iTMS Europe: 800,000 Tracks In A Week

no_demons writes "In a press release, Apple has announced that the "European" iTunes Music Store has sold 0.8 million tracks in a week, with around 450,000 being sold in the UK alone. According to Steve Jobs other services were shifting only 50,000 tracks a week in Europe before the launch."

Comments

iTMS is marketed well

[yaroze32]

and this prooves it

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Anonymous Coward]

What this proves is that Apple is becoming less a computer vendor and more a consumer electronics company. Sure, they still sell computers (I have a 12" PB), but their new focus is becoming clear. The surging price of AAPL only reinforces this new direction.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Solar Limb]

Absolutely. Apple sees a chance to reinvent itself and get away from the relatively unsuccessful endeavor of becoming a significant PC player, and in the process jump on an opportunity to establish itself as a heavyweight in consumer electronics. Good call, if you ask me, even though it could, someday, bode poorly for my PowerBook.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[oscast]

Who does it prove that? Apple is just as much a computer company as they were before.

Just because they're sucessful in another area doesn't make them less of a computer company.... Stop with the FUD.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Solar Limb]

Stop with the fanboyism. If Apple's quite obvious new focus and record-setting stock price don't tell you that a new strategic direction is emerging 1 Infinite Loop, you're seeing only what you want to see, which isn't much.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Selecter]

As long as they continue to support and sell kick ass machines like my dual G5 and a better operating system than Microsoft to boot, why should be concerned if they become more successful in another area?

A more successful Apple is good for me and my G5, not bad. According to your philosophy Sony should have gone tits up a few years ago.

How about you stop with the FUD instead of that other guy?

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Solar Limb]

I'm not concerned Apple is successful in another area; in fact, I think that's great. I own an iPod mini and a 12" PB Rev B. 1 GHz. Go Apple!

If you, however, think that because Apple is doing well on its consumer electronics side of the house it automatically bodes well for Apple's PC business, you're a fool. It bodes well for Apple as a commercial entity, and it may or may not bode well for your dual G5 and OSX, depending on what strategic direction Apple eventually chooses.

Apple cannot continue to be marginalized in the PC market and sustain itself. Its market share isn't growing, its losing the educational battle to Dell in spectacular fashion, and a few major software vendors have discontinued support for a number of products. Safari is not a browser other parties develop to, and interesting web endeavors wind up supporting the Mac as a second-tier afterthought (see Gmail). If you argue any of this, you're kidding yourself.

Let's continue: hardware is commoditized fully at this point, and Apple refuses to play in the low-end market. Meanwhile, Dell and other commodity vendors eat a very nice lunch. There are now seperate iPod and PC divisions within Apple, and some analysts have hinted that's in place to more easily transition out of a given business should the corporation decide to do so. Even rumors of Apple's upcoming new displays are indicating that the ADC is gone in favor of DVI, and it doesn't take a genius to realize that that move might play into a larger "consumer electronics" strategy that could cater to the x86 world. In another vein, most users have significant investments in Windows software, so even when it's upgrade time for them, they go back to a commodity x86 vendor, simply because it's cheaper and they don't have to re-purchase and re-learn new software.

But the big problem is this: no way can Apple keep up with OS and hardware R&D at the rate MS, Intel, and AMD do. If Apple's financial investments bear tastier fruit in the consumer electronics business, then dammit, that's where you'll see Apple focus. They're not stupid.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[oscast]

Stop with the fanboyism.

Wuh? How do you get fanboyism out of that... you need to get over yourself.

"If Apple's quite obvious new focus and record-setting stock price don't tell you that a new strategic direction is emerging 1 Infinite Loop, you're seeing only what you want to see, which isn't much."

Sure it is helping their stock but that doesn't mean that Apple is transitioning away from being a computer company in ANY way shape or form. Again, stop with the FUD.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Anonymous Coward]

"Absolutely. Apple sees a chance to reinvent itself and get away from the relatively unsuccessful endeavor of becoming a significant PC player" Their endeavor is not to be large but instead... profitable. if they can be large and profitable that would be great too, but PC manufacturers HAVE to be large to be profitable because there is no way for any of them to compete on features because each PC manufacturer can copy the others (thats what happens in a comoddity business). As a result, that means they can ONLY compete on price. Apple is just as inexpensive as any PC manufacturer, but they require you to buy more... so therefore you will pay more. Of the computer that you are buying more, is elements that diferentiates Apple from PC competition. and in the process jump on an opportunity to establish itself as a heavyweight in consumer electronics." They are able to jump into the consumer electronics BIZ because this is an area that is not been pre-educated by Microsoft that offering a better solution from a single company is somehow bad. In essence, Apple is showing that a single company can in fact produce a superior solution... thus reinforcing their computer matra that they've been saying all along. "Good call, if you ask me, even though it could, someday, bode poorly for my PowerBook." You or your powerbook have nothing to fear. Apple will continue to be a computer company for as long as it can remain profitable doing so. Considering the fact that they are one of the last remaining computer companies that is profitable from selling computer hardware (the other being Dell) I'd say that it will be as long as the industry is interested in buying computers.... and it wont expire prematurely.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[oscast]

"Absolutely. Apple sees a chance to reinvent itself and get away from the relatively unsuccessful endeavor of becoming a significant PC player"

Their endeavor is not to be large but instead... profitable. if they can be large and profitable that would be great too, but PC manufacturers HAVE to be large to be profitable because there is no way for any of them to compete on features because each PC manufacturer can copy the others (thats what happens in a comoddity business). As a result, that means they can ONLY compete on price.

Apple is just as inexpensive as any PC manufacturer, but they require you to buy more... so therefore you will pay more. Of the computer that you are buying more, is elements that diferentiates Apple from PC competition.

and in the process jump on an opportunity to establish itself as a heavyweight in consumer electronics."

They are able to jump into the consumer electronics BIZ because this is an area that is not been pre-educated by Microsoft that offering a better solution from a single company is somehow bad.

In essence, Apple is showing that a single company can in fact produce a superior solution... thus reinforcing their computer matra that they've been saying all along.

"Good call, if you ask me, even though it could, someday, bode poorly for my PowerBook."

You or your powerbook have nothing to fear. Apple will continue to be a computer company for as long as it can remain profitable doing so. Considering the fact that they are one of the last remaining computer companies that is profitable from selling computer hardware (the other being Dell) I'd say that it will be as long as the industry is interested in buying computers.... and it wont expire prematurely.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you, however, think that because Apple is doing well on its consumer electronics side of the house it automatically bodes well for Apple's PC business, you're a fool."

I think what he is saying is that Apple is already sucessful (profitable) in its PC business. The fact that they are also sucessful 9profitable) in another area does not detract from their other business. If you think that a company can only be sucessful in one area than YOU are the fool.

"Apple cannot continue to be marginalized in the PC market and sustain itself."

Apple's computer business is profitable. Apple's computer market is GROWING... though not always as fast as the PC market but it is GROWING. That unfortunately results in lower MARKET SHARE (which ONLY guages SALES of a computer in relation to the rest of the industry.)

To sumarize, Apple's computer sales are GROWING... they are PROFITABLE and their market share still declines. This is not a problem except for the fact that all too often people like yourself misconstrue marketshare to mean decreasing sales and decreasing install base.

Its market share isn't growing"

But the company's computer sales and install base certinly are. Stop quoting this misleading statistic.

"its losing the educational battle to Dell in spectacular fashion"

And yet the company continues to make major educational sales and grow in other markets like servers.

"and a few major software vendors have discontinued support for a number of products."

And yet many more have started offering support for Apple products.

"Safari is not a browser other parties develop to"

You're wrong.

"and interesting web endeavors wind up supporting the Mac as a second-tier afterthought (see Gmail)."

Huh? Safari support wasn't an after thought... It came in the beta period... when its supposed to.

"If you argue any of this, you're kidding yourself.

No, the fact that you bring up these rainy day scenarios shows that you are kidding yourself.

"Let's continue: hardware is commoditized fully at this point"

Apple's computers uses comodity parts which benefits them and yet they integrate the hardware in such a way that it makes it superior to most PC competition. The G5 is a PRIME example of this. This allows Apple teo get the best advantagesa of commoditized hardware as well as that of non-commoditized hardware.

"and Apple refuses to play in the low-end market."

because they feel that there isn't roomo to innovate when yoour rate of return is so insignificant.

"Meanwhile, Dell and other commodity vendors eat a very nice lunch."

Apple and Dell are the ONLY computer manufacturers that are profitable. Apple is eating well... make no mistake about that. What's interesting is that Dell is the ONLY x86 PC manufacturer that is making a profit off its computer business. Every other one is losing money.

"There are now seperate iPod and PC divisions within Apple"

Ya, it allows the company to refine their efforts.

"and some analysts have hinted that's in place to more easily transition out of a given business should the corporation decide to do so."

The only people that are doing that believe this nonsensical diatribe you like to spew.

"Even rumors of Apple's upcoming new displays are indicating that the ADC is gone in favor of DVI"

If its more cost effective and results in better technology for the consumer why not?

"and it doesn't take a genius to realize that that move might play into a larger "consumer electronics" strategy that could cater to the x86 world."

What is your point?

"In another vein, most users have significant investments in Windows software, so even when it's upgrade time for them, they go back to a commodity x86 vendor, simply because it's cheaper and they d

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple cannot continue to be marginalized in the PC market and sustain itself.

This is a popular misconception (in the US) about success==90+% of the market share. Apple can and has done very well with less than 5%. The point re. software vendors not supporting the platform is true to a certain extant. Which is why Apple is providing the basics (iLife etc.) at the low end, and the pro s/w in niche markets for which they don't want to be at the mercy of other s/w vendors.

The s/w market is also changing - the open source model is gaining ground and in the next ~10 years, we will see a major shakeout in the way s/w vendor do business and remain profitable (not counting some of the more entrenched vendors such as MS and Adobe). You are likely to see a lot more vendors having a common open-source code base and offerings across many OSes.

Another factor not discussed is developer mindshare. All the coders I hold in high regard (I consider good) are now working on a Mac. That is a major turnaround from 5 years ago when I was the only person in my circle writing code on a Mac.

And why do you feel slighted if Safari is the 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) browser that gets supported on Gmail (which is still in beta) and yet to be released? If it never got support I'd worry. Developers have to start some where and if you want them to start with your browser, then use IE. But i presume that you preffer to use Safari 'cos it is in someway better than IE?

Let's continue: hardware is commoditized fully at this point, and Apple refuses to play in the low-end market. Meanwhile, Dell and other commodity vendors eat a very nice lunch.

Another common misconception is that Apple is competeing with DELL. Strategically, they are not. Apple is competing with Sony. I'd worry about Dell when they start to build innovation, quality and elegance in their offerings.

Apple has (IMHO rightly so) no interest in fighting for the cut-throat bottom end of the market and go the way of Gateway. That is not the what the Apple *brand* is all about. And yes, it has morphed into a branding game, and will become even more so in the years to come. Armani doesn't care that Men'sWarehouse sells more suits than they do. BMW does not care that Ford sells more Escorts.

But the big problem is this: no way can Apple keep up with OS and hardware R&D at the rate MS, Intel, and AMD do.

Apple does not have to fight with Intel/AMD - IBM does (or whoever makes the chips that Apple uses). And Apple has proved to be nimble enough to transition from 68xxx to PPC when the required, and will doubtless will do so again if the chips fall that-a-ways. In fact there are chips made by AMD (and Intel!) that can be found in Apple products even now (for starters, just open an ABS and look). As for Apple keeping up with MS, it is the other way around. Despit the billions of $, MS is the one having trouble keeping up with Apple. Innovation has little to do with how much money you can throw at a problem. If it did, all MS products would be peerless. Something to do with the corporate culture may be?

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this marked flamebait? It looks like Solar Limb is using his mod-points inappropriately.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Selecter]

A valid point made forcefully is not automatically flamebait. Misuse of mod points says I. I get mod points a lot too.

meta mod +1, calling a spade a spade.

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[aristotle-dude]

Are you sure the recent Army cluster announcement and rumors of a mass migration of government systems to macs does not have something to do with?

Re:iTMS is marketed well

[Solar Limb]

I think what he is saying is that Apple is already sucessful (profitable) in its PC business. The fact that they are also sucessful 9profitable) in another area does not detract from their other business. If you think that a company can only be sucessful in one area than YOU are the fool.

They aren't LOSING money on the PC side, but they ARE losing marketshare and units-shipped ground to other major PC vendors. More and more PCs are being shipped, and a decreasing percentage of them are Macs. This fact is everywhere, and you know it.

And yet the company continues to make major educational sales and grow in other markets like servers.

What? Apple has won a few high-profile edu deals, and that's about it. And Apple is NOT making inroads into the server market, except in a few very small, very niche instances. I'm a director for an enterprise server monitoring product suite, and out of 6000+ customers ranging from Fortune 50 companies to smaller shops, NOT ONE has asked my product management team for OSX support. Not a single one. Stop with the BS generalizations.

And yet many more have started offering support for Apple products.

Really? Care to name a few big software houses who have entered the Mac market with no previous history of Mac support? Because I can sure name a few large software vendors who have dropped Mac title support.

You're wrong. Got proof? Until you do, I'll cite the afterthought nature of Gmail, the incompatibility of Safari with major online banking sites, and general usage quirkiness that I experience with Safari when browsing the web that simply doens't exist when I use IE (or even Firefox .9).

No, the fact that you bring up these rainy day scenarios shows that you are kidding yourself.

It's idiots like you who make me ashamed to be a Mac user. Hint: not everything is sunny in Cupertino with Apple's PC business. Things are holding up for now, but that's due in large part to the wild success of the iPod and ITMS. The G5 shipments aren't what Apple needs them to be, and sales of consumer Macs are sagging. I continue to use a PowerBook because I have all the software I need on OSX for portable purposes, but I also have an Operton 150 Boxx workstation running XP Pro as my desktop. I'm the kind of Mac user you hate: one who understands Apple has a very cool product, but is also aware that platform usage isn't a holy war and that we live in a Windows/x86 world.

Them's the facts. Deal.

Apple's computers uses comodity parts which benefits them and yet they integrate the hardware in such a way that it makes it superior to most PC competition. The G5 is a PRIME example of this. This allows Apple teo get the best advantagesa of commoditized hardware as well as that of non-commoditized hardware.

More complete BS. I just sold my dual G5 2x2 with 20" Cinema Display to a friend in Detroit who runs a production house, so I'm very familiar with the G5 machine. NOTHING about it makes it superior to a similar high-end PC, save, perhaps, its instant wake functionality and awesome OS. On the downside, software and hardware selection is limited, stuff tends to be more expensive, and if you have issues with the machine (mine needed to have the Radeon 9800 Pro card replaced, then, a month later, the power supply), you best hit it off with Applecare, or you're SOL.

You seem to have a habit of making sweeping generalizations with no evidence. If you're going to claim the G5 is a superior machine, then BACK IT UP.

because they feel that there isn't roomo to innovate when yoour rate of return is so insignificant.

Well, tough shit for Apple, because I've got news for them: that's where the market is now. For every guy like me out there who drops $3500+ on a new uber-machine, there's several hundred who won't spend more than $699. And guess who offers that deal? Just about every PC vendor out there. Guess who doesn't? Apple.

In other news

[azmatsci]

The RIAA still doesn't understand why singles are selling so well, so sues 428 more people.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

bunch of pricks

Re:In other news

[Metteyya]

Hey, we charge for a single [song] almost the same cash as iTunes! - RIAA

Re:In other news

[MoonBuggy]

Something I genuinely heard on the UK BBC evening news a few weeks back (I don't remember exactly, but this is the idea):

"iTunes, which allows people to legally purchase music online and put it onto CDs or the iPod, has been welcomed by many artists. Some, however, are reluctant to make single tracks available since they fear it will hurt album sales"

WTF???!?!?!?11
It would appear that whoever these artists are they just admitted that their albums aren't good enough to buy as a whole and they are just carried by one or two songs. They don't want people to buy these single songs because then they wouldn't pay for the filler. That's their best argument against legal downloads?
Disclaimer: I do realise there are legitimate reasons not to put music in the ITMS, but I'd think that whoever issued that as a statement probably doesn't really get the idea of letting the consumer decide...

Re:In other news

[cens0r]

It would appear that whoever these artists are they just admitted that their albums aren't good enough to buy as a whole and they are just carried by one or two songs. They don't want people to buy these single songs because then they wouldn't pay for the filler. That's their best argument against legal downloads?

That's not necessairly the case. Perhaps the artist is reluctant to make single tracks available because he/she views the album of one coherent work of art and doesn't think it should be broken up. There are alot of albums out there that loose something if you don't consider them as a whole. Sure some artists might be worried because they have albums of filler, however those artists will just start producing 3 or 4 singles a year instead of 1 album a year and will probably make just as much profit. iTunes might hurt someone like Wilco. Yankee, Hotel, Foxtrot is on coherent work of art, and really should be taken as such. If people just buy one or two tracks, the band may be forced to stop putting out such work.

Re:In other news

[trentblase]

he/she views the album of one coherent work of art

This is a valid argument as long as they force radio stations to play the entire album instead of a single track.

The easy way (in a boneheaded twist) would be to just publish the album as a single track. It's already random access, after all.

Re:In other news

[Twirlip of the Mists]

It would appear that whoever these artists are they just admitted that their albums aren't good enough to buy as a whole and they are just carried by one or two songs.

I don't think that's necessarily what they're saying.

Let's say we're talking about popular music, music that gets radio play. Maybe two or three songs on an album do well on the radio. Now, does that necessarily mean the other songs on the album are bad? No, it just means they're not radio material. Maybe they're too long, or too quiet, or whatever.

