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Napster Sells 5 Million Songs
mattmcal writes "CNet reports that Napster has already sold 5 million songs. The number is impressive despite lagging behind Apple which maintains a 56% market share according to SiliconValley.com. The integration with portable devices must play a key role in the download volume which Apple has also developed for the mini iPod."
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Are these 5 million indivually-packaged 99 cent songs, or are they including songs shipped out under subscription plans as "sales?"
Everyone else is an also-ran for the forseeable future, IMHO. It'd take a pretty big hitter (and Napster aren't big enough) to break it, with a significant investment. Frankly Apple are doing what the RIAA etc. should have paid someone to do a long time ago...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
If HP had stayed by Napster's side, I wonder how much more successful things would have been... It is good to see more companies adopting online music downloading for a price, while the RIAA campaigns against it, however it would be nice to have some stiff compatition against iTunes. Remember, competition is a good thing..
Since Napster has a subscription-based service in addition to selling individual songs for a fixed price, what does "5 million songs sold" mean? TFA is useless for this. Are they counting the songs that people download under the monthly-subscription model as songs? If so, it's not quite as impressive, no?
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
quite impressive
but I prefere free things (not free as in freedom)
/ss
They did not sell any to me. I was looking to buy some songs, but Napster's meagre catalog did not have them. They were only available via "outlaw" p2p.
If the RIAA is going to stem piracy and make money, they should actually take some effort to sell the music.
You know, I don't care as much who comes out ahead in the online music store wars, just as long as they are seen as a viable alternative to purchasing shiny plastic discs at the mall.
I just got an iPod mini on Friday and was playing around with iTunes. I NEVER intended to pay for digital music, and always expected I would just get it from Kazaa, etc. But when I saw how easy Apple makes it to buy music, I was hooked. I spent about $35 on music, and this is someone who buys 1, maybe 2 cds a year. Things are only looking better from here.
"Gorog said he resists comparisons with other subscription services because of incongruities in the way subscriber numbers are reported. But he expects the business will mature as users realize it's cheaper to pay a flat fee for access to 500,000 tracks than to pay $1 a song."
It's important to note that you still have to pay if you want to burn a song to a CD or otherwise use it outside of your computer. You do, however, get to use the song on up to three computers. Just a point of clarification because the article might lead one to believe that for a subscription fee you get unlimited downloads to use as you please and you really don't.
Keep Smilin'!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Why buy a car? There's loads of them in the street - take whichever one you fancy!
Sorry, but I'm still not turned on to the idea of online music downloads.
Sorry, but there has to be some more incentive for me to buy into the system.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the arguments are very old in this post, and it's all been said before. But nothing's being done, and I'm still not being converted over. Considering how much of a computer user I am, this is rather surprising.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Napster. What is that all about? Is it good, or is it whack?
More importanly, how many of these songs *don't* suck!
Yes, this is Humor!
So are they even, um, breaking even? Given what Steve Jobs said about iTMS and iPods...
"I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
Who cares how many songs they sell if they're not making enough money to survive. Hell, their parent company has be laying people off recently.
You'll never shut down the real napster!
The original generic sig.
Taking a car like that is theft. Downloading (creating a duplicate of something) does not meet the definition of theft.
If you want a comparable situation, why don't you find a nice shiny Porsche parked along side the street. Build an exact replica of this car, and drive off in the replica.
iintegration with portable devices must play a key role in the download volume
Forget that.. it's the fact that Napster forces use of the MS DRM that keeps me from using it.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Because all that Pepsi *really* makes me have to pee.
The question is, how many people bought the 90 seconds of silence for $.99 track off Napster aswell
GeekLeak.com - Silly name, serious geeks
Competition is a good thing, because is should lead to lower prices. Unfortunately, when there are only a few suppliers, collusion, rather than competition, is more likely to happen.
However, I think the "Napster" branding is an odd decision. Who is still likely to go to napster.com in the hope of finding free music, seeing as it was shut down for years? And in terms of brand image, Napster always stood for getting-something-for-nothing, so isn't it a bit like launching a legitimate online software store called "serials.ws"? I wonder what Shawn Fanning would make of it, as it was his nickname in the first place.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
I sincerely wish Apple would do something like this, espescially since I believe they would save a bit on credit-card processing fees (see one of my earlier posts).
They could even do this without cluttering up the iTMS interface by keeping the same "buy song" button. Just have any songs bought be charged against pre-purchased credit before it goes to your credit card on file.
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
A week or two ago, I saw at a gas station, on the rack with all those plastic phone cards: Napster cards.
It seemed like a clver idea. On the other hand, I was not inspired to buy one at the time.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Did each song generate 0.99$ or are these from the University contracts allowing all students to download at will. This is a huge difference. Does anybody have the contract details of the University deals? Is it a blanket fee or reduced charge per song? If students get 'free' unlimitted downloads and are all on T1/T3 lines, of course, 5e6 songs are easily downloaded. This is not surprising.
Hey, leave comments about my mother out of this!
Of course downloading is theft. You are reproducing someone's copyrighted property without their permission"
There is no connection between the sentences! Copyright violation is a different crime from theft. Your sentence is like saying "of course you raped her: you burned down her house!". No connection.
It's the same thing as copying the text of a book by your favorite author instead of buying it
Which still isn't theft.
Taking this a huge step further, how would you feel if someone picked up some of your DNA (perhaps you left a hair follicle behind) and cloned you without your permission?
That sure is something, but it sure isn't theft either.
Can you work around the DRM by burning to CD and then ripping to a useful format like OGG or MP3? Does Napster do something to get in the way of this?
I know the kludgey iTunes service uses non-standard AAC files and requires you to burn to CD and then rip in order to get useful files.
What isn't viable to me is paying for poor-quality sound. Music with a full dynamic range (classical, some jazz) suffers from lossy compression.
