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iTunes More Popular Than Most P2P Sites
bonch writes "A study by NPD Group shows that iTunes ranks #2 in popularity of music downloads, rivaling services like Limewire, Kazaa, and iMesh. The #1 service was still WinMX, but NPD believes this proves to the music industry that legal downloads can work, and that iTunes provides an economically viable alternative." From the article: "According to NPD, about 4 percent of Internet-enabled households in the nation used a paid music download store in March."
Although there are still millions of people who will continue to trade on p2p, having legitimate outlets supplying digital copies of music, television, and movies will become a hugely profitable venture for the entertainment industry. They just haven't figured out how to do it and still capture the largest share of the market.
A radio program this morning on NPR discussed how the movie industry was losing money on opening day box office receipts at the same time they are making a killing with DVD sales ($17BUSD). That means that they are going to have to change not only their marketing (opening day receipts are generally a 16-24 year old market), but also their metric for gauging success.
Overall, once they stop focusing all of their energy on litigation and lobbying for worthless copy-protection standards, they will begin to create a market-driven system that people will gravitate to and embrace.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
They're joking, right? I haven't heard anything about them in ages.
I gotta admit that when we started doing digital distribution two years ago, I thought it would be just a small income stream for the musicians - some extra income, maybe $5k/month combined.
But our checks from Apple et al have been over $300,000 a month so far this year! And that's just for our catalog of mostly-unknown all-independent music. (And hey for the record, 91% of all that income goes directly to the musician.)
NOTE: a lot of this discovery of independent music is thanks to cover songs - another twist I never expected.
Yes us alpha-geeks here on Slashdot may get our music from allofmp3.com or SoulSeek or whatever, but there's definitely millions paying that 99-cents-per song, or $20/month subscription out there. I get to see the detailed sales reports every month.
(Personally, I'm so impressed with Yahoo Music Unlimited, that it's making me want to use Windows again!)
WinMX will never be #1. They suck. Stay away. Only RIAA loops and FBI agents are on WinMX. Stay away from WinMX. You never heard of WinMX.
Stand by for a bunch of /.ers, pretending to be representitive of the average consumer, posting as anonymous coward to tell us all how many tracks they pirated versus bought in the last week, and how this proves the stats are wrong.
I'd like to agree, but what about cumulative? Just because P2P is diversified doesn't mean it's outweighed by iTunes. They put iTunes at 1.7 million houses - I would bet the P2P total far exceeds that. It's the cumulative total that really counts.
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
Yeah, but how many of those households only used iTunes for free songs they got off Pepsi caps?
You know, like mine
I've been slowly purchasing legit music from my music collection just to say "I own it."
So far, 82 songs out of 1500 or so, a total of six albums and a few singles.
Regardless, it'll still be ridiculous trying to legitimize any sort of large music collection.
Even to fill an iPod mini with legit music, it's quite expensive.
Never heard of it before.
What will happen when Apple goes bankrupt? Or when the next generation of mini-players comes out with a new DRM?
People are paying for music, then being told how they can use it.
Fair use is simple. I can make as many copies for myself as I want. Many DRM's make it impossible to make even a back up copy. But what if I want one copy for my MP3 player, one on a CD for my car, and one for my wifes car? Does that mean I must buy three copies?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
So, now that WinMX is entering the "mainstream" (regarding public knowledge etc) does this mean they are next on the chopping block?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Coldplay's new single "speed of Sound" sold extremely well thru itunes, thats because it was released the day after the first airplay. I run a Coldplay fansite ( http://closingwealls.net/ - blatant plug) and following the news around the band, it seems that the single was one of the most downloaded songs ever on itunes, because of that fact. This has proven to be a very succesfull formula. Publish the single online the same day as it hits the airwaves, and people dont have to listen to the radio to hear it, for a tiny dollat they can lsiten it legally whenevewr they want. thats a huge incentive. Of all the legal downloadservices, iTunes gets it the best and is probably right that subscriptions dont work.
For me it comes down to one thing...iTunes subscription ensures I'll not end up on the wrong end of a lawsuit. I can't afford the fines, and I'm not interested in trying to dodge getting caught. Not worth the risk for me.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Nobody shares. Not one. Take a look for yourself. Everything is hosted by Apple. At least on the other services, people share. I guess all the iTunes users are behind NAT firewalls.
I think that people are forgetting one very important fact. The nature of some P2P protocals is to obscure the nature, and destination of what's being distributed. Make's it hard to do any kind of statistics, pro or con.
That's why people use iTunes DRM.
If you want one for your MP3 player and two CDs, then burn two CDs and upload to your (iPod) MP3 player.
In addition you can also store it on 4 additional computers. Or is it 6 now? I forget.
GPL Deconstructed
a decent printer is easy to get. liner notes etc. could be bundled in.
i am just surprised it is taking so long.
always mosh clockwise
I thought the whole point of P2P is that there is no "site."
Um...more popular than self-contained P2P services, sure, but what about good ol' torrent sites? I know I get my music off torrent places all the time, especially when I want to preview a whole album before buying (or, um, not buying).
It's about quality, quantity and ID tags.
Need I say more?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I wonder how they collected this particular statistic. It seems doubtful that they did it using any sort of objective traffic metrics, but rather that it was a survey of some sort where people were asked from where, if anywhere did they download music. If this is true, then the results of this study should be taken with a large grain of salt. Those downloading from the more notorious sites are less likely to respond truthfully than those using iTunes.
I'm almost positive that the RIAA will ignore this fact and still tell the public and the government that P2P is killing them, when in fact it is their own stupidity of not using the internet in a way to help themselves. I'll give Sony a little credit by saying that at least they are trying with the Connect service, but the reason they aren't successful is the reason that a lot of their ventures aren't successful; they have to do it their own way to try to protect their products instead of using the tried and true method that has been shown to them by the likes of iTunes and Napster 2.0. When will these guys catch on that the internet is the direction they need to move toward, and start letting go of their antiquated methods and offering their music at more reasonable prices.
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
How do these people come to be in charge of multimillion dollar companies? This should really be obvious, folks.
Its funny that you made the same comment, in a different way, as the commenter on NPR. They said something to the effect that "these people [entertainment execs] are really smart and will eventtually figure this out".
Until now, of course, all they have shown is that they are frightened asswipes with souless lawyers at the ready.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I generally see limewire, kaaza, and bittorrent clones on my clients computers, as well as iTunes for legit stuff. (I own and have ripped every Clash album to my iRiver in .ogg. I need nothing else(;-)*
What do people here like, and for what? (Feel free to carp about the interface, weaknesses, and search results. Make sure you note pirate clash content...)