When music is available a la carte, people can go out and buy just the track they heard on the radio. But in doing so, they might miss out on some other really good music.

This has happened to me many time. I've bought an album because I wanted this track or that one, and in the end some of the other tracks became my favorites.

(Of course, some albums just aren't that great. But I don't think that's universally true. For every album you can name that's got one hit song on it, somebody else can name one that's solid all the way through.)

iTunes gets around this by giving you nice, long, high-quality previews of every available track. So when I saw the Garden State trailer and I wanted to get the song used in it, I listened to 30-second slices of the other songs from the album and discovered that they were all pretty darned good. So I bought the whole album.

See? It works both ways.

Re:In other news

[Ansonmont]

Unfortunately somehow I really doubt that the number of albums that are great all the way through is equal to the number of albums with just a couple of good tracks. Albums that work all the way through seem more memorable to me somehow, so maybe it is just easier to remember them than all of those albums that have filler?

Anyway, a "good" versus "bad" track/album is subjective anyway.

Re:In other news

[h0mer]

What's Garden State? A movie about Jersey? :D

Re:In other news

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Yes. Yes, it is.

(Were you trying to bring the funny? Because I think you left it somewhere.)

Re:In other news

[cens0r]

This is a valid argument as long as they force radio stations to play the entire album instead of a single track.

There are two problems with this thinking. The first is that radio is really just a commercial for the album. I think of it as analagous to a movie trailer. They're both lower quality previews of what you can expect to get when you purchase the full product. No one expects to pay $1 to get the best scene from a movie though.

The second problem is that the kind of album that is one coherent piece of art, is unlikely to garner a lot of radio play, kind of making this a moot arguement.

I think it is also illegal to broadcast an entire album from a band non stop, at least in the US anyway.

The easy way (in a boneheaded twist) would be to just publish the album as a single track. It's already random access, after all.

I actually have an album that is like this, and I find it quite annoying (I split it up manually when I ripped it). However, I don't think the end user should be forced to listen to the whole album at one sitting. You're allowed to pause movies, watch a certain scene only, or again, read one chapter of the book, etc. In all those cases you're given the whole piece of art, and told to do with it what you wish. That is how I look at albums. And that's the reason I see why an artist might want you to have the whole thing and not just a song or two.

Re:In other news

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Oh, I don't know. In my experience, if I like any of the music on a given album, I probably will enjoy most of it.

Good examples: Mogwai's "Young Team" which I'm listening to right now. The Shins' "Chutes Too Narrow." The Postal Service's "Give Up." Lo-Fi Allstars' "How to Operate With a Blown Mind." Pretty much anything Garbage has recorded. Groove Armada. Morcheeba. Chicane's first two albums. Crystal Method's "Vegas." Massive Attack's "Mezzanine."

These are all albums I bought based on my having heard and liked one or two tracks. And they're all albums I can listen to all the way through over and over and over.

Re:In other news

[trentblase]

radio is really just a commercial for the album

There are two problems with this thinking. The first is that radio stations pay artists to play songs, whereas movie studios pay TV networks to play trailers.

The second problem is that a song heard on the radio may not be lower quality than a lossily compressed MP3 track.

Re:In other news

[cosmo7]

The first is that radio stations pay artists to play songs,

Nope. Commercial radio stations don't pay a cent for what they play. If the labels had their way, they'd still be able to pay the stations to play their songs, like in the payola days.

Re:In other news

[geoffspear]

You should really tell BMI and ASCAP about that, since if you're right, their auditors are really going to start to wonder where all that money's coming from that they claim they're getting for licensing broadcasting rights.

Or maybe you just have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about. Yeah, that seems more likely.

Re:In other news

[h0mer]

I actually legitimately wanted a link or more information!

Re:In other news

[cosmo7]

Nope. ASCAP collects a pittance for songwriters, not the artists. In the US radio stations are exempt from paying labels to play material.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a comedy/drama written and directed by Zach Braff (Scrubs). It's was official selection for quite a few festivals and I believe won top honors at Maui film festival just this week (might be wrong about that). It also features slashdot favorite Natalie Portman. The movie is about a guy (Zach Braff) who returns to Jersey for his moms funeral and decides to go off his antidepressants. The trailer doesn't give much away on the story, but it looks fucking awesome. It's released at the end of July.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/ga rd en_state/

Re:In other news

[Twirlip of the Mists]

There's only one place to go for information about upcoming movies, and unless you've been living in a cave on Mars, you already know what it is: http://apple.com/trailers.

Re:In other news

[Dixie_Flatline]

It's when this bites you in the ass that it's annoying. I bought the Crash Test Dummies album "I don't care that you don't mind", and I hated it, by and large. The single that they released from it, 'The day we never met' is fantastic, but all the rest of it is unlistenable to me.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of times what will happen with an album from a new artist is that the singles you hear on the radio are written by some staff lyricist and composer and performed by the artist, while the rest of the tracks are truly representitive or the artist's work. This can mean that you'll buy an album and most of it won't sound anything like the single you liked, or worse, you'll miss an album you would have liked because the singles sound like crap. Go look on your liner notes for some debut albums you have. You may be suprised how many have a different songwriter for the singles.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if an artist is going to be a bitch about how I can and can't listen to his song, and be so obsessed with the 'artistic' end of the music, ill just download the rest of the album off of kazaa, im sure he wont mind since it's better for me to hear it 'in context.'

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise, Radiohead and "Creep". Crappy band, one good song. Rest of the album wasn't worth a second listen.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Remeber, when they say some as in "Some, however, are reluctant..." they really don't mean "some" artists they mean "some" of the copyright holders of the works that were signed away by artists.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

An album published as a single track is essentially a cassette tape. We've evolved past that...

Re:In other news

[Lost Engineer]

Wow that's harsh. Don't judge Radiohead by Creep, or that album for that matter. I think most of their fans think OK computer is the best... you should give it a listen. It's hardly like that one song tho

Re:In other news

[rixstep]

No shit.

These dumbass record companies could have taken the entire download market. Hell, they could have sub-contracted to get people to build iPods for them. They could have seen the writing on the wall and made it in time for the cultural and technological change.

But no. Jobs and company besiege them for years, telling them their own feeble misled efforts are to no avail, and they don't listen.

The record companies have really missed the boat. Independent companies are doing what they should be doing. But record execs have never been our music heroes, so I guess few people will shed even a crocodile tear.

Hats off to Jobs for doing it again. At least someone out there has their head screwed on straight.

Re:In other news

[cens0r]

The artist has no control over how you listen to his song. But it is HIS art. If he doesn't want you to be able to own just a piece of it, that is his right. He can't force you to listen to it as a whole work, but he should be able to say you can't buy just a piece of it. Do you expect to be able to buy just the battle of helm's deep from LOTR? Do you want to buy just chapter 2 from the latest novel? You may at some point just want to watch that scene, or read that chapter, but the artist was justified in making sure you have the whole work. A song from an album is no different.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... if only I had some mod points right now...

Weren't you around a few months ago when the RIAA was complaining about internet radio, and they were trying to charge less per song per x-1000 listeners than they charge real radio stations, but the internet radio firms still said they'd be driven out of business?

Guess not. You just like to make sh!t up on the spot, don't you?

I'd be interested to see the Windows/Mac breakdown

[byolinux]

A lot of people on here were doubting that the UK has much of a Macintosh userbase.

Of the people I know who've used iTMS AND BOUGHT SOMETHING, about half are Mac users and half aren't.

I know a lot more Windows users who've installed it though.

yeah....

[the_2nd_coming]

must be because no one cares about the "evil" DRM.

Re:yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be because iTMS has no effective DRM.

DVD Jon on VLC and Apple's iTunes singles
Jon "DVD Jon" Johansen writes, in reference to VLC's support for iTunes's M4P DRM format:

In case you didn't know, I'm a VideoLAN developer. I reverse engineered FairPlay and wrote VLC's FairPlay support. It's been available in VideoLAN CVS since January, but the first release to include FairPlay support is VLC 0.7.1 (released March 2.).

Just wanted to let you know that once you have generated the user key file(s), you can copy them to as many computers you want and play your M4P files there using VLC.

only 450,000??

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded that in the first week of my allofmp3.com subscription.

Computer Revolution Ignited?

[VinceWuzHere]

quote "Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II"

Harumph. At least if I don't own an iPod I am still a part of this Personal Computer Revolution with an old Apple //c sitting on my shelf...

Re:Computer Revolution Ignited?

[Apocalypse111]

I'm writing this ON an Apple //c you insensitve clod!

Re:Computer Revolution Ignited?

[zulux]

WELL I'M WRITING THIS ON A CO
CO TRS-80 YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!
AT LEAST YOU HAVE LOWER-CASE!!

OK?

OK?

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Re:Computer Revolution Ignited?

[Anonymous Coward]

I submit my comments to Slashdot on punch cards and queue up to view the posting. It's better than last year - I had to use mark-sense cards.

Re:Computer Revolution Ignited?

[Anonymous Coward]

I submit my comments to Slashdot on punch

I have to set a bunch of octal switches and feed paper-tape submit my comments and view the output on an ASR-33 teletype running at 110 baud, you insensitive clod!

Re:Computer Revolution Ignited?

[GreenKiwi]

quote "Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II"

Apple ignites it... M$, as ever, will finish it off.

Re:Computer Revolution Ignited?

[jeremyp]

I have to get my soldering iron out and hard wire my comments.

The Hidden Data...

[Anonymous Coward]

what they don't tell you is that 74% of those downloads were made by Sporty Spice. She d/l'ed thousands of copies of "tell me what you want, what you really, really want" in the hopes of reclaiming some of her former "glory". It's shameful for all Europeans.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[Aardpig]

what they don't tell you is that 74% of those downloads were made by Sporty Spice. She d/l'ed thousands of copies of "tell me what you want, what you really, really want" in the hopes of reclaiming some of her former "glory". It's shameful for all Europeans.

Erm, that would be the same Melanie Chisholm who's debut solo album Northern Star went multi-platinum?

Re:The Hidden Data...

[theparanoidcynic]

You have just dragged a song out of my memory that I thought I had ordered deleted and banished years ago. I hate you and I hope you die.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[Aardpig]

Erm, that would be the same Melanie Chisholm who's debut solo album Northern Star went multi-platinum?

...and that would be whose, and more coffee for me. Arse.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

You think that's bad? I * still like* the Spice Girls! I own their album and *still* listen to it! And lest you think I have a shred of dignity left, *I DROVE THREE HOURS TO SEE THEM LIVE*!

Whew. Thank god for anonymous posting.

I did check that box before submitting, didn...

Re:The Hidden Data...

[IANAAC]

... who's debut solo album Northern Star went multi-platinum?

That's actually not as big a feat these days as you would try to have everyone believe. It often takes that amount of sales just to recoup the marketing costs.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[Seth Finklestein]

FUD. Mel C's album only cost 200,000 to produce. At 10 quid per disc, it took only 20,000 copies to break even. Assuming that the BRIAA takes 9 quid per disc sold, and -L- 1 goes to Ms. C., only 200,000 copies would cause the record to break even.

FUD, FUD, and more FUD. I'm boycotting.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[Anonymous Coward]

Goddammit, its burning a hole in my brain.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[trentblase]

Seriously, we need a new benchmark. I propose going Astatine (the rarest element in the Earth's crust). Everyone in the world has to buy your album. Twice.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nerd alert!

Re:The Hidden Data...

[davidmandle]

You DO realize you just admited that on slashdot. Everything said can be held against you in the court of slashdot.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Even worse... it's all 100% true. Take out all the ballads and there's some fun pop in there.

God... Manson's gonna see this and revoke my fan club membership.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[Bombcar]

I guess the Beatles would have that one down.

After all, everything just means I have to buy the White Album again, right?

Re:The Hidden Data...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Tristania banging in my ears right now, so I'm immune, I can't get any other song stuck in my head

Re:The Hidden Data...

[The-Bus]

Surely you mean... Hanson?

Re:The Hidden Data...

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG STFU there is nothing wrong with "Two Become One" if I read another post about their ballads from you I will call my mum and tell her how you hurt my feelings.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[el cisne]

"Manson's gonna see this and revoke my fan club membership. "

Marilyn, Shirley, or Charlie ???

Re:The Hidden Data...

[chegosaurus]

I have both Spice Girls albums *on vinyl*! (How cool am I?) I love them both (especially Spiceworld), I like Spiceworld the Movie (which I went to see twice) and I AM NOT ASHAMED! I just regret never seeing them live.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[Aardpig]

LOL, I get modded Flamebait for correcting my own typo. Good to see that /. still has a healthy contingent of fucktard moderators.

Re:The Hidden Data...

[valkraider]

And it never hurts to have fun pop - with good eye candy... But along that vein, I actually own ALL the Spice Girls albums, AND the movie "Spice World" which I think is quite funny.

Stick that in your Slash pipe and smoke it...

Great in comparison to others, but ...

[burgburgburg]

not yet up to the 2.5 million a week from the US. Of course, this is the first week and demand ramps up as people sign up and get the tech down pat.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Sukh]

Uhm... I'm not sure how likely it is that the UK, France and Germany will reach that figure until the actual Euro-wide launch has taken place. There are considerbly less people in the UK, France and Germany than there are in the US. Without doing any calculations, per capita I would say 800,000 seems about right - maybe a bit under.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[fyonn]

not yet up to the 2.5 million a week from the US

to be fair america has a few more residents than the UK. we're generally at about 60 million people. america is just over 290 million.

so basically our population is nearly 5 times less, and we bought only 3 times less songs. looks like we've got you beat per head :)

dave

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[TrueBuckeye]

If anyone really cares, this is how it breaks down:

Population of Germany, France and UK: 203,119,530
Population of US: 293,027,571

Which gives us
3.94 downloads per 1000 people for Europe
8.53 downloads per 1000 people for the US

This assumes 800,000 downloads for Gr, Fr, and UK compared to 2.5 mil for the US.

Populations are the 2004 Estimates from The CIA World Factbook

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[galo]

People in Europe are not so willing on giving up on some of their rights just to get the latest craptastic single from Britney/J. Lo/whatever.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, iTunes US sold 2.5 million in the first week to a population of 290 million; that's about 8.6 to every thousand.

iTunes UK sold 450,000 in the first week to 60 million; that's 7.5 to every thousand.

Looks like the British bought slightly fewer.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[texas neuron]

Your math is a little off.

The populations are about 60 million versus 290 million which is about 5 times less. UK bought 450,000 songs versus 2.5 million or about one sixth. UK is a little behind per capita but it has been only one week. We will need a few months to see how it settles out.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[NDPTAL85]

Of course they are. Separate the European idealogues from the European residents. There's less people in the three countries then there are in the US, but other than that they're buying at the same rate.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[galo]

The combined total of population in those 3 countries is about 200 million.. And the sales were 3 times less than in the US which has 290 million, all according to Wikipedia.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[b-baggins]

What's more important is the per capita ownership of personal computers in Europe. I'm guessing it's a fair bit lower than in the U.S. Also, what about internet service. If I remember right, France's is nationalized (as if this should surprise anyone), and is charged for with a flat monthly rate and per hour of use.

Also, what is per capita distribution of fast access internet in Europe? Again, I'm guessing it's a lot lower than the U.S.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[wrf3]

Interesting article on GDP comparisons between the US and Europe.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[cmoney]

Hmm, so then why are the record labels more willing to experiment with copy protected music discs (which are not CDs) in Europe than in US?

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is an interesting article though I'm not sure it's particularly informative.
What I want to know (though it's more of a question for the pointless leeches in Brussels) is that if the Irish are so well off then why do we subsidise them so heavily?
The air conditioning bit was quite amusing too. I realise that some parts of the US are warmer than the UK but I hate air conditioning and would never have it in my house; give me clean air and an opening window any day.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[stef49]

> Also, what about internet service. If I remember right, France's is nationalized (as if this should surprise anyone), and is charged for with a flat monthly rate and per hour of us

Yeah sure! But we are improving! we are not forced anymore to wear one of those flat hats called berets and to handle a 'baguette'

What I never understood in the US is how 300M idiots can share only 100000 phone numbers. You know, the famous 555-xxxxxx.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC reports 450,000 tracks out of 800,000 were sold in the UK.

Assume UK population = 60m

Means around 7.5 downloads per 1000 for the UK, not bad for the first week.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[clarkcox3]

What I never understood in the US is how 300M idiots can share only 100000 phone numbers.

100000 phone numbers? Umm, since when are American phone numbers 6 digits long?

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

We spent more money though. A track from iTunes UK costs half as much again as you would pay in America, so overall we spent about 30% more per head.

Talk about "Rip-off Britain"...

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[mbbac]

Yay consumerism!

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

What I never understood in the US is how 300M idiots can share only 100000 phone numbers. You know, the famous 555-xxxxxx.

Try 10,000 phone numbers. Our last digit group is only 4-digits long.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFC... or get a clue, I don't know which to flame you for so I guess I'll get you on both.

The parent poster says (mistakenly) that American phone numbers are 8 digits long (555-XXXXX).

And 6-digit phone numbers (theoretically) would give you 1,000,000 combinations, not the 100,000 as you mistakenly thought.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

100000 phone numbers? Umm, since when are American phone numbers 6 digits long?

This is the point. Since then is France Internet nationalized ? No longer the case... you can get 2 Mbps ADSL+phone+TV for 30 EUR/month.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[valmont]

You are incorrect, at least for France.

