunes and the benefits of independent labels making their music available there. I type fast and had my laptop, so I wrote down all the major points of their presentation as they went.
NOTE: I've skipped the super-basic introduction to iTunes and what it does, because that can be found so many other places. This is the stuff that I felt was most important to musicians:
The basics
* The basics of iTunes Music Store are covered in many places, so if you haven't used iTunes Music store yet, read these links first:
* Apple's iTunes Music Store website.
* Great video showing the service.
* NOTE: iTunes is not a website! It can only be accessed from the iTunes software run on Mac OS X (now) and Windows (by the end of the year.)
* I highly suggest trying it for yourself. If you don't have a Mac, use a friend's. Enter your credit card info and actually buy a song. Tell it to store your info for future purchases. Buy a few more songs with the one-click system. I'm serious. You should try it yourself to really experience how amazingly cool it is.
* They're using a DRM called Fairplay to make sure you can't put these songs on the internet and have them play on another player.
Current Stats:
* There are 6-7 million copies of iTunes in use.
* 3.5 million songs sold so far. Selling about 500,000 songs a week now.
* More than 75% of songs have sold at least once. There is a wide breadth in purchasing. This is not only fueled by hits.
* 45% of all songs have been bought as an album. In other words: don't worry about the death of the album format. 45% of people prefer to buy as an album anyway, even though they always have the option to only buy per-song.
* 90% of sales are 1-click downloads. (1-click is where customer has credit card stored on file, so that as soon as they click a song title, it starts downloading and their credit card is automatically charged.)
* 10 previews (free 30 second listen) for every purchase. Meaning: 10 listens per buy.
Price of music on iTunes
* Songs must be 99 cents each.
* Full albums are recommended to be $9.99 or lower.
* Album price must be less than or equal to the sum of their tracks. So if you have a 5-song album, it can't be more than $4.95 to buy the full-length album.
* Apple strongly recommends going even lower than $9.99. They'd like to see that price drop to make the full-album purchase even more desirable.
* Only exception: if a song is over 7 minutes long, they won't offer it as a separate download. It will be available as part of the album only.
* There is no cost to put your music on iTunes.
* There will be no up-front advance from Apple.
* Details on the wholesale price to the label will be mailed to us, later.
Sales report to SoundScan
* Apple is reporting all iTunes sales to SoundScan!
* SoundScan measures per-song not per-album.
* So if someone buys your whole album, each track on the album is reported as a song sale.
* SoundScan requested to do it that way. It was their idea, not Apple's.
About positioning and getting attention on iTunes
* Apple has hired an editorial staff with backgrounds in music to decide what gets featured.
* Editorial team makes decisions every day as to what goes where.
* Big labels don't get preferential treatment.
* "We pick music we like, and we think everyone else is going to like."
* "We've had a lot of people offer money", but Apple refuses money, and has no plan to ev
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;
I'm from Canada and they think I'm slow, eh?
Gosh, I am a dope. Now it will be interesting to see if I get modded down for correcting my *own* spelling.
Boom Shanka
I'm actually a little suprised at the heavy handedness Apple has shown with preventing the LAN streaming of mp3's all together. Apple has always been one to promote innovation, well usually unless they think its a threat. But the issue with preventing the iTunes streaming may have something to do with these new deals with the music labels, Apple may have it's hands tied and has pressure on it by the labels, who knows.
You are not funny. Go back to fark.com, monkeytits.
Have you flamed SpanishInquisition t
Interesting that they pulled the "details" because they seem to have been reminded that they were confidential (see note at bottom of page). Do we see the shadow of the Long Arm of Apple or a case of sudden recall?
As for the sales figures mentioned in the intro above, they're just a rehash of the oft quoted "million a month / mostly albums" company line. No scoop there. Next time, perhaps we'll see it expressed as "33,000 per day."
I can't imagine that Apple would have divulged much (if any) proprietary info to that auditorium full of mavericks anyway, so I reckon we're not missing much.
Next.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
I mean really, who could have realistically predicted this would happen a year ago? Apple, snobby uppity en vogue computer company who makes shiny, sexy, expensive computers..... now stands to build a new empire built on selling music online. I mean really. I never saw it coming! Mac user 4 ever :)
So lets get the theories out in the open. How long until I can post a song I've made and sell it on apple's service at $0.99 a piece (with apple of cource getting a portion of the proceedes)?
- tristan
There are much better programs to use, and more reliable.
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.
-
According to a post in the MacRumors forums from CDBaby the details were pulled and here's why:
--------------
It wasn't wrath or lawyers that asked me to pull it. It was a friend of mine that works there.
I sincerely didn't know yesterday's presentation was supposed to be confidential. In fact I thought it was like an indie-music press conference.
Nobody's mad, though. Honest mistake.
Sorry guys!
