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Microsoft's Music Subscription Service
An anonymous reader writes "In a bid to compete with Apple's iTunes music service, Microsoft is planning to set up its own subscription-based online music store later this year. It is said to be working with record labels and copyright holders in preparation for the launch. Last September, the company unveiled its MSN-branded music site but it didn't have a subscription plan." From the article: "The tentative features of the new service -- which is still under development -- include advanced community aspects and playlist-sharing. But sources say Microsoft is also considering a more direct attack on Apple, seeking rights from copyright holders to give subscribers a new, Microsoft-formatted version of any song they've purchased from the iTunes store so those songs can be played on devices other than an iPod."
Why can't these companies use a normal format like .mp3? For these programs its not hard for the average user to convert the song there are many available, I understand if there doing this to keep other users from sharing the music but its really not that hard to continue to share after they convert the file, so why not just use the format that everyone knows how to use?
Oh great. One more attempt...
At least we won't need to worry too much about Apple monopolying the market? (!?)
Seriously, do we need yet another music provider? I like to see some number or a pie chart as in who are taking the majority of the market and at what precentage.
Do you have to be in every god damn business in the tech market? Let one or two of them go for once.
The more you know, the less you understand.
1) Every idiot in PC Magazine will go "WOW! Can't wait"
2) Store opens up. Late.
3) User interface sucks.
4) iTunes keeps on truckin'.
Creating another proprietary system isn't going to solve the underlying issues...people want ownership of the music itself, and the first service that does that is going to be rewarded handsomely by consumers.
Music online???
Boy, that Microsoft sure is innovative...
^_^
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
it will fail miserably. MS needs to redesign the user interface of this thing. It is confusing and convoluted. I would love to see MS simplify it to just audio and add podcasting.
Oh, thanks goodness. I was afraid the RIAA already made the music industry as soulless and profit-hungry as it could get.
so those songs can be played on devices other than an iPod.
But only once...
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Where's the contingent of computer geeks who simply like having an album in hand, with artwork, lyrics, and songs arranged in the order the artist intended? There's something very satisfying about listening to every track on an album (even the ones that aren't your favorite), knowing that song X always transitions into song Y ("Eruption" into "You Really Got Me" or "Heartbreaker" into "Living Loving Maid" anyone?), and smelling that new CD smell. The fact that there's no lossy compression is just icing on the cake...
"... Microsoft is also considering a more direct attack on Apple, seeking rights from copyright holders to give subscribers a new, Microsoft-formatted version of any song they've purchased from the iTunes store so those songs can be played on devices other than an iPod."
Wouldn't Microsoft's new service, to remain legal, have to verify that the purchase was in fact made from iTunes, and that the purchase was made by that subscription holder and not another? To do this, wouldn't Microsoft need the purchase data and information from Apple, or at least a mechanism for obtaining it? Absent these assurances that the music is in fact purchased, what is the difference between this idea and JHymn?
What are the chances that Apple will give ground to Microsoft, release all their information, and set themselves up for loss of the market monopoly? They need to survive long enough (Apple) for the Intel announcement to bear fruit.... they risked enough revenue announcing this early as it is. Apple would undoubtedly focus on the fact that while the artist owns the music, who is providing the service, servers, and the encoding for the files? Undoubtedly there are other contractual ties as well between artist, label, and iTunes restricting this. Would Apple be that fast and loose with their service? Is there any direct evidence to believe as such?
Doesn't make sense to me....
The Crimson Dragon
I find it interesting that in the early 90's, Apple fell hard because of the difficulty of creating hardware or software for their machines. Microsoft Windows, on the other hand, was based on IBM PC's, a format that encouraged third party support.
Now, Microsoft is trying to once again get that third party support by allowing it's music to be played anywhere; as opposed to Apple's iPod only being able to play iTunes music. I don't know if this tactic will work the second time around, but it will definitely put a big gorilla against Apple, that's for sure.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
You must build a portable music player that will beat iPod first!
I believe this is what N is for. An incentive to download Media Center without going against court order.
In other news, iPods are more popular than most other MP3 players and iTunes is the most popular online music store.