Online music stores will be viable to me when I can download the same sound quality that I can buy on a disc from a meatspace establishment or from Amazon and MyMusic.
- - -
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
iTunes, Napster, and others probably have a lot more to do with decreased usage of Kazaa than the RIAA lawsuits. Eventually Kazaa just becomes too much of a pain in the ass to use considering the alternatives.
Downloading can be theft, only if the original copy is destroyed when the downloaded copy is made. That way, the operation meets the "taking" requirement of the definition of theft.
However, I've never heard of a downloading system that does this.
Perhaps some accounting type can shed some light on how so much money can be spent on a market that, for the foreseeable future, is only going to generate a million or so after royalties. Haven't we left magic money fairies behind us in the dot com bust? Or are the respected economists of the 80's back to haunt us.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
How's that when his post is timestamped 6 minutes earlier than yours?
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
MooKore posted later, MooKore is the troll
Google has some applicable cache hits.
Mercury News | 02/19/2004 | Smiles fade at Napster
It is my pleasure to serve you caches, for I am a bot.
His (Her?) "post" is in the 'Brine on Mars' discussion (!!) entitled: "Apple surely have this one sewn up by MooKore 2004 (Score:1) Tuesday February 24, @02:13PM"
Mine is in this discussion entitled "Apple surely have this one sewn up (Score:4, Interesting)
by Space cowboy (13680) on Tuesday February 24, @02:07PM"
My posting-date is earlier, it's in the correct forum, and I hereby label Moo Kore 2004 a cheap low-down karma-whoring scumbag not fit to retype the words of my comments.
So there. How he got 'interesting' for that, I'll never know!
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Apple has admitted that it makes most of its money off of Ipod sales. Where is the similar secondary market for napster? Maybe they are coming out with the NPOD but right now they have to be losing a huge amount of money!
"Theft would be stealing the actual book from a shop. See the difference ? The RIAA etc, have you so brainwashed you are blind to the truth."
Correct. The definition of theft is very specific and involves taking of the item being stolen. Duplication/copying/downloading just does not meet the definition, as the item stays put (it is not taken).
I love the way you pass the check
And I love the good times that you wreck
And I love your lack of self respect
While you're passed out on the deck
I love my hands around your neck
---
dem goddamn coke fiend bitches are all the same
I never thought I would see the words apple and 56% market share in the same sentence.
2) Is there a good choice of popular and less well known music from the last 30 years or so ?
3) Are the downloads CD quality or better ?
If the answer to these 3 questions is yes, I will probably sign up.
I can't use it here in the UK (*). Napster is ok, but I still find the depth of tunes is not really to my tastes, plus I own and iPod, so WMA files really don't float my boat when it comes to music on the move.
Add to that the DRM issues and to be honest, I don't really want that much hassle when I decide to upgrade/reinstall my PC, so in the long term, both iTunes and Napster won't do it for me I'm afraid. Call me a stick in the mud, but I'm not supporting anything that deprives me of my basic consumer rights.
So, I tend to support smaller non-DRM'd operations like Bleep, which is worth checking out if you like your coffee table electronic music...
(*) I've always wondered why global record corporations have so much problems sorting out global rights, which is apparently why iTunes is not happening outside the US.
In Norway it is LEGAL to download songs. You are even allowed to give out free copies of your own cd's to all your friends. Selling copies is NOT allowed and people you know at work are NOT considered friends. The police in Norway can not bust you for having tons of mp3 on your computer.
Insert `fortune -o` here
This reminds me of an episode of the dear departed Drew Carey show. Lewis had just returned from a discount music store, "Music by the Pound" that sold those really deep-discounr CDs no one wants.
"I got the shopping cart, got a few pounds of rock, a few pounds of classical...."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
because, numbnuts (i love the way we all go AC), he no longer has the car. that's why theft is bad.
shutup. an amiga lover hey. with barely a thousand active users you're complaining about apple only having half the market of music distribution? how blind are you people?
It's AAC not ACC and if you buy an AAC track you can convert it to mp3 and then be cross compatible with EVERYTHING. can't do that with the horrendous DRM on most other services.
Tell me what's Amiga's market share again? go on tell me I dare you.
and I think the service great. There will be some who will fight for free downloads forever but for those looking for a legal alternative I would recommend Napster. I always listen to music while I am working so with Napster I always have a constant stream. I would not be surprised to see even more growth from Napster. For some reason I just can not allow myself to buy or use anything from apple.
I guess I was just branded by Napster when I was in college.
they STOLE my preciousss post, yes they did. Those filthy filthy thieves, sneaksy trollses and moderatorses. They STOLE it!
On Macworld, they said they had about 70% of the market.
Not it's 56%.
I guess it only can go lower now
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
The main reason there's a decline is because there's so much RIAA'd tracks on there: fade-outs, loops, random noise... trying to find a proper copy of what you're looking for is pretty difficult now.
In any case, I found the best way to get hold of any music I like - I opened a record store...
Tell me what's Amiga's market share again? go on tell me I dare you.
Only a complete moron would judge market share as important. Ever thought of technical excellence, quality and just plain FUN to use? Something nothing has matched the amiga for IMHO
Don't fool yourself into thinking CDs have 'full dynamic range' of sound. CDs are a compromise, just like anything else. No, they don't have lossy compression, but they do have limited range. While the AAC files on Apple's music store use lossy compression, it's a much better technology than the 10 year old mp3 format -- and the recordings are made from the original tapes (they are not CD rips).
Recording sound is all about compromise. Don't base your judgment of one format over another based on a single word like 'lossy'. Listen to a few songs on the music store and let your ears be the judge.