The phone company, yes is nationalized, it's France Telecom.

if you are a dial-up user, yes, you do get shafted, because you do pay per minute of communication there, on top of whichever ISP monthly fee. AOL's France division tried to absorb those monthly telco costs once, but failed as it was killing their profits and just wasn't a sustainable business model.

HOWEVER the BROADBAND internet access market is VERY diverse and competitive, and I've found the deals offered in france far better than deals offered in the US, at least, as far as DSL goes. You don't pay anything to the telco for your DSL service, you're not using-up "voice minutes". You just go thru one of the many broadband ISPs out there, they make a deal with your telco to send the DSL signal to your house, they give you a broadband "box", and off you go. While most U.S. ISPs give you 128Kbps for your DSL upstream on a basic $50-ish package, i've found 256K and 512K upstreams on various $40-$50ish French ISP packages to be fairly pervasive. Certain ISPs, such as free.fr, also build-in VoIP/multimedia capabilities in the "broadband boxes" they give their customers, so you get to somewhat stick it back to the telco. U.S. ISPs only give you a broadband modem.

So yeah, broadband internet in France is very nice.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to all the old folks that died of the heat last summer.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

>3.94 downloads per 1000 people for Europe
>8.53 downloads per 1000 people for the US
>
>This assumes 800,000 downloads for Gr, Fr, and UK compared to 2.5 mil for the US.

Well, if you look at the French iTunes MS you will find out that it is not very well localized (musicwise) and it does not carry some of the independents that are available in the US.

The product is worse -> less downloads. I would buy some music there as soon as it would offer Benjamin Biolay (ok, there is one (1) song, but that does not count) and Laurent Voulzy. Hmmm... Actually I would need another creditcard, my finnish Mastercard can not be used. Hopefully it all gets better next autumn.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Renaud]

What's more important is the per capita ownership of personal computers in Europe. I'm guessing it's a fair bit lower than in the U.S. Also, what about internet service. If I remember right, France's is nationalized (as if this should surprise anyone), and is charged for with a flat monthly rate and per hour of use. Also, what is per capita distribution of fast access internet in Europe? Again, I'm guessing it's a lot lower than the U.S.


Sorry to be rude to someone who might not deserve it normally for all I know but :
What a load of stereotyped uninformed bullshit about what it's like across the pond ! (as if this should surprise anyone...)

Per capita ownership of computers is indeed lower in western and southern europe than in the US, for various reasons. Some cultural, and one of them for instance in France, being that the country has had the infamous Minitel e-commerce terminal since the early 80's, and so Internet service suffered from a lack of incentive for the general public to switch until about 1997-98. ( the early days "oh it's just minitel, faster, on a computer" syndrome ).

From day one (1994), french ISPs have all been private entities, mom&pop shops in the early years, around 6-7 big players like everywhere today.
France Telecom's own service Wanadoo (discl: my current employer) was actually late on the market (1996 or so) but took the newbie market by storm much for the same reasons that AOL did in the US.

Now, a word on the state of broadband:

80% of the population is eligible for DSL on France Telecom's network (but still with a choice of ISPs: FT *has* to offer them non discriminatory terms for collecting IP traffic from their customers). This will be 90% by the end of 2005. So much for your guess...

This means that my parents' 5.000 inhabitants place out in the countryside has had DSL for 2 years now. That would have never happened in the first place with market forces alone, US-style. But there's still a layer of competition/free market as ISPs rent the national DSL network.

And of course, they can roll their own, and do so: local loop unbundling has been going very strong for 2 years in urban areas.

Today in Paris, I'm getting 5Mbps DSL with free unlimited national VoIP-to-any-phone service + 100 channels of TV/DSL for 29.99EUR/mo. This service (delivered by Free.fr, Wanadoo's main competitor) is or will be available in all cities with 50.000+ pop.

Epilogue:
I've been to the SF Bay Area in January, and yeah the CompUSA guy I talked with was very surprised too when I told him what kind of offers we had when shopping around for a router with a built-in DSL modem.

So as usual, Europe at first lags behind for several years, and we geeks look at the US with envy, but when it finally gets there, it's very often done the right way "regulatory-wise".

In the end, our broadband markets look in my opinion much better than the mess I read about on /. daily with big telcos trying to crush the competition of local DSL providers on their networks, and meanwhile the FCC rolls their thumbs because they should "let the market decide"... gimme a break...

Same deal as the California energy market, actually. When WE loose power, it's only because of strikes :)

(the above sentence is written half-jokingly, but it might spread another stereotype so I already regret it...hmmm ;) )

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[rozz]

3.94 downloads per 1000 people for Europe 8.53 downloads per 1000 people for the US

which demonstrates once again that US has 2 times more clueless DRM monkeys per 1000 people

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

However you are not taking account of the fact that less people, as a proportion of the population, use the Internet in Europe in comparison with the U.S.

Based on the CIA population data and information from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Approx 54.3% of the U.S. population used the Internet, compared to 42.3% in Fr/Ger/UK.

Taking this data in to account there were:

15.7 downloads per 1000 Internet Users in the US
9.3 downloads per 1000 Internet Users in Fr/Ger/Uk.

Although there's still a large gap it is significantly reduced taking into account the European level of Intenret usage.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[fyonn]

ahh, but we have to pay VAT on our itunes purchases don't we? whereas the americans don't have to pay sales tax on internet purchases (do I understand correctly?).

so some of the money from our itms purchases is building hospitals and schools (and funding terrible public transport and all the other crap things :)

dave

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I pay sales tax on iTMS purchases.

I live in Washington--the one that's further away from Bush.

Re:Great in comparison to others, but ...

[PastaLover]

I thought 555-xxxxxx was only for movies? Could somebody post the real format anyway?

Someone wanna lend me $300?

[RabidChicken]

This is good news for Apple (obviously) but what will be more interesting is how this affects iPod sales. We all know the iTunes Music store is a pimp for the iPod, so now that we have a controlled environment that we can monitor closely, I guess we can prove if Apple's music model really works the way they planned.

Re:Someone wanna lend me $300?

[Hieronymus Howard]

iPod sales have been high here in the UK even before the iTunes store was launched. I've been seeing loads of white-headphone wearers around London for months now.

Re:Someone wanna lend me $300?

[ackthpt]

This is good news for Apple (obviously) but what will be more interesting is how this affects iPod sales. We all know the iTunes Music store is a pimp for the iPod, so now that we have a controlled environment that we can monitor closely, I guess we can prove if Apple's music model really works the way they planned.

I like sitting on the sidelines on this one. I'm not about to buy an iPOD or other personal digital music player, mostly because I like to go around with headphones on my head, but the pricing is probably as good a reason as any. Apple's making money and that should be a good thing for Apple fans, better than watching them hemorrage capital while clinging to a minority personal computer market. How would you feel about another company coming in and setting up shop, underwritten by wildly profitable other divisions, and screwing the market up with crappy products and service, while crowding anything halfway decent into oblivion by bundling and undercutting prices?

Re:Someone wanna lend me $300?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Apple made a small proffit on the iTMS last year. It wasn't expected this early in the beginning, but it did.

When it was just Mac users, it was intended to be a nonmoney making activity -- just a service for those that bought their products. Now that its for ANY computer, its wide enough that it can potentially make some money.

So, how exactly is apple crowding out anything halfway decent into oblivion by undercutting prices? Their software by no means is installed on even 1% of all computers by default (though it will be on a number soon -- other companies like HP are *PAYING* to have the software preinstalled).

Most of the other companies out there have some sort of corporate backing as well. And companies like Napster were actually involved in the music distribution biz a lot longer than Apple (even if it was illegal distribution).

So I'm not sure what your complain it other than you being a typical slashdotter that has to question everything.

Just get a damn iPod and you will be happy. Even if the iTMS stopped selling music tommorow, you'd have one of the best devices to listen to this stuff on.

Re:Someone wanna lend me $300?

[h4rm0ny]

We all know the iTunes Music store is a pimp for the iPod

Sound like this? :)

Re:Someone wanna lend me $300?

[ackthpt]

Most of the other companies out there have some sort of corporate backing as well. And companies like Napster were actually involved in the music distribution biz a lot longer than Apple (even if it was illegal distribution).

Napster was in and out of court for quite a while, then shut down while changing hands and becoming a different style of business (a front for a music company.) It's amazing anyone still remembers them.

So I'm not sure what your complain it other than you being a typical slashdotter that has to question everything.

I'm not sure what I'm complaining about, either. I didn't actually think I was complaining. I was alluding to Microsoft and their efforts to *compete in the same market.

* Compete, from the Microsoft dictionary: To give away products (often shoddy) others sell and support to make a living, thus driving other worthy products out of the market.

Re:Someone wanna lend me $300?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft FORCED software on the desktops and used it to create their monopoly.

Apple on the otherhand made it such that if you want it, you must download it.

The same as if you wanted to download any of the other services.

Musicmatch came as a default on the computer I am typing on now. It was removed immediately.

Past that, Apple isn't giving anything away except a browser than can play music. I know a dozen other music browsers that can do this. I know half a dozen others that allow you to purchase music at the same time. All of these allow for differening styles of purchases. I don't like the streaming purchases...I want to own my files and have them nonexpiring. Thats what Apple gives me.

They make the better service, and as such people like me flock to their service.

If Microsoft competed with GREAT products, none of us would complain. I use M$ Office and Project. These I would never complain about. Anything else is practically shit. They need no monopoly to have people use the two excepted packages -- they stand on their own.

Re:Someone wanna lend me $300?

[Silverhammer]

Blockquoth the parent:

Sound like this? :)

I'll see you and raise you...

Re:Someone wanna lend me $300?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like this.

Re:Someone wanna lend me $300?

[Lost Engineer]

Musicmatch came as a default on the computer I am typing on now. It was removed immediately.

What is it with musicmatch? Seems like every craptacular oem i buy from likes to bundle it. Even ta-da Apple (with my original 5gb iPod). Don't they realize it sucks?

A Small, Nimble Adversary

[ackthpt]

So while inertia-bound Microsofattempts to shift itself toward its many stated directional goals and moribund music industry giants try to pedal their own wares, puny Apple Computer, with a less than perfect portfolio continues to run rings around these beasts. I'm not exactly a fan of Apple, and find it quite odd that they have branched into music distribution, but I do love these results. Apple is establishing itself well and by the time the competition sorts out its own problems iTunes will be ubiquitous.

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[mveloso]

It's funny, but Apple is getting into the consumer electronics business at a much deeper level than, say, Dell or Gateway.

When Dell or Gateway say "we're in the consumer electronics business," what they mean is "we sell consumer electronics." They compete against Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. That's a hard business to be in.

When Microsoft says "we're in the consumer electronics business," what they mean is "we make the software that allows someone else to make consumer electronic devices, and take a cut." Nobody likes this because nobody wants to pay someone else for their IP - and nobody wants to fund a competitor, either (ie: Microsoft).

When Apple says "we're in the consumer electronics business," they actually design, build, and sell products that are end-user targeted. They're like Panasonic, Pioneer, or Sony, in that they actually create and sell products. Except that the manufacturers don't have their own stores, but whatever.

What Apple's done is taken control of personal music distribution. What that means is they're an end-to-end solution provider of music to the individual. Buy music from iTMS, play music on your machine with iTMS, play music on your stereo with Airport Express, and bring your music with you with the iPod. Now with the BMW thing, you integrate your iPod with your car (at a minimal level).

Likely the next iPod will be an Airport Express-enabled, so you can wirelessly stream music from your iPod to your stereo. Then there are even more gadgets and doodads that extend the music "ecosystem," to use a somewhat abused word.

It'll be an interesting to see what's coming up...those guys are full of surprises, which is what invention (and innovation) is all about.

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[the_rev_matt]

Sony has several retail stores around the world.

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[singularity]

Sony open for retail business

Seems people like Sony and others are following Apple's lead and opening their own retail stores.

I cannot blame them, look at the success of NikeTown and the Apple retail stores. A lot of smaller home theater companies (Cambridge Soundworks, and others) already do that as well.

Of course, one can look at the Gateway retail stores as an example of a failure of this market.

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[ykardia]

What's even more funny is that Sony, who have the music and build consumer electronics, and are consequently in a much better position are *not* providing the end-to-end solution that Apple is (or at least are nowhere as successful as Apple is).

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[Anonymous Coward]

We actually have a Sony store here in SanFrancisco, every year after MacWorld, I take the short walk over there to kill some time.

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[gravygraphics]

Please be aware that a BMW is no longer classified as an "automobile." It is now an "iPod accessory." Belkin is going to have a tough time competing with BMW's marketing budget.

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony has had retail stores long before Apple did.

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[ezthrust]

This note will be lost in the shuffle as it has been seven hours since the original post, but what the hell...

I am just waiting for the day (i predict between 5 and ten years from now) that the iPod is cell or satelite or wifi or something enabled and you can buy tracks on the fly.

The word "shweet" comes to mind.

Oh, and since I haven't seen it yet, Where is my CANADIAN iTunesMS?!?!?

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[monsted]

Bang and Olufsen has done that for many years now.

Re:A Small, Nimble Adversary

[Phroggy]

Likely the next iPod will be an Airport Express-enabled, so you can wirelessly stream music from your iPod to your stereo.

As kick-ass as that would be, I'm afraid it won't be happening soon. Someone somewhere pointed out that running a WiFi card would seriously drain batteries, so with the current design it could only last for a couple hours without needing to recharge - unless you kept the iPod plugged in. Except, guess what? You usually charge the battery with a FireWire cable, which connects to your computer... which can play music via AirPort Express from iTunes. Until there's a major breakthrough in battery technology, wireless connectivity in the iPod just isn't practical.

This may be a "bad thing"

[sdo1]

Lack of competition is not necessarily a good thing. I'm glad that the model of physical-medialess music is taking off, but I'm concerned about how much power Apple/iTunes may end up having in the future if they absolutely dominate the market. Will it be any better than the record industry now? (and don't kid yourself, there may be several "major" labels, but through the RIAA they act as one).

Look at a correlary in the "real world". What if the only place to get music was at your local Best Buy and that just about every other outlet sold orders of magnitude less.

Let's just be careful what we wish for...

-S

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[jkabbe]

Even if all the other stores go out of business Apple will still have competition: file sharing networks.

Jobs seemed to be the first major player in the field to understand that you need to offer a competitive alternative to get people to use a store instead of Kazaa. I doubt that view will change anytime soon.

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[Anonymous Coward]

there are competitions. there are other music distributors, both online and offline, in europe. apple is succeeding because it's providing something consumers want.

if consumers, in the future, decide that apple doesn't provide what they want, apple will fail and better competitors will prosper.

we should start worrying if apple starts to leverage their dominance in iTMS to somehow restrict consumer choice in music so that only place you can buy music is via apple. (like M$ with OS.)

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[eSims]

What you ar leaving out is the balance brought in by P2P sharing. While illegal, were it not for P2P (Napster, then Kazaa, Gnutella, etc) iTunes would not have 99c songs...

Though iTunes is the dominant factor in legal music downloads, the sharing aspect will always keep a bit of balance to the system.

That said, I am glad to see someone prove that this is a viable business as it lends credence to the statement "Give me a legal alternative" that many P2Pers have made.

My $.02 inflation adjusted... take it for what it's worth.

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[lyonsden]

What if the only place to get music was at your local Best Buy and that just about every other outlet sold orders of magnitude less.

You mean kind of like Wal-Mart in the U.S? They capture 10% of all cd sales and have the clout to demand a sanatized version of the lyrics, song titles and cover art?

iTunes often caries both versions a song and even shows 'racy' versions of videos should you choose to watch them. Image that - choice. What will they think of next?

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[mveloso]

Dude, look how far the computer industry came when competition dried up. With the advent of Windows, Office, and the x86/PC architecture, computers became standardized enough that it was adopted by hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

Is that a bad thing?

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[JudgeFurious]

You need not be concerned. As you point out the model is taking off and once it's "airborne" then the competition will arrive. It's already forming and it's only a matter of time before someone else manages to put something together along these lines that does equally well if not better.

I love iTunes and I'm one of those Apple zealots that get on so many peoples nerves but the kind of control that Apple will have over the music industry will not approach the level that the labels have enjoyed in the past.

Not unless they start signing artists and begin cutting off CD's completely creating an iTunes or nothing proposition for the consumer. By controling it from the moment it leaves the artists hands to the moment it goes in your ears they could become a problem. I doubt Apple even wants to get that deep into it though.

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, if it is standardized on the "wrong thing". Imagine what the world is like if the world is standardized on RTF instead of DOC, or HTML instead of MS-HTML, Java instead of MS-Java. How about all the nastiness due to Windows' crappy security models and "technologies?" We have problems just because people keep using them instead of better alternatives because they are "standard."

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I assume you've seen Steve Jobs give his iTunes pitch. He's done it several times now at various events.

It basically goes like this:

People want to get their music one track at a time off the Internet. We know this because people are doing it like crazy, using these various underground services.

We want to give people what they want. But just giving them music-over-the-Internet isn't enough. Subscription services suck, too-restrictive licensing sucks, et cetera, et cetera.

Here's why illegal downloading is cool: (At this point he lists five or six key things. It's free, it's convenient, whatever.) But here's why illegal downloading sucks: (No art, bad encoding, hard to find stuff, and it's also stealing.)

Then he proceeds to explain how iTunes addresses those points, one by one. iTunes isn't free, but it's cheap. On the other hand, it's way easier to find things, the quality is much better, you get art with your tracks, and it's "good karma."

He actually builds the business case for iTunes from scratch, right there in front of you. It's a really cool presentation.

