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iTMS Sells 100,000,000th Song
Macslacker writes "At 10:26 PM PDT on Sunday, July 11, Apple apparently sold its 100 millionth song at the iTunes Music Store. While the contest may now be over, congrats to Apple for a job well done."
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And, in other news, Kazaa serves its 100-billionth song. And the RIAA serves its 1-billionth lawsuit. And the Slashborg respond with another 100 comments. Here, let me outline the next 99 for you:
1. "Apple rocks!"
2. "Apple fanboys suck!"
3. Late GNAA post.
4. "This proves the music industry isn't doing badly!"
5. Something about fruity names, dumb music players, and profit.
6. iPod raves.
7. Repeat comments 1-2.
8. OSX raves.
9. Inane remarks about a certain ex-Soviet country.
10. Repeat comments 1-2.
11. "RealPlayer sucks!"
12. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of iPods!
13. Repeat comments 1-2.
14. Something about how Bush is responsible for all of this.
15-99. Repeat comments 1-14.
But what was the track?
At least the 200 Prince songs I downloaded in vain trying to get the 100,000,000th download weren't in vain... I think...
the contest was annouced, Apple is the real winner here, i bought 20 songs I would never of bought. I've had itunes for ages and never used it.
The counter is still running for those who didn't download the 3rd party counters, even after the comp, they are still selling song by the thousands. its already very nearly gone over another 100,000 songs already, it just doesn't stop!
Jonathanjk.com
.. to Apple! It's good to see that some are able to look new ways when it comes to distributing music, perhaps other contents, like movies, can be distributed in the same manner in the near future.
4. I for one welcome our iPod overlords.
Unfortunately, the 100,000,000th song sold was Hanson's "Mmm Bop", causing embarassment for everyone involved...
In all seriousness though, I really like ITunes...even though it costs $0.99 per song, I can put if up with it because i'm guaranteed a near album quality version of the song each time i download...there were always quality issues with Kazaa or Naptster or Lime Wire...plus, the transfer is much faster then those ever were...
I look at it this way...i can download 20 songs for $20, and burn my own CD...sure, now the CD costs me approximately what it would in the store, but it's garaunteed to have 20 songs on it that i like...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Let's start simple: the iTunes Music Store is not a good value for customers. Apple says many users are buying whole "albums" for $8-$12 each. That's less than the $16 store price, but used CDs at Amazon or ebay cost $5, and those come with liner notes. If you don't care about liner notes, you can burn the CD from a friend for 25 cents and send the musician a buck. In both cases, you end up with a real CD, and you can always use iTunes to rip it onto your computer or mp3 player. And you don't have to deal with restrictions on how you use it.
Apple says iTunes is "better than free" because it's "fair to the artists and record labels." That's simply not true. First of all, Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract. Many of them will never Artists Get Ripped Off. even see this paltry share because they have to pay for producers and recording costs, both of which can be enormous. Until the musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing.
So why does iTunes give artists such a raw deal? Because it's the exact same deal that artists have always gotten from the big five record companies. Despite huge new efficiencies created by internet distribution --no CDs to make, no distributors to store and ship them, no CD stores to build and run-- artists receive the same pathetic cut. That is the disaster of iTunes. Instead of using this new medium to empower musicians and their fans, it helps the record industry cartel perpetuate the exploitation. Apple might say it's not their fault: after all, they didn't write the unfair record contracts. But when Apple supports and profits from an obviously unfair system, while telling customers that it's "fair to the artists", they are just as guilty. For years, Apple Computer has built a reputation for straightforward business. So if Apple honestly believes that the iTunes system is fair for artists, we challenge them to display the artist's cut next to each song and let their customers decide.
iTunes is just a shiny new facade for the ugly, exploitative system that has managed music for the past 50 years. Thanks to peer to peer filesharing, we finally have a chance to break the major record label system-- but every iTunes user who pays 90 cents on the dollar to middlemen props up the old regime and delays the day when corporations finally lose their stranglehold on music. Now that's something to feel guilty about.
Now, I don't claim to agree with all of these criticisms, but it does bug me how fawning and sycophantic many /. editors and posters are towards
Apple.
What are the record companies going to do with their $75 million cut?
Good luck waiting for that track you want to appear at the quality you want from P2P.
Maybe someday you'll have a job and responsibilities and realize that time and convenience are worth something.
Just to pick one nit.
By definition, something that you've sold 100,000,000 of is not "too expensive". It might be too expensive for YOU (as indeed it's too expensive for me), it's obviously found a market and services that market satisfactorily.
Re: your other points, Apple couldn't very well change all the musicians' contracts with a wave of their hand. Now that they're players in the market, we'll see what happens.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
...when DRM was generally considered a bad thing here (remember "fair use"?). Now people get blasted for being "ungrateful" if they criticise Apple's use of DRM (just read some of the comments to this story).
I'll bite. Slashdot is not a single entity. There are what, about 790,000 registered users, right? Ok, so why would all those people have the same opinion. Some of them won't have a problem with DRM, some will hate it with all their soul, and some (probably most) Won't mind it until it interferes with what they want to do. Since ITMS doesn't interfere with what most people want to do with their music. Most people don't care about it.