--
Derek Sivers, CD Baby
http://www.cdbaby.com
--------------
But.... here it is anyhow...
I got an invitation to go to Apple's office for a presentation/meeting today (June 5, 2003) about how to get independent artists into the iTunes Music Store. There were about 150 people there, representatives from the best independent record labels and music services, in this invitation-only conference room. Steve Jobs came out and started a two and a half hour presentation/seminar/Q&A about iTunes and the benefits of independent labels making their music available there. I type fast and had my laptop, so I wrote down all the major points of their presentation as they went.
NOTE: I've skipped the super-basic introduction to iTunes and what it does, because that can be found so many other places. This is the stuff that I felt was most important to musicians:
The basics
* The basics of iTunes Music Store are covered in many places, so if you haven't used iTunes Music store yet, read these links first:
* Apple's iTunes Music Store website.
* Great video showing the service.
* NOTE: iTunes is not a website! It can only be accessed from the iTunes software run on Mac OS X (now) and Windows (by the end of the year.)
* I highly suggest trying it for yourself. If you don't have a Mac, use a friend's. Enter your credit card info and actually buy a song. Tell it to store your info for future purchases. Buy a few more songs with the one-click system. I'm serious. You should try it yourself to really experience how amazingly cool it is.
* They're using a DRM called Fairplay to make sure you can't put these songs on the internet and have them play on another player.
Current Stats:
* There are 6-7 million copies of iTunes in use.
* 3.5 million songs sold so far. Selling about 500,000 songs a week now.
* More than 75% of songs have sold at least once. There is a wide breadth in purchasing. This is not only fueled by hits.
* 45% of all songs have been bought as an album. In other words: don't worry about the death of the album format. 45% of people prefer to buy as an album anyway, even though they always have the option to only buy per-song.
* 90% of sales are 1-click downloads. (1-click is where customer has credit card stored on file, so that as soon as they click a song title, it starts downloading and their credit card is automatically charged.)
* 10 previews (free 30 second listen) for every purchase. Meaning: 10 listens per buy.
Price of music on iTunes
* Songs must be 99 cents each.
* Full albums are recommended to be $9.99 or lower.
* Album price must be less than or equal to the sum of their tracks. So if you have a 5-song album, it can't be more than $4.95 to buy the full-length album.
* Apple strongly recommends going even lower than $9.99. They'd like to see that price drop to make the full-album purchase even more desirable.
* Only exception: if a song is over 7 minutes long, they won't offer it as a separate download. It will be available as part of the album only.
* There is no cost to put your music on iTunes.
* There will be no up-front advance from Apple.
* Details on the wholesale price to the label will be mailed to us, later.
Sales report to SoundScan
* Apple is reporting all iTunes sales to SoundScan!
* SoundScan measures per-song not per-album.
* So if someone buys your whole album, each track on the album is reported as a song sale.
* SoundScan requested to do it that way. It was their idea
Found this on the macnn boards:
Sorry - I took the details down from that page. It wasn't wrath or lawyers that asked me to pull it. It was a friend of mine that works there. I sincerely didn't know yesterday's presentation was supposed to be confidential. In fact I thought it was like an indie-music press conference. Nobody's mad, though. Honest mistake. Sorry guys!
-- Derek Sivers, CD Baby http://www.cdbaby.com
but the article said that in 20 years Apple has never sold an icon to a desktop in their operating system. This may be true but if you install OS X you will be asked to sign up for an Earthlink account. To me that sounds like advertising sold to Earthlink to place their company ahead of others. Just a thought.
___ Shout Central - Crushes your nuts!
The "What Jobs taketh away.." article refers to Andromeda, a $35 web-based file streaming program.
There is a free GPL'd alternative, ZINA (Zina Is Not Andromeda) as well as other solutions. A search of freshmeat.net for "jukebox" will reveal even more...
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
All the independent labels, you mean?
This clearly isn't true for the big labels. Some "hits" can only be bought if you take the whole album -- they won't sell Don MacLean's "American Pie" for $0.99 -- and exceptionally long tracks (>7 mins) often have the same restriction. Some albums also stick to the $0.99-per rule past the $9.95-per-original-disk rule. That's only fair when a classical or jazz track might be ten minutes long, but it ain't the universal deal we're supposedly talking about.
Not that I'm po'ed about this. Basically Apple had to compromise to get some of the deals with big companies. Seems like they're trying to address the very thing /. spent the first week going over and over -- smaller labels, less well-known artists -- without killing anyone on either end.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Fuck off. Or don't. Whatever.
It's my prediction that they'll start seeing album sales drop rapidly as people finish "switching" their music collection to the new format. Once you've got all your old vinyl in AAC, you'll probably not want to risk the $10 on a new, untested album.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
I just don't see how Apple is having millions of downloads and sales every month from software that isn't on _that_ many computers. It doesn't seem to make any sense. Are these numbers legit or is Apple cooking the books?