Bottom line: Apple wins.
computerdude33's stuff: My blog of wonder.
In other words, you can't blame them if Napster set the DRM of certain music to the most fascist restrictions possible. That wrath should be directed at the people who made that decision, not those that made that functionality possible.
Personally, I'm interested to see what buying power they will have with the labels who will, naturally, try and enforce heavily DRM'ed content which will only serve to put customers off.
In addition, how the EU (America might make noises, but as shown in the past, won't do anything much about it) will view the integration of their music service with the "buy music" link in XP.
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Here's my take on it:
Google Audio Search
Audio content on the internet is in chaos. To reign in the chaos, and to capitalize on internet audio file assets, Google will launch an audio search engine or audio file search tool by 2006, but probably sooner.
I think that podcasting will fit into the equation. More and more audio content is flowing onto the web but it is in the dark corners right now. The podcasting directories and search engines basically stink. As time goes on, and as this content grows, it'll be time for Google to enter the fray. There is every reason to believe that advertising would work just fine with podcasting, especially if you find the content have the Master Index (read: Google).
But what about music? iPods are so dominant. Near the end of 2004 Apple's share of the MP3 market was about 87%. Even if that drops it ain't no big thing since the entire pie is still growing like crazy. This dominance of hardware drives dominance of iTunes. (I'm looking for disagreement of course, but throw numbers at me please.)
How to Download YouTube Videos
I predict that this decision won't pan-out the way that Microsoft intends. Users will see it simply as an additional reason to buy from the iTunes store "buy AAC get Windows-version free.
Launch a service that duplicates what's already out there, and make it so that the downloads play on players that nobody buys.
You can tell the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Mother: Now Microsoft, if all the other companies jumped off a bridge it doesn't mean that you have to.
Microsoft: Of course it does!
What --- is "U Can't Touch This" the new name for their DRM mechanism?
Okay, if I've downloaded an iTunes song in Apple format, it would seem obvious that I have an iPod. Why would I want to have it in another format? Pretty-much my only motivation would be to share it, no? Yet, DRM and all the nice PSA's we see from the RIAA tells us NOT to share it. Now they are probably hoping they will have people move to the format and abandon the Apple format. So far, Apple format is superiour to mp3, from what I understand. M$ will need to improve upon the quality in order to steal people away. Not only that, if I have a large number of files purchased from iTunes how will this help me? Is M$ saying they will let me have the same songs for free? If this is the case, they only get revenue on new song purchases. Not sayin they can't make money that way, I'm just saying I'm not sure you're going to have a mass exodus from iTunes with just this set of features. I think M$ has a history of spreading themselves thin. They have this mentality that they must do everything in technology. "Oh! There's a search engine! We need one!" Enter MSN which just isn't attractive. "Oh! There's a chat client! We need one!" Enter Messenger! (crickets chirping) "Oh! Media services!" Blah blah!
You have to pay to use MP3, there's no lock in or copy control. Hence additional music formats.
Deleted
"seeking rights from copyright holders to give subscribers a new, Microsoft-formatted version"
MS Lawyer: "We have to remove media player from Windows - the courts are demanding it"
Bill Gates: "OK, well lets delay it until we can find a way to turn media player in to a monopoly"
MS Lawyer: "What do you suggest?"
Bill Gates: "Why don't we make an audio format that will only run in media player, give away loads of music until we have a large market share and then refuse to give any details of the file format to anybody so that we have no competition"
MS Lawyer: "You mean like we did with Office and all our other products? I like you thinking Batman!"
Bill Gates: "Stop sucking up and get back in that court room, theres still 700 law suits against us."
I hate the MS 'drug dealer' mentality:
- Give away products free
- Wait until they're hooked
- Charge loads for future products
- Profit!!
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams
Microsoft copying off someone else? Imagine that??!! Seriously, mod me down if you want, but does MS EVER do anything first or on their own? This is so pathetic is makes me wanna spit...
Thank God we have Microsoft to save us from vendor lock-in!
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Easy , Microsoft have been convicted of abusing their monopoly making them an illegal monopoly . They are using it to break into other markets and the courts do nothing apparently.