Usually I like to interject my own thoughts, but I will let the numbers speak for themselves:
4/28/2003 - iTunes Music Store for Mac launches
5/5/2003 - iTMSfM sells 1 millionth song
5/14/2003 - iTMSfM sells 2 millionth song
7/22/2003 - iTMS sells 6.5 millionth song
10/2003 - Napster launches
10/2003 - 300,000 Napster 1st week sales / 1.5MM iTMS sales same week
10/2003 - iTMS for Windows launchs (~13MM songs sold to date)
12/9/2003 - iTMS sells 20 millionth song
12/16/2004 - iTMS sells 25 millionth song (2.5MM/mo.)
2/2004 - Napster sells 5 millionth song (1.25MM/mo.)
On the bottom 1/3 of this page is a chart and analysis of the numbers too.
WARNING: My two cents -
Interesting that while Apple's numbers are much higher than Napsters', and Apple had to overcome the initial proof of concept that it would even work, so many REMAIN critical of the service.
Interesting still is that those same critics won't even spend a few dollars to give iTMS a *TRY* before they ink their mal-informed pens.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
This is not a troll. I really am interested in your logic.
How about this.
You bring your car to the garage. It gets fixed and the bills comes to some amoutn of money. You are expected to pay the mechanic this amount. Lets say it was all labor as well and no parts were replaced. You use your extra key and get your car back some night without paying the mechanic for the work he did. Did you just steal from him or did you just violate his right to collect the money you owe him. What is he no longer in posession of in this example. The car was always yours, you just took it back without paying the bill. If the answer is nothing then you did not steal from him although I think a court would disagree adn call you a thief.
Of course when they do finally release lossless compression music, there'll be a premium price. But then who actually listens to music anymore?
The great thing about the heyday of Napster/Kazza/others was the great availability of rare recordings-- Live Rush stuff, really old Pink Floyd, hard to find CSNY. The record companies have made it so, once again, we are not "allowed" to listen to this great stuff.
I checked out Napster just today. $9.99 a month and $.99 for a download. Big whoop. If I want to buy an album its still going to be $10-$20, depending on how many songs are on it, but now I get to pay an extra $9.99 a month to have the privilege to download.
IMHO, if you only download a couple of songs without getting the album, you are missing some great traks (b sides). Of course, this is only true to real music, not the boy band and rap crap that is popular these days....
[FromTheMorning]
"Sure, as long as you replay the song yourself with your own instruments, your 'analogy' kind of makes sense...
Easily done. Any CD or MP3 player will do, as it meets the main definition of "instrument" from the dictionary:
"(Music)" A device for playing or producing music:"
I'll make sure it is my own MP3 player.
Never underestimate millions of cheap computer users with time on their hands.
Here's my problem with iTunes.. If you format your computer and did not back-up your downloaded music you have to PURCHASE it again. I believe if I'm paying for music online and do not receive a CD that I own a license and should be able to re-download it again for free. This was a nice little shock after spending $50 on music then losing it. Napster will re-sync your collection if your hard drive crashes, etc. No fee, just hit re-sync and it will download it all again for you. But you are still able to back it up if you choose to. This problem with iTunes will definitely stir some stuff up in the future when some average joe's hard drive crashes and he loses $300 worth of music. It's about the same as someone breaking in your car and jacking your life-long CD collection.
(OT... but I've just realised that it might be a good idea to spend less time reading websites when I bastardise 'automatically' into 'automagically' without even realising...)
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
At most 7 cents a track? Boy, do you have a bad lawyer. And you must not be a songwriter. I am, and I own all my own publishing. I get 8 cents a track right off the top for mechanical royalties. Since I also own my own masters and copyrights, I get a 20% royalty rate as a recording artist. That said, in my experience it is easier to get a major label to pay up than an indie, but if you have a good lawyer, they will pay.
i don't like being stuck with basketballs either!
How am I stuck with ACC? I can always make them into MP3's if I want. The iPod plays everything except VO and WMA...big deal. 90% of all my songs on my iPod are MP3's not ACC...but ACC sounds better at the same bit rate compared to any MP3 or WMA I've ever heard.
iTMS should have sold around 40-50+ million songs by the end of this month.
1. The most expensive option (per track) is $10 for 40 songs per month. They show you the album cover, but that seems to be all you get.
2. The file format is lossy, but it's also VBR MP3, which can't be distinguished from CD quality audio by many people.
3. DRM is a bitch. That's why they don't use it. Also, much of their music is available to those outside of the U.S., which is something almost no one else offers.
So what's stopping you? I know that a lot of your "favorite artists" may not be on there, but wouldn't you like to support artists/labels that are willing to give you music on your terms? You can preview any track, and download your first 50 tracks for free.
(As an example, if you like synth pop, go to freezepop.net. Download the free MP3s. If you like them, you can get all 4 of their CDs for $32 [or buy them individually, of course.] Lyrics are on their site. This is the kind of band that gets my money.)
Don't like synth-pop? I can recommend something else. There are plenty of bands out there making great music who actually want you to hear it.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
"You are a time thief and yes you fucking retarded hippie, pirating software and music is stealing!!!!!!"
It just does not meet the definition of theft.
"Just like a musician or programmer can never spend the hours they spent making music or programming software again"
This time is permanently lost, whether or not the song is pirated. Nothing is "stolen".
"you stole his time, expertise, and energy"
Energy thief? You are starting to foam at the mouth.
Crapster has been trying to get me to download "5 trial songs" ever since they got back into business. If I downloaded these, would they count toward Crapster's running total? That's not a terribly fair assessment if you ask me...
:wq
Apology accepted, the onis is on the industry to appeal to the market, not the market to buy what the industry wants to sell.
1. Yeah, buying 15 songs off one album does make the album just ask expensive as in the store, but you can buy JUST THE ONES YOU WANT, making the cost of the songs-you-listen-to, just 2-5 bucks. Plus, it is the rare exception that an alum is more than $9.99 at iTMS. This DOES include album art that is displayed right in iTunes as you browse - very cool in my opinion.