The fact that legal downloads are popular won't stop the record label companies from scapegoating p2p downloading whenever they make less money because they never showed p2p was cause of their lower profits. So it won't matter that iTunes or whatever download model is successful as long as the music industry keeps making less $ than it wants. I read several articles explaining that the music industry made lots of $ when CDs came out because everyone had to convert their old music to the new format. Once that was complete, sales dropped and profits were lower. Thus, unless the RIAA invents a new format requiring everyone to repurchase their music again, profits will not return to higher levels regardless of iTunes.
"Overall, once they stop focusing all of their energy on litigation and lobbying for worthless copy-protection standards, they will begin to create a market-driven system that people will gravitate to and embrace."
You're assuming that the litigation and copy-protection has had no influence on the results we're seeing.
WinMX was awesome 3 years ago. It sucks today.
The RIAA has known about them for over a year. The RIAA has copies of songs they share that is nothing but the first 10 seconds of a song, looping over and over again. Some songs have high pitched sounds every 40 seconds that are designed to destroy speakers. I would like to see someone sue the RIAA for blown out speakers.
What we need is a network to share music where only good people can go. People who value sharing, not places where corporate greed can offer crap designed to destroy a network. Not where corporate greed can intimidate.
I have every right to share music I paid for. If I want you to hear my copy of music, it is my absolute right to show it to you.
The next step will be to have a network hosted in a country where music sharing is legal. All songs will have some moderation, saying the copy is good or bad. How many people can the RIAA send there?
The problem with WinMX is someone downloads a song and shares it. The song has a high pitched crap 50 seconds into the song. The guy checks the first 10 seconds to see if it loops, then clicks to the end of the song. Everything looks good. I'll share. But the mp3 is flawed, and people keep trading it.
Once that is fixed, we can trade music without frustration again.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I thought everybody got their tunes off Usenet..
What is the chance of coincidence of a company president being here at just the right time, to tell everyone about his company??
:)
He's an independent music distributor (by Internet!). Ergo, he is a nerd (Slashdot: News For nerds).
Q.E.D.
Besides, the possibility of the title catching his eye isn't far fetched - and remember that in Technologyreview.com there are RSS feeds from slashdot.
So I'd say this guy's apparition is pretty logical, actually. You can safely put down your tinfoil hat now
And how does the iTune DRM know how many computers it is on?
Is it like Windows that now calls home when making an instal? I had a copy of windows on a new system. I sold that system, and put linux on it. I wanted to take Windows and put it on a computer I built. I called the number, but they would not activate Windows on that machine.
I want to OWN what I buy.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I thought your site was cool, but then I saw Vanilla Ice (here). Dude, weak. You went from "cool site" to "making god kill kittens and baby jesus cry." I haven't felt this dirty since The Crying Game.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
and pay a fraction of the cost .. mind you the lag to download is a bit long, but we all know the Chinese government takes copyright enforcement seriously, so it must be legit, right?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The first lesson a band learns is that bookings come easier when you do covers.
Slightly off-topic, but can anyone get a CD to burn properly through iTunes?
iTunes will put a glitch about 5 seconds into each song, is this suppose to be a "feature"? If I want to listen to the songs I paid for in my car without that annoying glitch, shouldn't I be able to?
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
I'd rather have an interesting on-topic post than have to listen to whining like yours.
Yes us alpha-geeks here on Slashdot may get our music from allofmp3.com or SoulSeek or whatever, but
Allofmp3? SOULSEEK!? You are behind the times, man. Anyone who wants music need but four simple links.
Azureus
Torrent Spy
http://www.bittorrent.com/ - Bittorrent Search
Ahhh.. The trackerless network...
according to slyk, p2p users are over 10 million, which is more than 5 times the number of people using iTunes. And p2p use is growing, not shrinking.
Vote for Pedro
CD Baby is a great music store. I almost buy all my CDs there because they have all kinds of music I've never heard before and it's good to hear new stuff. FYI the guy who created CD Baby is a real geek and write his stuff in Ruby. He's absolutely not using /. as an advertisment board.
124641 > 698722
Then buy CDs , what is the problem?
or are you some sort of bizarre Music Puritan that is offended that people actually buy music from iTunes?
I like microcars
Does anyone remember when CD's were first introduced? The music industry told us the CD's would last forever. The music quality would stay perfect forever. That tapes would decline over the years.
Now I have a large collection of CD's that have rot, that don't play, that skip. I took excellent care of the CD's, I did not scratch them, and I kept CD's in their cases. And some won't play!
So I am entitled to download as much free music as I want. I am entitled to make copies and give them out for free.
The music industry had illegal agreements to keep the price of CD's high. They got caught. What was their punishment? To give libaraies CD's, and what did the RIAA give? 100 copies of the same CD to each library?
People in the USA are free. We can share whatever we want with whoever we want.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
The fourth link was the best
Since you seem to work in the industry, an idea for you- I'd be more than happy to pay 10 or 20 a month for a Yahoo like deal. But not under the current conditions. I want to own the music, not rent it (meaning if I decide to quit paying, I can still play my files). And I want it in a no DRM format (MP3 is fine). Get that, and you'll have a lifelong customer. Until then, none of these sites will be seeing my money- I refuse to buy DRM, and I don't want to pay per song (or album).
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Same chance of coincidence that you were here to give him a hard time about it. That company, from a glance, is an independant music distributor, including one (assuming truth in his post) that is part of the iTunes network, which would suggest to me that he doesn't exactly need any corporate clients, nor would you expect to find any on Slashdot. Just because someone mentions their company doesn't mean they are trying to sell something to you. This post was actually quite informative, and I'm sure any independant musicians who read it would find it quite a useful service. Not that you can't get the same service elsewhere, but if you're going to bag out on someone who's trying to promote the independant music industry in an iTunes related thread for 'advertising'.. then you obviously need to find out what real advertising is. Are those forms to sign up a pop3 box for spam lists around?
How exactly are they measuring the usage of the P2P networks?
Id be willing to bet that combined, P2P as a whole would dwarf all of the legitimate distribution models combined as well.
I used to use Kazaa/Limewire to download my music before, but now I'm almost exclusively an iTunes man. I still use Kazaa for things I can't find on iTunes, but immediately buy it legally when they become available.
I can think of several factors. First, of course, the quality of the music is much better in AAC than the ripped mp3's you find online. Second, you don't get screwed by fake or misnamed files, truncated versions, or the whole other slew of crappy files you find through P2P. Third, the legality of it vs P2P is appealing, especially when you get older and you start worrying more about not making mistakes you'll regret later.
Fourth (and I think this one is very important, which is why I gave it its own paragraph) the interface to iTunes makes it so, so easy. Not only the iPod integration, but just the fact that making the actual purchase (after you login) is so smooth, you forget at the time you're actually spending $1 per song. You just click on the buy song button, the song is downloaded (and iTunes is still very useable while the song is being downloaded), and you don't even think that you will be billed for it later. The $1's add up, of course, but it took me a while to look at my collection and realize I had just spent $200 on music I could have gotten for free (had I really wanted to). On P2P it involves placing a search, looking through the hundreds of results you get back to find a version that looks legit and has the bitrate you want, hope that the file will still be available throughout the entire download, then wait while you're access to the song is limited by the slowest peer you're getting it from.