Apple has a large majority in portable and online music for that player (the same market) microsoft have a monopoly on OSs and are using that monopoly to push into another market
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
All of these must work well individually, but when applied in unison, must absolutely rock. The only reason that Apple have succeeded is because they control each and everyone of these, allowing them to fine tune the user experience to such an extent that even a first time user can use them all as if they are a single application - because they are.
Apple are not winning because their store is the cheapest or most complete, it isn't. They are not winning because their player is the best, it isn't. They are not winning because their library is best, although it is. They are wining because it is easy, and people don't feel threatend by jargon and choice - they plug and play.
To acheive the choice that Microsoft knows we want, we would need:
This could possibly be achieved if the RIAA defined them and enforced them on pain of loosing distribution rights. People might then have the freedom to buy a new player and know it will work with the library they like and the store thats the cheapest. Until then Microsoft opening a new store, will make no difference at all.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Let's say I want a song in Mp3 format- I can get it. I can also get it in Ogg-Vorbis format, or any format I want. Do I want to listen to music and not buy any? Can do it for 50$ a year (which, when compared to XM Radio and the like, is cheaper). And then I can grab music to DO WHATEVER I WANT to for 79 cents a pop. In whatever format I like.
click me
This one's got Microsoft innovation built in - Clippy support.
"I see you're downloading from iTunes - would you like to switch to MSMusak.com instead?"
Well, is there any reason to think Apple is lying?
Assuming this isn't a lie, this would constitute a majority of the market share, and begins to breach monopoly status. I was speaking to a more general point, however, in regards to loss of market share. Call it hyperbole if you wish. Here's some more support of the market penetration in the legal downloading category by iTunes.
The Crimson Dragon
The reason that Apple has been so successful with iPod/iTunes/iTunes Music Store has to do with two words: easy and integrated. Before and after iPod there are plenty of portable music players. Not all of them were intuitive and easy to use. Before and after iTunes, there has been media players. Most of them are about equal in performance with some easier to work with than others. Before and after iTunes Music Stores, there were ways to get music online. Not all of them easy or intuitive to use. Progress has been made all three sides, but nobody but Apple really has been able to get the integration to work seamlessly. They can do that because they control the hardware, the software, and the online store. Microsoft at best can control only two of the three.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Easy.
Microsoft has been convicted of monopolistic practices. Apple has not.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
1. Charge a yearly/monthly/daily subscription fee.
2. Allow user to listen/download burn all the music they want for there subscription with a better quality than what can be found on P2P. Maybe add some perks to having a subscription i.e. lower ticket prices, posters memorabilia etc
3. Make band/singers/musicians work for there money like everybody else, namely go on tour and pack those stadiums to make money.
M$ it's whats for diner!!!!!
I concur, and this is why I regret using the world monopoly when I wanted to speak to market share concerns. It was hyperbolic of me, and I take the remark back and apologize.
Then again, what about iTunes tracks only working on iPods and not other music players? One could perceive this as monopolistic, and then the monopoly point would be non-hyperbolic.
Any thoughts?
The Crimson Dragon
I've always been the type who likes to create a collection of my own music. In the last few years, that has meant ripping stuff myself into FLAC format and then generating compressed files as needed (usually Ogg).
But now that I've tried out a subscription service (Yahoo) I'm a convert.
I don't worry anymore about what I own or have access to. I have everything. All I worry about is what I like, which is expressed through the rating system. I love it, and in my opinion, this is the future of music.
Regarding the Yahoo service in particular, I'm finding it quite good. The music is all 192Kbps (WMA), the selection is very good, and the UI is good. On the downside, the client software is buggy (it is in beta still) and the lock-in factor is pretty huge.
But for me, the biggest problem is the that subscription services - though available from a variety of retailers - are only available on Windows. Give me a cross-platform version of Yahoo (where cross-platform includes Linux) and I'll sign up for life.
(DRM/WMA is a big issue and I won't get into it here.)