You also need to be older than sixteen. Sorry, sonny.
But with previewing before buying it won't be a new untested album.... that's part of the beauty of it
--
Cd Baby reports on itunes meeting re: indy music.
Posted by leflaw on June 6, 2003 at 7:44 AM EDT
Apple iTunes + independent music
I got an invitation to go to Apple's office for a presentation/meeting today (June 5, 2003) about how to get independent artists into the iTunes Music Store. There were about 150 people there, representatives from the best independent record labels and music services, in this invitation-only conference room. Steve Jobs came out and started a two and a half hour presentation/seminar/Q&A about iTunes and the benefits of independent labels making their music available there. I type fast and had my laptop, so I wrote down all the major points of their presentation as they went.
NOTE: I've skipped the super-basic introduction to iTunes and what it does, because that can be found so many other places. This is the stuff that I felt was most important to musicians:
The basics
* The basics of iTunes Music Store are covered in many places, so if you haven't used iTunes Music store yet, read these links first:
* Apple's iTunes Music Store website.
* Great video showing the service.
* NOTE: iTunes is not a website! It can only be accessed from the iTunes software run on Mac OS X (now) and Windows (by the end of the year.)
* I highly suggest trying it for yourself. If you don't have a Mac, use a friend's. Enter your credit card info and actually buy a song. Tell it to store your info for future purchases. Buy a few more songs with the one-click system. I'm serious. You should try it yourself to really experience how amazingly cool it is.
* They're using a DRM called Fairplay to make sure you can't put these songs on the internet and have them play on another player.
Current Stats:
* There are 6-7 million copies of iTunes in use.
* 3.5 million songs sold so far. Selling about 500,000 songs a week now.
* More than 75% of songs have sold at least once. There is a wide breadth in purchasing. This is not only fueled by hits.
* 45% of all songs have been bought as an album. In other words: don't worry about the death of the album format. 45% of people prefer to buy as an album anyway, even though they always have the option to only buy per-song.
* 90% of sales are 1-click downloads. (1-click is where customer has credit card stored on file, so that as soon as they click a song title, it starts downloading and their credit card is automatically charged.)
* 10 previews (free 30 second listen) for every purchase. Meaning: 10 listens per buy.
Price of music on iTunes
* Songs must be 99 cents each.
* Full albums are recommended to be $9.99 or lower.
* Album price must be less than or equal to the sum of their tracks. So if you have a 5-song album, it can't be more than $4.95 to buy the full-length album.
* Apple strongly recommends going even lower than $9.99. They'd like to see that price drop to make the full-album purchase even more desirable.
* Only exception: if a song is over 7 minutes long, they won't offer it as a separate download. It will be available as part of the album only.
* There is no cost to put your music on iTunes.
* There will be no up-front advance from Apple.
* Details on the wholesale price to the label will be mailed to us, later.
Sales report to SoundScan
* Apple is reporting all iTunes sales to SoundScan!
* SoundScan measures per-song not per-album.
* So if someone buys your whole album, each track on the album is reported as a song sale.
* SoundScan requested to do it that way. It was their idea, not Apple's.
About positioning and getting attention on iTunes
* Apple has hired an editorial staff with backgrounds in music to decide what gets featured.
* Editorial team makes decisions every day as to what goes where.
* Big labels don't get preferential treatment.
* "We pick music we like, and we think everyone else is going to like."
* "We've had a lot of people offer money", but Apple refuses money, and has no plan
free ipod and free gmail!
was "Plus Steve Jobs reminded us they have $41 billion in the bank and are not in debt. They're not desparate(sic) for cash."
I knew they had money, but sheesh. Though I'm leaning towards it being a typo, and it should read "4.1 billion", as that would be more in line with what I last heard.
Still, they are clearly on solid ground for a computer maker these days. Or for any product manufacturer, for that matter.
I wonder if that's enough to buy SCO....
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Apple is saying that 45% of the songs they've sold are being sold as part of an album.
This does NOT mean that 45% of the music purchased from iTunes are albums. In fact, that number is probably closer to 4.5% (a conservative estimate - most albums have more than 10 songs).
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
So -- the TypeO album doesn't get any response simply because they go to the trouble of appending something to the song so that when you rip it and get it uploaded to some fileserver the kiddies will know who it is?
Thats a little juvenile, eh?
10 seconds of commercial is not too much to worry about nor should it effect your judgements of the music. Being from a music pub, you've probably been to one of any number of junkets put out by these guys...music critics come out and listen to this stuff...sometimes they are given a cd to take back with them, other times the music you've heard at the party is all they you get until release day (and they have been known to wand ya to make sure ya ain't bringing in a recorder)...there will be someone talking a good portion of the time that this is playing, yet the music still seems to get reviewed -- or at least pre-reviewed until they can get their hands on the full release).