I would personally rather that a music store with minimal DRM become popular, rather than have a "1 copy, rent your music" model become prevalent.
Let's make a difference
Personally I think the most valid criticism is that Apple describe iTunes as being fair to artists whereas in most cases the artist only makes a tiny fraction of each sale. Yes, this might be due to the artist signing a dumb contract with their label, but its Apple's choice to describe this as "fair".
Downhill Battle have a nice suggestion on that page I linked to, iTunes should clearly indicate the amount of each sale that goes to the artists. That way consumers can choose to support record labels that give artists a fair deal over those that don't.
According to some automated logs I've been keeping of the contest the winning person won between Mon, 12 Jul 2004 05:19:29 GMT and 05:24:53 GMT.
The number of songs sold at the first time was 99992422.
The number of songs sold at the second time was 100014607.
Apple sold a total of 22185 songs in that five minute 24 second period. For those wondering that's roughly 68.5 songs per second.
Congrats to whoever it was.
Really, downloading DVD quality movies is not something I ever see commercially happening until there are major infastructure upgrades in the internet. Pirates do it using lower quality rips, but if I am paying money for a movie then artifacts are just not an option. I am going to want DVD quality, if I don't get it I will just wait a month until the DVD goes on sale used at the local blockbuster.
Downloading a 2 GB DVD over a 1.5Mbit line, assuming *maximum* bandwidth (yeah right) is still going to take you over 3 hours. Why would I pay money to download a DVD, when it is faster for me to just go down to the local store and buy it?
The only way this will ever work is if
Damn I thought i was filled with miss information.
Apple get's $.10 from each sale. That's 11% for you math wiz's.
Record labels get the bulk of the rest, but that's what they do anyway. It's the Record labels that rip off the artists. independant artists, get the same rate as labels , but take home larger percentage due to the fact they don't pay labels.
Also modern Computers can duplicate recording studios for independant artists. I know of several that use a G4 tower to record and clean up their music, burn the original CD, and then use a cd duplicator to make their own CD's. They then due all the shipping themselves. Distribution via iTunes saves them time, as they don't have to duplicate the music.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
yeah yeah, if you want to bring down a system there's no point targeting the new online equivalent of the CD store. You think HMV has any say in how artists get remunerated? That's right, and neither does Apple (though I'd love to see them set up a direct agreement with a few big artists - no record company at all).
Anyway, you have your grievances, fair enough. Mine is quality. I want lossless, not some shitty lossy encoded MP3/AAC/OGG, etc.
It's the first time in music production history where the quality of what's on offer (as in, technical sound quality) has gone backwards. I'd pay up to double if I could get lossless files.
-- james
Actually, I can see exactly where Jobs is coming from WRT portable video.
With music, you are more likely to "play" it in a variety of contexts that are already well-established. I used my iPod a great deal this past week, both on a family vacation to Niagara Falls (about 10 hours each way) and on several short trips. The passengers in the back might have been interested in watching video, but those of us in the driver's seat aren't (or shouldn't be). For the backseat crowd, there are already solutions for playing DVDs that way.
WRT downloading movies, there's a different issue. Of all the movies that I really love, only a handful have been worth re-watching enough for me to buy the DVD. (This excludes my purchases of movies for the kids when they were younger, and would watch "The Lion King" or "Alladin" several times each week.) If push came to shove, and I had to rebuild my video collection from scratch, I'd probably only repurchase 5-10 movies. The rest are just not that important to me.
Now... why would I bother downloading/storing that number of videos to an iPod-like device? There are other products in the portable DVD space that accomplish the same basic functionality, and the times that I would actually watch a movie away from my home system (vacation or a REALLY long trip where I'm the passenger) are few and far between. Again, that need is quite nicely satisfied by a portable DVD & screen.
Demographically, I'm pretty much Joe-average (in consumer terms), so I think Jobs has hit the mark when he thinks that iPod video is a non-issue.
Tim
All that for just 99 cents? I wish they would bring iTunes to Canada!! Even with the exchange rate, that's a deal!
This isn't a flame on Sanity, but just some thoughts on the points that were made.
I agree that the iTMS doesn't change the situation for artists, but given the resistance from the overall recording industry to the model that iTMS has been so successful with I still think it was a big step.
In terms of the used CD thing. Hey, nobody is forcing you to buy from iTMS. I still think it's a good deal once you factor in shipping costs (or local sales tax). Plus there's the instance gratification thing. Apparently others agree or they wouldn't have just sold their 100,000,000th song.
Anyway, Apple isn't the bad guy here. The RIAA and recording industry are! Apple's just trying to make a buck by selling iPods (after operating costs they really aren't making anything off of the songs).
Finally, I don't feel the least bit guilty about buying from iTMS anymore than I'd feel guilty buying a CD. In fact those buying CD's are doing more to prop up the "old regime" IMHO. Short of a full boycott of buying music, I don't see how any purchases under the current model wouldn't "prop up the old regime."