2. Your speakers are lossy. So are your ears. be honest with yourself - can you tell a difference? If you listen to downloaded MP3s then you are listening to a lossy format anyway. Spend $99 and buy your favorite song to test it out. Listen to it on CD, then AAC, then CD again and AAC again until you get it - there is no difference without high end audiophile equipment.
3. If you think DRM is a bitch, you must be wanting to break the copyrights. iTMS goes you playback on up to three windows and/or mac machines, unlimited iPods, and you can burn a track as many times as you want to CD (the restriction being you can't burn the same playlist more than 10 times - who does this anyway?)
4. Let's say you wanted to download an entire album - not just the two good tracks, the whole thing "because you love the bang". Go find all the tracks on Kazaa. I'm timing you. It takes forever, and if you can find them, half the songs are on a slow connection or they will conk out, or they were ripped with a skip or some other something that makes you spend over an hour downloading it. Isn't you time worth more than that? iTMS has instant 30 second previews for free and FAST downloading.
Again, apology accepted. The industry must figure out how to give consumers what they want.
1. Heck yeah $0.50 a song is a good starting point! Have you read/heard Apple's conference calls with stock analysts? They break even at $99. Some analysts speculate the record labels get up to $0.66 per song. So $0.50 is a good starting point - but is not going to happen. as for the $0.01 additional for a FLAC version, you have to get back to the comparrisons of the formats to realize AAC is excellent and will only get better.
2. With iTMS you get art work even if you buy 1 track. It isn't high-res enough to print out like a CD insert, but you can view it and it looks great.
3. ISO downloads is a great idea - why not provide them from the artists web site? I usually have CDs in my car. But my computer is always on the web. Artists added stuff to CDs because it was the only distribution channel they had. Now there is broadband web connectivity. Issue solved.
4. I'll stop being a bitch about people breaking copyright laws when people stop breaking copyright laws. You can turn your friends on to a new band by playing the song for them, then they can go buy it for themselves - IT ONLY COSTS $0.99!!!!
You aren't being converted because you like stealing music. That's the truth isn't it? Free is better to you. be honest with yourself and then think about the price of your own honor. Isn't it worth more than a dollar?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I went to crapster, and they only sell domains, such as abcdivx.com for $299. You can get a lot of songs at imusic or napster for that price. I think you went to the wrong site.
Maybe we need to distinguish between *integration*, which is a fine thing, vs. what you actually get today, which is *lock-in*, that is, exclusive integration with only one brand.
One good thing about CDs is that you can rip the audio and mess with it however you want. Encode it in any format, put it on different players, whatever. On the other hand if you transcode some music that's already been lossy-encoded, the results are bad.
CDs are a compromise, just like anything else
They're a pretty good compromise though. It's the principle of not wanting a lossy-encoded version; just knowing that you're listening to something 'inferior' can be enough of a problem.
The main problem with CDs seems to be clipping from what I've read. ie. if the CD is mastered so that the loudness is increased, the highs and lows just get 'clipped' when they hit the limit of the CD. I remember seeing a waveform of a newer Metallica CD on a website somewhere, and the whole thing was pretty much flat, instead of clear peaks/troughs on the tracks. So the sound is loud but you lose clarity. Or something like that.
AAC doesn't seem much better than MP3 at the moment either. Still going under a lot of development. But who am I to say - a decent MP3 eg. encoded with LAME sounds perfect to me.
the recordings are made from the original tapes (they are not CD rips)
Cool. I kinda imagined an Apple employee sitting somewhere with a huge stack of CDs next to a Mac... one after the other...
I view this pay-per-download thing just as a painful transition to a better world.
The technology has advanced enough to enable any Johnny B to make as many copies of digital anything as he wants. No RIAA, DMCA, CIA, or YMCA is going to stop the inevitable.
Wrong strategy: Instead of pursuing those who try to profit distributing fakes to people and are the big players costing the consumer as well as the author rights owner, the reseller and the producer big bucks, companies try to maximize their current net gain by restraining the choices of the regular Johhny B. As if the mainstream and biggest selling hits were immortal works of art that need to be treasured in vault rather than a day-to-day fad, only to be forgotten if not accessed in the same month.
Right strategy: Adapt. Face the fact that for a product to succeed, it must be cheaper and better than something one can-do-himself in his home.
The age of expensive CDs is over. Vynil was cheaper to buy than to copy, but people always liked to use cassete tapes for copies - who was nuts enough to pursue that?
Customer will, eventually, stop at some point to let themselves be squezzed out of every penny. Not to mention the third world who is quick to pick on some of the technology, but much less willing or able to follow royalty and copyright practice.
Prices will have to fall, be it media sets or download options. High prices and limited access are only a road to oblivion. Furthermore, new inventions may well push current technology out of the market.
I keep seeing this over and over. Everyone seems to have forgotten that Napster does have a hardware mp3 player. Samsung makes it, but it carries the Napster name, and you can bet they get a piece of each sale.
LOL!! If this isn't a prime example of hypocrisy, I don't know what is.
Has anyone tried Rhapsody? If so is the selection and/or quality up to par? I've been considering it for a while now after seeing it running at best buy. 10-15 bucks a month to listen to unlimited songs, and .99 cents to burn a song onto cd(which from there could go on to whatever mp3 player you're using..). To me it seems like it gives the best of both worlds.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
I think ACC would sound even better without Dick Vitale.