I'd rather have music have a short advertisment at the end of the song than a watermarking -- marks are expensive (ie., each disc has to be encoded specifically for that person and burned for them -- I have set up a process that does this for a friends company that sells sound libraries -- then again for $1k a disc, they don't mind that it takes them a half hour to get the cd out the door).
What do I know. You are an anonycow that reviews for publications while I'm just a music tech that works for the pros and has to hear them bitch at me constantly about their music being stolen while I sit and explain how this stuff works and try to explain how they can try to stop it OR try to figure out ways to subvert this activity so that it ends up helping them out without alienating their core audience.
clif
Thank you Senator Byrd for your patriotism through challenging
the Bush regime
Cheers,
W00t
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.
So, which publication do you work for? I'd like to avoid reviews from people who don't know the difference between a possessive pronoun and a contraction of 'you' and 'are'.
I don't think (m)any people are "switching" their music collection to AAC files they've bought at the Apple Music store. The article said itself that the most popular (profitable) tracks are new releases and exclusive tracks, not available on CD (and I'm assuming not on vinyl either). The Apple Music Store is NOT the economical way of getting music you already own into a new format. I don't think we're going to see any rapid drop off sales anytime soon, especially before they get the windows version of iTunes out.
That's to keep you as a reviewer from leaking the album. An album being out on the internet when it's also available in stores is one thing, but if an album's out on the net months before people can buy it in stores there's a good chance they'll be tired of it before they can even make a decision about whether to legally buy it or not.
I do agree with you that the recorded message in the middle of the songs is going way too far, but if a band wants to watermark their review copies so they can know which one got leaked, I can't really fault them.
I posted this as part of a thread but here it is again. This is post by Derek at the MacRumors forum: sorry - took the details down It wasn't wrath or lawyers that asked me to pull it. It was a friend of mine that works there. I sincerely didn't know yesterday's presentation was supposed to be confidential. In fact I thought it was like an indie-music press conference. Nobody's mad, though. Honest mistake. Sorry guys! -- Derek Sivers, CD Baby http://www.cdbaby.com
Please learn the difference between "your" and "you're" -- they are different words. Thank you.
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!
it should get in your magazine.. mention it that you threw it in the trash because of that and if they want you to actually review it then send you something that is listen-able.
you actually have the power to get these nut-heads attention... but being silent is not the way to do it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Itunes Sucks!
From the article: * Every album needs to have a UPC Barcode!
Buuuuut... CD Baby doesn't require a barcode and doesn't get one for you so I see some problems with CD Baby being able to supply Apple with all the required stuff.
This sig will make it clear that ANYONE can use this post for ANY purpose WITHOUT the written consent of the NFL.
I wonder how the math works for the music industry. Are they afraid that they're going to start losing money from individual songs sold direct at .99 each, or would they prefer to sell a full album at 9.99 each, full of filler that most people don't want? It could be a whole new market for them, or at least restoring the old market that was lost when people stopped buying 45 RPMs. There never was a successor to that format that caught on, although clearly there is a demand for being able to purchase the 'hit singles'.
Gee, that's a simple problem to solve - rip, cut the first 10 seconds out, make a new CD, and listen. This is not that tough.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Why did they do this? They're just going to piss off classical music and techno/trance fans. I have many songs I love that are well over 7 minutes.
yes,it's pretty crazy innit...just do the math. in vague estimation,abt 1/3 of apple users have access to itms.whom only constitute just about 2% of the computer market can buy 500000 songs a week.that in a time where p2p programs like kazaa are still around. that is pretty crazy if you ask me,pretty dubious figures. however if it is true then just imagine how much we are looking at if and when itms reaches the windows platform?
eventually, once this is in place the big labels may once again band together and totally erase any form of p2p sharing eg kazaa and itunes may become the only online music download site around.
the labels get like 65% of each track, so this could be a masterplan.....imagine the future...where there are no more cds sold in record stores and itms is the only retail medium for music?
*wakes up*
"damn, all this cold sweat is soaking the sheets"
I am a homosexual. I bought an Apple computer because of its well earned reputation for being "the" gay computer. Since I have become an Apple owner, I have been exposed to a whole new world of gay friends. It is really a pleasure to meet and compute with other homos such as myself. I plan on using my new Apple computer as a way to entice and recruit young schoolboys into the homosexual lifestyle; it would be so helpful if you could produce more software which would appeal to young boys. Thanks in advance.
with much gayness,
Father Randy "Pudge" O'Day, S.J.
...Like getting the record companies to stop releasing album-length Compact Discs with just a few good songs and everything else on the album being horrible.
Does anyone remember back in the early 1980's? Back then, many albums were full of great songs; a great example of this is Michael Jackson's Thriller, which had most of its songs hit the Top Ten on the Billboard Singles chart.
