iTunes One Year Anniversary Sparks Comparison

An anonymous reader writes "CNet News is running a story about the upcoming one year anniversary of Apple's iTunes service. It gives a pretty good summary of the year in online music, with a nice chart comparing each service's user base now and then. The most interesting quote in the article is from a record executive stressing that the industry is quietly hoping that the online music stores will start selling songs in compatible formats. As a sidenote, the headline story at the beginning is based off this page."

Comments

compatible formats

[Lord_Dweomer]

"The most interesting quote in the article is from a record executive stressing that the industry is quietly hoping that the online music stores will start selling songs in compatible formats."

[puts on tinfoil hat] I'm sure they'd love that. The saying from LoTR comes to mind:

One Ring to rule them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them.

I wouldn't mind having compatible formats either, I just don't want the RIAA having absolutely any say in it whatsoever, because they don't exactly have the best track record of making decisions which are beneficial to customers.

Mac + Windows = Success

[Stopmotioncleaverman]

Although Apple has taken a largely proprietary approach to iTunes, it made one major concession by making its software compatible with Microsoft's Windows operating system, effectively untying the iPod from the Mac in hopes of tapping into the much larger market for Windows PC users.

Which is a massive part of the reason that they have been so successful at totally owning all the competition. If they'd just released iTunes for the Mac, they'd be drowned out by those who supported Windows-based clients simply by force of numbers. A very clever move by Apple: coupled with a huge amount spent on advertising this is a sure-fire way to make money and stay on top.

Re:Mac + Windows = Success

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, releasing itunes for a platform that commands over 90% of the market counts as clever? Huh. I would have went with obvious but I guess we have different clever standards.

Re:Mac + Windows = Success

[FireBreathingDog]

I'd certainly expect to see that Mac users would be more likely to buy music from the store, which I'd attribute mainly to the lack of P2P clients available on the Mac, which has certainly helped Apple establish themselves in the market with the Mac version of iTunes.

Dude, what are you talking about?

I take it you don't have a Mac. Well, I don't need 10,000 different programs, 99% of which have shitty interfaces sitting atop half-assed implementations. (Then again, this is the place where 'vi' qualifies as a nice interface...so what should I expect?)

My personal favorite client is Acquisition. Nice interface, works well, very Mac-like.

Re:Mac + Windows = Success

[Bricklets]

releasing itunes for a platform that commands over 90% of the market counts as clever? Huh. I would have went with obvious...

Apple's number one goal is to increase the number of Mac users out there. What happened during the two years where iPods were exclusively for Macs was that you saw some people buy a Mac just so they could get an iPod. Then (and I remember reading this in an interview with Jobs in Rolling Stone), Apple had to make a conscience decision on whether it was more important to leverage iPods to increase Mac sales or whether they should try to dominate the MP3 Player market. They decided the latter, and and it has turned out to be a good decision.

So it was a obvious choice to make it compatible on Windows for an MP3 Player company. For for a company like Apple who's main product is the computer, the choice wasn't so obvious.

Re:Mac + Windows = Success

[useosx]

Nice post, but a little out of date, as I see no mention of Poisoned which is a front end to giFT. giFT supports FastTrack (Kazaa), Gnutella, and OpenFT (a hot little network). Personally I'd rather run Poisoned than Kazaa any day.

Furthermore, the BitTorrent community is alive and well on OS X. Azureus works really well, and there's a hot little native client that is better than the standard one.

I've been using the Overnet command line client, which sucks but gets the job done better than the various front-ends floating around.

And then there's Hotline, Carracho, and the new open-source client-server model "Wired".

Enjoy.

Re:Incompatible filetypes?

[Mononoke]

Useful to some, for sure, but useless for those among us who are trying to find ways of acquiring musical samples to "try out" various musical bands.

There is a 30 second sample available for free for every single song available from the iTunes Music Store.

You just want free music. Go away.

Re:Who want to bet...

[CrankyFool]

I'd be shocked.

Google's business model[s] seem[s] to be based on the concept of charging vendors, rather than users. Is there a single google service that costs money for the average consumer to use? I don't pay to search, to blog, or to get my mail (gmail). I'd be surprised if their first foray into charging customers, if it ever happened, was in the field of online music (especially since I suspect they might have a hard time doing online music and abiding by the whole "don't be evil" thing -- they can't exactly do it without DRM).

Leave it to a Microsoft spokesman to...

[MikeCapone]

Leave it to a Microsoft spokesman to complain about "closed ecosystems". Heh.

Microsoft offering a competitive environment?

[LostCluster]

It's interesting to me the way the three major players have laid out their strategies for digital music...