Whether you're an Apple fan or not, whether you're an iTunes fan or not, you have to admire Steve Jobs' ability to give shareholders, investors, partners, and end-users a well-thought-out, persuasive presentation.

All those dumbasses who think PowerPoint is the second coming could learn a lot from him. :-)

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[midifarm]

I think the competition IS places like Best Buy. I think the iTMS is a viable alternative to the brick and mortar locations and is succeeding, by forcing the music industry to adopt it's old model of releasing singles. Let's face it, most bands don't deserve to record an album and we, the consumers, don't deserve to be forced to buy an album filled with trash and the one or two songs that we do like. Cheers to Apple.

Peace

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[dasmegabyte]

Actually, the iTMS' trick is compete with free downloads through file sharing as well as traditional CD sales.

They're doing so by offering a huge catalog with instant, reliable avaialability at (moderately) high quality for a "pretty fair" price. I don't bother with the hassles (legal and logistic) of file sharing any more. I still "borrow" CDs to add to my library, but for my pick and choose singles downloads, I'll look to Apple.

Re:This may be a "bad thing"

[MaestroRC]

All those dumbasses who think PowerPoint is the second coming could learn a lot from him. :-)

Powerpoint is the second coming... Jobs uses Keynote =).

AOL & iTunes

[Celt]

AOL UK and Apple have a deal to promote to DSL customers throuhg Keyword: itunes, where customers can download itunes :-)

Re:AOL & iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

america online united kingdom?

Re:AOL & iTunes

[Celt]

yes, but its just called AOL UK, you'll never hear the words America On-Line UK

Re:AOL & iTunes

[Gilmoure]

UKOL? Would they use a small Hawaiian guitar for their logo?

Re:AOL & iTunes

[Bullet-Dodger]

There's AOL Canada too. Branding knows no logic.

Re:AOL & iTunes

[aristotle-dude]

IIRC, AOL started out as Apple On Line.

Canada ?

[Aliencow]

Anybody knows if there was any announcement of iTunes coming to Canada eventually?

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Fuck the Canadians right in the ear. They do nothing for the worldwide economy anyway. Whole place should be a parking lot for America's malls.

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's online already. In Canada it's called iKazaa.

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beat it, puss-nuts. It's called The War of 1812. Look it up, eh? Ya friggin illiterate asshat.

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. Canadians can just chow cock for all I care. My neighbor is a Canadian and he pumps the neighbor's cat.

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canadians bag their milk, dickmouth. BAG THEIR MILK.

Like I say: parking lot. The sooner the better.

Re:Canada ?

[jman251]

I think there is a certain math question that has to be answered first....

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anything worth anything come to Canada?

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

i seriously doubt steve jobs considers canada a priority market. LOL. "hey steve, what about the inbreeders in canada? when does that hot hot market get itunes?"

canada. right! sheesh.

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody knows if there was any announcement of iTunes coming to Canada eventually?

Hmm, it's strange that they would sell it in the first 50 states but not the 51st. That should really be corrected!

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it won't be coming to Canada. Jobs specifically announced that countries that respect consumer fair use rights and that have a government that agrees the copyright system needs a major overhaul will be forbidden the privelage of using iTunes within their borders.

Re:Canada ?

[tbone1]

Won't the Canadians just buy in the US when they're on their mandatory Florida vacations?

Re:Canada ?

[Solar Limb]

Jobs has repeatedly said that Canada's liberal IP policies with respect to software distribution and protection prevent it from becoming an a-list geography. I wouldn't hold your breath if I were you.

Re:Canada ?

[Solar Limb]

Funny, albeit pointless, stuff. Mod up mods!

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I have heard, iTunes Canada will be available before the end of this year. No assurances, of course, but it seems fairly likely. Interesting side note on iTunes: there are reports that the Canadian recording industry has been very difficult in getting this deal done with Apple, and that Apple's delays in getting iTunes out has been mostly because of the rigidity of the Canadian record labels. Friend who works in the record industry has told me that one label's executive who oversees domestic distribution originally refused to have the label participating in iTunes altogether if songs wern't sold as albums instead of singles. That gies you an idea as to how myopic Canadian music can truly be.

Re:Canada ?

[mcwop]

We're holding out to trade iTunes music files for cheap drugs.

Re:Canada ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon. An EMI executive was quoted a couple days ago saying that Apple wants to get to Canada soon. It's very much "on Job's radar" according to him.

Re:Canada ?

[Gilmoure]

Is Canada that big island northwest of Iceland?

Re:Canada ?

[Kristoph]

If you have access to a US address - which you can get through a mail forwarding services if you do not know anyone living there - you can switch your Canadian credit card to that US address.

This will allow you to buy stuff from iTunes US, while living in Canada.

It also works for many other vendors that do not want to deal with Canadian addresses.

Kristoph

Alla MP3

[poptones]

Given the remarkably thorough slashdotting suffered by allofmp3.com some weeks back after its mention both here and in that australian paper I have to think they must have shifted some healthy level of product this year.

But then again, I guess they don't count since they're not based in the US, feeding the RIAA corporate welfare lobbying machine. Or maybe they don't count here because they're not technically in euroupe, but rather in Russia which is, as we all know, actually part of Asia. Even 'tho theyre supposed to be part of the EU... or something.

Meh. More hype for the system. You can wrap it in as many colors as you like, Steven, I'm not helping you feed this monster any more.

Re:Alla MP3

[gl4ss]

Russia as part of eu? as likely seeming soon that canada would join united states of america..
part of Russia is indeed in 'Europe', not all of Europe is in European Union though.

allofmp3 is great(so I hear from people using it) though.. but the possibility of european union or american music companies admitting to them being legal is just about zero(at least they don't want to admit even if it would be true).

Re:Alla MP3

[Mononoke]

But then again, I guess they don't count since they're not based in the US, feeding the RIAA corporate welfare lobbying machine. Or maybe they don't count here because they're not technically in euroupe, but rather in Russia which is, as we all know, actually part of Asia. Even 'tho theyre supposed to be part of the EU... or something.

They don't count because they are not paying the musicians for the music they are selling.

When do they start selling your code without paying you for your work?

Re:Alla MP3

[Anonymous Coward]

Allofmp3 doesn't even pay the fucking musicians who wrote the music in the first place.

If you want music use P2P or some other service but stay the hell away from that parasitic company that feeds on the work of other people and doesn't pay them anything back.

Sortof like HK bootleggers.

Re:Alla MP3

[Anonymous Coward]

> They don't count because they are not paying the musicians for the music they are selling.

Russia has compulsory licensing and AllOfMP3 pays royalties to the collection agency.

Whether any of that money is ever paid to artists is a different matter, but AllOfMP3 does pay.

Re:Alla MP3

[MvD_Moscow]

Russia will never be part of the EU! Never! The cultural difference and the difference in geography is just too big.

Re:Alla MP3

[2nd Post!]

Did you read what you just wrote?

> They don't count because they are not paying the musicians for the music they are selling.

Russia has compulsory licensing and AllOfMP3 pays royalties to the collection agency.

Whether any of that money is ever paid to artists is a different matter, but AllOfMP3 does pay.

So... parent poster says it doesn't count because the musicians aren't being paid.

You reply off topic by saying AllOfMP3 pays royalties to a collection agency, but on the very topic of whether AoM pays musicians, you say that's a different matter. That is the very matter the parent poster is bringing up!

So the best you can say is, "AoM pays royalties to the collection agency, but I don't know if any of that money goes to the musicians. As such then it is vague and ambiguous if AoM counts."

Re:Alla MP3

[stcanard]

Russia has compulsory licensing and AllOfMP3 pays royalties to the collection agency.

And they've negotiated the relicensing necessary to be able to distribute those songs internationally?

That's a pretty impressive task. I would guess that Apple and Microsoft must be fighting over whoever pulled that one off, as both of them have been completely unable to manage the same task within a single continent, let alone for the whole world!

Re:Alla MP3

[Anonymous Coward]

> And they've negotiated the relicensing necessary to be able to distribute those songs internationally?

They don't have to since the Russian compulsory license does not restrict distribution to Russia.

Re:Alla MP3

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is not not paying the musicians for the music they are selling either.

They're paying those who legally have to be paid: the copyright holder.

AllOfMP3 is also paying those who legally have to be paid: the collection agency.

Re:Alla MP3

[stcanard]

They don't have to since the Russian compulsory license does not restrict distribution to Russia.

That covers the export restriction. They still have to take care of the import restrictions for the individual countries they are selling to.

Whether or not it is legal for them to sell the song is one thing. Whether or not it is legal for you to buy the song it another, and depends on what country you are in. Don't think Apple is restricting the purchase point just because they want to be difficult.

Sales and Profitability

[Dark Paladin]

Should be interesting to see how this works for Apple in their iPod sales. I was in recently to pick up my wife's iBook, and a gentleman from Europe was in there slightly distraught that he couldn't buy an iPod Mini as they were out of stock.

Apple makes money not from the iTunes store, but from iPod sales. That they've sold this many songs this quickly is good potential for future hardware sales.

Re:Sales and Profitability

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the link between ITMS sales and Apple computers is non-existent. iPods, now, are another story. But to try and argue that ITMS drives new Apple computer sales, well, that dog ain't hunting.

Re:Sales and Profitability

[selderrr]

I would not be so sure about that... I personally know a few PC peeps who have iTunes installed and absoluting raving about it to a degree that they admit theyr next purchase to be a Mac. In a year or so, when their current PC is outdated.

the iPods receive short term market share gain from th iTMS, but i think the other Apple hardware will benefit in a year or so.

I'll eat my hat if, over the next 2 years, Apple market share doesn't rise to 150% of what they have now.

Re:Sales and Profitability

[proj_2501]

yes, imagine how much cheaper it is for him not to have to pay VAT!

several of my mailing list musician friends came to the US from europe for a weekend jam session and a few of them took advantage of the weak dollar and no VAT to purchase multiple alesis ion synths at a few hundred less than they would cost in europe. i think there has even been an ask slashdot about this very topic.

Re:Sales and Profitability

[mveloso]

That's what Apple says, but be leery of claims like this. Sony and Nintendo said the same thing about their console hardware, just to scare others off of the market. In fact, they made money off their consoles, just not very much. MS then entered the market, and really lost money on the consoles. Successful FUD!

Companies say "loss leader" in an attempt to invalidate the business assumptions of competitors. If you think about it, it's unlikely that iTMS is losing money. It's more likely that they're not making much money.

That phrase is working, though. The "iTMS is not a money maker" is driving others in the industry crazy, because competitors think they need hardware/iPod equivalents. Plus it's being parroted by members of the general public (ie: right here).

Re:Sales and Profitability

[Solar Limb]

No way. I'll take that bet and spend the money now, because it's as good as in the bank. And me, hell, I'm a Mac user (at least for my laptop). ITMS sales are not driving Apple PC sales. iPods yes, but PCs, no.

Re:Sales and Profitability

[NeoSkandranon]

I love iTunes, ditched winamp for it when it first came out for windows.....howver I dont love it enough to ditch the REST of my PC software for a mac...

I don't quite get the connection..as if iTunes will be a better experience on a mac or something?

OH and being free helped ;p

Re:Sales and Profitability

[mrchaotica]

Yes, it is better on a Mac. It's integrated with the iPod which works better on a Mac (mounting as an HFS+ disk - even bootable), it's scriptable with Applescript, it's integrated with Airport Express, etc.

Of course, I wouldn't switch to a Mac because of iTunes; I would (and did!) switch for all the other good reasons (UNIX-based, more secure, pretty UI, etc).

Re:Sales and Profitability

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's just that

iTunes : WinAmp == Mac OS X : Windows

Re:Sales and Profitability

[NaugaHunter]

If you think about it, it's unlikely that iTMS is losing money.

If you really think about it, you'll realize you have no idea what the costs are for iTMS. Let's say they are still selling 100,000 songs a day. (I couldn't find anything more recent then a year ago with numbers.) Most average estimates peg them getting 10 cents a song, so that's $10,000 a day. That's their income.

Their daily costs will include server farms (at cost, but a loss from sales), system administrators (fewer then Windows/Linux, but not 0), internet bandwidth for streaming music AND videos, and an administration staff for obtaining new music, installing new music, handling complaints, accounting issues, developers of both Mac and Windows clients, ...

Now there is iTMS Europe. Multiply that by some factor between 1 and 3 {however much it takes to run the store in additional languages and tax/import accounting}, and keep in mind that for at least the past 6 months they had no money coming in to offset it.

It's most likely that iTMS varies wildly from a loss to a gain from month to month. Any corporate endeavor can easily be described as losing money when compared with an expected average return on investment, even if it happens to make more than $0 in the absolute over a short term.

Re:Sales and Profitability

[rjung2k]

I don't quite get the connection..as if iTunes will be a better experience on a mac or something?

No, it's the realization that your entire computing experience will be better with a Mac, not just the music stuff.

Re:Sales and Profitability

[TheRaven64]

Really? Other than my mother, I don't know of anyone who uses iTunes on Windows (and she only does because I installed it on her computer). Everyone else I've talked to is of the opinion that iTunes on the Mac is nice, iTunes on the PC really sucks. Maybe it's improved since I last tried it, but when I was still using Windows I had the same experience. It wasn't properly threaded (iTunes on the Mac runs around 10 threads and feels responsive. On Windows it seemed to only use two so doing something processor intensive would kill the UI). The UI wasn't back buffered, so it flickered horribly on redraws, and it skipped and/or crashed when I tried playing files from a remote Samba share. The only reason I kept using it was so I could re-encode all of my CDs as AAC before my PowerBook and iPod arrived.

Re:Sales and Profitability

[Lars T.]

VAT? Try: You still can not buy the iPod Mini in Europe.

Re:Sales and Profitability

[martinX]

Get them to try it again. The first iTunes on the PC was iffy - it worked OK but was generally unresponsive. The next version is much better. Still takes forever to launch though...

Why even bother when...

[Anonymous Coward]

there's allofmp3.com... MP3/ogg/MusePac/ d/l's for 100MB/$1
As legal as the US's presidential election.

iTunes for some...

[spoonani]

miniature American flags for others! If anything, the early success of the iTMS in selected european countries indicates a trend that global internet business models can work in selected markets. Yet the internet in its most basic sense is about bringing information (or data, in this case) to all. Rather than simply transplanting the store to countries with similar capitalstic structures, the true "revolution" will be marked by the universal ability to experience the global art of music. Apple has not forged a new beachead. yet.

Re:iTunes for some...

[2nd Post!]

Why do you believe music is a global art when poetry, literature, and even cinema isn't?

Or are all of these also global arts?

Re:iTunes for some...

[tbone1]

Why do you believe music is a global art when poetry, literature, and even cinema isn't?

Movies (at least a lot of American animation and action-type movies) are largely global. Television certainly is; wasn't "Mannix" shown in over 150 countries at one point? Anyway, poetry and literature don't always translate, even within their own language, but a John Lee Hooker boogie beat can be understood by anybody. Well, not Ivy Leaguers, of course, but anybody with a pulse.

Re:iTunes for some...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep... They just trying to make some money. I mean do the starving white, McDonalds eating trash, and all facsimiles thereof need a music store when they can barley read? -- If what you say were to come to fruition then iTMS would surly become more of a money loosing venture then the slight profit/break even venture they are now. Can one really make money in rural Ethiopia?

Re:iTunes for some...

[Anonymous Coward]

Movies are a global art. And I'm not just referring to the broad overseas distribution of American blockbusters, either.

The winner

[phalse phace]

And Apple also beat it's closest competitor OD2 (On Demand Distribution), getting 16 times as many downloads.

Guess it didn't really matter that Napster beat Apple to launch there.

I wonder if the RIAA's listening?

Re:The winner

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you got modded up for copying a link from the postblurb. Good game!

Re:The winner

[Mr. Spleen]

Hmm... Apple sells 16 times more music than OD2, and the iPod Mini holds 16 times more music than 256MB flash players.

Coincidence? I thi...eh, probably. I forget where I was going with that.

Re:The winner

[Phroggy]

I wonder if the RIAA's listening?

Yes, they're listening, and they're scared - the reason it's taking so long to bring iTMS to the rest of the world is, the record companies are scared of Apple getting a monopoly in online music distribution, which would give Apple a lot of power over them. They're comfortable with their own oligopoly; someone else having that much leverage frightens them.

itune and Apple problems

[SolidCore]

The Windows market is a huge challenge for Apple. The market is full of all-in-one jukebox software, which have already reached huge user bases. Also there is an over-supply of free, albeit illegal, MP3 music via the networks (Kazaa, Direct Connect, etc). I'd say that Apple's main target is the non-techie PC user group -- releasing a buggy software doesn't help Apple to achieve their goals.

France and Germany?

[codeonezero]

As an Apple acolyte I must say, that the UK is doing well to embrace iTMS Europe. France and Germany should follow UKs example.

Only through iTMS will both countries reach the musical zen that UK is about to reach! France and Germany dont despair you need but open iTunes and download more.

Oh here's the obligatory tag for those who missed it...

Re:France and Germany?

[codeonezero]

Grrr...that wasnt a flamebait...oh well

Re:France and Germany?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off, asshole.

iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[MacGoldstein]

A bit off topic, but it will come up anyways, so mod me however you wish:

I've used iTunes since its inception (on OS 9), and have bought around 30-40 songs since the release of iTMS US (and have also downloaded the countless weekly free tracks). The DRM, while not particularly inconvenient to me (I have a 20GB iPod) seems to be a great sticking point to others. I have never had the need to use my music on more than 3 computers simultaneously, and have never needed to burn a playlist so many times as to exceed the iTunes limit (and even then you can change the playlist and burn again)

That said, the steps necessary to convert my favorite fragging tracks to .ogg for use in UT2004 seemed unnecessarily complex (burn to cd, rip to wav, encode to ogg), and as such I am wondering if a DRM is really necessary. I haven't pirated music in over a year now, and indeed have no such music on my laptop (or iPod) currently: I am now more prone to buy music from iTMS.