With the ability the iTunes Music Store to pick and choose the songs you want, you get the best songs and skip out on the crappy stuff. This might even encourage musicians to write good songs for a change on a consistent basis. =)
Thanks for your letter. Being Catholic myself, I know exactly what you're talking about! It has always been our plan here at Apple Computer Inc to revolutionize personal computing with our high-quality and highly gay products.
I'm happy to answer your letter by letting you know that YES we will be releasing an entire hLife ("homo-life") software line. You'll be able to recognize it in stores by the small stylized logo depicting a large cock entering a tight anus with an Apple logo on it. ("Suddenly it all comes together" indeed!).
Anyway, I hope you and other members of our community will join us on our mission, and purchase the exciting new hLife boxed set. Only the boxed set comes with translucent cock rings!
Sincerely,
Harry Rodman
Vice-president
Homosexual Liaison Services
Apple Computer, Inc.
Wait, how do you measure music? By number of purchases, or number of tracks? I think that number of tracks is a more appropriate measure of music, in which case 45% is the right number. If you're talking about x% of purchases were albums, then the ~4.5% is correct.
The argument goes that Apple is roughly 5% of the **home** personal computer market. That as a **home** computer vendor they are roughly the same size as Dell, Gateway, HP/Compaq, etc. That the odds of finding a Mac in a house is roughly the same as finding a Dell brand, Gateway brand, HP/Compaq brand, etc. Apple is only dwarfed when you gather up all the major PC vendors and the local clone shops into a mishmash called IBM PC compatibles, especially when you do not differentiate between home and business sales. And of course these business sales are not all that relevant to any music store. Such purchases are far more likely to be made on a personal not a company system.
etymology is the word you meant to use. Entomology is the study of insects.
Easy mnemonic: Entomology, think ants. Works for me anyway.
The iTunes Music Store requires: * A Macintosh computer (iBook, PowerBook, iMac, eMac or Power Mac) * Mac OS X 10.1.5 or later. (version 10.2.5 or later recommended) * iTunes 4 must be installed * Internet connection (DSL, Cable or LAN connection recommended) * Apple ID or .Mac account. If you donâ(TM)t have one, itâ(TM)s easy to sign-up.
* The iTunes Music Store is only available in the U.S.
John Susek
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.
Not so interesting when you take into account the majority of people using iTunes and purchasing digital songs are mac users and will blindly purchase something they could obtain for free if only they had even the slightest clue about what a "computer" was.
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
Does anyone know if Apple is pushing for an exclusive right to distribute/sell these tunes online or if they're content being one of many distributors? This is the sort of things that worries me when the really big guys start playing in this field, locking up the market.
I'm a huge fan of EMusic, another online service for downloading licensed (and DRM free!) music. Unlimited (with reason) downloads for $10/$15 a month is a better deal for me than $.99 a song. They have a great catalog even if they don't carry the 'major' labels, but I'd hate to see their catalog decrease if labels had to drop them to distribute via iTunes.
So what about those albums that consist of songs that all over 7 minutes longer? You can't sell the songs seperately because they're over 7 minutes. But according to the rules, you can't just sell an album. What overrides what? And what about pricing. Example time:
Band has 3 song album that clocks in at 75 minutes. These do exist, I own several.
According to AppleRules, they can't sell the songs seperatelym since each song is over 7 minutes. However one of the other AppleRules:
So does this 3 song album cost $2.97 to buy? That's a whole lot of bang for the buck. Why can't they just offer
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.
They still won't match my collection of Cassingles! (Apologies to The Onion)
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
Visit a music mag sometime. It's not a bunch of people in three-piece suits sipping Earl Grey while they listen to new music on $350 headphones in sound-proof chambers.
New discs come in with the day's mail and pile up somewhere. Certain people (you know who you are) go through and pick out the good ones and hoard them in their desk drawers. Then people put remaining discs that look promising on the stereo (almost invariably a cheap one-piece with broken buttons sitting on top of a file cabinet with at least one drawer that nobody has the key to any longer), and if the rest of the room thinks it's crap, people start yelling to change the CD.
In a climate like that, something with spoken-word commercials every few minutes is going to piss off people who are trying to read and write. So it won't get played, and unless it's someone's favorite band, it will find its way to the bottom of the pile and won't get reviewed. Eventually someone's girlfriend will take it home and play it once and then lose it under the couch.
Insulting the people who are in the best position to convince the core audience to buy the music seems like a fantastic idea. With that kind of lateral thinking, it's a wonder you're not running a record company already.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Do recall that during and before the 1700's, there were widely accepted (some alternate, some quasi-correct, some flat incorrect) and various spellings for MANY words. The US broke from British custom centuries before the rest of the "British speaking" world you cite.