Once you lick the lollipop of mediocrity, you'll suck forever!
Shouldn't that be:
"congrats to Jobs for an Apple well done"?
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
File this under "Too little, too late" but FWIW like most contests of these types there was "no purchase neccessary". With a careful reading of the official rules you would have discovered that sending an email message to itunes100@apple.com counted as an entry. Oh well...I wish I saw that before I bought all those Clay Aiken tracks...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
As usual, most /. ers here are using this announcement to a) complain about how Apple is being unfair to artists and b) complain about how the iTMS is too expensive.
When the store originally debuted, Jobs spoke on his justification for spending $1 on a song, which was, in fact, that it was marginally more convenient and valuable for a user to DL a song from the store than to spend time hunting on p2p sites for music and runing into cancelled downloads, poor quality music, mixtapes with DJs shouting over it, or viruses in some newer cases. In his words, to download off a p2p site and deal with the hassles is like working for under minimum wage. While we can all agree that there are some holes in Jobs' argument, especiually for those whose sharing avenues are quite advanced, what seems apparent is that with the sale of 100,000,000 songs, many users do find that convenience of the iTUMS to be valuable. Obviously, the store is far from perfect, but content like the motown collection and iTunes exclusives is exciting for users both young and old, and can persuade users from hardcore music fans to those who are discovering new music to broaden their horizons.
In fact, you yourself can have a free copy of that 100,000,000th song here.
So if Apple is selling free music, do they get to pocket that money, with no music labels to pay off? Or was the song free to download, in which case why didn't anyone just sit there downloading free tracks all day trying to hit that 100,000,000th download?
It boils down even simpler for me. I'm a CONSUMER. I like, sometimes, to buy stuff that I want. I'm surfing the net and an old Genesis song comes on the Classic Rock station, and I think, "Hey, I love that song! I wish I had it." I CAN have it. Here are my choices: 1. Go to the store and buy the whole album. Too time consuming and pricey. 2. Go to the used CD place and buy the album used. IF they have it. Time consuming, costs maybe 5 or 6 bucks. Quality unknown until I play it the whole way through. 3. Buy it new or used online. Then I pay 5 to 15 bucks, and I have to WAIT for it to be delivered. This is an impulse buy situation, so that won't work. 4. Download it illegally. That's assuming I can FIND it. This is Genesis we're talking about, not Maroon 5. And if I do find it, odds are it's gonna be a 128 kbps mp3 file, and that file format is NOT high enough quality for me. It may be fine for the kiddies who listen to music over their $49 Dell plastic speakers, but I've got an actual real stereo. 5. Download it legally from an online music service for a buck. The easiest to use service being Apple's. I don't give a RAT'S ASS about big business, fair to artists, whatever. I just want the song. And #5 is the most logical solution here. I think people who are stealing music online because they want to "fight the power" should examine everything ELSE they purchase. Like their sneakers. Some poor 6 year old in China or Korea went home last night with bloody fingers so you could have those $90 sneakers. (cue violins.) Seriously, people shouldn't get all high and mighty about one issue and then conveniently ignore analyzing every other product they buy that might exploit someone. The whole argument is just to justify stealing music online. If you're going to steal music, be honest about it at least.
Music - www.richardmac.com
For a musician to be successful to the RIAA, they need to sell albums as well as touring. Brand new ones. If everybody did this, yes, the artist could dump the label, somehow breaking the contract, and live on to make great music. But we don't live in an ideal world. If enough people don't agree to do this, the label dumps them for being unsuccessful and has pocket change.
The RIAA gets most of the money. Apple, according to a few people, make almost no money on this. Not even making a profit. They supposedly make less than a dime, which is a lot less than %35 if a song costs a buck.
Wrong, they worked with the labels. Mostly. The indie groups are different. Some proxy through a label like cdbaby. You know how difficult it'd be to contract every single artist they had on there... individually?
Have you/him thought about it the other way around? Apple just made music more popular during a decline of cd sales. Yes, the RIAA is getting helped, but the arists are getting helped too. Being an artist is tough work. If artists could sell themselves due to easier money rolling in, I'm sure they wouldn't need the RIAA, but because they get trapped in their deals, they need a good way out. Not a bunch of people making life harder when the artists haven't even asked for a rebelion of this kind.
When the artists come forth, ala They Might Be Giants, and sell directly, sure. I'd rip a used copy and send them most of the cost. It'll prolly save them more money not dealing with me in the first place.
And mr poster, yes. Sometimes slashdot doesn't post all of the facts, and sometimes it posts crappy stories. But what you just posted is just plain wrong.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
1. When the record companies sold their 100-billionth CD, they probably celebrated by jacking up the prices - not by giving stuff away.
2. If You'll look at the prize - it's no biggie in terms of money (it's not even a car). It's all worth less than 15K, yet it's something that most people lust for - the coolest laptop, 10,000 songs, and the best MP3 player...
Now that's what I call a cool company.