Free music from Microsoft!*
<legal>*Free music may not be available at product launch. However, music is expected to be available for free within 48 hours of the release of this product. For more information please consult your local software cracking consortium. No, of course you don'thave a local software cracking consortium. All rights rese...hey! Give those back!</legal>
I really can't tell if this message is supposed to be a (+1, funny) or if you're actually serious.
If your credit card is so maxed out that you can't afford Yahoo Music's $5/mo. unlimited plan, you've got bigger problems than your music not working.
As for your other questions about travelling, getting seriously hurt and whatnot, I really don't get what you're saying. Again, if I get seriously hurt and can't afford my $5 a month Yahoo subscription, I think I'll have bigger worries.
Sorry I want the music to play as long as i have a player. You are now tied to napster for your music. You can't say no, you have no choice but to pay them forever.
You can still buy the music you really like. The great thing about the subscription services is that, for $5-15 a month, you can listen to whatever you want for as long as you're a subscriber (think Netflix). If you find something you really like, buy it from whatever service you want or on CD so you can own it.
For the vast majority of stuff, though, that you might like for a while, then cast aside, subscription services are ideal. It's also great if you like to sample new music in more than 30 second snippets.
Because we all know how the recording industry loves to give away copies of music for free, rather than sell them over and over.
I remember when that crate of CDs arrived to replace all those LPs, so I wouldn't have to buy them again. What a bunch of nice folks...
"... Microsoft is also considering... seeking rights from copyright holders to give subscribers a new, Microsoft-formatted version of any song they've purchased from the iTunes store so those songs can be played on devices other than an iPod."
I'm very curious to know how many people download music from the iTMS that don't own a portable player at all.... and even more curious to know how many people download music from the iTMS and own a non-Apple music player. Is it just me, or is this a solution looking for a problem?
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This is very bad. MS were saying until very recently that they didn't intend to enter this market - just supply the technology to those who do. Who wants to compete against their own supplier?
I don't think people like renting their entertainment - aren't we seeing more DVD sales and less Blockbuster income
This isn't an entirely fair comparison. Now I have a convenient rental model for DVDs (i.e. they are delivered to my house, rather than requiring a 10-minute walk each way to get them, I can keep them as long as I want, and I can have 3 out at once), I have stopped buying DVDs. The difference is that I rarely watch a DVD more than two or three times - and almost never more than once every few months. Owning DVDs does not give me much benefit, while having access to a large collection of DVDs does. Music is very different - tunes I like, I listen to at least every few days, and so a pay-per-view model is not as appealing.
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That's their choice. They have the right to control their product however they want. They have the right to release it DRMed to the gills so that only a single model of player can play it. They have the right to snip it up into 5-second segments that play in random order in the wrong player. They have the right to apply filtering and clipping to turn crystal clarity into thick, clammy mud. They have the right to require whatever crippling mechanisms they can cook up, to make their music as useless and unlistenable as they want.
What they don't have the right to do is kvetch when nobody can listen to or wants to buy data in their format.
I say give them exactly what they want and more: unlistenable music in undecryptable formats, and let the market itself pass their death sentence.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Apple sells lots of iPods because they are popular and easy to use and high quality (I think so anyway.) Of the many varieties of mp3 player, more people choose the iPod.
Microsoft sells lots of copies of Windows because they have 'forced' manufacturers to include their software on the manufacturer's product. Of the many varieties of personal computer that are out there to buy, all of them (unless you build it yourself (or buy an Apple)) will come with Windows. (okay, okay, Linspire.)
When you buy an mp3 player, each manufacturer chooses the player's OS. when you buy a computer, Microsoft chooses for you. the only computer manufacturer that offers an alternative is Apple. While every mp3 player works differently. However, all mp3 players can play all mp3s (except perhaps those from sony) word processor files are a bit more problematic.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Yes he does. He has a responsibility to his share holders to turn profits. The best way to ensure profit is by diversifying his sources of revenue.