I am proud of Apple's successes and hope they go far in the future, but DRM is a dangerous and narrow path, and I only hope that Steve Jobs doesn't take his penchant for control too far with this one. Until that time, the current implementation is sufficient for me, and with new technologies such as Airtunes connectivity and convergence are becoming more mainstream: the need for DRM-less files is becoming less.

However... Apple needs to open their format to other companies. I dont give a damn, Steve, if iPod comprises 50%, 75% or even 100% of the market, if another company wants to use your insanely great AAC Protected format, they should be able to. The fact that consumers cannot use other digital devices to play the product Apple is selling is a major sticking point with many, and the tools necessary to allow this are being intentionally broken with each successive iTunes release.

Yes, I'm a fervent Mac Evangelist, but while this works perfectly for me, getting a friend with another mp3 player to start using a Mac and/or the iTMS is going to be pretty hard if I have to explain to him that he has to break the user agreement to play the files by breaking the DRM.

The format needs to be opened, and it needs to happen soon.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

The format needs to be opened, and it needs to happen soon.

FairPlay has already been opened. Not by Apple's choice though.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

> the tools necessary to allow this are being intentionally broken with each successive iTunes release.

They didn't change FairPlay in the latest release (4.6). DeDRMS and hymn still work.

They did however add blocking of playback of DeDRM'ed files in iTunes. Other players obviously still play the files.

Anyway, this command gets you around the iTunes blocking:

find ~/Music -iname '*.m4a' -exec perl -pi -e 'BEGIN{$b=0}if(!$b){if(s/geID\x00\x00/DIeg\x00\x00 /){$b=1}}' {} ";"

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[gerardrj]

Why don't you just let iTunes play your fragging playlist in the background? Surely iTunes can't take much more CPU to play the music that UT2004 does?

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[I_Love_Pocky!]

Anyway, this command gets you around the iTunes blocking:

find ~/Music -iname '*.m4a' -exec perl -pi -e 'BEGIN{$b=0}if(!$b){if(s/geID\x00\x00/DIeg\x00\x00 /){$b=1}}' {} ";"

Yeah? That's great, but this command gets rid of all of the DRM without any of those fancy tools you mentioned:

rm -rf ~/Music

It is guaranteed to work no matter what Apple does to change iTunes.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[edgar_is_good]

I buy stuff from ITMS, but generally stuff that's hard to find. I'm willing to pay a bit extra for unlimited use, just for fear that in 10 (2?) yrs I won't want lossy AACs which don't play on some new device. Another thing is that it makes it hard for me share songs with friends. I can make a CD, but I can't just send a bunch of mp3s and say try these out (to distinguish from Gnutella-style sharing, I mean people I actually know and am trying to turn on to music they may not know, even though the live 1000 miles from me). I'd like ITMS to allow me to have a temp authorization account (we have 5 computers allowed now, I mean a sixth) that would allow me to let other people play a track, say, 5 times. I don't know that this is exactly the answer, but my inability to let my friends try out new bands w/o burning a cd (who uses CDs anymore, anyway?) tempers my buying enthusiasm. Something should be done in this respect.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

[b]I dont give a damn, Steve, if iPod comprises 50%, 75% or even 100% of the market, if another company wants to use your insanely great AAC Protected format, they should be able to. [/b]

Here's the thing -- from the best I can tell, the DRM works through Apple servers. For example, if a machine breaks or gets stolen, or if you just forget to de-authorize it before selling it, you can contact Apple and they will reset the list of authorized machines.

So it isn't just a matter or letting another company "use the format" -- you want Apple to do the maintenance while other companies get a free ride. Nice. Unless, of course, Apple continually charges for the maintenance services of the DRM, which other companies won't like I imagine.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[mbbac]

The DRM, while not particularly inconvenient to me (I have a 20GB iPod) seems to be a great sticking point to others. I have never had the need to use my music on more than 3 computers simultaneously, and have never needed to burn a playlist so many times as to exceed the iTunes limit (and even then you can change the playlist and burn again)

What about this sticky wicket?

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[MacGoldstein]

That's a valid point, but UT2k4 has a built in player that allows one to change tracks in-game... Much more convenient than minimizing & changing something in iTunes, or using my T616 and Sony-Ericsson Clicker to change tracks. I'd imagine the in-game player might take a bit less CPU than iTunes as well.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to moderators: the command in the parent's post will delete the whole Music folder.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[harlows_monkeys]

That said, the steps necessary to convert my favorite fragging tracks to .ogg for use in UT2004 seemed unnecessarily complex (burn to cd, rip to wav, encode to ogg), and as such I am wondering if a DRM is really necessary

Have you looked at AllOfMP3? Cheaper than iTMS, and you can get the stuff in Ogg already. (And no DRM).

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[AcornWeb]

I have never had the need to use my music on more than 3 computers simultaneously

You do know/remember that with iTunes 4.6 it is now 5 computers, right?

Other than that, right on and ditto.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why people don't get this. The information is out there.

You don't have to burn a fucking CD to convert purchased music to other formats. Just fire up iMovie, create a blank project, go to the Music tab, and select the purchased song. Drag it to the timeline. iMovie will convert it to AIFF for you, and when it's done converting, just go into the Project/Media folder and copy the AIFF to another location. Then trash the sound clip in iMovie and do the next song...

No burning necessary!

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, Apple is shooting themselves in the foot with that one - what the parent's code does is remove the data that identifies the song as coming from the iTMS.

Hymn purposefully left that in, so that if people did distribute their iTunes music, every one could tell, and trace the music back to the person who violated their agreement.

All Apple did was force the people who actually bought the music to make it easier for others to get away with copying it.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitch

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[mrchaotica]

As a standalone application, iTunes would take more CPU than the process in UT2K4; however, Vorbis takes more CPU to decode than MP3 (probably more than AAC too, but I don't know for sure). So it's a tradeoff, and probably not different enough to matter.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[mrchaotica]

The only trouble is that they don't pay the artists. It's exactly as ethical as downloading from P2P, but costs more.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[recursiv]

The main entity missing out on payments are the labels. Leaving ethicality aside, it appears to be 100% legal.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[harlows_monkeys]

The only trouble is that they don't pay the artists

What makes you think that they don't the artists?

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[sootman]

To convert purchased songs without wasting a physical CD: Open iMovie. Make a new project. Drop a song into the timeline. Look inside your project's "Media" folder. Ta da! See that big file with the same name as your song? That's an AIFF--don't let the lack of an '.aif' suffix fool you. Enjoy.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[PsychoSid]

Yes but a tad tricky to play on an iPod

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, it is cheap, and you can get it in a wide variety of encodings, but sadly it's illegal (at least for people in the US).

Some people will point out that it is -- arguably -- legal in Russia. That's great if you're in Russia. But if you're in the US, you'll find it's as much of a loser as it is to say that since it's okay to smoke grass in Holland that it must therefore be legal to do so here. Laws don't work like that.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[Lars T.]

Yes, again I did - and again it was slow. Not anymore slow as molasses on a winter night in the Arctic, but still only 4kB/s.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[mrchaotica]

Well, I don't know about you, but I'd rather be ethical and illegal than legal and unethical.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[mrchaotica]

Why, I heard it second-hand on Slashdot, of course!

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[edgar_is_good]

I just tried this, but imovie won't play my DRM songs. It will play ordinary ripped songs, but the ITMS are just silence...

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

Works fine for me in iMovie 4 (iLife 4).

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[ryanw]

You didn't even acknowledge the fact that he wants to switch songs without having to leave the game's environment.

If iTunes offered an easy API for Unreal and others to plug into, that would be nice cause then they could stay DRM'ed files and interface with iTunes/quicktime inside unreal. Just like iPhoto and iMovie do.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't working for me. Still protected all the usual ways. Is there something I'm missing?

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[edgar_is_good]

Ah ha! The whole iMovie 4 thing. I'm using 3. Just like Apple...

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[recursiv]

I happen to think it isn't really anymore unethical than something like itunes, because the artists gets screwed regardless. The labels take the lion's share of any money that comes in. And the big labels don't exactly behave in a very ethical way either. The ethical thing to do, imo, is give money to the artists (and others who contributed) for their work.
Unfortunately, this is somewhat difficult to do. You can give them about 25 cents by buying an album, but that supports the label too, so I usually don't do that, unless it's on a label I don't mind supporting. (ie not big 5) The most obvious way to get money to the artists is to go to concerts, but this isn't always practical. Contrary to what you may think, I have given this thought, and I haven't found an easy answer.

I would like to point out here that I have never used allofmp3.com, but I would have no issues about doing so.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[mrchaotica]

iTunes gives at least some money to the artists, as opposed to allofmp3.com which gives none.

Not that iTunes is ideal or anything...

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[recursiv]

I'm curious. How do you know it is illegal?

Seriously.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, I read through the pertinent US laws, which are what's controlling when you're in the US.

17 USC 106 tells us that it is infringing to reproduce the work in copies or phonographs. 17 USC 101 define those terms specially, overriding any lay definitions. The MAI v. Peak case and various cases that derive from it (e.g. Utah Lighthouse v. Intellectual Reserve) interpret the law and, although I disagree with them, tell us that downloading is infringing reproduction unless specifically exempted elsewhere in the law, or otherwise authorized by the US copyright holders (who are the only ones that matter, since US law is controlling). 17 USC 106 and 602 tell us that even if this were importation -- which it is not -- it would still be illegal, since it could not be legally done in the US under US law. And 17 USC 107, and countless cases interpreting it indicate that while it is possible to claim that this is a fair use, there is really no chance in hell of such an argument succeeding.

I've gone into all this at greater length before, so feel free to search for posts on the subject, or better yet, take a look at the law itself, which is a pretty authoritative source of information on the subject.

Re:iTunes DRM: Necessary? Good or evil?

[I_Love_Pocky!]

That was supposed to be the joke. What better way to remove all of the DRM?

who knew...

[enrico_suave]

that the pet shop boys were that popular?!

Or is it legions of morrisey fans?

e.

The exclusive Pixies track

[kerincosford]

Probably has something to do with it. Bam Thwok is exclusive to iTMS, and got a mention in nearly all of the iTunes launch coverage. Considering that the Pixies are currently touring Europe, I'm sure that drove plenty of sales. I for one bought Bam Thwok on iTMS launch day.

Re:The exclusive Pixies track

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bam Thwok is exclusive to iTMS"

Guess again. Your friendly local p2p store has it in stock...

Re:The exclusive Pixies track

[Skibbering]

"Guess again. Your friendly local p2p store has it in stock..." Ok.. but it's exclusively legal to iTMS. Or is that legally exclusive? Legal jargon make head hurt..

Re:The exclusive Pixies track

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah. That's it. No doubt iTMS Europe had a half a million downloads due to an obscure, aging rock band known today primarily for its potent influence on other bands, and NOT for its record sales.

as someone who doesn't smoke that Apple crack...

[Captain Rotundo]

At first I assumed iTMS was a rail company laying a lot of new track... :)

Re:en otro orden de cosas

[Anonymous Coward]

me cago en estados unidos

Apple Fanboys knew it would happen.

[javaxman]

I'd say something about this, but I'm afraid I'd be labeled an Apple Fanboy.

Since I don't live in the U.K, France or Germany, and haven't ever bought music from the iTunes store, I guess I don't really have anything to say about this anyway... other than this is really a bit of a non-story, isn't it ?

Even the biggest competition Apple might have had in Europe decided to leave the business rather than compete with Apple on this. The article cites "Apple and Napster", but really, Napster? OD2 was worried about Napster? Somehow I think if it was just Napster, OD2 wouldn't have gone looking for an exit strategy.

Apple's slice?

[Doc Ruby]

On each $0.99 retail Apple charges per song, shares are taken by the copyright holder (artist/label/RIAAbot), the retail outlet (iTMS/Virgin/Songhut), the finance transactor (Visa/telco/Guido) and Apple. What's Apple's share per song, their profit on these huge sales? Do they take a loss, leading sales of iPods and some Macs?

Re:Apple's slice?

[gerardrj]

this has been thoroughly covered by Apple. the iTMS US was making a slight profit as of a few months ago. It's all a matter of volume.
Apple's share of revenue from each $.99 song sale is on the order of a dime as I recall.

While no longer a loss leader for the iPod, iTMS will not be a major source of income for Apple until/unless they get a larger cut of the sale.

Re:Apple's slice?

[Doc Ruby]

The article mentions that Apple renegotiated with the record labels. Now that Apple has proven its sales power, it likely renegotiated with every other party to the transaction. So where's a link to the current Apple take from the sales?

Re:Apple's slice?

[luiss]

They mention in one of the linked articles above that they "break even", just a tiny bit on the profit side.
For every $0.99 song sold on iTunes, Apple gets $0.35 and the label gets $0.65 (35%/65%). From Apples's $0.35 they also have to pay the CC processing fees, causing them to lose money on a single (I think). Apple trys to delay cc processing, hoping to charge you for more than one song at a time (and hence pay less in cc processing fees).
The artist gets about 0.02 to 0.05 cents an single from the major labels it seems. While some independent labels give much more (i.e. 75% ) to the artist.
I calculated these numbers from sites linked to by this page.

Re:Apple's slice?

[gerardrj]

Which article? The one linked to in the master article mentions no re-negotiation.

Apple has stated that the "big 5" record companies have started charging them more for certain new releases, hence Apple's prices for those select albums have gone up.
This leads me to believe that irrespective of label pricing, Apple will make sure they maintain a slim profit on each sale. After all, no matter what the cost of acquiring the content the cost of "shipping" it remains the same. If $.10 is good enough profit for a $10 album, then $.10 is good enough profit for a $14 album in Apple's eyes.

Re:Apple's slice?

[dhovis]

My understanding was that Apple makes about 10c/song after paying the record label and credit card fees. Which isn't much money when you consider that they've sold maybe 100M songs so far in the US. That means $10Million profit, not counting setup costs.

However, if Apple gets to the 1 billion songs/year mark, then you are looking at $1billion in revenue, and $100million in profit, which is not too shabby. I think Apple knows this. They aren't going to be able to maintain such high profit margins on the iPod forever (unless it morphs into a completely different device over the next few years), but perpetual revenue from iTMS might be a serious chunk of change in a few years.

A question to our European readers

[chia_monkey]

Those are some pretty impressive numbers indeed. In one week iTMS is supposedly the most popular music service in Europe now. Here's my question: since there were already other services up and running in Europe, were the European users waiting for iTMS to arrive and then just went nuts when it opened? Or did everyone switch from the other services? Why the huge numbers, which are blowing the other services out of the water, when others were available?

Re:A question to our European readers

[prewashedironman]

Well i certainly was waiting for iTMS then went nuts when it did open (if you call 6 songs going nuts that is). The other services were often expensive and were .wma, which even though i use windows i dislike as i prefer iTunes to any other music software. The other services were also very DRMed, and so i didn't ever know if I could burn a CD of my songs, whether i could share them, anything really. iTMS isnt perfect (namely lack of independents) but is a hell of a lot better than anything else

Re:A question to our European readers

[fpillet]

Maybe just because iTMS matches users needs? It's not just because it's Apple, otherwise the world would be 80% Mac.

iTMS is (as are all Apple products) extremely well designed and they managed to produce exactly what people were waiting for. The complete chain (iTMS iTunes iPod) is perfectly integrated and even my mother can use it.

Re:A question to our European readers

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that iPod is a big factor here. iPod is very popular in the UK, and the iTMS downloads are the highest there. Also, in the UK, I think price is a factor as well since iTMS is cheaper than the alternatives. Overall, I think it's what iTMS offers. Looking at the variety, it's not much different. But iTMS has better terms for users, better integration, better codec and better brand name.

Re:A question to our European readers

[druhol]

namely lack of independents

Just give it some time; the State-side iTMS has been adding a bunch of indie labels over the last few months.

Re:A question to our European readers

[Carewolf]

Don't know what the old-services will do, but they will have to fix a few things.

1. Not cost twice as much a iTunes!
2. Have a bigger selection of music!
3. Advetise them selves more, since a lot of people think iTunes is first online music provider in Europe.

Re:A question to our European readers

[Renaud]

The other services were basically non-existent, not advertised, not used. A bit like Napster 2 in the US.

Re:A question to our European readers

[Anonymous Coward]

The complete chain (iTMS iTunes iPod) is perfectly integrated and even my mother can use it.

Exactly. I bought an iPod not too many months ago and recently cracked the LCD by dropping it while I was on the treadmill. It costs $140 to get a new screen put in, and about $100 to buy a replacement LCD on eBay and invalidate my warranty by putting it in myself. It's cheaper for us to sell the broken iPod on eBay and use that money towards buying a new MP3 player.

Now, I started thinking to myself, "Hey, maybe I'll get an iRiver iHP this time. It's got twice the battery life, a line in jack, an FM tuner, and 5 more gigs of storage for the same price."

But it doesn't work with iTunes. My very non-techie wife loves the iPod. She uses iTunes. She's bonded with it. Moreover, she likes the way the iPod looks. She called the iHP an "ugly thing".

It's more important to me that my wife use and enjoy our MP3 player than that I get an FM tuner or a line in jack. Which means I'll probably get another iPod. I suspect that this little scenario has played itself over many different times across America, and that this accounts for a significant chunk of iPod purchases.