I'm sorry but I must interject. Grammar Man is here to save you from Gramacide. Note the bolded portion in the above statement. My message to you is:
Should you find yourself in another situation like the above, remember what Grammar Man said: would've!*This message was furnished by Grammar Man. He approves this message*
Apple makes almost NO money on their cut, they may make a little on volume but they aren't rolling in the dough by any stretch. Out of their $.35 they have to pay for bandwidth, servers, admins, advertising, and most importantly credit card transaction fees. In fact that is the reason that the iTMS was able to exist at all, they hammered out a deal with the CC companies to get lower rates on the credit card processing because typically a CC transaction cost ~$.25 plus 3% of the transaction, that rate would have eliminated any chance at break even let alone a profit. Btw indie artists who have a more fair revenue distribution agreement with their label may well earn significantly more through iTMS since the costs are so much lower the label is free to give an artist a fairly large cut of their 65%, remember Apple opened up the iTMS to more than just the big labels.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
These complaints all fail for obvious, factual reasons.
"It's too expensive"
Well, I don't have a PhD in Economics, but I'm pretty sure that when you're selling your product in a non-monopoly situation, and your sales are huge, that's a good indicator that your prices are not too expensive. If it's too expensive for you, then Apple simply has to decide if they can live without you as a customer. I think they've made that decision, and it's worked out pretty well for them.
"First of all, Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale."
In other news, gravity still pulls things down. There isn't another way to do it; this is how the world works right now. If Apple wants to sell the latest Britney Spears song, they can't just call Britney and say "Hey Brit, how does 20 cents per song sound? Does that work for you?" She doesn't have the power to sell them her songs; she gave that right away when she signed her record contract. If you think that's evil, then your beef is with the record companies, not Apple. Apple buys from the labels because they're the ones holding the songs. If they could pay artists 40 cents per song instead of paying the labels 65, they'd do so in a heartbeat. As for the "35 cents is a ripoff", ITMS is not a large profit source for Apple: that 35 cents barely exceeds their costs (servers, bandwidth, processing media, design, management overhead, etc...). They've said that the major thrust of ITMS is to sell iPods, not to generate vast profits from song sales.
"But when Apple supports and profits from an obviously unfair system, while telling customers that it's 'fair to the artists', they are just as guilty."
Bullshit. And you're going to tell me that by using your computer to access the Internet and post on slashdot, you're supporting the agenda of the sweatshop owners who built your PC components, all of the communications companies who own circuits between you and the servers you visit, and the admins who run slashdot? Sorry, but I don't accept that philosophy. It's a big, complicated world, and everyone has to live in it. Apple looked at the world as it was, saw a way to make it a little bit better, and seems to have done a good job. You presume to blame them for the sorry state that existed before they got there, saying that they should have fixed everything or done nothing. Let me know how that works out for you.
And we do hear these complaints on slashdot, all the time. This isn't a haven for Apple fanboys, it's a haven for Linux fanboys. These complaints are neither original, nor well reasoned.
My point is that /.'s coverage of Apple is one-sided (both in the stories the editors select, and in the general trend of moderation). This doesn't imply that I necessarily advocate the other side, just that I would prefer a more balanced debate.
The world isn't so black and white. Have you thought about the RIAA, who has a large say in what apple can and can't do with what RIAA says, is their property?
Throats.
How does the old saying go? "First they ignore you; then they mock you; then they punish you; then you win." Are you on 2 or 3? Jobs did something that people wanted, granted the ability to buy a single song, by itself, with not uber-strict drm. Did you expect Apple to buy 100 million songs and give them away for free?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I love iTunes. I've sold many, many more songs on iTunes than I ever did on CD (over the 'net).
On the other hand, when I try to describe DRM to people, they kind of blank out and say "uh...ok", and move on.
DRM hurts small artists because it confuses people. Small artists desperately need the impulse buying that online distribution allows, and confusion or second thoughts destroy this impulse buying.
So....
Apple: Thank you!
But:
Apple:
* Make the DRM optional...I don't care about it and it hurts sales.
* Let me pick a price. I'd love to lower my lesser-sold songs to say, 60 cents to try to get them out there.
* Improve the 'community' aspect so more people have exposure to different music
* 128 bits? Yeah that's why I spent my kids college money on production.
Fix this stuff,t hen we'll really love you....Heck we might even have some loyalty when those sub $100, 40 gig competitor devices come out.
Yet you get more rights with downloading itunes songs than with buying a cd?
Jonathanjk.com
No matter how many songs Apple sells, the music industry still holds the strings. At any time when Apple starts to gain too much power, those strings will be pulled. Apple will always be at the mercy of the industry, and that will never change.
The music industry is paranoid about services such as Apple's. If iTunes became dominate, Apple could sign artists directly. Those artists would make more money, Apple would make more money, and the music industry would be gone.
The music industry will ensure that will never happen. They will play the various internet music services against each other. Once Apple gets too big, they'll force price hikes on it.
The only service that could possibly stand up to the music industry is Wal-Mart. As I've written here before, because the music industry NEEDS Wal-Mart to sell its CDs, Wal-Mart currently holds the cards. I don't think the music industry has the guts to stand up to Wal-Mart.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Lets not forget, people who download the music from itunes have signed a license agreement, until it gets contested in court it still stands. It bring me back to my first post however. You get more rights than with a traditional cd. You can share the song between 5 computers, dump it on an iPod and burn it to cd. What more do you want?
Jonathanjk.com
You mean iTunes music files have DRM? I haven't noticed. I've been able to do everything I've wanted to with the music I've gotten from iTunes. I guess there is no pleasing some people.
Too expensive? In America? Uh, right. Here where I live, CD's have the normal price of about 20 euros, which is about 24 US dollars. Discount price is about 16 euros (20 dollars). Considering the average income rate in the US compared to the ones in Europe, I really don't see any reason for you to complain.
To be honest, I think the prices iTunes Music Store has are the most fair for everyone. You can't expect to get everything for free in your life.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
No, its not like that at all.$1 for a tune is a rip off. In the uk it is cheaper to buy albums in ASDA (Wal mart) than it is to download from ITMS. And I dont get the physical media from ITMS. Im afraid that as it stands the price is simply too high. I listen to my music on an Ipod, and yet any music from BMG cannot be put on an ipod without breaking the law. So I am being forced to break the law if I choose to listen to my music on an Ipod. I have always bought and paid for my music, and now I have to pay more. (Cost of downloading stuff with no DRM.).
I think its therefore fair that I now just download one BMG CD for every 2 I buy.
Your "Buy at a low price or dont buy at all" amounts to lying down and doing nothing while the music companies raid your bank account.
Let's start simple: the iTunes Music Store is not a good value for customers.
.. Velvet Revolver, chart topper with DRM. Hmm. Sounds like restrictions to me. What, more to come .. how interesting! You keep buying those CDs .. I'm sure those "experiments" won't make your ripping difficult at all.
.. until now there has been NO alternative. Its not a great deal for artists by and means, but at least they get something. Before people who wanted internet delivered music, had no choice but to turn to Kazza and others of the same ilk.
Right. So do tell me what is the best 'value for money' solution that allows you to from your armchair instantly download songs from a range of bands and burn your own custom CD. Or put it seamelessly on a superb digital device.
That's less than the $16 store price, but used CDs at Amazon or ebay cost $5
You complain about artists not getting any money then advocate buying used CDs. WTF? Buying a used CD means the artist gets no extra money. At least with iTMS they are getting something.
And you don't have to deal with restrictions on how you use it.
Sorry what was that
Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do.
Clearly your not a developer as I am sure most people would appreciate there is some cost in delivering a high quality, high availability, high traffic web infrastructure. Costs that come to mind include salaries, importing of CDs/cover art, creation of 30-second previews, big iron servers, networking. Oh and the odd 400 TB of traffic (100 mil songs x approx 4 MB each)
Until the musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing.
And this is Apple's fault why ? It is the fault of the musician if they signed a contract with a music label and didn't like the terms. That was their choice.
In Australia right now we have a great band, John Butler Trio who has the number one CD released under their own, independant label. They get to keep the full 65%. Remember being with a label doesn't guarentee success and vice versa.
Because it's the exact same deal that artists have always gotten from the big five record companies.
Why would you think it would be otherwise ? Oh wait you thought just because its Apple, the labels would offer new contracts with bigger cuts to all of their artists. What world are you living in ?
But when Apple supports and profits from an obviously unfair system, while telling customers that it's "fair to the artists", they are just as guilty.
Of course its "fair"
Thanks to peer to peer filesharing, we finally have a chance to break the major record label system
On one hand you talk about the rights of the artists on the other you talk up pirating songs. Which side of the fence ARE you on ? Or at the end of the day do all you really care about is justifying your pirating ways. Now that's something to feel guilty about.
In the end, there's 100 million reasons why you are full of shit and blaming Apple for what is so clearly an issue between the label and the artist is just being disingenious.
Funtage Factor: Purple
I'd like introduce you to a wonderful (and patent free) invention I have been working on for years that could revolutionize the world as we know it. It's called not buying something you don't like. Now, rather than feeling as if the DMCA was shoved down your "throwt", or complaining that this service is forcing you to become a soulless, consume-on-demand sucker, you can actually take the drastic step of NOT USING THE SERVICE.
Don't be frightened, it is clear from your posting that you feel there is a gun to your head when it comes to purchasing RIAA songs from iTMS but let me assure you there is not. You are actually free to NOT spend your money, and keep your soul and throwt intact.
I hope you enjoy this newfound freedom for years to come.
Finkployd
1:download
2:burn
3:rip
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract. Many of them will never Artists Get Ripped Off. even see this paltry share because they have to pay for producers and recording costs, both of which can be enormous. Until the musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing.
Apple has been better than most other online stores to include independent labels. Merge, Sub-pop, Matador, Kill Rock Stars, and Thrill Jockey (to name a few) all have recordings on iTunes. If indepents' contacts for digital music are comparable to their other contracts, then the artists should do considerably better.