About the only reason, besides the cost savings, I can think of for still going to P2P for music is if you have a music player other than an iPod and don't want to go through the hassle of burning the song to a CD before you can rerip and transfer it to the player. Unless, of course, there are AAC to mp3/ogg/wmv converters out there than can convert Apple's DRMed version, and if there are, please tell me where, because I've looked and haven't been able to find any that work.
there a great big world out there but you're so adamant to make decisions based on your prejudices rather than facts that you're deliberately cutting off your own entertainment options.
why the fuck would anyone decide to reduce their options in this way? it's like you're applying DRM to your *life*, and I'll tell you this: the DRM you're applying is a hell of a lot worse than that Apple puts on iTunes music.
I have been a real happy user with Rhapsody. Can anyone tell me if it's worth switching to Yahoo?
The reason why I dropped Napster was because of the insane percentage of "Buy-ONLY" songs. Why pay a subscription if you have to pay again to listen to half an album. I am really wondering if Yahoo doesn't have this problem. So far Rhapsody is clean.
Why would we alpha-geeks not be paying for our music? The problem is the services suck and are overpriced, I'm happily paying http://di.fm/ $13 a month for really great net radio.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Put $1500 (100 cds worth) in a government bond and use the interest from that to pay for yahoo music unlimited.
Then you get unlimited access for a one time investment - and if you ever want to you can cancel and get your $1500 back, and yahoo can have their music back.
Sure it's DRM'd but i've found Yahoo's drm pretty unobtrusive.
If iTMS would give me better quality AACs I'd consider buying music from them. As it is now I have bought a couple of albums just to try iTMS out. I listen to most of my music on my iPod, but I still want the CDs. The CD prices in Norway make iTMS a good alterative to buying CDs when considering price, but the quality still leaves CDs as the better alternative.
It's good to see that iTMS reaches a lot of people, but as others has commented it's films that will decide who wins the market. iTMS has movie trailers now, and the speculations as to when Apple will sell their first movies thru iTMS show what people want. If Apple can deliver movies first they will have a huge advantage. Right now I spend a lot of money on PLAY.COM, but if I could download the movies I want I'd gladly spend my hard earned money wherever I could legaly download new movies. I don't need a release date on the net that takes customers away from the cinemas, I just want to be able to download the movies leagaly at the same time as they hit the video rentals.
Gaute Gunleiksrud
If the Apocalypse comes, beep me!!
The question is this: Which do the studios care more about?
The GP post was talking about legal music downloads, moron. I haven't heard of SoulSeek before, but AllofMP3 has the advantage that they offer the music in several formats. I much prefer Ogg Vorbis or even FLAC (even though you pay more for it) to crappy MP3's ripped by a retarded monkey who thinks 128Kbps CBR is "CD quality".
I don't use ITMS -- partly because I don't like iTunes, partly because I already have more music (purchased on CD) than I need to listen to for most of the rest of my life, partly because of simple indifference in the world of other ways to spend my time and money. Not that I won't buy more music later, or don't buy some music now, but there's so much I've not thoroughly heard of in the far-too-many CDs I purchased in my impetuous youth that I have no desire to go buy music generically. (When I run into a specific artist's music that appeals, that's a different story.)
... maybe very small wax cylinders), but this fully unitizes (if this is a word) the song as a unit. Things get weird when songs are very, very long (or very, very short), but simple pricing is I think overall better than, say, per-second :)
That said, iTunes lets people buy 1 song at a time, and more importantly is an example for others to take up that "Hey, per-album pricing is not the only possible way for the world of purchasable music to work." Yes, there have been singles around for a while (vinyl / tape / CD
And *that* said, I like the pricing model but find the aesthetics of actually purchasing one song at a time a little weird, because of the annoying brain mole who insists that music albums should be heard in the track order they were ordained to follow by the artist; I feel a litle guilty to hear only *part* of the White album, for instance, or a single track from New Order's "Substance." ("Technique" is perhaps the best example of an album that flows as a work of art from first track to last.)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
This is great, hooray for iTunes but it could still improve. As for an example, if I pay for all these songs and my computer would happen to crash, and it would just happen that I don't have a backup copy, I've essentially payed for something I don't have anymore. This is one of the downsides I believe in downloading from iTune. If I loose an MP3 that I've downloaded from Kazaa, who cares, I'll waste another 30 seconds and download it again. On the other side, iTune is great for reasons such as:
- Great bitrate
- Songs are complete, CD songs. Not shortened version (like missing intro)
- You support groups that you like
Erik
When I first started using P2P apps, I went to WinMX because I had heard good things about its diversity and lack of negative attention that Kazaa got. It worked alright. Then, I tried Limewire. The difference was night and day. In almost every case-ease of use, availability of unknown bands, number of dead downloads, anything-Limewire was ahead of WinMX by leaps and bounds. I went back on WinMX recently to try and find something because I was on a computer that wouldnt run any Java programs (stupid restrictions on the school comp). I was astounded at how impossible it was to find anything, and when I finally did get the song I was looking for, the person refused to allow me to download it (I disabled uploading, and the seed didnt like that). I can't believe WinMX is #1 with such a superior product on the market.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
Um...yeah, when Apple goes bankrupt? You're really overreacting to the Intel announcement, aren't ya? But, let's assume that's likely...
On that fateful morning you read about the bankruptcy filing on Slashdot, you burn CDs of your purchased music. (Assuming that you haven't already.) And you can "make as many copies for [yourself] as [you] want" from there.
Darn that "unusable," restrictive, obtrusive, pesky DRM scheme.
The russian site allofmp3.com charges 2 cents a megabyte. So they are much cheaper than iTunes and much more convient than P2P. Perfectly legal to boot. I primarily use them.
Besides, the possibility of the title catching his eye isn't far fetched ...
...
Not just him, but his employees, and all their friends and family. Now toss in all his business associates (the musicians), and their friends and family,
Nah, more like:
Executive: Wow, iTunes really is moving a lot of units. Get Vinnie the Two Ton Crusher on the line, we've got to demand that iTunes quadruple the price and halve their cut. Bwahahaha! Let's fuck over the consumer some more! $50 CDs, here they come!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's not BS. There are plenty of people using un-surveyable means of downloading entire albums, say, via IRC/Bit Torrent, anonymous FTP sites, straight IRC DCC's, etc. Personally, I don't like the way that Apple does business, so if I were to buy music online, it'd be through Yahoo.
I don't respond to AC's.
Nothing really lost, they weren't going to buy it anyways.
BUT, when they DO have money...they BUY their music, either on CD or via iTunes or some other vendor.
When your TIME becomes WORTH something you don't SPEND it all on P2P.
I don't know, that's what I see going on around me....