If anything, it's just a case of divergent evolution from a commonly accepted and relatively, but not completely, modern ancestor of the currently accepted "English" language. See also colo(u)r, t(i|y)re, jail/gaol, curb/kerb, maneuver/manouevre, and many others. As I recall, years ago, most of the discrepancies had reasonably accepted alternate spellings.
Usually, the American spelling is more phonetic. Optimists might say this is an example of typical American efficiency. Pundits might say it's typical American illiteracy. I claim it's typical American obstinance, but hell, it could be all three.
See, having a slightly different language is the price we Americans pay for throwing off the shackles of British hegemony centuries before the British grew weary of their Empire. ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I remember having a version of Quicken back in the early '90's. At the end of the manaul, there were several appendices, one was entitled "Notes for Canadian Users". Most of it was concerned with differences in interest calucations (360 vs 365 day years etc.) but they close by saying "Also, you will notice this the only page in the manual on which the word "cheque" is spelled corectly."
They're offering a deal to indie lables. The text doesn't say much new about the tech. What it talks about is the deal. This gives two groups time to react before the deal is signed. The big 5 can complain and try to improve their deals (they don't want competion, their power will be seen in the banner ads.) Competitors (MS, Real) can try to out-bid them for "Exclusive" deals. i.e. MS will pay them more if they don't sell on iTMS.
90 days would have all the indies onboard with the offers set. Now they might lose a few labels.
This is not a political statement. This is not legal advice. It's a frick'n Slasdot post. However: I'm Running For
I have visited these places and I've actually helped produce some of the listening parties for these sorts of people. I know what its like.
:-) Most reviewers are failed musicians with vendettas to prove they are right even though the public has said they weren't. Most of the reviewers I have enjoyed were actual playing musicians that understood the business and understood some of the bullshit that others have to put up with...they might have been annoyed by something like this, BUT they would have realized the uncertanty their breathern have in the new market and realize that unlike some folks giving you broken and unlistenable mixes (ie., its a trend to give away sealed walkman with the headphone glued into the thing and have return authorization postage given so these guys can send them back in a week or two -- most of the time, they don't make it back from what I understand and it ends up being a waste because the guys that are honest are screwed and the ones that aren't don't care).
:-)
As for insulting them...lets just say I'm on the other side of the glass
The point is, folks are trying to protect their interest. If someone wants to be petty about it and not review this because they are this petty, they would have had a very critical review anyways -- not critical in a good way, critical in a I'm Smarter Than The Band Actually Getting Played And Smarter Than You Piddly Bastards Reading This...thats the kinda reviewer I'm happy not to see recieve any of my friends recordings
clif
I've seen several albums where you can only buy the whole album, not individual songs. I've also seen albums for 12,13, even 15 dollars. So why can't the indies do that? Seems like a "you're all equal, but the majors are more equal" (w/apologies to Orwell)
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
GOD fucking DAMMIT you FUCKING moderator WHORES mod THIS flaimbate ALREADY! FUCK!!!!!!
I'd rather listen to warped vinyl after it's been "cleaned" with steel wool.
320kbps MP3 is the only way to go.
Da Blog
This clearly isn't true for the big labels. Some "hits" can only be bought if you take the whole album -- they won't sell Don MacLean's "American Pie" for $0.99
Sorry, no, Don McLean's American Pie is 8 minutes 35 seconds, and as such is not an exception to the rule they are giving the indies.
Some albums also stick to the $0.99-per rule past the $9.95-per-original-disk rule
that is acceptable according to the rules apple is giving the indies, too. from the article:
Full albums are recommended to be $9.99 or lower
As for the paradox, the quote from the article says that you can't insist that your album be sold album-only. However, I assume that in the case of an album with over-7-minute songs only, it would be sold as album-only.
This is a good thing, though, when you think about it... We're all pissed at the big labels for their game of one or two singles and tons of filler and then insisting we buy the whole album. Steve stepped up and said no, you can not make an album to be sold album-only (although, you could simply make all the songs really long... but the labels aren't going to do that - they still want radio airplay, which means shorter songs). The no-album-only sales simply prevents 'filler' albums.
-T
I find it hard to believe that mike oldfield's amarok will cost .99c (it has only one 60minute track)... the 7 minute limit will probably allow albums like that to sell for the "normal" price.
(it's a great album btw, one of my all time favs!)
THIS SHIT IS FUNNY! MOD UP!!
Sorry - I took the details down from that page.
It wasn't wrath or lawyers that asked me to pull it. It was a friend of mine that works there.
I sincerely didn't know yesterday's presentation was supposed to be confidential. In fact I thought it was like an indie-music press conference.
Nobody's mad, though. Honest mistake.
Sorry guys!
--
Derek Sivers, CD Baby
http://www.cdbaby.com
lol why do you even read the comments? to chase down post/comment'ers (ohno, my spl!) and judge them based on a spelling error? Don't you have anything else to do?
Probably one of those people who watches 'Cops' and yells things at the tv, like "See! That's why I hate minoritys! They all commit crimes!"