For the record, I am a Napster Premium subscriber and I like it. Yes, it's DRM music, yes it's lossy compression, yes it's Microsoft technology, but it's a pretty good deal and here's why: * For $9.95/month I get unlimited downloads to up to 3 PCs. I do the majority of my music listening during the day at work, so I can just plug my laptop into the network and have access to over 500,000 songs. It's true that not all are available for the free download, but most that I'm interested in are (I'm an 80s freak). * Included in the Premium subscription is the ability to stream the files in their entirety for free. If I'm thinking of buying something that's new, why would I rely on a 30-second clip? That's just rediculous and one of the downsides of iTunes, IMO. Napster also has some "radio stations," but those don't really interest me. * Napster provides Billboard charts so I can scan the charts and find songs that I liked from any era. * Napster provides a discount on tracks to premium service members. If I buy music in bulk, I can get the price down to 80 cents per song when I buy tracks individually. Albums are still a better deal at the full album price of ~$10. * Napster keeps track of the songs that I download and allows me to synchronize my PC and laptop with the click of one button. Plus (as mentioned in another post), if I lose all of my music, I don't have to worry about having a backup of it. I've downloaded multiple hundreds of songs from Napster and so far only paid about $100 in monthly fees. That's a pretty good deal for me because doing the same thing on iTunes would cost me several times that amount, since they don't have a subscription service. It's all about how you listen to music, so you have to make a personal choice, but Napster really does have a lot of things going for it if you listen to music on your computer very often.
Five Dolla Moddy-Moddy?
How do the subscriptions count? They could be seen as selling all 500,000 songs with each subscription... all they need is 10 subscribers (Which, considering the DRM and shitty software, is more than they should have gotten).
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
Some rips are from the master tapes; some are from the CD. I don't know if there's any way to tell. As for the clipping problem with CD's, that is not inherently a problem with the CD format itself. It is a problem called the "loudness wars." Basically. record companies want their CD's mastered to be extremely loud on the radio with the reasoning that the louder the song is on the radio, the more the listener will pay attention to it.
CD's do have a limited range, but it's not that limited. The problem is incompetent engineers mastering a CD so that the maximum volume is reached almost constantly, creating the clipping effect and taking away dynamic range. CD's from the early 90's are a lot quieter, but you can really feel the loud parts and make out a lot more dynamic in the signal. Think of reading something in all caps and no punctuation vs. reading that same thing with proper punctuation and capitalization. In the former case, your brain receives no queues as to when it should "pause" or take a breath. Everything is the same, so it's more difficult to tell one part from the other. Same deal with music levels. Since the loudness wars have broken out, that dynamic range has disappeared and the only time a song isn't playing at peak volume is when it's fading out. It's really unfortunate.
Have you thought of trying your local record store?
Yes. They had even less than napster had.
You can download music from a service like eMusic in VBR MP3 format. However, the first half of your point 2 negates point 1. Record labels who own "popular" music will not, in the near future, offer music on the terms that you want. You have to stick with labels who still value music more than money.
As for point 3, your "or better" stipulation is silly, as most music from the past 30 years was not mastered in anything higher than CD quality.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
What they've been selling is revocable licenses to decrypt. When they go belly up, a lot of people are going to find that out the hard way.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The "problem" with CD's is the 44.1 K sample rate. A 22KHz sound wave only gets represented by two bits, and with many of the crappy early digital encoders from the 80s, it might not even be sampled from alternate peaks of the wave.
Of course, the typical American geek's hearing pretty much ends around 16 KHz (at best), so you could do as CD zealots do, and insist that anything above that frequency doesn't really matter... except it does, because of the way it colors overtones, which are what gives most sounds their timbre. If you put a typical music-lover in a booth and make them listen to a double-blind test between a live microphone feed of a singer with piano accompaniment, and the same live feed where everything above, oh... say 17 KHz is filtered out, they will spot the difference.
However, most of people's concerns about the compromise of "the digital sound" turned out to be unfounded. Early CD players (and some of the cheaper ones today) sounded too bright and tinny as a result of inferior D/A conversion algorhythms.
When an LP is "cut", the low-frequency waves are dialed way down in amplitude, because otherwise you would have a grove that moves outside the stylus's range of motion! A pre-amp in the turntable (based on an industry standard established by the RIAA) boosts the bass back up again. Unfortunately, this electronic equalization results in massive, boomy, slightly unnatrual bass. Through the 70s, the stereos which did the best job of tweaking LP sources to sound natural gained the reputation of being the best playback equipment. Listening to a good-condition LP on a top-notch 70s "hi-fi" stereo is an extremely rewarding experience.
When CD players arrived in the early 80s, the same stereos that played back LP recordings with a "warm, rich" sounded bright, harsh, and shrill when playing back the same recordings on CD.
Over the years, better logic, better error-correction, and better playback components (as well as better digital encoding in studios) have all resulted in CD's that sound every bit as good as LP's.
In the late 80s and early 90s I was a total LP bigot, but to not change my position these days would be ignoring the evidence given by my own ears. Hearing "Dark Side of the Moon" on a $300 Rotel CD player through high-quality speakers is every bit as satisfying as hearing the LP on a $4000 air-baring, laser-guided turntable, if not more so.
So yea, CD's are not a bad compromise at all.
However, 99% of the time I'm listening to music, it's either on a portable player, in my car, or at my computer desk. In those environments, AAC is not only good enough, it's very difficult to notice the difference between it and the CD.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I agree with you somewhat. I have bought only a couple of "albums"off of iTunes. White Stripes were one. Didn't think the compressed format would be noticeable on their style of music.
I HAVE noticed however that the AAC's I have downloaded are very good quality, even at 128. And some of my CD's that I have ripped at higher bitrates sound worse. So that tells me that some CD's just aren't recorded too well to start, while iTunes AAC's were recorded off of master recordings.
So the recordings I download may actually be of better quality than many of my CD's. But its still the principle of it that I would like to be able to download a FLAC or AIFF of a song just to ease my mind a little.
Phrasebook,
There was an article in a recent issue of wired discussing this. The showed how a Celine Dion CD is now louder then a Van Halen cd released in the late 80's because the average "loudness" has been increased so much between then and now. Had a nifty little image showing exactly what you describe.