The Apple camp exists in a silo, as usual. Music purchased at the iTunes Music Store is only playable in iTunes, and only natively transfers to an iPod family portible.

The Real camp is using their proprietary format for audio that only RealPlayer can play in software, and there's only a limited number of portables that are compatible. In fact, only one of those portables is a true music player, the rest are Palm devices because there's a compatible player for Palm.

But Microsoft's only entering into the game as a software provider. That means there's no Microsoft music store, but everybody major other than Apple and Real are using WMA as the secure format of choice, including Napster, Wal*Mart, and BuyMusic. They've also got the largest selection of compatible players.

Really, going the Microsoft route for your DRMed music collection seems like the best answer to me, because you can then shop arround for the best price on single-track buys, and often find the hot songs for 79 or 88 cents. Who says the price of legal music downloads is going up?

Re:Microsoft offering a competitive environment?

[LostCluster]

I wouldn't mind the price of online songs going down but lets hope that the artist's cut goes up. http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/

Downhill Battle is an absolutely clueless group. Artists who want to directly get themselves into iTunes without any RIAA hand in the till can do so, but they also have to trade off not getting RIAA label promotional help.

They really should be trying to get indie artists into the other DRMed music universes... or is their real agenda trying to get DRM music to fail as a whole?

Re:Microsoft offering a competitive environment?

[Hanji]

I call bullshit.

PlayFair/iTunes allows burning of the same playlist to a CD up to 10 times without modification, and rearranging tracks or tacking on a 1-second silent track counts as modifying and entitles you to another 10 burns. There is no reasonable way you should ever run up against that limit in anything resembling normal use, it seems to me.

Re:Microsoft offering a competitive environment?

[dr.badass]

Apple's PlayFair files only allow burning under limited circumstances, particularly that the same mix of songs can only be burned three times.

That's simply not true. What are these "limited circumstances" you speak of? And where do you get three times? Even Apple says ten is the limit for a given playlist, and IIRC, once you reach that limit you can just make a new, identical playlist. There is no per-track limit.

Microsoft's WMA format allows the DRM applier to set whether they want to allow 1 burn, 5 burns, any other number of burns, or infinite burning. Again, Microsoft's just the software provider, it's up to the store to make the deals for these things....

What this means in reality is that any two tracks even from the same store might have different limitations. If you make a mix with tracks A and B, with burn limits of 1 and 5, respectively, you won't be allowed to make two copies of that mix.

Re:Microsoft offering a competitive environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that Microsoft allows the burn to be set is, in itself, a restriction. Seriously, Apple had to fight the media companies tooth and nail for the DRM supported by iTunes. They wanted them substantially more restrictive.

Listen, the store doesn't set the restrictions. You're deluding yourself if you think that's the case. They're set by whatever contract the store negotiates with the media companies. If one of them wants the restriction placed at 3, another at 5, another at 10, another at 15, do you honestly thing the store is going to go through the hassle of setting each of them to the correct contractual value and risk one of their brain-dead MCSE's releasing a song with the wrong setting? Hell no. They're all going to be set to the least common denominator - in this case, 3. Microsoft's system, by allowing this "flexibility", simply means that it's going to be set to maximum restrictions.

Remember, the RIAA wants a higher per-price song than iTunes $.99. Remember, their ultimate goal is to have you pay them every single time you listen to a song. Every time your song-based cell phone ringtone goes off? Another charge. This has been clearly documented in trade press for years now. These people are not in the business of setting what we would consider reasonable limits on digital music. That's why they're selling "Compact Discs" that can't carry the Compact Disc logo due to the anti-piracy nonsensical crap being used (that prevents them from being sold in a wide variety of players).

They sell crap, they realize they sell crap, and they are in the business of justifying their highly-paid position by screwing as many people out of as much money as possible, so that they can continue to sell crap which almost nobody wants yet they still manage to make money on (due to all the screwing going on).

The previous posters have covered your lack of knowledge of how FairPlay works quite well, so I won't even go into that quagmire of ignorance.

But what I will say is this: I just spent >$200 at iTMS this weekend. I have spent the past couple days spending some free time burning each album to a CD-RW, importing the CD-RW tracks as 256K CBR MP3s, then erasing the CD-RW and starting over. I have 2 albums left to burn, and in the time it took me to write this, another one has gone through the burn/import/erase process - so it's not exactly a time sink, I just don't have much spare time (my Slashdot history can attest to my lack of posts).

I don't share the MP3s with anyone, I don't burn CDs for friends, I don't do crap to violate copyright - the system allows me to do this transcoding, so I do it to alleviate any possible DRM-related headaches, both now and down the road.

Re:Microsoft offering a competitive environment?