Re:A question to our European readers

[simoncoles]

I was waiting for it. Selection isn't as good as I would like, but I've bought 2 albums so far and will probably buy more gradually. Let's hope they get more of the distributors on board soon.

Re:A question to our European readers

[AkaXakA]

Well, if the europian blogs are anything to go by,
the UK bloggers are a bit baffled by the low number of tunes...Apple not being able to reach a deal with independant labels was one factor.

If Apple had been able to clinch the deal, there would probably have been many more sales.

Meanwhile, the rest of Europe is going:
"iTMS Europe? Ha! Just the UK, Germany and France*..when will we get it? Oh wait, Euro 2004 is on, nevermind."

*which is logical of course, as they are the larger countries...but still, if they had actually launched in the whole of Europe, they could have promoted themselves at Euro 2004 and would have made a far bigger impact.

Can the US purchase there?

[jared_hanson]

Here's what I've been wondering:

I'm in the US and at the bottom of the iTMS home pages, I can select which country's store I want to see (USA, UK, France, Germany). When I select one, I'm taken to the store.

Can I, from the US, purchase songs from the foreign stores? I know I could try this myself, but I've been a bit leery. Anyone else tried this and have it work or otherwise? Each country store has some unique music not found on the others, and I'd like to buy some of those tracks.

Re:Can the US purchase there?

[cbiffle]

Sure, you can purchase them -- but shipping's a bitch.

Re:Can the US purchase there?

[iteratix]

It only costs $.99 - $1.X (dollars, euros, pounds, etc) to find out. What's stopping you? =)

Re:Can the US purchase there?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm almost certain that you can only order music from your regional store. You credit card verifies your location. We you able to buy from other store, people in any country could have been using the US store even since it came out, and there would be no reason for a european iTMS.

Re:Can the US purchase there?

[gellenburg]

Well, why would you? Have you tried searching the US store for the same tracks?

I just ran the numbers, and 0.79p equates to roughly $1.43, and E0,99 equates to roughly $1.12.

Re:Can the US purchase there?

[jared_hanson]

Well, why would you? Have you tried searching the US store for the same tracks?

Did you read my comment? I stated that the foreign stores have tracks not found on the US stores. This includes tracks by some bands whose music I really enjoy.

Yes, I know its otherwise cheaper at the US store, but the US store doesn't carry all the same songs.

Re:Can the US purchase there?

[gellenburg]

Then I say go for it. If you don't want to then hell, I shuck over $1.50 for a track to test it out. What specifically are you looking for that's not available on the US Store?

Re:Can the US purchase there?

[jared_hanson]

I tried it myself after posting my original comment. It doesn't let you buy from foriegn stores. Thanks for the offer though.

Re:Can the US purchase there?

[allgood2]

Yeah, I was hoping you could buy from any store, like at Amazon. The UK store has a much better collection of music from Keane and other UK artist. I guess the same is true for those using a USA account, you need to create a seperate account.

It looks like the ITMS DRM is going nowhere fast

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like the ITMS DRM is going nowhere fast

"It was proved long before iTunes - it was proved with LPs, it was proved with cassettes, it was proved with CDs. People want to own their music ."

It doesn't matter anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

When M$ decides to really go after this market, they will integrate music buying into the OS (MediaPlayer?), charge 5 cents less then anybody else and iTunes will go the way of Netscape...

Sigh.

Re:It doesn't matter anyway

[Solar Limb]

That's how Microsoft wins. It enters established, proven markets (in most cases), and simply kills other competitors by attrition and being able to withstand financial bloodletting far better than anyone else. Look at the Xbox for the best evidence of this.

Re:It doesn't matter anyway

[stephentyrone]

right, because the Xbox won... what's its market share, again?

Phrase that another way

[Zastrossi]

And the headline reads: All of Europe buys equivalent of 65,000 CDs this week. Europe buys roughly 3 billion recorded music units (PDF) (almost all of which are CDs) a year. Even if iTunes maintained that sales rate (which is extremely unlikely), they'd sell the rough equivalent of 3.4 million CDs a year, or roughly 0.1 % of the total CDs sold. Sure, that'll make a dent in this whole piracy thing.

Re:Phrase that another way

[Zastrossi]

D'oh, my math was off by a bit because I mis-read the PDF I referenced. Here are more accurate numbers:

If they sell an average of 800,000 songs for the year (unlikely, I think), then that's the equivalent of 3.5 million CDs a year. That sounds impressive, until you consider that Germany, France and the UK bought about 725 million CDs (PDF) in 2001. With those numbers, the iTunes sales would represent a world-changing 0.4% of music sales in those three countries.

Re:Phrase that another way

[fpillet]

Yet, it's much better than other stores have been doing.

Back in the early 80's, you could look at the penetration of computers in businesses and deduce that it was not world changing. Look at where it's at now. You could also ignore the CD revolution in the 80's, until it became so hard to find vinyl records.

My point is that Apple found a way to kickstart online music sales, and that it's working way better than previous attempts. And it's only the beginning, IMHO.

What has changed?

[Jason Hood]

So what stopped people in the rest of the world from using iTunes? Is this just a mirror site with a euro converter?

Re:What has changed?

[gerardrj]

The billing address on your credit card.

As I understand, for a time at least, you could purchase gift certificates with a US credit card and sell/send those to people around the world who could then use them.

I don't now if Apple ever squashed that.

Re:What has changed?

[rich951]

Never mind the practicalities of them not allowing people from other countries to use the original itunes site, they are actually different. The sample searches I did showed a much inferior selection on the UK version compared to the USA one - I guess they haven't licensed the same things in different places...

Germany

[ericlp]

Each country store has some unique music not found on the others, and I'd like to buy some of those tracks.

Yeah, David Hasslehoff's (search) career should be getting a big boost from this internet music thing, I would think....

This has been paid adverisement.

[Anonymous Coward]

Brought to you by Apple Computer, Inc.

Proud sponsor of Slasdot.org

impressive uk total

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the population of the UK is approximately a fifth that of the United States (60 vs 293), 450,000 songs is pretty impressive. If iTMS had been this popular in the US from the get-go and maintained the same rate all year, 117 million songs would have been downloaded in the first year instead of the 80 million that were.

I just tried it - you can't.

[jared_hanson]

I decided to try this myself, you can't buy from the foreign stores. It gives you a message stating that your account is only authorized for purchase in the US.

So, in case anyone else was wondering, there is your answer.

Re:I just tried it - you can't.

[Microlith]

Which really kind of sucks.

If Apple manages to get an iTMS Japan up and running, I wouldn't be able to get anything from it. That alone would kill any reason I have of ever using the iTMS.

Re:I just tried it - you can't.

[stefanb]

Also, I can't download the US freebie with by German account, so it's not a matter of paying, but of distribution rights. Right as I expected.

Metric or Imperial?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, is that .8 million in Metric or Imperial units?

Re:Metric or Imperial?

[TheRaven64]

It's 0.8 million metric people. It would be 0.31496 million imperial people.

dept. jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

"from the but-are-those-metric-tracks dept."

yes, complete with iambic pentametres [sic]...

Not all are computer users

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be more interested in comparing number of downloads in the US and Europe by people who owns computers and online. I think that number is more representative than per 1000 people of general population.

Re:Not all are computer users

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, those silly Europeans! They probably don't even have running water!

Re:Not all are computer users

[Carewolf]

Since there is a higher percentage of the population that has computers and internet in Europe it would only make the number even more odd.

In case you wonder why the percentage is higher in Europe, first realise that 25% (a number that falls with the prices) of american "house"-holds can't afford a computer, while the 95% of for instance danish households have a computer (100% of those with children).

Re:Not all are computer users

[ratsnapple tea]

I call bullshit: one, two, three, four, many more. Perhaps your statistic about Denmark is true (I don't know) but you must have pulled the first figure out of your ass, and your wild speculations have no other ties to reality. Sorry.

Re:Not all are computer users

[Anonymous Coward]

But realistically, those numbers will represent a better picture of the popularity of the download services. Using a a general population number may give you a "better" number, but that only reinforce the notion of "lies, more lies and statistics."

Re:Not all are computer users

[Carewolf]

Sorry: Different definitions of Europe, as north european I don't make comparisons with south or east-europe, as they are much poorer than north-west Europe. Much like you would hardly take mexican figures as representative for the US. The difference is that in Europe the poor south and east european countries makes up a much larger portion of the total population, screwing up the totals.

The figures for PC-penetration range between 92% and 98% depending on survey. And Denmark, Sweden or Finland takes turn at being the country with the highest penetration. Internet has been slightly behind because it used to be very costly to use, unlike in the US, so when measuring modem use, the US is clearly ahead, while they are behind on broadband.

The 25% figure for the US, is only based on upon the UN poverty rate for the US, I don't expect people who can't afford basic life-goods to afford a PC or internet.

Re:Not all are computer users

[ratsnapple tea]

Scandinavia isn't all there is to Western Europe, you know. Internet penetration and household PC penetration rates in the EU as a whole, even excepting the 10 countries recently joined, even excepting southern Europe (Italy, Greece, Spain), still lag significantly behind the United States, most notably in France, Switzerland, the UK and Germany. Yes, broadband usage is ahead of the US in much of Western Europe, but we weren't talking about broadband. We were talking about plain old Internet access.

I wish I knew where you came up with that statistic about 25% of United States citizens living below the poverty line, according to the UN. Last I heard, the UNDP had set the poverty line at those living on less than US$2/day by purchasing power parity; I'd be surprised to learn that a quarter of Americans live on less than $2 a day.

I hardly know what to make of your desire not to include southern countries in your definition of Europe because they "screw up the totals." I mean, I wish we in the US could do the same for Texas, honestly, but I'm not going to pretend it's not part of the US.

Don't hold your breath

[bubba451]

Steve Jobs has repeatedly said that the iTMS exists to sell iPods. He, in fact, has recently admitted that when they decided to write iTunes for Windows, they gave up on using the iPod to convert people to Macs.

So why exactly would they want to open this up, and help other companies sell devices?

Folks have often argued that they should at least open it up in areas where Apple doesn't yet have a market. They key word people are forgetting when they make this argument is yet.

Again, how is it in Apple's interest to let other companies piggyback onto Apple's extremely difficult (legally, technically), barely-profitable venture that is the iTunes Music Store?

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Anonymous Coward]

So why exactly would they want to open this up, and help other companies sell devices?

They might have to (if not want to) do that, if and when their prospective customers make it clear THEY want it, and are willing to pay for it. And that's they key: if customers do that, Apple should do it remain the top dog.

Further, I really really REALLY doubt iPods (etc) will remain as high-margin luxury items for more than a year or two. Invariably devices like that become commodotiy over time. Thus, Apple has to make sure they can transition their business model to get more money out of non-physical stuff, ie. actual song sales. And knowing they are not stupid, I'm sure they know this as well, and have plans for doing the transition over time.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Twirlip of the Mists]

He, in fact, has recently admitted that when they decided to write iTunes for Windows, they gave up on using the iPod to convert people to Macs.

That's a pretty serious distortion of what was actually said. The part about "admitted" and "gave up" in particular.

Here's what he actually said in the interview:

NM: When the iPod was launched, you said it might lead people to the Mac platform. Does you still believe that?
SJ: "No. We brought the iPod to Windows. That was a big decision. That was basically a decision not to use the iPod to drive people to Macs. We're going to use it as a music device, and we're going to put it on Windows. The majority of iPods we sell are used on Windows."

He didn't "admit," and he didn't say anything about "giving up." He said it was a business decision.

I know this isn't really here or there, but it just really gets under my skin when people use words like "admitted" to distort somebody else's position. It's done intentionally so often that people are started to do it without meaning to, which for all I know might be what you did.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[bubba451]

Hmm, well I certainly didn't mean to distort the facts. I'm not sure why you're objecting to "admitted" (he didn't announce this on his own accord. Some one asked, he admitted). I used "gave up" because it was once a goal (to increase Mac market share) to pursue another one (to dominate the digital music field).

I think defending your (and my) beleaguered platform has made you a bit sensitive. I suggest you stop reading CNet.

Anecdotes are not statistics

[fiannaFailMan]

I take your point, but I wish people would stop citing 'of all the people I know' as if that were a representative sample. If you work in desktop publishing, then it's a good bet that most of the 'people you know' will be Mac users. If you work as an accountant, then most of the 'people you know' will be PC users. If you're a TCAD software developer then most of the 'people you know' will be UNIX users.

It's like the people who bitch about authorities going to the expense of building bicycle lanes because "I never see a bike using that lane when I drive past every morning."

Anecdotes do not trump statistics.

Re:Anecdotes are not statistics

[byolinux]

Most of the people I know can't install iTunes; many others won't.

Of the ones I know that will, far more own PCs than Macs, but a fair amount own Macs... heck, my crazy uncle has a friend still using an Amiga.

People I know are a fairly good cross section of society, I think.

It's only a challenge because of clueless users.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Windows market is a huge challenge for Apple"

All you have to do is notice the abysmal interfaces offered by
all the competing software and hardware.

After that, only a fool or a cheapskate would punish themselves with other than iTunes and an iPod.

Just my opinion - stupid people are of course free to disagree ;-)

iTunes "Europe"

[l3v1]

I just wish iTunes was European, not "European". It's like I started some company on the southern shores of Florida and tell that I have an [U.S.] American service (well, poor example but you get the point). Nonetheless, true to a point, but that point is one I don't like.

I was very happy to hear that iTunes was coming to Europe. Than I was a bit worried about the possibly high prices (well, we've gotten used to that when things come across the ocean to us). Than, when that was cleared up, best of all, turned out Apple's vocabulary and/or geographical knowledge is fairly limited concerning European countries :D

But hey, I always try to be as positive as I can, so now I hope iTunes will arrive to us before I begin my pensionary years :P

/* well this is my first post, hooray, whatever */

Re:iTunes "Europe"

[Erwos]

You're making no sense. You're trying to posit something along the lines of "Apple stores "haven't come to the US" unless they're in all 50 states". The moment Apple opens a store in Florida, they're in the US. It's really that simple.

France, UK, and Germany are all in Europe. Ergo, iTunes has come to Europe. Perhaps not _all_ of Europe, but they didn't say that, either.

Re:iTunes "Europe"

[aduzik]

At the launch event, Steve Jobs said that a pan-European version of iTunes is on its way and scheduled for an October release. Then, iTunes really will be available ubiquitously in Europe.

I would suspect that the reason they haven't done this yet is that they have to go through the legal handwaving to be able to do it, and the three European countries iTunes is now available in represent the majority of Europe's music sales -- at least according to The Steve at said Launch Event.

Two people...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

I know two people that saw the amazing usability and ease-of-use of iTunes, asked me what the "good thing was that is different about iTunes" and over lunch I explained that there is a thing called a GUI and a science about "Usability". Things clicked. They went to the apple store on their own and two Powerbooks were sold. Their dell boxes are on ebay.

Re:Two people...

[TheRaven64]

iTMS really is astonishingly easy to use. I was able to use it while quite drunk (celebrating my birthday, which was on the launch day). I didn't even need to enter my credit card details (I could use my Apple Store account) and start shopping instantly. I added five albums to my collection that evening (well, morning. I think it was about 3am when I, encouraged by those helping my celebrate, decided to play with iTMS). It seems I have quite good musical taste when drunk...

Re:Two people...

[Blakey Rat]

You did not. What a load of crap.

How about a little bit of evidence supporting this? Or a more complete story? You're seriously telling me that you were able to talk two people into buying $2000+ machines over lunch? Either they're rich, or you're lying.

Re:Two people...

[ratsnapple tea]

Believe it, brother. Apple is ascendant.

Re:Two people...

[Anonymous Coward]

GNAA 4 lyfe, nigga.

Re:Two people...

[Squozen]

I talked somebody into buying a $4500 (AUD) PowerBook in a day, I don't see why the grandparent story can't be accurate.

Re:Two people...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds a bit like what I'm about to do...

1. Apple releases iTunes for Windows. I download and try it. After 2 weeks, I can't even imagine using winamp ever again.

2. I'm fed up with my %$@# Flash MP3 player and buy a 10GB iPod (50$CAN less since I bought it the week after it got replaced with the 15GB - whatever, I got about 4.8GB of music anyway)

3. I'm fed up with Windows, Microsoft and all that virus/worm/antitrust/monopolistic crap (and yes, I've been a Windows user since 3.11 and yes, I've laughed at Mac OS 9 and lower) - I'm just waiting to see if there's gonna be a consumer G5 system to decide if I'm going iBook 12", eMac or that mythical "iMac G5" (or something).

And no, Linux/BSD doesn't cut it. Heck even Windows doesn't cut it.

iTunes woke me up - software CAN be your friend and work FOR YOU (not the other way around).

Thanks Apple, I'll be joining your ranks soon.
So long Microsoft, I really won't miss ya.

The British are getting ripped off...

[burnsy]

British pound sterling to United States dollar 0.790000 = 1.436807 US$ European Union euro to United States dollar 0.990000 euro = 1.196929 US$

Re:The British are getting ripped off...

[Neophytus]

No shit. That's something we always have to deal with.

Re:The British are getting ripped off...

[lucas teh geek]

yeah but they're used to it. the brits pay too much for just about everything. I buy a cup of coffee over here and its like AU$5-6. it'd be funny if I werent living here

Re:The British are getting ripped off...

[David Horn]

So what's new? The British always get ripped off. The 15GB iPod sells in the UK for 250... which is approximately $454.

Re:The British are getting ripped off...

[Anonymous Coward]

US doesn't have VAT, and Apple had to make new deal with new distributors (or local versions). I think you need to look to the record companies for the rip-off.