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
They showed how a Celine Dion CD is now louder then a Van Halen cd released in the late 80's because the average "loudness" has been increased so much between then and now.... I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
If the CD's get any louder, the next global war will be fought with Styx and 'Stones.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I've had precisely the same experience. I quit buying CDs several years ago.
But a year ago I got I got an iPod, checked out iTunes, bought a couple of songs to test the waters -- and suddenly I'm buying whatever I want off iTunes -- whenever the mood strikes.
I've bought several full albums, but mostly I'm just using iTunes to pick and choose -- and because I can create my own playlists, I pretty much create my own "albums" (if you buy into the theory that an old-school "album" is a thematically linked selection of music.)
I realize "suck" is pretty subjective, but I've suddenly realized a couple things. I'm not buying songs that suck (at least according to my standards) and I have a lot fewer CDs to move around and find storage for.
*shrug*
I'm no audiophile, but I dig tunes. Is the music as "clear" as it could be? Fuck it. I don't care. I get the tunes I want. Who cares. They sound fine on my iPod. And that's the point.
Three cheers for iTunes.
"wanted the soundtrack to TRON. I already had an old scratchy LP of it; I wanted nice digital-quality files"
That was not theft in any sense of the word. You already paid for the product once and you are entitled to it in its newest form. That is an invalid example.
In the AutoCAD example those people who stole a copy did indeed steal it. The company invested a huge amount of resources to create AutoCAD on the premise that they would be reimbursed for that expenditure. When they are not being reimbursed in a fashion consistent with US law (in the US anyway) they are having their resources stolen because they can not invest those same resources in a more profitable manner.
With music it is the same concept. The artist can never invest those resources again. If you never planned on buying the CD then you have no right to listen to it. If you want to hear the music then turn on the radio. With the radio the artist is reimbursed each time the song is played. It may be a tiny amount but it adds up to royalty checks and that is why the artist produced the music to start with, to make money. Same with movies. You are not paying for the physical movie when you rent a VHS tape. You are reimbursing the movie maker for the time, energy, and goods they spent to make the movie.
If I download some program or music and usr that program or listen to that music without compensating the artist or programmer, even if I never had any intention of buying the CD or application I am taking that artists or programmers time without compensating them. That is stealing, which brings me back to the car and garage example. Time is a physical thing, it can be stolen.
There are almost no Ogg Vorbis boom boxes... portable players... or music buying sites.
Any opinions or reactions?
If you're looking for punk or something, hit a punk-oriented record shop. Independent shops will often specialize in a specific genre, so you may be looking in the wrong place. Don't go to the local Megalo-Mart expecting to find anything obscure.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
This is not 'news'. It is a slick piece of PR from a desperate company. Since the launch of pay-per-song Napster, the parent company Roxio has seen its share price decline from $11 to $3.50, a 68% decline. Yesterday the stock hit a 52-week low (amid a generally happy NASDAQ environment). For this company to generate a mere $5mm in revenues in 3 months can only be described as an unmitigated failure, as the market price of ROXI clearly demonstrates.
/. need to treat corporate PR with a healthier degree of skepticism.
The editors of
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=roxi
I am taking that artists or programmers time without compensating them
Fire up the DeLorean, Marty! Your logical somersault requires time travel. Otherwise, it is temporaly suspect, with hosed causality:
Artist spends time. It is gone forever.
4 years later, kid manages to steal the time that the artist spent and used up with no regard to what the pirate would do 4 years later.
1) When Napster gives a marketshare number, the Slashdot masses go on the offensive and try to tear that number apart. When Apple gives a marketshare number, we accept it without question, despite the fact that they are well-known for their questionable sales tactics and misleading facts and figures. Does this imply any sort of bias? Open your eyes and take a step back, you'll start to understand what's happening here on Slashdot. A seemingly grassroots groundswell of support for Apple and their brand of proprietary software, and a seemingly grassroots groundswell of disdain for the GPL.
.Mac accounts, for example.
2) People here are also attacking Napster because of its DRM as opposed to Apple's DRM (which is like saying "I much prefer the Guillotine to the Gas Chamber, they really thought about my comfort in designing it"). However, the most interesting part of AAC is that it is an open-ended DRM, which is to say, it can be strengthened after the market has widely embraced it. Think about it - right now, Apple gives you nearly limitless freedom to pirate, copy, share, and distribute files bought from iTMS. They say the RIAA is good with it. Does that sound like the RIAA to you? Apple admits they lose money on the transaction, hoping to make it up in iPod sales (yes, this is the same Apple who is now charging for iLife).... In 2-3 years, when they have cornered the market, they will change the terms and conditions of sale, just as they did with the "forever free"
Right now, Apple listens to their customers. They do this because they are fighting for marketshare. When you reward them with a monopoly, they will become a monopolist in attitude as well as fact. The goal of Apple and the RIAA is not to beat MS' DRM format, the goal is to beat piracy and kill open formats. And they will, to a large extent; with their hardware and software lockins -- this is quite possible and, in fact, probable -- and is the same idea MS has with their Longhorn / Bios / hardware anti-piracy lockin.
I know you love Apple, but sometimes you have to protect yourself from the ones you love.
Wait I just thought of another example.
You go to work all week. You program up some killer app and your company makes a gizallion dollars off it. Friday rolls around and you don't have a paycheck. You tell your boss that you didn't get paid for last week. He laughs and says you are not going to either. Did the company steal anything from you and if you don't think they did do you feel it appropriate to take action against them to be compensated for your time.