However, I think your answer points out a big problem with the major labels - they have a hard time complaining about being ripped off from file trading, when they're actively ripping off artists. The problem with file trading is that it still hurts the musician - they certainly have less of a chance of paying off their advances if people are trading their music. Personally, I would like it if online music sales allowed musicians to bypass the recording industry. I agree that iTunes isn't quite there, but frankly, it's closer than most of the competition.
FWIW, there's always this article on the pitfalls of signing to a major label. Yes, I know, it's 11 years old. Yes, it's been posted to hell. But it's a good reminder.
Ok, let's deal with reality. If you want the entire album, it's cheaper to get the real CD. Whether you go through a music club, a used music store, or even WalMart, you can find the entire album cheaper. Shoot, at even money or slightly more, if I want the entire album I go and buy the CD.
The music store is good for 2 things. Buying a couple of songs off the album because the rest of the album sucks, and listening to blurbs of the entire album to see if it sucks. Would you rather spend $13 (or $10, or whatever) for a single song you want, or just to buy that one song and not have to deal with the rest of the crap on there?
To a degree. The digital cable box I have has all that "On Demand" capability to do PPV movies and such, but it also has 30 channels or so, each devoted to a single network. Think "HBO On Demand" and "Showtime On Demand" and such, but extend it to "NBC On Demand" or "Fox On Demand". Or even to basic cable, what with Discovery, SciFi, and even Cartoon Network and Anime on demand channels.
Anyway, you pick your channel, and pretty much every series episode that channel has shown in the last year shows up. Usually the last 3-4 movies of the week show up on there too. Hit Play, and it begins after about a 15 second delay. It also has FF and RW buttons, which strangely enough seem to send a message back to the head end to do the FF'ing or RW'ing.. Good quality too, but then it is standard NTSC TV, so that's not particurlarly hard to do. There is some minor artifacting, but it's very good compression nonetheless.
There are also HD On Demand channels on there, but I lack HD at the moment.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
DVD rips are typically
1) Resized in resolution
2) Changed pixel shape
3) Transcoded from MPEG2 to MPEG4
Already the first two should tell you that you can never achieve the same quality again, even if you saved it as uncompressed AVI. Remember that a native MPEG4 format would take it directly from source.
You may not think it matters, but take a RAW picture with your favorite digicam. Save lossy once, and you'll see little difference from the original. Try editing both the raw and 1st gen jpg and save again. You'll see a huge difference between the 1st and 2nd gen jpg.
The only real reason we're not seeing HDTV on DVD9 discs, is because they want better copy protection. Your average 2CD rip is usually ~400mb AC3 track and ~900mb video. 1920x1080 is 9 times the pixels of a normal 640 wide DVDrip. So 9x900=8100. Still with more than 400mb to go for the AC3 track.
So, in summary a DVD9 will hold a better-than-2CD dvdrip quality (already at 2CD rip bitrate + no resize/transcode = better compressability), never mind that the artifacts will be 1/3rd as large on the same size screen because of the resolution, with the same original AC3 track.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You know my blood boils each and every fucking time I hear those worthless idiots from DownHill Battle referenced.
Its too expensive? $1 is the perfect price to demo an album and actually get a little sample of the full album. I generally buy one song from the iTMS and then if I like it I buy the full album. I use to download the songs from a P2P and then do the same thing or discard the tune, but I never really liked it. It felt too much stealing a car to see if I liked it or not (fuck off any asshole that references piracy is not theft). Sure, if I liked the car, I'd take it back in the morning and write out a check...if I didn't, well thats the dealers problem and I'll leave it on the side of the road. Oh yeah, fuck off anyone that points out minor flaws in analogies.
Past that, I buy the full album, used or not. If I can find it used, thats what I pick up.
As for artists getting ripped off?
Bull fucking shit. Do you believe everything crackheads like Courtney Love tell you? She is so fucked up that she never read her contracts, spent all the money and then wrote a bunch of articles claiming the industry was ripping her off.
I work in the backline for several major artists as well as quite a few up and coming artists. I get paid for my work. A lot of times, the new guys pay me to come in (well, through their lable) and I'll sit around for 8 hours while they try to write their album in the studio. Thats cool when you are fronting the costs, but when you are on someone elses dime, thats STILL going to come out of your pocket somewhere. Those 8 hours I'm doing nothing is still billable hours. If you showed up to work and your boss didn't have anything to do for you, you'd still get paid...
I'm never amazed by the number of guys that don't have a clue about getting in and getting done. My partner and I have worked development deals in the past where upcoming artists are set here for a few weeks to kinda get a feel of how things are done. The partner is kinda a grey hair in the industry and takes them under his wings and explains how things should be done and all that. Gets them ready to go back to the coast and have shit ready.
Still, these guys don't get the clue that this is costing them money and fuck around and then expect us to do all their work and we won't. I've got friends at the Matrix that can do that for them if they'd like, but quite honestly, they ain't good enough and don't have enough money to pay those guys (girls).
The label takes a risk and says for the next 7 years (or until you release the prerequired albums), if you wish to be a major lable musician (always sign your contracts in LA because it will limit the time of your servitude -- and ALWAYS go for a *SINGLE* album deal with opportunity of buyout or renegotiation). For the time of your contract, you know that the money the lable has given you will come out of your pocket. Make the best out of it. Don't be a dumbass. Don't hire limos to take you to and from the studio. Don't waste it on engineers and techs like me while you are wasting our time. We don't do this as a job, but because we like the art...if you aren't producing art, you *ARE* wasting my time. I don't care if its bad art or otherwise, be prepared.
Have a decent lawyer, and don't sign with the first industry lawyer that presents you with a contract. You have the option of bringing your own in from the street. My intellectual property lawyer that I use for patents in my technical life was FAR more informed about the contracts and otherwise than the one they provided me. He charged less, and was on my side. Never trust someone elses lawyer to help you out.
Even if you do, if you follow the contract to its letter, you can make a decent amount of change. The guys I'm working with now aren't living like superstars, but they have been pocketting more that I do at my technical job -- and I can guarentee you haven't heard of them yet.
So, when artists pick up 10% of the gross, th
It was possible to enter for free by using the "tell a friend" feature to send an email to itunes100@apple.com instead of a friend. This implies that each such email counted as a "purchase". That brings into question the 100 million sold. How many were virtual?
--- What?
The options shouldn't be 'buy at a low price' or 'steal'. They should be 'buy at a low price' or 'don't buy at all'.
Following your analogy: if I don't buy at all, the record label gets... nothing. If I steal, the record label gets... nothing! So what's the difference?
Your argument is flawed because copyright violation is not analogous to stealing physical property. You're assuming a zero-sum game, but when information can easily be replicated, that no longer holds true. Record labels inflate album prices by attempting to enforce artificial scarcity. This doesn't work. The whole multi-billion dollar entertainment industry is built an a foundation made of thin air.
$1 a song w/ DRM is too much? Perhaps, but for years it's cost $.25 (or more) just to play a song just once from a jukebox; now, for the cost of just three or four jukebox plays, one can have a permanent copy of the song, to play as often as one likes, on one's own gear, wherever one wants, that can be copied to other media, etc. If anything, I'd say the price arguably went down, at least compared to what we've been getting from jukeboxes for decades and what we've been paying for it.
Don't get me wrong; I do think it'd be fantastic if the music could be even cheaper, and if it were unencumbered by DRM (that's why I dig eMusic at least as much as the iTMS), but realistically, there's just no way in hell we'll ever get everything from the major label catalogs released for legal downloads anytime soon without some form of DRM.
You guys do know that the albums are available for 10 bucks no matter how many songs there are, usually? I never get single songs, because yeah, it is a ripoff. But ten dollar albums? Score!
P.S. Please tell me where I can buy new albums for under ten dollars. I looked online at that ASDA store, but last I heard, you needed more dollars to equal a pound. Is Apple overcharging in Britain?
Technically the only thing wrong with palladium is the "remote attestation" issue, if that were removed palladium would be a pretty cool (and darned useful) thing. Also, palladium is coming regardless of whether or not Apple uses DRM on iTMS. The two are only slightly related in that they both rely on bastardized PKI to work. I don't buy that iTMS is in any way part of the "process" of taking the internet away.
So even if palladium comes out and enforses the remote attestation issue like they say it will, so what. The content distributors (and ISPs, etc) may decide to use it to set up draconian policies such as "only IE may connect to this webserver" or "only windows media player can connect to this stream" or "only windows may dial into this isp" but that doesn't even scare me.
(1) We have seen (with DIVX and other technologies) that the public rejects stuff that it finds too draconian and affects it directly. Most people do not care about iTMS DRM because it does not affect them.
(2) To quote starwars: "the more you tighten your fingers the more star systems will slip through your reach". Let them have their DRM fun. Once it gets painful for people they will turn away. The only ones who can defeat the RIAA and MPAA and the scam of a business model they operate under is themselves. We really should let them. In the mean time there is no shortage of good music and other entertainment out there, which will thrive.
(3) The internet ain't going anywhere. As long as there are people willing to pay for internet access, there will be isps willing to provide it. The direction the world seems to be going in is MORE open and standards complient, not less. Open is the buzzword of the day and attempting to lock people in a single platform or client has clearly not worked. Websites that previously only allowed IE are removing that restriction, Linux is gaining respectability (and market share which bring with it newly ported applications), and Macs are invading higher education like mad. I don't see that all going away with palladium. It would be suicide to try to pull that kind of crap now, imagine how things will look in 2006 (assuming Longhorn actually is released then).
So all I'm saying is lighten up. You seem to be taking this arguement to an illogical conclusion. It does NOT stand to reason that if iTMS succeeds then the world becomes a DRM hell. There are many battles to be fought before that happens which are completely independant Apple's little music store. I'll be ready and willing to fight those battles but I'm not taking a hardline stance against iTMS because the DRM there simply does not affect me in any way. Frankly I don't know anyone that it affects. Unlimited burning to CD pretty much renders it impotent.
Finkployd
The correct usage is: would've never bought
I think a proper pedagogue and sesquipedalian would insist upon eschewing the contraction. The real horror was using "of" instead of "have."