[Durandal64]

The Apple camp exists in a silo, as usual. Music purchased at the iTunes Music Store is only playable in iTunes, and only natively transfers to an iPod family portible.

iTunes Music Service M4P's will play in any application that can play QuickTime files. Maybe you should email the WinAmp developers and tell them to use the QuickTime API instead of pissing and moaning about how no apps besides iTunes support them (oh, except for VLC, but you were too busy complaining to research that). What do you want Apple to do? Write 4 other MP3 players? They've given Windows developers the tools to do it.

Re:Microsoft offering a competitive environment?

[jimmyharris]

Microsoft is only entering the game as a software provider? No Microsoft music store? Did you think Microsoft could really resist leaving any pie untouched?

http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5176411.html

Microsoft said Friday that the second half of the year will see the launch of its online music store, a long-expected entry into an increasingly crowded business dominated by Apple Computer's iTunes.

The software giant this week began offering sneak peaks of the service to independent record labels at the South by Southwest trade show in Austin, Texas. Though Microsoft remains mum about specific details, this week's dog and pony show signals the company's heightened ambitions to enter the world of online music sales with a bang.

Re:Microsoft offering a competitive environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to be offensive, but you should read and understand the posts before you reply to them (specially if you are going to quote them).

The 10-copy limit applies only to burning a playlist to CD. And, as the other posted said, once you reach that limit, it is trivial to restart the counter (by rearranging or recreating the playlist).

So, in practice, the 10-copy limit is irrelevant to the regular end user. It's only intended to slow down the pirates who want to burn dozens of copies of the same list.

Re:Microsoft offering a competitive environment?

[dr.badass]

Once it's on an ISO CD format, it's fair game. Just make a binary copy of that CD as many times as you want.

Sure, you can do the same thing with CDs made from iTunes, except you don't need to.

I consider it a point against WMA-based services that you need additional 3rd-party software to do something that iTunes has no problem with in the first place.

CD Baby - the word from the backend

[linuxbaby]

I run (and am still the sole programmer for) CD Baby - one of the companies that is supplying a huge amount of music to all of these big legal download music services. Our digital catalog of independent music is even bigger than than the entire Universal Music Group record labels', combined. (Over 230,000 songs now, and adding about 75 new albums a DAY.)

Since the first two Slashdot stories about CD Baby getting independent music into Apple iTunes (see iTunes Indie Meeting Notes and Sell Your Music on iTunes Music Store) - things are starting to standardize.

It's actually really interesting watching this happen, from a tech point of view. These big companies appear to have their stuff together from the outside, but I've had quite a few conversations where the techies at the big giant download music service are asking us, Uh... what do you recommend? How are the other companies doing it? Others say things like, This is how Universal Music sent us their catalog - so can you just imitate that? And voila! Watching new standards form.

I get the feeling that immediately after the initial announcement of Apple iTunes, and their 1-million downloads, lots of companies felt they just had to jump in as fast as possible, without any time to think out the long-term strategy. That's part of the reason why they're so incompatible. No time to communicate with others. (And plenty of paranoia about revealing their plans, I'm sure.) Things are settling and standardizing now, though.

Anyway, as you can tell I'm a very open guy, and this summer I'm going to take the time to do some detailed technical write-ups of all the things that go on behind the scenes (including our cool 40-terabyte digital audio warehouse). It's pretty interesting stuff.

(For details of what we do, see the CD Baby Digital Distribution page. Tell any good artists you know who want to get their music onto these services!)

--
Derek Sivers, CD Baby

Re:CD Baby - the word from the backend

[linuxbaby]

P.S. As of now, these are the different formats for which we have to convert every song - in delivering to the various download music services:

• WMA9 - 192k
• WMA9 - 160k
• WMA9 - 128k
• WMA9 - 96k
• WMA9 - 32k
• WMA9 - 20k mono
• AAC - 128k
• AAC - 256k
• MP3 - hifi VBR (lame -preset standard)
• MP3 - 128k
• Ogg Vorbis - q6
• FLAC

In-house we use FLAC to store everything, then have shell scripts to de-code those FLACs to WAV files to convert to the various other formats.

Re:CD Baby - the word from the backend

[MikeXpop]

Just out of curiosity, who gives out 256K AAC?

Re:CD Baby - the word from the backend

[linuxbaby]

Just out of curiosity, who gives out 256K AAC?

Rhapsody doesn't distribute it but does use it as their in-house archive format for future transcoding.

Re:CD Baby - the word from the backend

[linuxbaby]

Do you use Apple's AAC encoder for both of the AAC styles or only the one going to iTMS?