For ANYONE who thinks their iPod will re-load their music back to a crashed Mac: NO, it does not work this way. IF you want to preserve your music, BACK IT UP to other media (another hard disc, DVD, CD's if you must) If your machine's disk crashes, and you re-format, upon connecting your iPod, the system will tell you that this iPod is set to another machine. From now on, do you want to sync with THIS machine? If you say yes... then it will sync with your empty machine, which has a "NEWER" database with no songs; i.e., it will synch both the iPod and the Mac/PC to nothing. Back up! Rely not on the iPod. This is a severe misconception.
The next pasture is always greener
If you really want to try it out, then why not use Wine to run Windows on X on Linux and then try the iTMS for Windows?
I thought Linux geeks were supposed to be able to figure this stuff out on their own.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Unfortunately, weedshare seems to be another DRM format not supported by my hardware.
How many times do I have to say it. My hardware is unable to install your required software.
Stick to industry standards that the hardware already supports. There isn't much out there that can't play MP3's. Very few people are selling MP3's.
Clip from the site,
System Requirements:
A Windows 98 or later PC and a current media player that supports the Windows Media Format. We also recommend a broadband Internet connection, as Weed files average around 5 MB in size.
That leaves out my car jukebox(MP3), my CD jukebox (MP3's only) Winamp on the PC, Living room DVD player (the main audio playback device) and my MP3 player.
Paying a premium to buy music that plays only on the internet connected PC and it's junk speakers is not my relaxing sound system of choice. Don't try to sweettalk me into burning CD's. Why change format twice to get it to a CD MP3 jukebox?
I see no need to burn a CD just to rip it.
Somebocy get a clue and sell tunes in all the popular formats. Those who want Apple format can have it. Those who want MS format WMA can have it. Those who have MP3 jukeboxes... Well we are waiting...
The truth shall set you free!
yes - what's ogg vorbis?
Technically those "two bits" are 2 16-bit samples. The two is a magic number in this case due to the Nyquist Sampling Theorem.
Now if we are talking about a 23Khz sound wave...
Ya, but to convert Apple's AAC files to MP3 you have to burn them and then rip them again.
Bleh.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
That's pretty interesting. I wonder how this history will be effected by the volume-regulating software built into iTunes and iPod. If the player is going to equalize the volume for a consumer's music, then there would no longer be an incentive to boost the volume. For that reason, clipping should go away with CDs (despite the fact that clipping isn't a technological limit of the CD). This make me wonder if Apple has already caught on? It should be relatively easy to find out.
Ultra-compressed, clipped-at-the-pinout-level songs sometimes actually end up sounding quieter on playback systems which regulate the volume.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The story that Apple realizes profit from the iTMS not by selling songs, but by driving iPod sales is a good one, and no doubt there is a lot of truth to it, but I think it is foolish to take it at face value.
Right now, its in Apple's interest to make sure iTMS appears like an unattractive business to get into, because it discourages potential competitors, and the investors who might fund competitors. Meanwhile, the iPod story keeps Apple investors happy.
In time though, as volumes increace, as their initial investment is recouped, as they improve efficiency and lower costs, and as they negotiate better terms with record labels, their story will likely change.
Then you should check out MagnaTune. Download the mp3 for free, and if you like it, most artists provide FLAC or WAV as well as vbr mp3 and ogg when you "purchase" the song. Of course, they aren't big label artists, but they definitely do have classical/jazz (and to my delight, ambient techno)
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Dude, the more you go on about this, the more it's clear that you've never actually used iTunes
I haven't actually. I've downloaded and set it up, but have not used it. I have used other services, however, that have the very short sould clips.
You're just sitting there trying to come up with reasons to complain about it,
I complained about Napster elsewhere, but haven't said anything about iTunes. Save your trolls for other trolls.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Two words: Porn Movies
Wishing I was a millionaire since 1969.
Hint to the uninitiated - the eject button is on the keyboard...
- The numbers Napster gives are questionable because there are three things going on: sales, complementary "5 free songs" promotions, and subscriptions. When Apple reports numbers post Pepsi promotion, they will no doubt be called into question. As of now, both apple numbers - $99 songs and $9.99 albums are heavily questioned. .Mac e-mail addresses being forever free? Well if you will recall, when Apple users gave push back to the me@mac.com e-mail address being included in the host of new services called .Mac that cost $99 a year, Apple relented and gave all existing mac.com accounts free access to their existing users for as long as they wanted. What's wrong with that?
- What is questionable about Apple's sales tactics? This is Well known? then give us say, the top three best known examples.
- proprietaty software from Apple? How about Darwin's core is GPL. How about Apple uses open standards (like AAC being MP4 + fairplay) How about Rondevous and IEEE and USB and on and on.
- What makes you think Apple will change the terms and conditions of the DRM? Some example from
- Apple has never had a monopoly. They currently do not have an on-line songs monopoly (56%) so what leads you to believe they will "become monopolist in attitude as well as fact"? That has never been the company culture.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
they are drm-protected and will expire with your subscription, but for as long as you're subscribed you can do non-streaming. furthermore, you can sync downloaded songs across several pcs.
This will give you what you want. $0.01 a megabyte. I've used it, it is good.
Fellowship 9/11
Only some Apple keyboards have the eject key, and there are problems with it working due to OS incompatibility and other quirks.
No such problems in the PC world: media eject buttons in the obvious place (near the media) are always there and always work even if the OS is Windows 2.0 or Geos.
Clipping is not a problem specific to the CD format. Clipping comes from the studio monkeys running the sound too hot for their own boards. This is not done by accident... songs that sound "louder" on the radio tend to sell better, so studios compress the hell out of the sound and cram as much of it near peak output as they possibly can. Rush's "Vapor Trails" album is a tragic example. Everything, including the vocals, sounds like it's being played through a 10W amplifier at full volume. (Too bad, because muscially, it's probably their best album in the last decade or so.)
