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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.
John Gruber has good commentary on this here and here that cuts through the marketing to point out the small print.
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I have been listening to this guy's work for a while now: http://www.hypnotyza.com/radio/ [hypnotyza.com] I'm not affiliated with the site at all, just stumbled across it while reading a message board. He's a DJ who mixes live to hardrive and puts up the shows (about an hour long) as mp3's. Interesting stuff.
sorry, that should have been http://www.hypnotyza.com/radio/
I demand justification for such a declaration.
I prefer the iPod model for the same reason I finance (purchase) all my cars. At the end of the day, when the payments stop, I want to have something to show for my money, er, lack of bank account.
:-)
Granted, if all you're looking for is a way to get a few crappy, er, "currently popular" songs to listen to for a week, Napster's your choice. If you're a collector like me, you wouldn't touch Napster with a 1,000,000' pole.
I'm a happy Rhapsody user, for $25 every three months. The one important qualification, of course: I spend roughly 12 hours a day near a Windows computer. For me at least the article is totally right about the 'value proposition' -- Rhapsody saves me money if it saves even one hour a month trying to find music online, and it offers a variety of music that far outstrips the 8 CDs per year I could buy with the equivalent money. Admittedly I don't have those 8 CDs at the end of the year -- but having any music I want, instantly, for a year, is worth a hell of a lot more than having 8 CDs for, realistically speaking, about five years before they break or the format shifts again ...
...
The criticisms about the interface definitely apply to Rhapsody too, though -- playlists suck, OS integration sucks, locating music is mediocre, software is Windows only. Definitely can't hold a candle to iTunes. 90% of my music used to be illegal downloads. Now 90% of my music is paid for, via Rhapsody, and it saves me money. If iTunes offers a similar service for $10 a month, they'll be getting my money in a heartbeat.
All of that, of course, assumes I don't need this stuff to be portable. If iTunes to go has come out by the time I'm *not* spending 12 hours a day near a Windows box, they'll be getting another iPod sale and a subscription. If it hasn't, it'll be Napster
Now you know.
I have something like 200 CDs that I've bought over the last 10 years. If I assume $10 a CD (usually I've paid between $7 and $13, lower for used, higher for new), average, then that is $200 a year, which is pretty close to the Napster subscription cost. I still listen to most of the music on those CDs too.
I can just stop buying more CDs outright and still listen to those that I already bought.
Plus, I have started getting podcasts, speeches and other legit audio tracks for cheap or free.
I can't understand how Napster or even the more successful ITMS manages to make any money. I don't know a single person who's used either service. Are these companies operating at a loss? Obviously it takes money to keep napster running, the ITMS I can understand, it has all of Apple behind it to prop it up even if it's not making a dime for them, but how is Napster supporting itself?
Maybe I'm just being irrational here but it would seem that Napster is doomed unless a 3rd party is injecting funds into it.
What I've been doing for months now is using winamp's internet radio feature along with an awesome plug-in called Stream Ripper. It works well, and you get the quality that the stream is at, usually a very acceptable 160-192kbps.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
It's a pain in the ass, but not very hard to write a program that records the DirectSound output.
Hell, I wrote one that lets you queue up a list of files and then the program will tell winamp to play each file and it will record the DirectSound output. It basically does what the no longer working outputstacker plugins did.
Of course the quality isn't going to be as good as some of the other services, but if you want a permanent copy of your "Napster music" instead of paying Napster $10-$15 each month for the privilege, you don't really have a choice.
What happens if Apple goes bankrupt? No trolling, real interest because I don't know how it's handled. How are the certificates for the iTMS files managed? Do they have to be renewed? Can you transfer them from PC to PC without a central authority?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Oh, completely offtopic but before someone points out how Linux fanboys are just as hypocritical regarding copyright law, despise it when it's about mp3s and Disney while demanding blood when someone violates the GPL (there was a thread about it earlier today); the difference is that if some company get's caught violating the GPL they have to open up the source, if some guy gets caught with a few hundred mp3s lying around he's ruined. I don't think I'd be as happy with the GPL as I am if -let's say Sony ripped of some GPLed player when creating a replacement for that abomination called SonicStage- the FSF went out seeking $400 billion in punitive damages
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Your glass is half empty, mine is half full. If having XM has taught ME anything is that there is a lot music out there that I don't care for, but a whole lot that I DO care for. Sure, I'm probably only interested in less than 10% of the stations and of those only a fraction of the songs I hear do I really like, but that's still a HUGE number of artists that I wasn't aware of that I've been checking out in more detail.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
If you are OK with breaking the law, you might just .. purchase the CDs you want on the cheap from a used CD store.
Buying second hand CDs isn't illegal, yet. (If this isn't what you meant, sorry but it definitely came across that way. A "or if you want to go the legal route" would have cleared up any confusion).
10,000 songs at 4 minutes a song (on average) is 667 hours or almost 28 days of music. So basically, if you download 10,000 songs in your first month, you'd have to listen to music almost continuously to listen to every song.
Of course, it's ridiculous to assume you'd actually listen to 10,000 songs each month, but it's equally ridiculous to assume that iPod owners will actually fill their iPod completely, and that they'd do so entirely from iTMS rather than other sources such as ripped CDs.
I expect that Napster to Go will get a lot of pack rats; people who spend time downloading a ton of songs because they can, but who actually listen to a much smaller percentage of those songs. iTunes will be preferred by people that actually enjoy listening to music rather than hoarding it.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
What legitimate activities can you do with DRM-free music that you can't do with a song purchased from iTunes Music Store?