We only use iTunes to encode the AAC128 for Apple iTMS. For the AAC256 we use the AAC encoder from Coding Technologies because it runs on FreeBSD. We have 25 FreeBSD boxes for encoding (and storage, mainly. 1.3TB each) but only 3 Macs.

Have you seen hydrogenaudio.org's listening tests , especially the last multiformat test?

Yep. But again, for when we need MP3, I still think lame (on our FreeBSD boxes) is the best choice.

Single format

[antic]

Will they get their single format? Every provider will have their own format/agenda to push. Some will want DRM, others will have alternatives, users will want more freedom, geeks will want the freedom plus more freedom, etc.

And I still don't see people paying for it all. I haven't bought a CD in 5 years. Most people I know went through their big CD-buying years in their late teens, and most of these people don't have the credit cards required to buy up big at online music stores. Sure, I'd bet that stores have features allowing parents and relatives to set up accounts with $50 to splurge on music as a gift, but that's still not a way for kids to easily take their cash from flipping burgers and spend it impulsively on music.

Are (m)any artists releasing MP3-laden CDs to physical music stores and selling them there?

Are the RIAA looking anything BUT greedy when they take away the physical cost of producing an actual CD and liner-notes, and then want to increase the price of a music track online?

Or maybe it's all in the marketing. I work online day in and day out, and I've never even considered buying music online. I just do without. My girlfriend listens to a lot of new/pop music as it comes out, and the first thing she'll say to me with regard to it is something like "Hey, can you download x for me?". The marketing of online music sales must be at a pretty low level on radio stations and television (zilch in Australia).

Re:Who want to bet...

[FrYGuY101]

Is there a single google service that costs money for the average consumer to use?

Yep. Google Answers.

and lacking...

[dj245]

The most interesting quote in the article is from a record executive stressing that the industry is quietly hoping that the online music stores will start selling songs in compatible formats.

and The most interesting quote NOT in the article is from Steve Jobs stressing that he can't possibly make money if the record industry jacks the prices to $2.50/song and bundles crappy songs with good songs, and is quietly scheming to force the music stores to do.

Re:and lacking...

[LostCluster]

and The most interesting quote NOT in the article is from Steve Jobs stressing that he can't possibly make money if the record industry jacks the prices to $2.50/song and bundles crappy songs with good songs, and is quietly scheming to force the music stores to do.

The thing is, Apple's not the only front. The RIAA would also have to convince Napster 2.0, BuyMusic, and Wal*Mart to do the same...

Wa-wa-wa-Wal*Mart? We're talking about one of the biggest physical CD retailers in the nation. Wal*Mart's well-known for their tendancy to squeeze suppliers and drop ones who don't bend to their demands. So, this could get very interesting if they decide to throw their weight around.

Not a proper tabulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at the comparison table, it isn't fair to list Rhapsody in there, with Rhapsody being a streaming service and almost every other player in there is a download service. Interesting to note that , RealPlayer music store is listed in there too and has a pretty good download number for something that opened just one-two months back.

Rhapsody with a user base of 489,000 is doing pretty good I beleive with each user paying $10 / month . Thats like 4.89 million. Apple is way ahead in the competition with almost double the users compared to its successor.

Re:Not a proper tabulation

[LostCluster]

Looking at the comparison table, it isn't fair to list Rhapsody in there, with Rhapsody being a streaming service and almost every other player in there is a download service. Interesting to note that , RealPlayer music store is listed in there too and has a pretty good download number for something that opened just one-two months back.

Napster, by that logic, is double-dipping because they offer both a 99-cent download-and-keep service, and a $9.99 a month stream-but-don't-keep service.

You're right, the chart is not exactly apples-to-apples comparing... Rhapsody and Napster are offering a different service model altogether compared to the other stores, even though their owners are also keeping their toes in the store model just in case.

Will DRM and Linux ever be able to get along?

[LostCluster]

None of the RIAA-approved DRM systems right now plays ball on Linux, period. I know most people who drink the GNU/Kool-Aid absolutely hate DRM because all content should be free, but that just ain't happening any time soon...

So, while Linux tries to capture the desktop environment, this is one piece of technology that is popular on the Windows and even Macintosh platforms, but just simply isn't on Linux. Open Source projects just aren't going to fit the bill here, somebody needs to convince the DRM people that they'll be safe in writing decoders for Linux.

Is there any way that a DRM-compliant music player could survive in the Linux world without risking being captured in the unencrypted digtal form... or is this something Linux just will never be able to do?

Re:Will DRM and Linux ever be able to get along?

[DaHat]

The RIAA needs to face the fact that DRM is not going stop illegal downloading. Giving your customers what they want will attract people from kazaa and emule.

Locking the doors on my car will not prevent someone from breaking in and stealing it's contents, nor the car it's self. Does that mean I should stop locking my doors and even keep the windows down to make it easier for the potential thief? NO!

By keeping my vehicle as secure as I can, I limit the number of people willing and able to steal it or it's contents. The RIAA is no different. DRM isn't intended to force EVERYONE to buy legit copies of music, the goal is to make piracy so hard that there is less and less incentive in doing so.

Example: DirecTV piracy, the new generation of access cards (P4's I believe) are damned evil, so evil they have a built in sucicide system that if it thinks you're trying to hack it... it wipes it's self clean. With a proper hardware and money, a person could reverse engineer the system, discover it's deepest darkest secrets and possibly build a piracy system around it... but because it's looking to be that difficult to hack (at this time (with out insider info)), the days of simply reprogramming a DirecTV access card are quickly coming to an end.

Avid downloader gone legal

[elinenbe]

I used to download almost 5 full albums every week illegally and once itunes came out I started buying music. I become addicited to things, and I recall purchasing almost 15 albums from itunes in ONE day!

Now, having to burn and re-rip songs to get them onto my flash based player and the increasing cost of albums (Dark Side Of The Moon is 16.99 for _9_ songs) what is my incentive to be legal anymore? It is currently less effort for me to get the album off of a kazaa then spending an hour to make nearly $20.

Say what you want...

[mfifer]

...but iTunes gave me the outlet to do what I wanted to do: LEGALLY BUY MUSIC ONLINE.

*NOW* we have options, but until iTMS, we DIDN'T.

Thanks, Apple, for that at least.

Bleep is my fave

[Twid]

My current favorite download service is Bleep

http://www.warprecords.com/bleep/

Great electronic stuff from guys like Squarepusher and Plaid in un-DRM'd 192k LAME-encoded mp3 goodness.

I wish iTunes had a higher quality option. It's not that 160k AAC sounds bad, but if the download is all I get, I'd like a higher quality format to get at the same time.

Reading Business Articles

[trip23]

can be a funny thing... Nowhere else you'll find a sucessfull and innovative company compared to a Soviet grocery store, like Real's CEO did. So as a linux-using Communist (in the words of Mr. Ballmer of MS-Fame) I now can buy music in a Soviet Grocery Store located in the USA. Did I miss anything in the Cold War?

Maybe it's me

[value_added]

but reading the group manager of Windows digital media unit say:

"They have spent an inordinate amount of money to generate awareness around their closed ecosystem. (But) as people get more sophisticated in this area they are going to be getting more frustrated with a closed ecosystem."

gets me all choked up. Not in the "it brings tears to my eyes" kind of choked up, but the "the irony is so thick I think may I need a Heimlich maneuver" sort.

as usual, allofMP3

[jonathan_95060]

... and other russian LEGAL services are conspicuously absent.

Re:as usual, allofMP3

[jonathan_95060]

allofMP3 has been around for more than a year. It is inconceivable that RIAA in unaware of them...

I challenge you to show me one instance of RIAA successfully procecuting someone for being a customer of allofMP3. Heck, forget the 'successful' part, just show me news of one case where RIAA is beating up on someone for buying and downloading music from allofmp3.com.

I've googled high and low for this and I can't find a thing.

Regarding your claim that "the artist gets squat": allofMP3 claims to be paying their R.O.M. licensing fees (similar to BMI fees paid to artists for radio broadcast). Perhaps they're lying but if not then the artists are being paid.

Sure, artists are getting _less_ but hey, wecome to the wonderful world of offshoring! Offshoring isn't just for saving big companies money on tech job salaries -- it is for RIAA's intellectual property too. Big business loves a 'race to the bottom' when it benefits them but when the globalism shoe gets put on their I.P. foot then you cry 'foul, unfair' eh?

File formats...when will we learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

The most interesting quote in the article is from a record executive stressing that the industry is quietly hoping that the online music stores will start selling songs in compatible formats.

Is the Microsoft model so compelling that every business major given the opportunity will turn to anti-consumer practices like using different file formats than everyone else? There is something slightly distressing about the need for companies to be different in ways that inconveniences consumers for no apparent reason than to be unique.

Here's some food for thought (I understand that this is common and not just in b-school). I am a business major at UConn and my management professor insists upon keeping her test questions secrets outside of the classroom. If a student is caught distributing questions from past exams (and these are exams given through a web browser), they will be cited for academic dishonesty. The reason? These are supposedly valuable test questions that have been used over and over again and do not cause students to complain about unfair wording, etc. Now, I think the real reason is laziness combined with a disregard for the academic environment. She wants me to take time out of my schedule to review the test at her convenience because she doesn't want to do more work. There's a parallel to this article here.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but this whole idea of proprietary information is simply being taken too far in our society. It is now common for people to grasp at any hint of value they see in their information, capitalize on it, and try to lock others out at the same time. They will then proceed to hoard this information for as long as they are capable. The real innovators in the business world will always have a place as they have value. For every one of them, there are ten parasites (Darl & Company?) who merely create an illusion of value but contribute nothing useful to society.

Why have so many different file formats developed over the years? Perhaps a programmer can help me out here, but what would have been so difficult about making an open format that could handle anything you threw at it? For example, an open text file format that could be extensible to handle Word's change tracking and other features. These days with the proliferance of XML parsers, couldn't one write programs that would read/generate XML files, silently ignore unknown tags and would just work? I understand that the file formats associated with digital music are much more complex, but even considering the 'need' for DRM, where's the collaboration that makes businesses work more efficiently and offer enhanced value to the customer? It's very disappointing, and I can tell you that at least at this school, nobody even mentions a subset of this broad issue. It should be a required course in my opinion. Thanks for reading.

Re:File formats...when will we learn?

[Saeger]

this whole idea of proprietary information is simply being taken too far in our society.

What else is a capitalistic economy based on physical scarcity of resources supposed to do when it doesn't really produce anything tangible anymore? Deal with the reality of information abundance? Nah - If you can't "own the intellectual property" then it has no "value", and we can't have that now can we.

--

Re:Incompatible filetypes?

[LostCluster]

Useful to some, for sure, but useless for those among us who are trying to find ways of acquiring musical samples to "try out" various musical bands.

That is called "radio". It is any medium in which you don't get direct control over what song plays next, and therefore can be exposed to music you haven't heard of yet.

That's why that format of pushed-content pays less per song than any format that lets the user directly edit the playlist.

More on compatible formats

[Anonymous Coward]

The most interesting quote in the article is from a record executive stressing that the industry is quietly hoping that the online music stores will start selling songs in compatible formats.

Why not strong arm the media playes to support more formats and let the fucking consumer decide?

The biggest problem

[truesaer]

I haven't used iTunes much, based on my difficulty in finding the songs I wanted.

I intended to download some songs from Evanescence. But I don't see any of their songs showing up in my searches! Next I tried Linking Park, but no luck there either. I did find "Ordinary World" by Duran Duran, so that was good. But then "P Control" by Prince doesn't show up...iTunes seems to have every song imaginable by Prince, but my favorite club song is not there. Next I tried Led Zeppelin, and they don't seem to have any of their songs either! They do have lots of Cranberries stuff, including things I haven't seen before so I could try those. And they have Moby tracks (although not any from Animal Rights. Which is good since that CD sucked). Finally, I decided to try for "I am the Walrus" by the Beatles. No dice there either, although I discovered that there are 6 covers of this song, including one with explicit lyrics (that shockingly I actually enjoyed the preview for)!

So I liked iTMS overall, but they really need to get more songs in their catalog.

Re:The biggest problem

[FireBreathingDog]

Next I tried Linking Park, but no luck there either.

Maybe the problem isn't their selection...maybe it was your spelling.

Linkin Park seems to work...

Re:compatible formats

[LostCluster]

I wouldn't mind having compatible formats either, I just don't want the RIAA having absolutely any say in it whatsoever, because they don't exactly have the best track record of making decisions which are beneficial to customers.

The RIAA is going to have to be involved in any DRM system that wants to catch on, because simply put, they control most of the recognizable music in the world. Even if new indie labels start to catch on, that still won't account for the massive back catelog.

There are customers outside US also

[Uninen]

Fileformats are not the only key to success. I mean, where are all the big European online strores, for example? How many ITMS competitors sell outside US?

I think there are lots of potential customers outside US just waiting the oppoturnity to spend their hard-earned money on good and legal music.

Re:There are customers outside US also

[Xenex]

"im in australia and we get jipped on everything - we dont even have any online music stores"

Yes we do. BigPond Music is selling tracks for $AU0.99, right now.

I wouldn't actually use it, though.

Re:compatible formats... who cares

[LostCluster]

Your own question: Why not a neutral file format that all can use and enjoy - not locked into anything?

Your own answer: How do you think all those mp3s end up on Kazzaa?

The dumb-user's urge to file share things that under copyright is why the content industry doesn't want to release things in open formats anymore.

Re:Compatible formats

[PatientZero]

First off, the current crop of formats do use DRM. They let you burn so many times (in a particular order? I didn't know that), share among X number of PCs, etc. With Sony using OpenMG, you must "check out" songs to your device and then check them back in to your collection.

The trick is, the ones that are doing this to sell devices have absolutely no incentive to use a format compatible with other devices. For one thing, they make a trivial amount on the music sale itself. For another, once they've hooked you they want to keep you.

For the music execs, however, it's all about music sales. So clearly it would be better if a consumer could go to any store and have all that music in their combined library. I for one would prefer that, too. It would be so much nicer to have a single media library application that could search and buy from any store simply by installing a plugin.

How can we get them to go in that direction?

Why I haven't subscribed yet,

[djcreamy]

I'm sick of the all the special formats. As the consumer (rather, a potential consumer) I should be able to determine the format I want. I choose 192k mp3s. I already have 10,000+ mp3s, all between 128 and 192, if I am going to buy music it has to fit with the rest of collection. Some of these formats are horrendous, like wma. Get some quality in there, please!

Re:anniversary

[TheXRayStyle]

the upcoming one year anniversary of Apple's iTunes
-1 redundant

Have we come to the point, with "monthly anniversaries" and similar perverted uses, that the actual meaning of "anniversary" has to be explained?

Oxford Dictionary: The yearly return of a noteworthy date... [L anniversarius returning yearly, f. annus year + versus turning + -arius -ARY1; used as n. in med.L anniversaria (sc. dies day), -arium (sc. festum feast); cf. (O)Fr. anniversaire.]

By the definition you provide, "one year anniversary" is not redundant. A two year or three year anniversary still fits the definition--there's nothing wrong with clarifying that this is the first "yearly return of a noteworth date."

Re:anniversary

[cyberbob2010]

We can thank all the teenaged girls who want to celebrate their "three week anniversary" dating the captain of the football team until he dumps their sorry asses.

Is somebody bitter?

Re:Compatible formats

[bonch]

How can we get them to go in that direction?

Stop pirating the fuck out of every artists' music on P2P networks for one. We kinda have to show that there's a demand for it.

A lot of execs are probably scared to death of online music stores precisely because so many users use online services to rip them off and pirate everybody's music. No wonder they're hesitant...if people were simply honest and showed an interest in being legal, you'd have what you wanted.

Legal alternatives, without DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't more people seem to mention or know about the legal alternatives to these services.

www.allofmp3.com
www.3mp3.ru
club.mp3search.ru

It's legal even in the US due to international copyright law.
(www.museekster.com/allofmp3info.htm)

DRM, Linux, Mac, and Windows...

[Goonie]

Your argument rests on the false assumption that Windows and Mac provide a safe environment for DRM systems. The only difference between DRM for Linux and DRM for closed-source platforms is that there is at least an illusion for closed source platforms that DRM will work.

In practice, this is complete BS. Aside from Playfair, there are innumerable programs out there that provide "virtual sound cards", so you can rip the output of any sound player straight to your hard drive.

Re:Congrats, Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame that the iTunes music store is only available in the USA. The rest of the world has to put up with stores that supply music in the WMA format.

Re:Compatible formats

[harkabeeparolyn]

How can we get them to go in that direction?

Stop pirating the fuck out of every artists' music on P2P networks for one. We kinda have to show that there's a demand for it.

Fuck that. Things always get worse. Look at DVDs. They started out OK--- movies in a clean format, random access, extra features, all good. Once DVDs became popular THEN it was time to fuck it up by pinching every nickel out of the format. First we had unskippable FBI warnings. Then unskippable movie previews. Now we have unskippable ads and previews at the beginning of disks. Combine that with increased product placement in the movies themselves, "enhanced" region encoding and media companies suing the hind legs off companies that make legitimate products like DVD X Copy and at some point you have to say "Enough is enough!" and start pushing back. The IP rights media companies claim were granted by "We the People" and not the other way around. Abuse those rights and you can kiss our collective asses because you have no rights unless the majority of the people think you do.

Enter p2p file sharing. The computer technology that's being used to systematically break the back of the working man is now bringing the working man some dividends in the form of easy copying of any and all media he can get his grubby hands on. One thing corporations have taught us is that there is only one rule and that is to do anything you can get away with it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. If you twist the rules, lie, cheat and steal then you shouldn't be surprised when others follow your example. That's why the media companies can BITE ME. Every dog has his day and ours is today.

Apple is doomed to repeat its mistakes

[Stuntmonkey]

Apple is, as we speak, repeating the mistake it made in the PC realm, only this time in the digital content arena. Don't get me wrong, I love their products (own 3 Macs and an iPod), but they just don't understand the dynamics at work here.