Re:The British are getting ripped off...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Europe, VAT is included in the price (around 20-25%). So the price in euros is approximatly the same, except our governement gets a cut too. AFAIK you don't have that in the USA.

I don't know why the price in the UK is higher though...

Re:The British are getting ripped off...

[lordholm]

Well, not being in the common currency has its drawbacks. You only have your selves to blame.

(For the record, I'm from Sweden so I don't have the advantages of the common currency neither. Although, I will move to the Netherlands in the fall...)

The problem with Allofmp3

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Allofmp3 is that because it is in russia, allofmp3 downloads you!

My email to apple (the iTunes Experience...)

[ToKsUri]

I agree with you about how most "artists" really fear this system because it is really more democratic. I have been long waiting for the service to arrive to europe, and my experience has nt been really what I say a good one.
Here is the feedback I gave back to apple after buying my first legal song:

Hello,
I live in spain and own an iPod. I've been visiting the iTunes
Music Store since the windows version came out. I have never bought a
song over the internet but have been waiting for iTunes to come tu
Europe. Luckily, I am studying now in France and yesterday the store
opened here. Just today I signed up with you, and if I you let me say
it this way, my credit card lost its internet virginity with you. My
student savings are near no nothing, but still valuable enough as to
think twice when using my card over the internet. However, apple
offered my the confidence to do so.
First of all, I found insulting how most of the artists only had
some songs I could buy and not the complete album, which if I should
finally buy in a real store if I really wanted it. Of course, this
real album will include the song I had previously bought via iTunes,
meaning to pay twice for the same thing, which I find ridicolous.
However, I know this is not only apple's fault, but mainly the labels.
Anyway, I comment on it as I guess it is some valuable feedback.
Nevertheless, which really made me very very very sad to the point
of angry was the following. I decided to buy a song (which I actually
own) just to give you a try and get some confidence with the system.
I even was thinking of telling all my friends back in spain about
this. But What happened? Ok, I thought 99 Euro cents was a reasonable
price. so I bought the song. Now I look in my bank account, and
great.. the 99 cents have magically been converted to 1,98 Euros. It
is still not a big difference, but I do feel completely humilliated
and abused. It makes me think HOW EASY and RELIABLE it is to download
an illegal track and how the people that want to contribute with the
music are beein ripped off. It is even very hard for me right now to
buy music in a store with all the Copy Control rubish which makes the
discs no longer be COMPACT DISCS and which I cant listen almost
anywhere! In consequence I no longer buy copy protected cds. My last
hope was iTunes and now I feel completely defrauded.

I dont really want my money back, you can keep it. But I dont think
I will ever buy another song from you.
I love music, I have musician friends. I want to contribute to
their art for the feelings they create on me. But right now I find no
other way of doing it apart of going to their concerts! (which is not
always possible). Im sending you this message because I hope it will
actually mean something to someone out there. You are apple! I wouldnt
even care to send all this so personal email it it were any of the
other companies out there right now. But this is Apple Care, maybe
someone really cares.

Thank you.

Re:My email to apple (the iTunes Experience...)

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they could understand what the fuck you are talking about, I doubt they would care.

Re:as someone who doesn't smoke that Apple crack..

[DanielJosphXhan]

Combine this with that story the other day about railguns, sprinkle with a good dose of paranoia, and you get:

"iTMS Laying Down Tracks So Railguns Can Fire Apples in Europe!"

Hmmm.

So true

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's not like the itunes business model is radical or innovative - all they are doing is selling copies of songs to people, which is what the RIAA did all along. Yes, they can be copied, but so can a CD or a tape. The RIAA's problem is that either they have been brainwashed by a cadre of elite lawyers into thinking mp3s are fundamentally different to the digital files on CDs, or they're just too greedy.

Re:I'd be interested to see the Windows/Mac breakd

[DeepDarkSky]

That's because Mac users will actually pay for music. PC users steal all of theirs. :D
(j/k, of course).

Re:I'd be interested to see the Windows/Mac breakd

[Anonymous Coward]

yes indeed

It's all about the price

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget about the price of the tracks, which are significantly higher in Europe.

US Price: $0.99
UK Price: 79 pence ($1.43)
France/Germany Price: 0.99 Euro ($1.20)

And it's not just tax either - it's a blatant case of price hiking.

Re:It's all about the price

[Pieroxy]

You know this is bullshit, right?

I mean, how can you compare Euro with Dollars? Tomorrow the Euro will sink at USD0.5, and it will look to you as if their price just dropped by half. But no, they didn't, because those people in the UK and Europe still make the same amount of money.

First you got to know what is the average cost of living down there, average income, etc... and then compare that to the US. Then you have a "conversion rate" between Euro and Dollars that would be representative of how much money 0.99EUR is compared to USD0.99.

Anyways....

Re:It's all about the price

[eyeye]

The best comparison is with the cost of CDs.

I can buy a CD for 8.99 - 9.99, so its about on a par with this service. If I wanted a full album though I would buy the physical CD.

Re:It's all about the price

[s.fontinalis]

What your looking for is Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) The implied PPP from the Economist's Big Mac index is 1 Euro = 1.06$, so the song's are still priced higher.

Re:It's all about the price

[ratsnapple tea]

Did you remember to include sales tax in the US?

Re:It's all about the price

[s.fontinalis]

That's a state thing. I live in a state without a Sales Tax (OR).

USA != EU

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA has a copyright law that applies to all the states. The RIAA (and other labels) are no geographically limited, they all operate in all states.

Each country in the EU has a different copyright law. There are labels that operate in a geographically limited area.

If all the countries in the EU adobted a single standard comprehensive copyright law you'd get iTunes for all of the EU. This has been repeated many times over and over.

Re:USA != EU

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get this argument. Even if the EU copyright directive hasn't been adopted in most member states, the copyright laws all over the developed world are substantially the same, thanks to the Berne convention, World Intellectual Property Organization etc.

A much more likely explanation for the limited launch is the fact that each country has a separate recording industry, and because of this licensing rights are sold to a single country at a time.

More On

[Doc Ruby]

The story blurb mentions several articles, not just the Apple PR:

"According to Steve Jobs other services were shifting only 50,000 tracks a week in Europe before the launch."

In that linked article, the interviewer mentions renegotiation, confirmed by Jobs:

'NM: You've gone back to renegotiate with the labels after the first year. Have attitudes changed towards you?
SJ: "Oh sure. Absolutely."'

Apple has revolutionized music retail, undermining the giant retail stores which themselves had wiped out most smaller, local record stores. Through a combination of convenience and pricing. Where's a definitive statement of the actual profitability of the new music retail business Apple is creating?

Re:More On

[gerardrj]

Where's a definitive statement of the actual profitability of the new music retail business Apple is creating?
In one of the recent analyst calls that Apple streams over the Internet, Fred Anderson (I think it was him) was specifically asked about iTMS profitability. His statement was clear: the iTMS is showing a small profit. I'm not certain there would be a more authoritative source than the CFO reporting to analysts.

Granted this was several months ago, and things may have changed. I've seen no indication in the pricing Apple sees or sets other than prices for newly released albums of "headliners" from the major labels.

Re:More On

[Doc Ruby]

That is an interesting citation. While "authoritative", it is not "definitive": "a small profit" could mean a few thousand bucks on millions in sales, or a few percent on millions in sales (orders of magnitude difference). It seems clear that Apple is very cagey about iTMS profits, even when disclosing to investors/analysts of its publicly owned company. This could be an artifact of the notoriously avaricious music business Apple now leads, or of some bizmodel black magic under the hood, or just Jobs' famous mono/megalomania - or some combination including those factors.

Play with numbers

[totoanihilation]

You forget that in these 725 million CDs sold, most of them were probably bought for one or two tracks at most, the rest being filler that people were "forced" to buy anyways.
And considering the quality of the music being sold today, "one or two" sounds about right. Now being overly generous and assuming there are THREE good tracks per CD, on average, you've got about 14 million "CDs" sold, which is about 2% of CD sales of 2001.
Now. It would be fun to see the statistics on CDs for 2003, because I'm pretty sure people are buying less and less music these days, mostly due (in my case) to all the junk they're keeping on store shelves.

Still, for a one-year-old music store, I think it's doing great, and I wish them the best!

-1, off topic

[poptones]

Hilarious that this "off topic" post generated so many comments. Ah, the wonders of "group think!"

The facts are: US law does not universally apply, and Copyright is not some sort of divine right. If you will look around a bit you will see some of the countries with the least restrictive copyright laws have very outstanding artistic histories.

Once again you lot confuse commerce with art. Artists have traditionally sought benefactors and relied on individual sales and performance contracts to generate income. The people who benefit from US copyright law.. blah blah blah blah... we've heard it before

So I'll say it again: look around. Russia has a very loose copyright system and yet they are far from being devoid of artists - nor of plastic pop has-beens. And, in fact, some of the brightest artistic moments from that part of the world came when artists were most persecuted - nor have their very liberal policies cost them their share of post-modern innovation.

I'm not saying we should abuse artists (well, except mimes) but the simple fact is these russian (and Ukrainian - another FSU state that is slated to join the EU) websites are simply exploiting the weakness of the oppression existent in our own economy - no different than when we exploit the labors of those kids who work for a buck a day rolling beedies, assembling hundred dollar sneakers, or putting overpriced plastic dolls in boxes.

So... how does it feel to be exploited by the foibles of your own beliefs?

Re:-1, off topic

[2nd Post!]

You've got it wrong yourself too :P

You're confusing laws with ethics.

Just because it's legal or illegal doesn't make it right or wrong. I think buying from AoM is wrong because the artists aren't getting paid (or paid much less).

In the same way I view 'our' exploitation of our own economy as a natural outgrowth of people wanting to buy more and pay less. I am perfectly willing to pay more and buy less; there is very little material good in this world that is truly important, so paying a little more and buying a little less is not bad or evil or inconvenient at all.

you know what that means....

[commodoresloat]

not yet up to the 2.5 million a week from the US

That means Apple is dying!!

128 Kbps ONLY!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the whole world gone retarded? iTunes only lets you download songs at 128Kbps. That bit rate is too low for me. I would guess >99% of the population can hear the big difference between higher encoding rates and 128 Kbps. When they add the option to download at least at 190 then you will see me pay for songs.

BTW, I purchased a best of Red Hot Chili Peppers from them and it sounds like shit. You can hear a hiss in the background. Customer support gave me the run around for days until I just gave up. Meanwhile the CDs I ripped sound just fine on my iPod. I wish other users would complain about the low encoding rate so they change it.

Re:128 Kbps ONLY!!!

[2nd Post!]

Face facts. People who buy *can't* meaningfully tell that it is 128kbps, or don't care.

If they did, it wouldn't sell. It does sell; therefore the price and convenience outweight the quality and sound.

Re:128 Kbps ONLY!!!

[domodude]

You are correct. The 128kbps AAC files that Apple sells are about equal in sound quality to a 160/192kbps MP3 file. The MP3 codec was designed to eliminate from the file certain music frequencies that the human ear CANNOT hear. People are always bitching about Ogg and how they like lossless formats, well here is a news flash, you cannot tell the difference between the Ogg and the same file encoded in MP3 on your 100$ speaker "system" or your 30$ headphones. Realistically, only a 3000$ Bose system or greater would show a clear difference. (In most cases, the player actually limits the audio quality more than the file, i.e. the analog audio out/headphone jack on your iPod/discman).

Re:128 Kbps ONLY!!!

[m0rbidini]

Erm. That's not true.

Check the latest multiformat 128 kbps test. MP3 was tied with AAC (AAC only had a slight advantage, but technically they were tied, check the error margin). Here you can see the end results.

It's completely false that AAC 128 kbps delivers "CD quality" and this test also showed that. No lossy format can do this (yet?). And I'm not talking about problematic samples here. Try to do a simple ABX test (you don't need extra expensive hardware, just some decent sound card and headphones).

It's possible to achive transparency with lossy formats on more than 99.9% of the cases (or whatever), but not with 128 kbps.

Cya

Re:128 Kbps ONLY!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is incorrect in several ways.

First, none of the codecs you mentioned eliminate frequency ranges, inaudible or not. A CD master itself does eliminate some high frequencies, which were deemed inaudible (and which have subsequently been demonstrated through research *not* to be inaudible to a significant minority of people). Compression eliminates some descriptive information about the sound itself, and operates at all frequency levels (though it is designed to affect some more than others).

Second, the codec and the equipment may limit the ability to discern weakness in the file, but most people can discern a difference with relatively inexpensive equipment. In many cases, people must first be shown what to listen for, however. (I teach a class on this. With more than 600 participants over time, I can show about 18 out of every 20 people how to reliably discern a difference in double-blind tests between 192 kbps MP3's and 128 kpbs MP3's. We're not using the world's most expensive equipment, either.

Finally, I and nearly anyone else in the audio or music worlds would take strong issue with your implication that Bose systems are somehow superior to most comparably-priced systems. Bose uses off-the-rack components that are often only one step better than the absolute cheapest components made. That their prices don't reflect this is a victory of marketing, not design. Go to any serious audio discussion on the web and start asking around about Bose. They are an absolute sham.

elo

Re:128 Kbps ONLY!!!

[aristotle-dude]

Ok. Here is the thing. The 128Kbps ACC files on iTMS are not the same as 128Kbps AAC files ripped from a CD let alone crappy 128Kbps MP3. The songs on the iTMS are encoded with a professional quality encoder from the Studio masters. Encoding from a CD would mean you were encoding twice. Once to PCM and again to ACC or MP3.

Re:128 Kbps ONLY!!!

[Squozen]

Erm, a CD *IS* PCM, you don't encode to PCM.

Re:128 Kbps ONLY!!!

[Steve Cowan]

Interestingly, most "masters" are at least 24 bit, 96 kHz (and in the future we could see 32 bit, 192 kHz become more common). This must be downsampled to 44.1 kHz and reduced to 16-bit resolution for CD.

While "encoding to PCM" is a misleading choice of words, if going to a lossy format it is much better to encode directly from the higher-resolution master in one step than it is to first reduce to CD resolution and THEN encode to AAC/MP3/OGG/whatever.

This is probably what makes those 128-bit Apple AAC's sound so good.

Re:128 Kbps ONLY!!!

[aristotle-dude]

But the Studio Master is not.

Are the iTMS Europe servers located in Europe ?

[Jodka]

Just curious, does Apple deliver iTunes Europe purchases from servers in the U.S. or do they have a European server farm for that ? Is global connectivity now good enough that servers in California can deliver that volume of data around the globe to Europe at about the same throughput and latency as could servers located in Europe ?

Re:Are the iTMS Europe servers located in Europe ?

[mdonkin]

Apple use Akamai to host the iTunes store and their other web-sites. Akamai have server farms all over the world. So when you use the store you're actually talking to a fairly local server.

Are you sure this error results from DRM?

[mosb1000]

I don't see any reason to believe that this related to DRM. It seems much more likely that Apple simply hasn't implemented the ability to split up protected tracks very well.

For example, I haven't heard it complained about much, but when fast user switching came out in OS X, you couldn't run iTunes in more than one active user. At first, I thought this was related to DRM, but in later versions of OS X 10.3 this is no longer a problem.

Perhaps this is just something that not enough people have complained about, so Apple hasn't gotten around to fixing it yet.

Re:Are you sure this error results from DRM?

[mbbac]

split up protected tracks

Of course it is releated to DRM. They can split up unprotected tracks perfectly well, and they can split up protected tracks perfectly well as long as you burn them one by one. It's not a technical problem, it's a restrictions problem.

Re:Are you sure this error results from DRM?

[mosb1000]

But does that really make sense? I mean, what's the point of restricting the burning of really long tracks? Sure, it's only an issue for protected tracks, but I don't really see the motivation for restricting it in this manner.

Do you mean that it's related to DRM because it's related to Apple's implementation? That's certainly true. The question I'm asking is if this is by design, of if it's merely a coincidence resulting from their implementation scheme. I think it is more likely a coincidence, since there doesn't seem to be any reason to restrict burning in this manner. That's all I'm saying.

~Bob

Re:Are you sure this error results from DRM?

[mbbac]

I mean it is related to their DRM because they restrict you from burning a playlist that is at least partially composed of Protected AAC files and would have to span discs. Itunes has no problem burning the same Protected AAC files that have to span discs as long as there is only one song in the playlist.

Here is an example:

• Playlist A contains one 82 minute Protected AAC track. (82 minutes total)
• Playlist B contains the same 82 minute Protected AAC track plus a 3 minute AAC track. (85 minutes total)

iTunes will burn Playlist A to two 80 minute CD-Rs. iTunes will restrict you from burning Playlist B.

That is Digital Restrictions Management at work. Does it make sense to you and I? No, that is why I'm complaining about it. Does it make sense to someone at Apple or the RIAA? Yes, that is why the restriction is there.

Well, or don't

[danaris]

Um...couple of problems with your argument here, methinks.

First off, Netscape didn't have nearly the name recognition that Apple, the iPod, and iTunes do. By the time M$ has something that might be able to compete, featurewise, The People will probably know iTunes as the best music store, and want it rather than whatever M$ preinstalls/bundles/force-feeds/whatever.

Secondly, I wouldn't use the XBox as a comparison. It's not dying, but it's hardly whipping the competition. If there were as many XBoxes as PS2s out there, I'd agree with you, but the XBox just isn't successful enough to be used as an example for this strategy.

Dan Aris

Really?

[mosb1000]

I've never heard this before, does this hack really work? It seems like a glaring omission on Apples part to allow this rather than supporting protected AAC's in iMovie.