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
Let f = fraction of purchases that are albums and Y be the total number of purchases. The total songs sold are TS = 10 fY + 1 (1-f)Y. The fraction of songs sold as parts of albums is (10 fY)/TS. Setting this latter fraction to .45 yields an f of 0.07563, or 7.563%.
.4500.
For 100,000 purchases, 7,563 are albums (75,630 songs) and 92,437 are single songs. Total songs sold are 168,067. The fraction of songs sold as part of albums is 75,630/168,067 =
Ok, I'm sure others are thinking as well, what about any other digital content? I personally have been waiting for a proper system to buy from (and distribute with) games, films, videos, your DNA patterns etc...
This simply is not true. I have downloaded many classical music selections from the iTunes Music Store that are well over the 7 minute size. Search the store for "Evgeny Kissin" - the result shows for example all three movements of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2 at 99 cents each. also each movement is over 11 minutes long. This is just one of many!
It's still a brand new service. So open up iTunes, go to the music store and click "Requests and Feedback" link and tell them you'd like a gift feature.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
It may be just certain genres to which the 7-minute thing applies; it certainly doesn't apply to all the tracks at the iTMS. I've seen tracks over 16 minutes long there that are still available individually for 99 cents each; the thing is, as far as I can tell, they're all things like big band / swing, classical, and film score tracks (what I like to consider real alternative music ;) . Presumably the fact that the overwhelming majority of songs in popular music are just a few minutes long, while tracks from other kinds of music are frequently much longer (and hence having them available only as part of album purchases would mean a lot fewer individual tracks available in those formats), has something to do with it, but I don't know...
With internet streaming, I can stream my legitimate music from home to the office, where I can listen to it. This is perfectly legitimate, no? Just because someone doesn't want you to do something legitimate, because it has POTENTIAL to be misused, doesn't mean you should shy away from it.
I don't blame Apple for yanking the feature, but don't blame legitimate users for it happening.
They should promote this *and* shut down pirates. They'll be promoting their future and protecting their rights. Go ask Dr. Seuss' widow about the Cat In The Hat. Came very close to losing the character because she/they didn't enforce copyright against the many pirates. Then you saw an explosion of the character in products, theme parks, etc... Dump the pirates and go with the smartest legit method. They may be better at this than many of us think.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Apple Computer, the newest music distribution company? Let's not forget that with Apple's newly acquired library of music they will (if they haven't already) be financially encouraged to join those who want everlasting copyright power. So, as someone should remind the /. audience who is quick to react to shiny new objects and services, don't be so quick to get warm fuzzies when you think of Apple Computer. There is a more important bargain with society that still needs to be addressed anytime we're talking about matters of copyright.
Digital Citizen
I know this is way off topic but for $799 plus tax and S&H Apple selling overstock/returned/refurbished iBooks (G3/CD/20GB/700MHz/128k) for $799. I just ordered one for my grand parents.
There are other models too - with combo drive and faster processors. Take a look at The Apple Store and click the link on the lower left bottom of the page to "Special Deals: great prices on limited offers".
It's a good way to get a Mac without blowing a lot of money and if you like it, eBay the one you bought and your Wintel/Linux box and get a more expensive new Mac.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
That link is supposed to be store.apple.com
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
...I say spud.
/.) is concerned.
Spelling is subjective and more than a little arbitrary, especially where the English language (and
(tig)
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
Only WAN sharing is not allowed, you CAN stream to your local LAN. The point was always for local network sharing, just not internet sharing.
One problem I see with letting anyone post a song for download is that 1) think of all the noise that will be added to the searchs and 2) imagine all the spammers/jammers that will use it to list their songs with the same title as popular songs.
There is going to have to be some cost of entry associated with this of else it will fill up with crap.
The NY Times has an editorial that seems relevant to this entire discussion. Their take is that the RIAA has shot itself in the foot so many times and that Apple's iTMS is a feasible solution to the woes of the contemporary music economy. I can't agree more. Especially relevant is their pointing out that Apple's independence from the interests of the big corporations is critical. I think the policy that Apple is reportedly pursuing demonstrates their ability to be an independent, while remaining practical and responsible to all parties (artists and consumers). I would like to also add that the Slashdot community, as a community of vocal critics, needs to be careful not to jump to conclusions. Face it, corporations are here to stay. We therefore need to temper our responses to favor responsible corporations that demonstrate positive contributions to society. This means that we cannot call them 'evil' when they try to keep secrets for business purposes or cover their backs legally. The Register article that criticizes their lack of beta testing of iSync is a good example of positive criticism. However, tearing apart Apple when they modify a product such as iTunes to protect themselves from prosecution is out of line. Would we have them wait until it becomes a legal issue and the RIAA shuts down their participation in iTMS due to breach of contract? This doesn't help anyone. Instead, we should look upon the RIAA, in the case of iTMS, as being a base from which Apple can expand offerings to benefit the little guys. We should have patience and speak with the big picture in mind.