Consider where they are right now with iPod/iTunes/ITMS:

• Dominating market share
• Fantastically innovative product, to the point that they virtually created a new market from nothing
• Loved by their users
• Highly integrated product, with a stubborn unwillingness to unbundle

Now re-read the above, only now as a description of where they were in 1980/81 with respect to the Apple ][ and the PC industry they had recently created.

Apple is still failing to understand the critical importance of owning the platform. In this case, whoever ends up controlling the DRM technology is going to control the digital content universe. And this will eventually include all movies, TV, books, and anything that can be digitized. By locking out every other vendor from using Fairplay, they are virtually guaranteeing their irrelevance in the DRM endgame.

For Apple to have a chance here, they need to:

• Issue a temporary Fairplay license to any other content supplier that will use it. They have some advantage here, since the iPod is so popular.
• Issue a temporary Fairplay license to any other mp3/AAC player manufacturer that will use it. Again they have some advantage, since ITMS/iTunes are so popular.

Just this past week Apple snubbed Real, which will push the rest of the industry that much closer to Microsoft's WMA. MS, for their part, are crystal-clear on how to win a platform war. I predict that in three years Apple will have Superbowl ads encouraging us to break from the DRM shackles of Big Brother and return to their platform. Yeah, right.

Just had to get that off my chest. I hate to see good companies make bad decisions.

Re:Apple is doomed to repeat its mistakes

[kylemonger]

But Apple doesn't want to win, at least not in the way you think. Apple wants to sell products to people who are willing to payh more for quality. There are enough of these people to make Apple a very profitable company. When they strayed from this and tried to compete with the likes of Dell they got crushed. If the DRM/media market starts looking like it will be controlled by "da cheapest iz de greatest" crowd, Apple should bow out and leave that wallow to the pigs know it best.

Re:iTunes does not work behind our firewall.

[kylemonger]

Why are you proxying the https port? One of the points of SSL is the explicit verification that the remote end is who they say they are. If you're proxying the https port, you're essentially inserting a "man in the middle" of the connection, which I wouldn't expect to work. iTunes likely has the iTunes store's public key stored somewhere and there's no way your proxy is going to be able to insinuate itself into the connection without iTunes knowing about it. If the use of SSL is to mean anything iTunes has to reject the connection if the keys don't match.

I find the numbers most interesting

[amichalo]

I am shocked and amazed at how rapidly Walmart has dominated the WMA market. I am equally shocked that iTMS has been surpassed by the WMA alternatives. March 2004 numbers:
iTMS - 4.9MM (Fairplay)
Walmart - 2.7MM (WMA)
Napster 2.0 - 1.9MM (WMA)
Musicmatch - 1.5MM (WMA)
BuyMusic - 0.5MM (WMA)

That's Fairplay - 4.9MM to WMA 6.6MM (1.7MM more WMA than Fairplay songs - or 34% more than iTMS!)

As an Apple fan (DOS 2001) I want to deny this but the numbers speak for themselves.

It is the truth that whichever format sells more songs will become the standard because to switch to the other format will require not only the re-purchase/re-rip of the song library but the re-purchase of the player as well.

Unless Apple is fibbing on the small margin they make (not likely as they have stated it openly and SEC may have a fvew questions if they have been) then it seems like Apple needs to support WMA with the iPod as well as Fairplay for DRM so that the iPod can remain King, Queen, and Jack of the hill.

Re:compatible formats

[BasilBrush]

Ah! A common sense fact. In other words not a fact at all, but an assumption based on your view of the world. My view of the world says that the average group of friends only casually swap stuff if it's easy to do.

When I was a teenager was in the days of 8-bit home computers and games on cassette. Originally they were easy to copy, you just loaded the game up and then saved it again on another tape. My group of friends bought very few original games, and those we did we shared with everyone. Then they put rudimentary copy protection on the tapes. You couldn't do load/save copying anymore. Tape to tape audio copying was possible, but even that was made more difficult after a while by cunning copy protection mechanisms. Now people had to crack games or get a set up with a couple of good tape machines in order to copy them. It wasn't impossible, but it wasn't a casual matter anymore. And we started to just buy the original game more often, rather than mess about.

Technological means will not stop the major 'pirates', they will just serve to annoy customers.

Nothing will stop the dedicated pirates, both professional and amateur. It's the casual copier that DRM combats. Take a look at the figures in the article. P2P illegal file sharing is much higher right now than legal downloading. But it isn't really growing anymore. Legal downloading (with DRM) is very much in it's early days still, but is growing rapidly. In a years time it will probably have overtaken P2P, and go on to be much bigger than it. P2P isn't going to be stopped, it's just going to become an irrelevant activity for the dedicated cheapskate.