That is really interesting - does anyone have an article or something that perhaps can go into more detail about this? (about the practice of recording music at higher levels compared to X years ago)
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
That article speaks speficically about the Rush album I referenced in my post, but is a pretty good indicator of the trend.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
All iTunes songs are from the original masters when available.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Why don't you buy some classical pieces from the iTunes music store and judge for yourself. I've found the quality to be excellent. The subtle ranges in Scheherezade are extremely well preserved, including the very soft, very high violin sequences.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
The difference between copyright infringement and theft is a major one. Only lawyers and corporate flacks and liars who do the "lets make something seem worse by calling it something it isn't" do the "copying = theft" dance.
You should bother to look up the definition of theft. It is pretty clear.
So what?
I downloaded well over 50,000 songs for FREE off Napster years ago, and i'm only on a dialup connection!
Took a couple years tho...
But all for FREE.
Wheee!
One word: DRM. Can't sell music without it.
Yes, there's no technical reason why DRM couldn't be bolted to Ogg Vorbis, but nobody has seriously tried yet. It seems to conflict with the very idea of an open format. Microsoft, on the other hand, is more than willing.
Your message said more about your own left-wing bias than it did about anything in the parent post you were responding to.
"CNet reports that Napster has already sold 5 million songs. The number is impressive despite lagging behind Apple which maintains a 56% market share according to SiliconValley.com."
So how long before Apple marketshare is down to 4% for online music sales. They can't seem to learn from past mistakes. Since they sell AAC only, you are stuck with buying an iPod. PC users like hardware choice. That's the benefit Linux, and even Windows. The only way to use any other player is to convert to mp3, which is a poorer algorithm, and incurs even more loss from transcoding from aac. I predict iPod and iTunes will go the way of the Mac and settle down to about 4% marketshare since people want more bang for their buck, and iPods and and apple downloads are both too expensive.
That's 'cue', not 'queue'.
""Left-wing bias" from someone who listened to Rush Limbaugh for several years before deciding that he was an idiot and a liar"
It's 100% bias, by the way. However, it is kind of odd that you claim to have listened to someone for YEARS before making up your mind about him. You probably have an IQ of 43. Everyone else is perceptive enough (and Rush is outspoken enough) that they figure out he is an idiot OR genius without 30 minutes of first hearing him.
Thanks for the enlightenment, Forrest.
"you reduce the value of someone's property by creating and providing free copies, your a thief, regardless of the dictionary definition"
In other words, "it is because I say it is so, regardless of what really is!" That is your argument now. Making up definitions for words as you go along.
Part of your imaginary definition of "thief" involves "reducing the value of one's property".
According to this, if I keep rusty cars in my front yard, it will "reduce the value" of the neighbor's property and make me a thief.
" Saying copyright infringement is not thrft is equivocating"
No. It's calling a spade a spade and calling a hoe a hoe. Apples are not oranges.
I guess the mechanical rate has gone up since the last time I looked. No biggie. I own all the rights to all of my stuff, and released it on my own label, so I don't need to negotiate with anyone else. I'm glad you did your homework and didn't get screwed as badly as most.
We made enough in two months of gigs to pay for the studio time and our first 1000 CDs, so everything was paid for when we walked in to record. All of those sales (along with T-shirts and posters) paid for the subsequent CDs, which we've sold a few thousand of since then, and all of the proceeds went straight to our band members. I've also licensed a couple tracks to 3 movies and another sampler CD, but we get piddly amounts from those compared to our own CD sales. When you're motivated to do the work and make the deals, you don't need labels or any other middlemen.
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
It still does not change the fact that you listened to Rush for many years before figuring out he was an idiot.
Actually, Rhapsody is much better than the both, and in fact burns are only $0.79, not the $1.00. You can get prepaid cards for $15 at 7-11 which include a month of service and 15 burns.
h tml?nc=1
Check out my review and some history at http://www.livejournal.com/users/slimyslimy/3961.
This sig provides no comical value.
As a musician I dont mind if people are sharing my music. I view it as a way of being heard. General Mills gives out tons of free samples as promotion. Also if you didnt want people to hear your music why did you become a musician? What really hurts in many ways is someone putting their name or alias in the mp3 tag line. People may enjoy the song but will not know who did the music or where to obtain more of it. If you enjoy the music please dont disrespect the artist by inserting your alias in the tagline. Dennis Jennings Celestial Image http://celestial-image.com
While copyright infringement as such is certainly not theft, this practice of "What really hurts in many ways is someone putting their name or alias in the mp3 tag line" could be called that.
This situation is similar to identity theft: misappropriation and misrepresentation of someone else's work.
"so shut the fuck up already. the guy made his point and your wrong. go look up the word in the dictionary if you dont get it, asshat"
Not only is he wrong, you are wrong too. His point was that bias was not preference. If you look up the word (instead of flame about it), you will see that preference is the first thing listed for bias.
Now, go back to listening to Rush Limbaugh. Maybe in 20 or so years, you might figure out that he is an idiot.
Bias isn't the same as a preference
From dictionary.com. Bias, entry 2a:
"A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment"
(This is the first definition that counts. #1 is about cloth-cutting).
You are so wrong. Oh wait. I know. You are going to come back and say that Rush Limbaugh wrote the dictionary, so we can't trust it.
The reason that Apple's AACs sound so good is because they bought the reference AAC encoder and decoder technology from Dolby, and then tweaked it to sound better. Contrast this with how Microsoft got their WMA encoder and decoder - by pulling it out of a donkey's ass like a 12 meter tapeworm.
"Anyway, nuance in grammar and language too frequently gets bulldozed nowadays in favor of exaggeration and rhetoric"
This is coming from a guy who said he listened to rush limbaugh for years before figuring out that he was an idiot. It takes less than a half-hour to figure him out, and ironically, he does so much of what you claim to hate (bulldoze things in exaggeration and rhetoric).