I like microcars
It's odd how journalists often refer to peer to peer networks as "sites", because normal people don't know that the internet != the web. But it's more than a semantic distinction, of course. Now people who see the term "p2p sites" will think that you go on to some website owned by someone, and you download all this copyrighted material from a single centralized source, which is completely wrong in most cases (allofmp3 aside).
I wish journalists were more informated about stuff they wrote about.
Personally I find .99 not too bad a price, and .50 about perfect for a song I really like.
As far as I am concerned a price less than that is really unfair to the artists and does act as a disincentive for others to produce music for a living.
That's why I do not think we'll see legit US sites ever offer what you are asking for. No artist would allow it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Intel switch:
x86 has DRM/Trusted Computing.
PPC does not.
I don't think this was so much a case of Steve Jobs playing hardball with IBM, as it is a case of Sony playing hardball with Steve Jobs.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If iTunes on the PC were slightly faster, these numbers would be even higher. I installed it on my PC and it works fine, but on my parents' PC (a Dell P3 at 1 GHz with plenty of RAM, probably fairly average for the home user) it will start skipping if you start a new process while it's playing, and you'll have to stop playback and start it again to make the skipping stop. As the average home PC catches up to iTunes' de fact requirements, I can see these numbers going up.
Also, most Windows users don't realize that iTunes exists or what it is, beyond those who have iPods and use it just to dump songs onto their iPod rather than to buy and play back songs on their PC. I didn't realize it was anything more than that until I got hooked on it on my Powerbook.
That's not what you said before. You said something about fair use.
If you want a CD, buy a CD. If you want only a single track, buy a single. If you want that single cheap, use iTunes. That's all there really is to it.
GPL Deconstructed
"But what if I want one copy for my MP3 player, one on a CD for my car, and one for my wifes car?"
No, you burn 3 separate CD's either of the same playlist, or different playlists.
Then, if you want, re-rip the CD back into the same format it came from. I did some blind testing in the wife awhile back, and she couldn't tell the difference between the origianal itunes track and the re-ripped CD. I also did some detailed examination of the waveforms of original and re-ripped, and although there were differences, they were very minor.
I went one step farther and reburned and re-ripped the burned track again, and still didn't see or hear significant degradation. Granted, it does get worse every time, so eventually you will hear it. But once in and out does not cause a significant loss.
The survey here is US only.
Legit download services are only available in a handful of countries, and i'm not sure that streaming services are available anywhere outside of north america.
I suspect a lot more people would pay for music if it were readily available to them - at least that's what i get by looking at both these results.
Apple's DRM is the least restrictive of any of the music stores around at the moment - just enough to pacify the RIAA. If they made it any more lax, they couldn't exist. There are a few non-US music stores selling non-DRM'd music, but Apple have to operate from the US and so are stuck.
Since they let you burn all the music you've purchased to an un-DRM-encumbered audio CD, I don't see it as that big a deal. Once you've got your audio CD, you can do anything.
I've seen him post before long ago. He's around and has been for a while.
Beyond that I've bought things from CD baby over the past few years and they are a GREAT company that gives artists a good deal. You should be praising them, not burying them.
My favorite CD from them so far has been The Haight Gang. Great stuff.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I might be confused, but...
Limewire is simply a client for the gnutella network. Same story with Kazaa for the FastTrack network. The article doesn't seem to distringuish between a network, and an interface (client) to that network.
This doesn't mean their statistics are invalid, simply that they haven't grasped a fundamental distinction between a network and a client. It does make me question the credibility of the statistics.
On topic, I'm still waiting for a legal site that offers DRM-less lossless (or Ogg, since that's the format I want to convert to) music. I'll pay them happily. I just want it all to work under Linux, for a bit cheaper than simply buying all the CDs and ripping them costs me in money and time. Oh, and I want to have permanent access to the music, without any of my fair use priveleges infringed upon. =) I use Magnatune, but something slightly more mainstream would be nice, as well.
I often wonder what it must be like to be held prisoner by the mass media. What does it feel like not to be able to read and understand a DRM like iTunes offers ?
In any case, I've paid for music, and *GASP* burned it to a CD, used in in my DVD productions (illegal, but still common place in underground vids), Put it on my mp3 players, and even converted the files from AAC to mp3.
God damnit I hate when iTunes DRM prevents me from , uh, uh, uh, from being able to embrace this troll like a fat lady embraces a cheese wheel.
The NPD report is bull----. Zeropaid sets the record straight.
I might be a bit more interested if their prices were a bit fairer. For iTunes, the cost per track:
$0.99 = £0.54
0.99 Euros = £0.66
What's the cost for iTunes UK? £0.79. At least they lowered it from £0.99, but it's still a rip off in comparison. Make if fairer and then i might consider using their services.
One thing to consider is the fact that this was a survey, not an analysis of traffic. People typically have no problem telling a pollster they use iTunes, as it is seen as a legitimate vendor. Due to all the lawsuits and FUD being spread by the RIAA, people are much less likely to say that they use traditional P2P apps. This could greatly skew the results along the lines of "Do you use Roadrunner, @Home or do you just connect to your neighbor's unsecured WAP?"
Then i'll download it all again... pretty low effort compared with setting up my development environments again.
Equally if Yahoo! go bankrupt then i can just sign up for raphsody using the money i would have spent on yahoo (well actually a little more) and i'll have access to the same (well slightly different) unlimited set of music.
The Mac/Linux thing is a problem, but I'm doing windows development right now so need to have an XP machine anyway.
I'm sure streaming services will be available on the Mac within a year or so, and eventually it'll happen on linux.
I found out this week that a bookmark i had to some site that catalogged .torrent files was now stale - imagine my surprise when i went to that bookmark only to find the page covered with "sponsored links" and no torrents for me to peruse.
.torrents. I just stopped looking and did something else.
I didn't try and find other places for more
I haven't looked for any kind of music online in a few years because its too much work. I dont want to install crap, i dont want to uninstall spyware, i dont want to worry abou not getting all of a file, and i dont want to be sued over a couple of songs that aren't any good to begin with. Hell, when i see mp3 files with naming convenitions i disagree with, i get upset and dont want the work of making sure the ID3 data is right and what not.
iTunes is really, really convenient. I haven't bought anything from it, but my wife has when shes looking for some specific song for some reason or another.
I think the value proposition is that paying 99 cents for a known quantity is more convenient than wasting a bunch of time and perhaps needing multiple attempts to get the same thing.
Apparently this value proposition is working for alot of people.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Just to throw in one more voice here:
CDbaby is owned by a fellow named Derek whom I've interviewed with.
He's a frontline geek with very high ideals (read his blog: http://www.cdbaby.org/stories.php?topic=7) who has happened to make a business out of it.
He's also providing an excellent resource for independent musicians, and charging very reasonable rates.
Since he has specific inside information about the industry and obviously is part of the slashdot community, I really can't think of a more appropriate nerd to comment on this article.
Because I'm a paying Slashdot member which means I saw the story posted a full 20 minutes or so before the non-paying browsers see it.
So there. :-)
What about BitTorrent? Last I heard...there was a huge problem with that. Or is that not counted as a p2p site?
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
What will happen when Apple goes bankrupt? Or when the next generation of mini-players comes out with a new DRM?
You must be thinking of the OTHER music companies, that re-authorize every month or what have you.
If Apple went out of buisiness, you music would continue to play on your current Mac until the end of time.
However, like you say eventually you'd want to move the music. Two options then:
CD's - I can burn any ITMS song to CD as much as I like (limit of ten burns a playlist, but I can always make new playlists...)
Hymn - I can convert protected AAC files into unprotected AAC files, which I can then play on anything that undrestands AAC (most PC players, not many portables) or convert it from there.
So yeah I feel sorry for anyone buying music from anywhere other than ITMS or AllOfMP3.com. I still don't like to use AllOfMP3 though as I don't feel it gives artists as much as it should. Perhaps in the future I'll buy from ITMS, then buy the non-lossy version from AllOfMP3. Too much work though, so I probably wont...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A) you're totally my hero, in portland and making $ ;)
B) any chance you'll use that 300k a month to drop the price of these independent albums to sub $10 each?
I think the most impressive thing there is that WinMX is somehow on top of things, considering the complete lack of news from the development team in almost a year.
I've gone through iTunes recently for the first time because my wife was interested in it.
At first, she was ecstatic about it. Comepletely loved it.
Then, she found out she could only play it on certain machines, only make so many CDs, and she's gotten really really irritated.
The thing that made her the most irritated is that she couldn't just copy the m4ps from iTunes to her new digital music player because it's not an iPod.
Sure, now she can burn them to a CD, and rip from the CD into whatever format she wants. I also recognize that right now, iTunes is probably the best of the bunch, with the exception of some independent music sites out there that she isn't as interested in.
But how long before you can't purchase a non-DRM CD anymore?
I'll tell you, I'm pissed as hell about this DRM crap. It has nothing to do with pirating. It has to do with the fact that the content producers and suppliers want to control what hardware I purchase and listen to my legally purchased music on.
It's ok now, but how long will it be before I can only play the songs on Apple hardware? How long before I can only burn it to a Sony-approved CD, or listen to it on a Sony-approved digital media player? And what do you want to bet that Apple arranges so that the only approved hardware are, well, Apple?
Maybe we'll go back to the days of having to play a song to record it. But then we're back at square one, with DRM-speakers and so forth and so on...
My feelings about iTunes are ambivalent at best.
1) Your choice
2) I feel your pain here. Hopefully in time someone will realise that people want to play music in Linux and that there is a market. Either that or Mplayer will start playing Y! music files - they play fine in WMP.
3) If you have better things to do with your money than spending it on music, then by all means go for it. Music is a luxury item.
4) Here's an analogy.
Say you house costs $250,000 and you have a 5%, 30 yr mortgage on it, and lets assume it doesn't appreciate at all (because music doesn't really).
Your mortgage payment would run you $1,342 a month and you'd pay back a total of $233,139 in interest (an average of $647 a month).
Now if you could rent the same house for $600 a month, then it WOULD be better than buying it.
Even if the bank paid you no interest on the $742/month you saved, you'd still end up with more cash than the value of the house.
Of course houses appreciate and usually you cant rent them quite that cheaply (with a few exceptions).
However, to come back to music we can observe:
It's about the same price (assuming interest rates and yahoo's pricing stay at current levels) to rent unlimited music for the rest of your life or to buy 100 cds once
My tastes in music change pretty frequently and in my case it IS cheaper to rent than buy.
MILLIONS of people use Netflix who are offering a very similar same model for movies.
linuxbaby - excellent post! Now, is there any way to know whether any given artist is supported through cdbaby when shopping at iTunes - frankly, I don't mind 99c when most goes to the band but will stick to allofmp3 for all other fat-ass artist ripoffs - alternatively, do you or can you post on your website lists of disributed bands?
3. Lesbians 4. Scientology 5. Offing Michael Eisner 6. Hiring Michael Eisner 7. Watching Minnie Mouse and Michael Eisner get it on. 8. Watching Goofy and Michael Eisner get it on. 9. Offing Chris Rock before somebody is stupid enough to ask him to host another Oscars. 10. Turning around and getting Whoopie Goldberg to host another Oscars.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This NPD Group is an absolute sham. I use to do tech support for some of the NPD users. NPD Group releases spyware, its garbage and should not be taken seriously. The only reason ppl called in was to remove NPD from their computers... Check your sources....
But they have millions of customers already. There's zero motivation to change the business plan just because you claim that you want them to.
What does WinMX bring to the table?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Centralizaiton is not a feature.
All this means is that iTMS is the only *single* place left. All the real action is distributed throughout the Internet. The only reason most go to bittorrent.com is to download the software - not the content.
So, what fraction of Internet traffic does iTMS pull?
most popular, my ass...
Thanks for doing everything you can to propagate the meme that bittorrent is only useful for piracy. Way to go, cockface.
anyone else think npd group has much to gain from this survey? i mean if legal download sites are becoming more popular, this gives npd group a reason to track them, and sell the information for absurd prices. the monthly fee for videogame tracking is around $5000 a month. btw where does bit torrent on this list? isnt bt like 60% of the internet traffic by itself?
With Copy controlled CDs which cant be put on to mp3 players by the average consumer the record companies are already doing this.
So, cdbaby distributes to yahoo music unlimited too I assume?
The fourth link (missing) was the best
I guess that you haven't been at Slashdot long. If you had been, you would know that the 4th link is always PROFIT
...instead of pushing them around and spending all our efforts on advertising instead of actual, innovative, interesting products... Exactly, the US can do with more bonus in their products. Most of the audio CDs I bought in the US only has a cd and a front+back cover, nothing else.
Compare it to the Japanese audio CDs I buy all the time? a booklet thicker than the CD, complete with lyrics! (why do the western CDs usually lack them? afraid of "infringement"? the last Japanese piano CD album I bought even has the MUSICAL SHEET with it)
Seeing that both has the same price, I know its obvious to which one I would buy...
How do artists get paid for subscription music services? Like Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo? Do they get paid per play or what?
Surprise! People like downloading music cheaply instead of paying exhorbitant prices for CDs filled with crap. Who would have thought such a thing!
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
If they made it any more lax, they couldn't exist. There are a few non-US music stores selling non-DRM'd music, but Apple have to operate from the US and so are stuck.
eMusic is a US site, and they sell popular music without DRM, right? Apple could do so (at least with some of their tracks) if they really wanted to.
The problem is they don't want to sell DRM-free tracks, they want to sell you an iPod.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
And the second lesson a band learns is that it is very, very hard to get the A&R folks to look at you seriously if you have a reputation as too much of a cover band, no?
http://www.emusic.com/
Not much for major-label, but I still burn up my 90/mo. (And, IIRC, CDBaby's listed on there as well.)
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
Hey congratulations on the success. You guys hit my radar some time ago.
.m3u playlists for promos. I was wondering if you would ever consider putting up some vanilla .mp3s for demo purposes.
I noticed that your website only offers
My project is going for a radio-esque niche and I think my users prefer discreet files for portables and whatnot. I would love to post some files...
People will pay for information, but increasingly, the quality will have to go up and the price will go down. The coercion model of culture sales will not last... and the existing industrial model is terribly suited for anything else. In its place will rise many iTunes-esque venues, where the distance between our money and the musicians pockets is minimized. iTunes is still too expensive to compete against the growing ubiquity of digital communication. Only by cutting out the fat can prices fall enough to continue to convince people not to share information with one another and instead pay for it. But as iTunes shows, enough people will be honest and pay, but only if they are asked an honest price. For me, 99 cents for a whole album, DRM-free, will convince me to pay. Until then, let them try and stop me from listening to 1's and 0's. They can't.
Yes, usually.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
10 or 20 dollars for unlimited downloads? Or are you talking something more like emusic, where you pay $10 a month for 40 song downloads per month?
What will happen when Apple goes bankrupt?
When Apple goes bankrupt, who will prevent you from deciding to de-DRM your music using Hymn or some other program? Presumably the reason you haven't yet is because iTunes only like DRMed music from the iTunes Music Store, something which will no longer be a factor when Apple supposedly goes bankrupt (now that they are switching to Intel of course).
But what if I want one copy for my MP3 player, one on a CD for my car, and one for my wifes car?
Easy, you sync it to your iPod and burn two CDs. I also recommend archiving a copy and a de-DRM program. But you still only bought 1 copy and didn't even ask to play it on multiple computers or iPods yet. It's not perfect, but its better than most of your other options.
How long as the iTune music service been available? Quite a few years now? Australia still can't sign up to it. Why is it taking so long? It's ridiculous.
I just want to say THANK YOU for your store and your philosophy. I have bought CDs from your store. It is gratifying to know that a significant percentage actually gets to the artist. You had a great idea. It's nice to see that you have been able to remain in business.
I'm not surprised to see this figure.
Face it, people are lazy. When I want a song these days, I just feel too lazy to load up IRC and go search for the song on a channel or BT or whatever.
Most songs I download are from different artists, and those artists whose songs I really like, I usually just go across the street and grab the CD. But for regular songs, 99 cents is a small price to pay to not have to deal with the mess of searching for the song in p2p which often ends up being corrupted.
Not altogether suprising considering that Windows users are forced to download and install iTunes in order to get Quicktime.
In other words, you want to download all the music they have in one month, for $10.
Do you even have the disc space for that?
CDBaby's deal with iTunes gives musicians like me a chance to play on the same online stage with the record company "products." Ten years ago such distribution would have been laughable. "No no, sir, you MUST be signed to a MAJOR music label to get your music HEARD." Balls. I recorded the opening track on the CD in GarageBand and now my CD is on iTunes. Thank GOD for CDBaby and Apple!
My CD on iTunes is located here
Music - www.richardmac.com
... because they've managed to screw up my pre-order of "X & Y." I don't see what the fuss about DRM is for now. I bought music from iTMS, burned, then ripped a disc in iTunes, then used the MP3s appropriately. I do know one thing... I will bash the heads in of people who are content to "rent" music.
that's all good as long as you don't use your credit card on iTunes and have it stolen like an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 other poor suckers. i will not get burned again and have to deal with all the hassle. i rather download music free of charge and free of such risks.
Parent: any chance you'll use that 300k a month to drop the price of these independent albums to sub $10 each?
Are you smoking the ganj, man? You demonstrated you read the post, but I think you missed this:
GP:91% of all that income goes directly to the musician.
300k - 91% = 27k left to pay hosting/bandwidth costs, advertising, any employees that need to be paid, any other costs of doing business, oh yea and 4) PROFIT!!.
I know the RIAA has left us gun shy of the words "music" and "profit" together; but he's paying the artists fairly and giving everyone the same fair shot. This guy isn't using any industry stranglehold on politicians & airwaves to artificially pump up the prices.
~Rebecca
I've got an album on CDBaby - it's (plug) The Sound and the Furry, and I can attest that artists set the prices of their albums there. In general terms, CDBaby takes about $4 per full-length album, and generally they're about $1-2 each to produce in not-huge quantities, so I wouldn't expect prices to ever be below $8, and $10 seems reasonable to me.
-David Barak
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
I called apple asking if I could restore music I purchased from itunes after my laptop got stolen and they let me do a one time re-download. Tell me that when your cd's got stolen from your car tower records let you have new cd's... I thought that was pretty cool. :)
so I can't say I'm surprised by this....someone needs to email Lars Ulrich of metallica. or better yet, print this out, tie it to a brick, and throw it through the window of his multi-million dollar mansion. That's assuming you can scale the solid gold fence tipped with diamonds....
I cannot agree more. "Speed of sound" implies high energy, yet the track is truly soporific.
so a pleasant change?
:)
Looked at them the other day, seems pretty cool to me!
Now if they could hook up to irateradio etc?
Not Free SF Reader
???
I never said that so please don't "quote" me like that.
I represent the "casual downloader"
You are their representative? Do you have a card?
I don't think $0.99 is a fair price, with most of it going to the label.
I see, so downloading songs from P2P is better for the artist. According the Representative of the Casual Downloaders.
This may sound crass, but at least I'm being honest when I say that when I look for music I don't think at all about the Artist and how much money they make from my purchase.
I also don't think about the Record Companies.
I think about Me and how to make the process as easy for ME as possible so that I am Happy.
That's basically it.
I'm pretty sure most everyone I know approaches this in a similar manner and they choose a Delivery Method that is appropriate.
I like microcars
from cdfreaks:
"With this step, eDonkey is now able to push more users to its network. It is almost reaching 3 million simultaneous users, and it's still growing."
How can can iTunes beat nearly 3 million simultaneous users with 1.7 million users who downloaded at least 1 track all month? True these 2 stats are difficult to compare, but it raises doubts about the iTunes article.
Vote for Pedro
I would be more than happy to buy tunes from the iTunes Music Store, but you need a credit card simply to CREATE an account. Even if you buy them with gift certificates.
Therefore, I can't buy music online. I don't have a credit card.
But if the need for a credit card were eliminated...
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I can only speak from what I know, and what I know is this. About half the people I know use p2p. Hardly anyone uses iTunes and absolutely nobody will touch Napster nor will they deal with DRM'd WMA files. In the meantime, I keep hearing how these 'legitimate' music sites are supposedly moving people off of p2p but I'm also hearing that none of these sites are actually making any money.
As for me personally, I'm not going to waste my time with music anymore. There's too much greed, too much selfishness, too much political grandstanding, too much unbending extremism, and too much ignorance on all sides of the debate for me to waste any more time on this issue. If it isn't one side trying to play me, it's the other.
Therefore, my view is now this. Fuck the artists, fuck the pirates, fuck the RIAA, and fuck everyone involved that has colluded together to destroy all things that were once good about the music scene. I shall now move on to more important issues like patent reform.,the ongoing Intel vs. AMD debate, and things of that nature.
I agree Rhapsody is great. The only thing going for Yahoo is their price. I'm hesitant to switch because Yahoo's past performance hasn't been great for me. I keep having problems accessing Yahoo mail.
People will actually pay for their stuff without the threat of litigation or jail! People will figure out what "they" like, not what they're told to like...
I might just become a humanist!
On iTunes it only costs $8.91. Many other albums on there are also sub $10.
Shawn's Tech Articles
Two conclusions I've made:
1. this report is bullshit. WinMX? Ok, sure, whatever you say.
2. amy slashdot reader who is stupid enough to use iTMS and is even foolish enough to highlight it in a positive manner should be shot on the spot. Hello DRM. Wake up, quit supporting this bullshit. You're reading news for nerds, you should know better.
If you don't want someone to copy something, don't give it to anyone.
Ohhhh Apple going out of business. Not gonna happen dude.
;-)
Anyway. Even if it happens, you just remove the DRM from their mp3's. Software is available for that. Ohyeah, that's illegal, right? Who's gonna enforce this? The music industry? So you sue counter-them, file a class action suit, and demand a complete reimbursement for every song ever sold via iTunes. This will have the nice side effect of driving the entire music industry into bancruptcy too and should keep them from dragging old women and 10 year olds to court
I realize that I am late to the party on this article... but I just wanted to say that if they offered a service where I could pay 20 bux or so per season to download new 24 episodes when they hit the air (or even the next day) I would be all over it. I would even prolly still by the dvds when they hit the shelves (since, lets be honest, dvd authoring in linux is still kindof a bitch)
I would really like to see a situation where you can subscribe to a tv show like you subscribe to a magazine.
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
1. WinMX (2.1 million)
h tml
2. iTunes (1.7 million)
3. LimeWire (1.7 million)
4. Kazaa
5. BearShare
6. Ares Galaxy
7. Napster
8. Morpheus
9. Real Player Store
10. iMesh
http://www.npd.com/dynamic/releases/press_050607.
Well, although it is, in some ways obvious, there's also some potential pitfalls, which I think is what scares them. Basically, if they legitimize internet sales of movies, they're giving up a strangle hold on the market. They've gotten that stranglehold through the economic realities of physical distribution and sales.
Basically, there's the status quo, and that has evolved to make it really easy for the established players to just coast along making healthy money, while making it pretty difficult for newcomers to break into the business and take marketshare.
While the internet and digital distribution has the potential to expand the market even further, as well as lower distribution costs, it also levels the playing field in a lot of ways. And that's what they're afraid of. There's some risk there. They'd have to actually compete, with the quality of their online stores, and the quality of their content. Compared to now where they just dump whatever they want in the theaters/stores, and we buy it, cause that's all there is.
Would you be eager to give up an easy $100 mil per year in order to gamble for maybe $150 mil a year? I just made those numbers up, but i think that's basically their line of thought.
Not that it isn't lame and sucky for consumers.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
only too true.
What's wrong with having a dayjob and producing music on the side? With all the bands that work full time with little good music as results, they might as well.
.50 a track from strangers makes it likely casual musicians who do have other jobs might try and sell a few tacks - if they would only get .0001 a track as they might from a monthly model, why even bother? If most people would only ever get $1 a month or less then why even bother putting music up for other instead of just doing local gigs and selling local CD's?
.50c a track (with the artist seeing much of that as per CDBaby), exactly so that I DO get to hear those people making music too casually to have it be a full-time job.
That is great, but I also want to make it possible to have SOME people who can devote full time to music. People who would hopefully be able to make a living because of musical artistry, not marketing (though there is always some element of marketing in anything people do).
As it stands
That's exactly why I want music to cost about
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It isn't going to happen. Not at $60 a year from Yahoo.
When downloads are portable, playlists everywhere, and the backlist continues to grow, who needs ownership?
To be fair, Japanese CDs run around 10 dollars more per CD than in the US at retail. If you go to Tower Records in the US, you should expect to pay 18-20 bucks a CD or so. If you go to Disk Union in Japan, expect to pay 25-30. Asian Kung Fu Generation's album Sol-Fa came out at around 25 bucks, if I recall. It's been out for months and is still expensive! In the US, I think the price would have dropped a couple of bucks already. Utada Hikaru's English album was running around 30 bucks, I think, when it came out in Japan. This is why CD rental shops are so popular in Japan, I'd wager.
;)
That being said, I am willing to shell out a few more bucks to get a sweet CD insert with nudie pics of Momusu (just kidding) rather than a crappy insert made of grade Q paper of Goo Goo Dolls in the US.
That reminds me, I saw a Sno CD (that white rapper from Canada) in Drama the other day, and thought about buying it (100 yen? Why the heck not?) just to relive my days of listening to "Informer", and pretending I knew the lyrics. Japan is the best place to buy old music from America. Hell, it's the best place to get ANYthing American that is vintage. I've seen Elton John records in pristine condition for about 5 dollars and 50s albums (think: Buddy Holly) for even less! Not to mention X-Files trading cards and Smurf action figures (the best is "Black Smurf", who is...well...a black smurf
The Yahoo client is in beta and looks it. It is nowhere near as integrated and polished as Rhapsody. Pages take eternity and a day to load. You'll find no mention of classical music and other genres seem to have have been short-sheeted as well. The files are probably in there somewhere, but good luck finding them.
You've got the wrong idea.
A cover band is a band that IMITATES current hits.
But great musicians can do a creative version of someone else's song (ALL jazz musicians do it, for example) - an it only strengthens their career - shows who they are as an artist, not just a writer.
eMusic is a US site, and they sell popular music without DRM, right?
If by "popular" you mean they offer a selection of "Country & Western", then yes. If by "popular" you mean "top 40" or "anyone signed to a major label" or "just about any big name band you can name", then no.
I think you're mistaken. The Strokes, Interpol, Pavement, Thievery Corporation, The Decemberists, Elliott Smith, and Green Day are among the popular modern bands listed on their preview pages. (I'm not a member either.)
Now, would you be able to find Britney, Christina, Chingy, Fiddy, etc.? Probably not. But you can hear any of their songs for free anyway, just by turning on your radio and waiting up to 3 minutes for Clear Channel to replay it.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I tried all of these pay services but they all insist on selling me crappy 128k files.
I won't ever use iTunes/Napster/Walmart/Whatever till they offer me Lossless files. I have spend too much money on hifi audio equipment to pay money for lossy files. Even ogg which is > mp3 still is lossy.
With a lossless file you can download it, then burn a disk just as good as the original(in theory)
i'm really surprised at how much drm is defended here on /. well, not all drm, just apple the flavored stuff. then it becomes good drm (oxymoron?) i guess it's like getting kids to take their pills by putting it in apple sauce :)
"It is well known that the world is divided into 4 categories: A, B, C and D. 'D' for 'Dumb', 'C' for 'Clever', 'B' for 'Brilliant' and 'A' for 'Advertising Men'."
- Graeme, who had just become an advertising executive and was explaining the facts of life to Bill and Tim.
+1 'Goodies' reference'
> Apple's DRM is the least restrictive of any of the music stores around at the moment
Yet it continues to get more stringent. Compare the restrictions you have now with the restrictions you had a few versions ago. How many computers can play the same tracks per day? How many times?
So yeah, it's the least restrictive out there. But it's still a noose, and the Apple guys will squeeze it a bit more if they really feel like it. As they have already done.
Also, burning to audio then back to a compressed format does have a noticeable loss of quality. Maybe in a few years we'll have portable players with a terabyte of storage so that we can carry around uncompressed audio, but don't hold your breath.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Yet it continues to get more stringent. Compare the restrictions you have now with the restrictions you had a few versions ago. How many computers can play the same tracks per day? How many times?
Err, OK. Initially, you could play your music on up to three computers. Now it's five. And there's never been any limit to the number of times you can play a track.
The big question is: what will happen if mainstream music-consumers start getting confronted the consequences of DRM once they try to start playing legally downloaded music on their brand new stereo/mp3-player/pc and find out that the R in DRM really stands for Restrictions?
It may take a couple of years, maybe even the better part of a decade, but consumers will turn on the industry (again) once they find out the stuff they bought and paid for isn't really theirs the way their good old LP's and CD's were.
iTunes and alike aren't the future of music. It's growth is just the music industry going supernova before becoming a black hole.
Has iTunes been threatened to be shutdown anytime soon? I don't see any RIAA/other on their asses.
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
..Apple now?
No more I say.
Think about it: bottled water.
Yep you're right, I should have gotten my coffe before posting. Two more computers, but it's actually the playlist what are getting hosed: See here.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Oh yeah, and it's a change to 5 people every day instead of 5 people at a time, so it's definitely not a straight "up".
Now I'Ve got too much caffeine and I'm posting too fast. Back to coding...
---- Take the Space Quiz!
It's quite simple, really. I'll burn all my purchased music to CD and re-rip them.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
You are just a plain old punk making idioting rationalizations why you have to continue ripping off other's property.
A more important statistic would be "number of gnutella users: X; number of iTMS users: Y".
best college pickem site ever: pickem.terrbear.org
A few comments on Japanese CDs. I've read several places (since I've never actually been to Japan) that Japanese CDs tend to cost more than the imported from the US and Euro version. As an incentive to keep people from buying the US and Euro versions, they've resorted to including extra tracks, lyric sheets, stickers, etc. However, these lyric sheets are oftentimes not "official." They are transcriptions made by someone listening to the CD and writing down what they believe are they lyrics. I've bought several Japanese CDs where the included lyrics have some nice Engrish in them, and others where the included lyrics don't match up with the official published versions of the lyrics (via officially sanctioned sheet music, offical band website lyric listings, etc). Just thought I'd mention these things...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
This is obvious. I stopped using things like WinMX a long time ago because I got tired of downloading a bunch of raunchy pictures that said they're supposed to be what I actually am looking for.
What would you rather do?
A. P2P - Wait in a HUGE queue, sometimes days, to get a song you want, possibly from a dialup user, which may or may not be what it says, and probably has quality problems such as skipping or the song may not even be completed. Oh, by the way, while you are in that queue the user can log off and then you're sol.
B. IRC - Usually what you see is what you get, in probably reasonably good bit rates. Again, same queue problems. Add to this the possibility of the bots getting kicked off and you being sol, again.
C. iTunes - Pay $0.99 and get the song. No hassles, no waiting, no incomplete/fraudulent files. The downside being that they are 128kbit AAC files which are no where near CD quality. However, it seems the laymen computer users don't give a rats ass about this.
It's pretty easy to see why iTunes is #2. The only reason it's not number one is because you can't get the latest box office hits on it.
- Alex
*3 'Prehensile Penis'.
Yes, I am a CDBaby artist, and no I'm not going to shill my wares.
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Sharing or distributing your own photo, video, music on this website.
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Just open the m3u file with text editor and dl the mp3s
Not only is it illegal, but it's immoral freeloading.
Now I know for a fact that you of all people have no place talking about morality. The IP holders are the freeloaders, expecting all these exclusive privileges for themselves. No siree. When you start making your money by performing work like the rest of us, you can start saying that you're not the freeloader.
I have a feeling you're one of the first people to complain when a company "steals" GPL intellectual property.
That tired old crap just doesn't fly.
I was responding specifically to what the grandparent poster was saying (about how much easier it is to get small gigs if you do covers). On your own point, well, I'll give you this: I've got songs by The Ataris, Tori Amos, Mitch Allan, Kittie, and Godhead that I bought entirely because they were interpretations of songs I like. I may buy other stuff from these bands in the future.
But then . . . how many people can name a song by The Ataris other than Boys of Summer? Maybe a third to a quarter of the people who know the cover? I think you need to have something compelling of your OWN work available for folks to try out, too, if they decide they like your interpretation of one of their favorite songs enough to look to your other work. If you put too much focus into a cover version, and the cover doesn't highlight something unique and artistically satisfying about your band, something that connects to your influences and can serve as a bridge for new listeners, but simply is an interesting new take on an old standard, it's not going to help.
Jazz is a different genre; it's a repertory genre whose listeners are used to the idea of looking for creative new variations of old favorites.
I think you're mistaken.
:) Radio is still the most common way people are introduced to new music, and just about the only way to get on the radio is to be signed with a big label. And big labels want exclusive distribution, which means no eMusic. Sure there are notable exceptions like the Greatful Dead or Phish, but they got big by constant touring.
I think I'm not.
I am surprised they had Green Day though, maybe it's a sign the market is changing, and for the better.
If "exclusive distribution" means no eMusic, it also means no iTunes and no Napster.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
/quibble
:-)
By "exclusive distribution" I mean "the labels exclusive distribution of any artist's music that signs with the label." So Sony and BMG are free to sell their music to Wal-Mart or Best Buy or Apple, but the artist can't make deals on his own. And since no major label is willing to sell digital music w/o DRM, that means no emusic, and it means none of their signed bands can sell on emusic either. I would guess that Green Day's contract was up, but without looking at the site (they seem to want you to sign up before you can look at anything) it's hard to tell.
yet