I disagree. I often see counterpoints moderated as well as the "group think" posts. In fact, I don't buy in to the group philosophy and often play devil's advocate myself and am surprised when I see anti-OSS, anti-libertarian, pro-copyright, pro-patent or (gasp) pro-Microsoft posts I've made modded quite high. In fact, I've had several modded down to -1, and then modded back up again.
Which is why I like Slashdot. It's a good mix of well thought out critical posts and repetetive bandwagon posts. There are some great minds in here. Also, many optimistic idiots.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
"That's like saying, "Boy, I love these new TV's, but several thousand dollars is just too much. I'll go steal mine from the storage truck behind the store."
Except the store doesn't lose a TV, yadda yadda yadda.
I propose an end to all analogies to the real world when discussing the sharing of files. Nobody's gotten it right, and now it's just plain nauseating.
"Derp de derp."
Is there any reason practical reason (bar the one stated below) why Apple can't act as a music label and start offering to distribute music for small bands/artists? Does a label, even if they are indie, need to be invloved when Apple can just cut out the middleman?
There are no distribution costs, bar bandwidth. As long as a band has a decent amount of talent they should be able to get published by ITMS.
But yes, I know all about the Beatles sueing Apple over trademark infringement...
"What can I say? I'm the queen of java."
subduction.net
I bet Hilary Rosen's mailbox is full of links to this article.
"Derp de derp."
I can burn as many CD's as I like from any ITMS song, and if I get tired of what restrictions there are I can use Hymn to strip away the DRM.
Napster is far more restrictive in terms of use (and not consistnat either with some songs having different restrictions), and what does it matter if I can use it with ten sanctioned devices if they all suck? It's like saying I can have a free breakfast and giving me ten flavors of cement to choose from.
You'll also find out just how "free" Napster is when they go bankrupt and the licencing servers go offline... What is the path to un-DRM Napster songs?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That is not what we call a monopoly :)
:) How come MP3s and WAVs and CDs aren't proprietary? They are you know. When was the last time you wrote your own MP3 player or CD player? MP3s are just as legally bound as AACs.
To be perfectly clear, you are stating that Apple is a monopoly because they are the sole vendor of the hardware, software, and music, right?
Is Ford a monopoly of Tauruses? Yes. Does that make Ford a monopoly? No. There are competitors to iTunes. Music Match and Windows Media Player. There are competitors to iTunes. Walmart, Napster, and Rhapsody. There are competitors to the iPod. Dell Jukebox, iRivers, MuVos, and Nomads. There are even competitors to the Mac. HPs, IBMs, Dells, and Gateways.
You want an explanation for how Apple escapes the critcism Microsoft gets for proprietary and monopoly?
Apple hasn't utilized their sucess in the music field to dictate legal and contract issues with venders, oems, consumers, and suppliers. See Compaq, Netscape, Sun, etc.
Apple hasn't relied on monopoly status to carry them through. Otherwise known as resting on your laurels. Microsoft's biggest competition is older versions of OSes and Office suites. Apple has to contend with Windows and Linux and everything else. Ask everyone who's had a buggy, leaky, exploited OS and browser.
As for proprietary... How exactly do you mean that AAC is proprietary? Just because you can't figure out how to download a third party player that plays DRM AACs? There are at least two I know of
Are you upset because you've bought into the Microsoft scheme and lost big (spyware, viruses, trojans, exploits, and flaky reliability)? Or because you are confused because Apple goods cost more, look better, and are otherwise unattainable in your world?
GPL Deconstructed
I read an article on the New York Times criticizing Apple for not offering lossless songs. The Apple representative said they felt most users would automatically download the lossless songs thinking that they're better, then not understand when the songs took a lot longer to download and you could only fit a couple hundred on the 40 Gb iPod which apple said could hold 10,000.
That said, that fact that iTunes and the iPod now support lossless does indicate the potential intent on Apples part to offer music in that format. They'd just need to figure out a way around that whole user confusion thing.
Out of their $.35 they have to pay for bandwidth, servers, admins, advertising, and most importantly credit card transaction fees.
This is how brilliant Apple is. They've convinced you that they're losing money on iTMS.. thus you feel like you're getting a great deal.
The fact is, they're making money on iTMS.. not a lot of money, but none-the-less they're in the black.
Just to compare, look at www.apple.com/trailers
This site is free, and costs Apple much much more than iTMS costs to run.
re-read my entire comment, I admitted that they may now be making a small profit per transaction and that they probably make something on volume. However I don't think they are making that much and most of the profits are probably going back into the product at this point, whether that is into more servers or bandwidth or advertising. The fact is that Apple's entire portion of the sales was only $35 million for 14 months, for a company with tens of billions in the bank that's chump change. What Apple gets most of all out of iTMS is that their brand is once again in the forefront of peoples minds, and THAT is very valuable to them, so they would run iTMS even if it cost them some money at this point, just like the trailer site (which also goes to promote Quicktime and thus encourage people to buy producer licenses for QT).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.