Itunes isn't the only way to purchase music that has DRM. Many, many CDs do as well, which make playing on some players difficult, playing on computers difficult, playing with a CD-RW difficult (by difficult, I mean impossible on certain hardware).
I haven't had that problem myself, because I don't buy ANY new music. At all. I don't like new music period. But I hear people have problems quite a bit. And don't even get me started on computer games and DRM *annoyed*
The real question here is would the current music industry survive a complete and total move to a subscription based service. This becomes questionable. They're doing it now because theres money involved. . . Quite a bit of money.
.remember divx). Ah the future is wide open.
However a total transition would mean that no single band is making the money. Possibly leading to one of two extremes. One, the record labels continue only pouring their money into a couple of bands (and their own wallets). To an extreme not seen today. These are the reason people sign up for service. Music becomes completely manufactured etc. Why bother supporting these smaller bands.
Then you have independent labels who if they're not getting money from the subscription services (or aren't involved or getting enough) cut back musicians etc. They fall off the wayside. On top of this we have no easy distinction of who to pay for what unless we base sales purely on downloads. This works great for major labels, unless people don't go for it.
Under a second extreme we have the record labels stop spending money to produce hit making acts. Afterall they are locked into deals with napster, and itunes or whoever to distribute their content forever. 90% of their income is now made off these deals. Theres only 2 music companies (or maybe only one major monopoly by this point). Music turns into a cash cow and its you're either on their train or not, no point in spending money on expensive videos etc because everyone pays the same. The labels won't like this (unless they have more and more premium content). The industry starts to collapse on itself.
The industry doesn't like that and if a subscription service couldn't stand in parallel with their current model they won't allow for it, and people who have spent $15/month for 5 years because they thought it was cheaper all of a sudden own zero music to listen to. Sounds wonderful as well.
Of course their are other extremes in between, or the possibility that bands end up taking control of the industry by refusing to go along with their tactics. By not needing these record labels to distribute their music (thank you internet) and the production can be done much cheaper thanks to rapidly advancing computer technology, they can make it on their own.
The futures likely to be a combination of all of these (with the added thought of a pay-per-listen strategy that I could imagine the industry come up with. .
Phil
So if you're just going to be an idiot and say "you have to buy stuff because it's wrong not to buy everything just because it was made" then at least be honest about it. But this discussion has never been about compensating artists and won't be until there is fundamental change in how the business is run. As for the distributors, producers, and retailers, why the fuck do you even waste your time worrying about them? They're making every increasing sales records every year.
The Farewell Tour II
Something I think that gets overlooked in all of this, is that hte iPod can function as more than just a music player. It can be (and from what i've read around here on /. is) used as portable storage for files photos etc. Wasn't LOTR saved to iPods during filming? Along with owning an iPod, there comes utility as well as function. I have actually gotten up to around 8000-8500 tracks on my ipod. Mostly because I've been collecting music since I was 16, not to mention my friends music, and checking out napster when it was illegit. I'm only 26 now. Maybe I'm uncommon, but I don't tend to delete music just because it's not in style anymore (Hall & Oates anyone?). Interestingly enough, I find that my 40gig iPod isn't nearly big enough. I'm going to eventually get a 60gig (or bigger iPod) sometime this year, because in addition to playing music anywhere I go, I can plug it into any computer and share information. Whether it's for helping a friend fix their computer, sharing the latest linux distro, a tv show, a movie, or whatever I may want/need at any given point. Saying that the iPod isn't worth it because it would take 10,000$ to fill it using iTunes, is incredibly short sighted and extremely misleading. Not to mention the fact that just because you have an iPod or any digital music player for that matter dosen't mean that you have to buy music online anyways or be locked into iTunes (ephpod anyone?). If I didn't have such a large music collection, I'd still want an ipod or some kind of digital music player because it simplifies things. Why carry around 20 cds (200$) in a large case (another 10-30$), and potentially scratch them (or the copies I've made), take a chance on having them stolen (that really sucks, I had 80 cds stolen from my car in chicago one time after comdex), or just in general mess with it. I can slip my music into my pocket and go. About the only thing I can't do, is let someone borrow a CD that I may be listening to, but I can always make a note to burn one for them later.
I'm not an apple fanboy (though I'm getting a new powerbook after having used PC's for the past 10 years now) I have to say there is definately a coolness factor in owning it as well as just the way it feels in your hand.
There is a vast difference.
If I have a loaf of bread and you take it I've lost that loaf of bread and I cant eat it anymore.
If I sing a song and you sing it too I've lost nothing and I can still sing my song.
Physical property exists and has value and use and can be lost with or without the law. Intellectual property exists solely as a construct of the law; without the explicit right to forbid you to sing my song I have not lost anything. The value is entirely derived from my ability to prevent you from exercising your rights.
> Is Napster to Go the future of digital music distribution ?
No it isn't. It's an absolutely crap idea.
The idea that I would buy a licence to listen to a piece of music is completely insane. What happens when Napster goes tits up ? Your expensively acquired music collection is lost forever. When "The Alternative Record Company" go bust my back collection of "The Alternative Record Company" CDs don't suddenly evaporate nor do they become unplayable. I can also rip any CDs I buy to any new formats that are invented so the music pretty much stays with me for life.
Sorry but my view on consuming is very simple. If I buy something it's mine to do with as I please. In other words I can pull it apart to see how it works, I can recombine it to make other things, I can use it in ways it was never intended to be used, I can even smash it to bits, shoot it or put it on a bonfire and burn it. It's none of your bsiness what I do with because I bought it. It's mine now.
Honestly anyone falling for this sort of crud deserves what they get. They deserve to get nothing for their money. They're idiots plain and simple.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !