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Business Models: Napster to Go vs. iPod
CNet offers an interesting comparison between Napster to Go and iTunes.
For $15 a month, Napster to Go offers over 1 million songs (access to which lasts as long as subscription is valid), while songs for iPod must be purchased and last 'forever' (but it takes about $10,000 to fill an iPod). Is Napster to Go the future of digital music distribution? Would moving to an all-you-can-eat model hurt iPod business and balance the power among authors, studios, hardware makers and consumers?" It might take $10,000 to fill an iPod with songs downloaded from iTunes or with music converted to MP3 from newly purchased CDs, but there's a lot of downloadable and legit free music out there, not to mention Griffin's RadioShark.
It's worth mentioning that you can spend 99c / track at Napster too if you really like that model. So at Napster you have more choice. FWIW I think Napster is easier to use too.
Pretty much all of the methods to remove DRM include re-encoding the WMA to something else. This takes even more quality from the recording than is already missing in the Napster version (they are encoded at 128kbps). Furthermore, it is damnned near impossible to do a digital re-encode nowadays. Microsoft has revoked the WMA-DRM licence from all the media players that allowed it to happen, including all but the most recent version of Winamp that only allows encrypted WMA output through DirectSound. No more using DSP plugins to write the data to the disk in a different format. The best you can hope for is something like Tunebite, which records the analog signal coming from your soundcard, which is not very good at all.
But that 14 day FREE Trial only gives you 11 MB to download. It wasn't like that always, but once the news got around on Slashdot about how to rip the tracks, they shut it down.
There are still old Virtuosa trial versions floating around that'll do it. They take about 5 minutes to find on google.
This is beyond true.
;) )
I know that apple's iTMS works only with the iPod as a digital media player. I currently own an iPod (albeit, the short-live iPod+HP), and am about to send it in for service (under warranty, thankfully) due to hard drive spin-up problems (or corrupted FAT sectors, or something). I know that if it weren't under warranty, the next thing I buy will most likely be a Creative Jukebox or something.
I've only bought about 14 songs on iTMS, mainly because my dad bought me a prepaid gift card, but if it weren't for JHymn (google it, quite a neat tool), I would lose all those songs. I plan on buying whatever player offers the best value, but I do like the iPod (and hope that the next one isn't quite a dud as this one
You can still get old versions of winamp at oldversion.com The Update to 5.08 was the fix to WMA-DRM.
That was so last month. Napster enforced an 11mb-download limit for the 14-day trial after too much buzz spread about the winamp ripping device.
My digital rights don't need management.
http://www.hypnotyza.com/radio/ [hypnotyza.com] I'm not affiliated with the site
Really?
Speaking of free good music ... I compiled a list of sites that host indie music, nearly all of which have completly free downloads. You can see it here. Worth checking out for anyone whose listening habits aren't limited to Top 40 Radio...
Who doesn't like free music?
*BUT* that's not all that important in this case. Important are the sources, the professional encoder used (or not) by the store and the care they took.
c't, Germany's most prestigious computer magazine, tested a number of different online stores recently and the quality differences between different stores, all using wma at the same bitrate, were staggering. It was also remarkable that Sony's Atrac, that's normally not considered to be an exceptionally good audio codec, offered some of the best quality. Apparently it's not the codec bitstream that's the problem in this case but the encoders offered, especially the software encoder in SonicStage seems to be optimized for speed and apparently doesn't really care about quality. Other example: mp3. If you compare the Fraunhofer reference encoder to the latest lame you're gonna think you listen to two different codecs. IOW codecs important, encoders even more important.
Moral of the story: AAC may be better when we look at the freely available encoders but that doesn't necessarily mean that the differences aren't a lot smaller if we look at music stores or that the codec has to be clearly better respectively.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Certificates are local files, pulled from Apple servers. If Apple were to go bankrupt, assuming they didn't issue a universal authenticator or provide a method for removing the DRM, there are already programs to allow one to transfer their certificates without a net connection. Of course, even failing that, there's always the option to burn the files to audio CD and re-rip them.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
It is not going to be so easy for Apple. Their implementation of DRM is widely known to be crackable. Hymn will strip out the DRM, meaning that no re-encoding of the audio stream is required. No equivalent utility exists for DRMed WMA files. The labels can feel comfortable for an online merchant to provide a subscription model for the delivery of their music, because the DRM remains intact. For someone to circumnavigate the DRM, they have to re-encode the audio stream from the DRM capable player. This is a hassle, and not the same as simply stripping out the DRM.
Another reason it will be difficult for Apple is that their DRM is not as flexible for the rights holders over the degree of flexibilty that the DRM attached to WMA has. A rights holder can stipulate that the WMA file will only play during the month of October 2005, and that is all it will play, period. AAC does not offer the rights holder that same degree of control.
Coupling these two things means that, at least in my opinion, the record labbels will be less excitied about Apple offering a subscription model than another merchant who can use the more secure WMA DRM.
" I'm sure the vast majority of iPod users have fewer than 10,000 songs. Me? About 550. That's all I want. I have no use for another 9,500 songs. My collection grows slowly but surely, but it will take decades to reach the thousands at this rate. "
I'm 47, and have about 2700 songs, going back to my first LP, Dreamboat Annie, bought in 1977. So, if I make it to 80, I might hit 5000 combined songs and pieces of classical music.
So, 10,000 tunes is definitely on the high end of the range.
This battle regarding purchasing second hand CDs was fought a few years back - and we won. It is very legal to purchase used CDs, and is how my collection has grown to over 500 disks. I mis-typed - thanks for clarifying the situation.
what people don't seem to realize is that napster to go is compatible with 3 players. They each hold 5 gb. So you can fill a 5gb player for $15/month. It seems rather unfair to compare this price to filling a 40gb ipod for good.
Wow. What a playlist!
Ah, but then again, iTunes doesn't have a free trial at all. Sure, you can download the software for free. Sure, you can set up an account on the store for free. And sure, right on the homepage of the store (bottom right corner) there's a "Free Downloads" section, currently listing 3 songs and a half-hour rap mixtape for a total of oh, 45 minutes worth of music, maybe... and yeah, there'll be another free song there on Tuesday. But nowhere do I see the words "free trial!"
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Depends on what you define as an artist. I've played in a band and arranged some music in the past. Was I at that time an artist? This is entertainment. By the nature of the business, a vast majority will not be making much money out of it.
Your points are confusing and angry. So you're saying that any artist who makes money from their CD sales is already so rich that they don't need this money?
Since you understand so much about the record business, why not provide us with examples of these artists and the figures you looked at so you could come to these conclusions.
For someone accusing others of having no understanding, you seem to have a child's view of the world.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
I very much doubt you're the average iPod owner, however. By Apple's own figures (which I completely admit are rather arbitrary, as they assume you're ripping 4 minute songs at 128kb) you could fit their entire collection on a 4Gb Mini and still have nearly 2Gb spare to use for data storage.
In which case, why would so many want the 20Gb+ models?
I love my 4Gb mini, and a day or two's worth of music is plenty to cart around for most purposes. But if I wanted to rip my entire collection from CD (even before I get to the vinyl) I'd be pushed to get it on a 60Gb Photo.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Make sure you keep your iPod formatted for Windows, not Mac. I found that my Powerbook can read Windows-formatted iPods, but my PC can't read Mac-formatted ones.
$0.99. Same as iTunes. Yes, you have to subscribe for $15 a month and THEN pay $1 a song ON TOP of the subscription for EVERY song you want to keep; no $9.99 albums. A 15-song album will cost you $14.85 to download to burn to CD. Not to mention -- of the albums I looked at -- about half the songs I wanted to download during my trial were PURCHASE DOWNLOAD only, not available in the subscription plan. How sucky!
I cancelled my Napster To-Go trial account after half an hour!!!!