I want CD quality damn it.

[FatSean]

If I buy a whole album from iTunes it'll cost as much or more than purchasing a CD. I should get CD quality for my money, or why not just go halves on a CD with a friend?

Re:I want CD quality damn it.

[dpete4552]

This is generally incorrect. The majority of albums are $9.99 on iTunes, and when they aren't they are usually priced comparibly to your local Best Buy.

Re:I want CD quality damn it.

[TheRaven64]

I checked the price of an album on iTMS and Amazon before buying it on iTMS. It was five pounds cheaper on iTMS. Note also that there is a huge difference between 128Kb/s AAC encoded with the Dolby Pro encoder (used by iTMS) and the consumer encoder (used by QuickTime). I encode my music at 256Kb/s AAC when I'm using the consumer encoder, and the tracks I've bought from iTMS sound at least as good (you start to get into diminishing returns with AAC around 160-190Kb/s usually).

CD quality is a highly subjective thing. I have encoded a CD as AAC and played it on my iPod and a CD player (with the same amp and speakers) and found it sound better on the iPod (the CD player was from the '80s, and did not handle digital to analogue conversion as well as the iPod. These results are probably not repeatable with a modern CD player).

Re:I want CD quality damn it.

[m0rbidini]

I checked the price of an album on iTMS and Amazon before buying it on iTMS. It was five pounds cheaper on iTMS. Note also that there is a huge difference between 128Kb/s AAC encoded with the Dolby Pro encoder (used by iTMS) and the consumer encoder (used by QuickTime). I encode my music at 256Kb/s AAC when I'm using the consumer encoder, and the tracks I've bought from iTMS sound at least as good (you start to get into diminishing returns with AAC around 160-190Kb/s usually).

CD quality is a highly subjective thing. I have encoded a CD as AAC and played it on my iPod and a CD player (with the same amp and speakers) and found it sound better on the iPod (the CD player was from the '80s, and did not handle digital to analogue conversion as well as the iPod. These results are probably not repeatable with a modern CD player).

Sorry, but AFAIK the tracks supplied by iMTS are encoded with the same encoder that is in QuickTime. Can you prove me otherwise? This has been discussed on Hydrogenaudio and, so far, the conclusion is that they're exactly the same.

Oh, and btw, if the source is the same and the encoded file sounds better to you, then there's something wrong with the encoder, cause the objective is to sound as the original as much as possible. Not to "sound better". That's probably placebo effect. Try doing an ABX test.

Cya

Wow!

[kyz]

I didn't realise she had so many family members. Well, you know what they say about Northerners...

No, YOU

[poptones]

got it wrong. I did not make an "ethical" argument on this. Although I have before, that was not mentioned in my post. It was purely a matter of law, as that is what leads this discussion. I doubt very much Apple or A&M give a shit less about ethics - they do what they do to make profit, and it is law - not ethics - that steer their course.

If you WANT to discuss ethics, fine - then how do you justify "paying more for less" when it comes to the music industry? You really think it's noble to pay $20 a CD (or a buck a track) to an organization that is constantly lobbying for more ways to make sure you and eveyone else are forced to pay them even more money in the future? What kind of fucked up values system is that?

Re:No, YOU

[2nd Post!]

I generally don't buy CDs. There's no nobility in supporting the RIAA.

Re:No, YOU

[Obfiscator]

I buy CDs rarely. When I do, I only buy the CDs under $10 (maybe $10.99).

I think that's a fair price for music (RIAA-controlled or not), so that's what I pay. If I want a CD and it's $17.99, I buy a different one, or none at all.

I would be intrested in the 2nd month figures

[johnjones]

how many times have you seen:

oh there is this new new thing lets try it out...

so I would like to know how many are returning customers

I registered but could not find the music I wanted and I support apple in offering the same contract to all record labels and bands

so off I go to rip it off a mate (the p2p is frankly awful for music now)

regards

John Jones

Among other things, licensing.

[mcc]

Distribution rights for a copyrighted work such as a song are generally owned and sold on a per-country basis.

When they first set up the iTMS Apple bought distribution rights for all these songs, but when they did that, they only bought distribution rights in the United States. In other countries, meanwhile, Apple doesn't have rights to anything as a result of those U.S. rights, and the person with the right to sell those distribution rights might not even be the same person.

Air Conditioning in Ireland...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is not a big seller. I think this depends on where you are; I was in Portugal last week and really appreciated the air conditioning in 30C+ temperatures, but can just about do without it back here in Ireland where it is happily raining in the middle of 'summer'.

Ireland has been a net-recipient from the EU in the past because we *were* one of the poorer nations (and still have probably the worst infrastructure, but for this I would blame our national government, not the EU.) We are now very near balanced in terms of EU contributions/funding and will be net contibutors from 2007.

You think that's bad...

[bennomatic]

...Try buying a pack of cigarettes! It's like they're trying to rob you while they're slowly killing you.

I bought a pack of Marlboros in Copacabana, Bolivia (on beautiful Lake Titicaca) back when I was smoking a year ago, and it cost me about 3 bolivianos, which came out to something like $0.40 US at the time. A month later I was in London, and a half pack (10 nails) cost something like 4 pounds sterling, which was about $10 US. It was (almost) enough to make me quit.

I finally quit when I decided it just wasn't cool anymore.

obligatory DRM bitching

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who sees it as unfortunate that people are force fed DRM and Those who care cant do a thing about it because the majority dont care as long as they can listen to their birttany schpears records. I believe anyone who dosent care about the state of the music industry should have their ears removed by force.

Downloads and Population Ratios

[TheBillGates]

Yes, but you must realize that most of the iTunes store is U.S. (read English language) music. As iTunes gets more foreign language music online the purchases will probably increase overseas.

Don't confuse download ratios with what is available and what the customer wants.

You do realize...

[poptones]

Artists generally get very little of the money from their cd sales, but they get even less (as in nothing at all) from those cheap CDs? Once a title has been cutout (these used to be marked, but often that's not even done anymore so you can't tell at all) or is offered at that "discount" price it is counted by the record company as a "promotional item" and, therefore, not counted at all in the artist's royalties check.

I think that's a fair price for music...

You think subsidizing the lobbying of ever greater restrictions on your own intellectual freedom is a fair price?

How very... um.... interesting.

Re:You do realize...

[2nd Post!]

So you're saying it's better in the end to just shortchange everyone of every $$ and download it from AoMP3?

Re:You do realize...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Why not just go the whole hog and get it off of your filesharing network of choice?

Re:You do realize...

[Obfiscator]

Okay, so what other options do I have? I'd like to tell the RIAA what music I like (so maybe they'll produce more of that style). Would you rather I write them an e-mail? I'm sure they'd pay attention to that.

Also, how is buying a CD "subsidizing the lobbying of ever greater restrictions" on my own intellectual freedom? Are you referring to the RIAA filing lawsuits against P2P downloaders? Don't do it, so it doesn't affect me. What else can they do? If they stop making good music (or stop releasing it, to be more precise), I'll stop buying it and concentrate more on making my own. I know what I like, and every day I'm closer to being able to play it as well as I would like. My intellectual freedom is in no way threatened by buying a CD.

These ARE the payola days

[poptones]

Not paying attention, are you? In fact, one of the things the record industry has been bitching about lately is the fact they, too, are now slaves of the large broadcast quasi-monopolies. Payola was outlawed long ago but all that did was cut out the middleman - now instead of paying off a few djs and pds they have to pay megabucks to corporations in the form of "promotional expenses" just to get their tracks placed in rotation.

Life is a movie

[poptones]

I didn't drive three hours, but my buddy and I braved the gauntlet on Slausson to get to The Forum when they came to LA.

And that is still one of my favorite movies.

Spice Girls rule!

This is only bad news...

[Anonymous Coward]

One word EUROVISION,
Another word EUROVISION jr, /me shudders

btw if any yanks are thinking WTF then imagine Pop Idol where almost all the contestants do not speak english and where all the voting is rigged then increase the crap factor by ten.

Use Gift Certficate outside US,UK,FR,DE ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Something I was hoping for :

Could somebody "outside" use a Gift Certificate sent from "inside" ITMS ?

Non-stop albums

[ianscot]

I think it is also illegal to broadcast an entire album from a band non stop, at least in the US anyway.

Hmm. They used to do at least a full LP side at a time on classic rock stations locally. This was a late-night tradition for a while in Minneapolis. The promotion was based on its being non-stop, but I guess it wasn't the whole thing; they'd pause in between the sides to talk and throw a few Clearasil ads.

(We don't really need laws to prevent stations from playing music without commercials. The stations don't make any money that way.)

Your nick is only slightly appropo

[poptones]

Maybe it should be more like "Obfiscator Naivete."

You buy a CD. The artist ges almost nothing from it, the store only slightly more. The rest of it goes to the record company, who in turn helps fund the RIAA. The RIAA then, in turn, spends Millions of dollars in washington making sure crackpots like Hollings invent nonsensical bullshit like the NET act (and this most recent pinnacle of buffonery, that "enable" act.)

These laws not only cost us our freedoms, in the end they cost us both jobs and the ability to compete in the international marketplace. This is not YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK but rather YOUR CD PURCHASES AT WORK. That "it doesn't bother me cuz I don't do it" attitude is, and always has been, "idiocy in the defense of freedom."

What are you supposed to do? Well, you could try realizing the international scene is not "Universally owned" and there's a LOT of good stuff out there not on US labels, not on US airwaves, and not subsidizing anticompetetive legislation in your own country. It's not just music you are buying - it's culture. What culture would you rather subsidize? One that embraces artists AND the audience, or one that treats the audience as so many criminals?

Re:Your nick is only slightly appropo

[Obfiscator]

I think I need to clarify why I buy CDs. I'm not buying CDs just to listen to the music. I'm buying them to learn from. Therefore, I'm looking for the best (aim high, right?). I go into record stores looking for certain people, not looking for a certain type of music.

The last three CDs I bought were by John Lee Hooker, Freddie King, and Eric Clapton/B.B. King. All of those CDs were released by a RIAA member, according to RIAA Radar. Do I care? In this case, no. These are some of the greatest blues guitarists of their generations, and I'd be a fool not to learn from them. Since I doubt any of them are going to show up on my doorstep offering lessons (especially since two of them are dead), I need to buy their CDs.

I agree, music is a culture. And where did modern blues orginate? In the United States. Delta blues (from the Mississippi river delta) and Chicago blues are born and bred US music styles, though the Chicago blues can be found with a very pleasant English twist (Eric Clapton, for instance). This is the culture and music that I want to experience, which means I will frequently need to "support" the RIAA, as all the classical blues musicians have released the vast majority of their work with RIAA labels. Until I feel very comfortable with my own style, I will continue to purchase the music of the masters.

Why are you so afraid of the RIAA? Do you seriously think they can win this fight? Do you honestly believe they can control all aspects of music in the United States? Not unless they outlaw instruments and musical styles. This will be as effective as the War on Drugs (indeed, all the legislation appears to be directed at "distributers" of copyrighted music). I do not morally support the RIAA or the tactics they use, but until a better option appears for people in my situation (the one you present - to look outside the US - is not valid for this situation, as I've previously explained) I have no choice.

I look forward to your response, in hopes that you come up with a viable option (and refrain from personal attacks).

Afraid?

[poptones]

Not afraid of the RIAA. One does not "fear" those one considers an ethical enemy. It's simply a matter of not supporting those who lobby against the things one considers right.

And again I'll point out that BB King and JL Hooker and EC are far from the only blues musicians in this country. And it's interesting you mention this because I live right smack in the middle of Mississippi; I am less than an hour from Clarksville - you need not tell me about the origin of the blues.

In fact, BB King has played the High School Gymnasium in the town not six miles from my home - a rather impoverished small town of about 1000 people. What's he doing here? As always, Google has the answer.

There is a giant Blues festival here every single year. No, wait - that's a lie. There are lots of blues festivals here every year. When they were still with us both Lightnin' Hopkins and Gatemouth Brown used to play "clubs" (plywood paneled barbeque shacks) around here. You want to learn the blues? This is how you learn. Trying to learn the blues from studio records is like trying to learn handwriting from those second grade books: it's all hyper-perfect, computer generated sterile crap that can never be achieved in real life (nor should be). And "the vast majority" of their music was not, and has never been released on ANY label. If you want to hear Mississippi Blues, you gotta get outta the house and hear it cut live through the luminipherous ether.

And by the way: ever heard of Jimmie Rodgers? Robert Johnson? Johnson died penniless and his only recorded works were basically stolen from him during his own lifetime. He's regarded as the king of the blues and his records are, strictly speaking, public domain. Jimmie Rodgers (a white boy who yodeled) was also considered (and still is) one of the early blues pioneers as well. And again, his recordings are pretty much "free" at this point, at least literally if not legally. I dare say, neither of these gents are going to miss the money if you should prefer FLACs over CDs. And their works was not released on RIAA labels, since the RIAA did not even exist then. The recordings have simply been purchased, long after their respective deaths, by these corporations.

And arguing "I have no choice" is utterly stupid. Besides easily being proven patently untrue, this statements reeks of those other "enablers" - not pirates, but alcoholics and drug users. "I just need a little to get my head straight and then you come in here and wreck it and I have to buy more - see what you made me do?"

There are LOTS of choices... and lots of alternatives from which to choose them. So long as you give these parasites your money, you are supporting them - no two ways about it. You can hate them all you like, you can cuss and spit on every cent you hand over... but in the end, you're supporting them with every penny.

Re:Afraid?

[Obfiscator]

Excellent. Near the birthplace of John Lee Hooker. So you're familar with the music. As an aside, do you enjoy it?

Agreed, those three I mentioned are hardly the only blues musicians in the country. However, them and the people like them are considered by myself (and many others) to be the epitome of the various genres. I still argue that they are the best to learn from because of this. Would live shows be better than CDs? Undoubtably. However, musicians rarely take the same trip through solo land in live shows (the same solo gets boring, if you even remember how you did it last time). This gives me a better feel for how they work, true, but also makes for a much steeper learning curve. It makes more sense, at this stage, to listen to the same track repeatedly and attempt to figure out what's going on. Am I trying to play the exact notes they play? Of course not. I don't want to copy them, I want to learn from them, but it's difficult to learn when the guitarist goes on tour and you have three-six months between lessons. And you can only listen to these lessons once.

Also, unlike you, I am not fortunate enough to live in the heart of the deep south, permeated as it is with the blues. I've lived in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, California, and Australia for varies periods of time in my life. Three of these places are, in fact, close to a blues hotbed (Chicago), and Minneapolis and Milwaukee are big enough to attract names. However, how often are you going to drive between 2-8 hours each way for a lesson, and then pay for a ticket on top of it? Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? That adds up, both in cost and in time. And, as mentioned before, quite of a few of these guys are dead. If I was near "clubs" like you mentioned, I would spend many an hour there. But I'm not, and therefore I have to make due in other ways.

I'm familar with the legend of Robert Johnson, if not his music (I was looking for a CD of his last time I went buyin', but unable to find one). The man who went down to the Crossroads in order to be able to play the guitar. It's funny, because people feel you have to do the same in order to get a recording deal. Jimmie Rodgers is a name I have not heard, though I will remember it for future reference. You're right, neither of them will care if I grab FLACs instead of buying CDs. To be honest, I doubt B.B. King or EC care how I get their music. They have enough money, and make enough through live shows, that CD royalties are probably trivial to them. I saw a quote somewhere that Bruce Springsteen probably makes more in ten nights at the Meadowlands than he did his entire recording career. So what good are record labels? They spread the music. They don't create it, don't control it, they distribute it. And their days are probably numbered, with the growing use of the Internet for that purpose.

I think herein lies the difference between us. You view the RIAA as a corrupt entity that needs to be destroyed. I see them as an antiquated institution that will destroy themselves, even if I occasionally support them. Consequently, the one CD I purchase every couple of months is no weight on my soul. The benefits I gain from having the music outweighs the benefits the RIAA gains from me purchasing the music. One could argue that those same reasons justify downloading the songs from Kazaa. That, however, would put me on the wrong side of current laws, which is an additional burden that I choose not to shoulder at this time.

To summarize my position:

I am a burgeoning blues guitarist, who wishes to learn from the masters.

Due to cost and time, I cannot attended a couple live performances every week in order to develop my skills.

I feel the RIAA will collapse with or without my support, and when they do (or I can purchase music in a format that I can use directly from the desired musician) or I can make my own music to my satisfaction, things will change. Until then, however, I will not abandon my dreams.

You still don't get it...

[poptones]

To begin with, worrying about the "legality" of works that were essentially STOLEN to begin with is nonsensical. The recordings are already illicit - paying for them just rewards those who did the thieving.

And: Those blues recordings are ALEADY FREE. The music of Robert Johnson, Jimmie Rodgers - much of the stuff recorded even by BB King is now PD because the recordings were unclaimed back in the 70's when the first laws on this matter were passed - just like those old John Wayne movies that sell at wallyworld for three-ninety-five.

And we're talking about the web. Whose laws apply? Every "point" you make is an insipid defense to excuse your inaction on the matter. If AofMP3.com offers recordings for a dime each and it's legal, how does it suddenly become illegal because it's in your house? How can you even attempt a logical justification for donating twenty bucks to the people lobbying away everyone's rights (including the rights of these artists you seem to treasure)? If BB King says "come to greenwood with your tape deck" how the hell can you say the recording is illegal? How does the guy who wrote and performed the song on stage not get the right to give away his art? The man hasn't sweated a record label in decades - he tours (he'll play your birthday party for just a few grand) and he has his club - so he hasn't earned the right to share his art as he chooses?