The URL for the article is http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/07/opinion/07SAT4.h tml
It requires registration, so here's the article:
__Downloading Music Over the Internet Without Feeling Like a Criminal__
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Hardly a week goes by without another salvo in the music wars, which have been going on now for years. And week by week the shape of the struggle seems to change.
What set it all off was the emergence in 1999 of Napster, the file-swapping brainstorm that allowed computer users to download free music files. Napster was enormously destabilizing. It undermined the economic logic of $17.99 CD's by making the physical object itself, the CD in its jewel case, irrelevant. The recording industry knew exactly what to make of Napster, calling it theft, plain and simple. Recording artists had a harder time. Many musicians agreed that file swapping was a form of theft, but many of them also argued that their recording contracts were a form of theft, too. At the very least, file swapping became the perfect industry excuse for the prolonged downturn in CD sales, whether it was the real cause or not.
Since then, there have been calls for copy-protected CD's and for government intervention. The recording industry has been fighting for its life with the zeal of desperation and ineptitude. It brought a farcical suit, since dropped, for billions of dollars against four file-swapping students, and it has sought to snoop on private computers. Reports say that it has also planned to hack its way into the machines of file swappers.
The industry knows that its future depends on somehow making music files available for purchase and downloading over the Internet. And yet every pay-per-play music downloading service the recording industry has sanctioned has been notable mainly for clumsiness, proprietary paranoia and a condescending attitude toward its customers.
It's clear what computer-literate music lovers really want: a simple, elegant interface; a broad catalog of music; quick, high-quality downloading; and an approach that doesn't treat the consumer like a criminal wearing a house-arrest shackle. The new Apple music service, the iTunes Music Store, should point the way, especially when it or similar services spread to the Windows platform.
It's ironic that Apple should have introduced the first really successful commercial Inter
One problem Apple is going to encounter with its music store model is with small electronic artists who take a lot of liberties when sampling and mixing. These artists, kid606 for example, currently release a lot of their material in countries with loose copyright law as regards music and then have their CDs sold as imports in other countries to get round such laws.
I am sure that the big labels will not allow such artists to take part in Apples store (they will demand apple take down their songs due to the amount of uncleared samples they contain). The net effect of this probably won't affect the majority of people who will use itunes but will mean that itunes will be lacking a vibrant and new scene which is seeing a lot of interesting and creative things happen within it.
A lot of recent underground electronic music samples, distorts and mixes pop, old and new with other more obscure variety's of music. Sometimes it is impossible to clear theses songs and have them released legally due to the sheer number of samples used or the fact that a sampled artist objects to his/her snippet being used in a song. Now whatever your views on sampling may be I am sure you will admit that it is a shame to see a service as promising as itunes be deprived of such an interesting musical scene.
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Anyone who has the CD can rip it themselves. That is also true for vinyl, but that's a bit more work, and some folks will pay for the convenience (either that or their vinyl is already scratched).
I would think that replacing music that you've misplaced somewhere over the years is much more common.
If I'm replacing an album I rememer fondly from my youth, I already know that there are only three good tracks on it. I'll buy those tracks, not the album.
If there's a new album from an artist I like, then all of the tracks are potentially great. That is unless the 30 second clip is really bad. Beside, if I'm a fan of an artist, I want to believe that all twelve/whatever tracks will be wonderful. And it would be just terrible if I skipped the one that turned out to be the big hit.
Track buying will be prevelant when people aren't sold on the artist yet, just the song.
Apple has no reason to sign up smaller indies. This music store costs money to run - employee time being a big cost. They'll service what they can service for rational dollars and not add the extra people needed to service a gaggle of small timers. Those people will have to work a distribution deal with someone bigger.
Maybe this kind of service will drive a new distrbution system for indies.
And it's even more ridiculous to think that Apple will let some artists not use any DRM.
I'd just like to point out that Apple hasn't aquired anything except the right to sell the content (for a 3 year period according to the article). Unlike the record companies, Apple does not own the copyrights to the songs they sell. It's simply a reseller deal, they buy the songs at wholesale price and then sell them on to customers. So I really don't see any reason for Apple to care more about the "everlasting copyright power" than the music store around the corner does.
Bandwidth costs Apple around 20 cents per gigabyte of transfer. This comes to 14/100ths of a cent. Remember, trailers on apple.com/trailers regularly push 25 megs.
Bandwidth is not the reason for the 7-minute cap. More likely, it's an out for the labels, enabling them to push an album of 5 long tracks for $10 instead of $4.99.
Also, I've noticed some long songs being sold on the Apple Music Store for $1.99, so there's more to this story than a flat 7-minute exclusion.
Kevin Fox