Just to add some confirmation to this, I have a set of useless, un-restorable Windows Media licenses. I began tentatively experimenting with Windows Media protected files many years ago (before U.S. WMA stores appeared, there were DRM WMA-based stores in Japan from major labels like Avex). I didn't really trust it and made sure to make re-recordings of the songs. Sure enough, after several new computers and OS upgrades and whatnot, that set of licenses I originally built is no longer restorable. It let me do it more than twice (I believe it was five times, actually) but no more. If I'd trusted the system, all of those songs would simply be gone now. Some of them are from stores that no longer exist. (Toshiba EMI shut down their Japanese WMA-base store.)
I now only buy DRMed songs in cases where the inability to restore the licenses doesn't matter, which is a rather rare situation (basically, only when buying a song single that I expect to be re-buying as part of an album in a few months). Recording and re-tagging is more trouble than its worth. (HYMN makes iTunes usable, though.)
The situation is even worse if you want to be able to play your music on multiple computers, like a desktop and a laptop.
DRMed music should be thought of as a temporary, limited rental only. It's completely untrustworthy for permanent use. I think the monthly subscription-based "all you can eat" DRM music rental services make sense (comparable to porn site subscriptions) but that's the only use I can see for it.
WMA can be licensed by any compay that wants to use it.
Really? And they get source code? What specific techniques are used to encode audio into WMA? Oh yeah... they're not available. Microsoft just points you at their pre-compiled library and says 'use that.'
All Microsoft licenses is the ability to use the precompiled WMA libraries for commercial uses (and even then only on Windows and to a smaller extent Mac). You don't get the source code at all. The actual spec on how to create an implementation of WMA isn't available except under an expensive license and NDA (and even then only for making a hardware decoder). Everything that plays WMA in Linux is reusing the microsoft-compiled WMA libraries (for Windows).
AAC is a published standard, with hundreds of implementations of the codec.
WMA is an unpublished standard, and Microsoft's implementation or bust.
FairPlay is a layering of AES (an open encryption standard) inside AAC, and is documented; in spite of the leagalities involved, non-Apple implementations exist.
WMA's DRM is still not fully understood outside an NDA.
If the reverse engineer it, Apple sues them.
Um... and Microsoft won't sue if you reverse-engineer WMA (and its DRM) and use an unlicensed implementation (and therefore not pay Microsoft for it)? Just because you reverse engineer it doesn't really give Apple too much to sue over. It's that these compnaies were then using FairPlay without a license that spun the lawyers into action.
No company can license fairplay to use it.
Fair enough; but Apple is free to make the licensing decisions it chooses to.
But recall that there are more than a few Microsoft technologies that Microsoft refuses to license.
If this is your idea of an open format, then I'll take closed formats.
An open format is one that is disclosed and/or published openly. There is nothing about FairPlay that is not openly published on the web. The internals of AAC, internals of AES, internals of how Fairplay joins the two. However, try to find out enough about WMA to implement it yourself. Or the DRM that WMA uses. Go ahead and fail. There is nothing about the WMA codec that is freely available. It's not an open codec, not an open standard.
I don't know of any independant software implementations of WMA (with or without DRM).
FairPlay (without its DRM) is an AAC file -- a format that has more than a few independant implementations. And the actual wrapping of the AAC into a FairPlay formatted file is also easily handled.
An "open format" in this case is much like the OpenGL vs. Direct3D battle:
There is exactly one vendor of Direct3D: Microsoft. There are no independant implementations of D3D. The various versions of Wine that run D3D games on Linux simply convert the D3D call to an OpenGL call; it is not an implementation of D3D by any means.
However, there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of independant implementations of OpenGL. Its spec is so complete that the Mesa project was able to start with the OpenGL spec and implement from scratch a conformant version of OpenGL. Apple has its own implementation. So does ATI, nVidia, SGI, Sun, Matrox, and Microsoft, among others. However (and this is the catch): Mesa can't call itself OpenGL due to OpenGL not licensing and/or certifying it. (Apple won't license FairPlay). That doesn't make Mesa (or OpenGL) any less functional, or any less 'open'.
The bottom line is this: I already have all the information I need to implement the FairPlay/AAC format; the spec is freely available. I can write a compliant FairPlay encoder, a decoder, and DRM protection facilities. And as long as I don't try to sell music using my implementation, Apple will be hard-pressed to touch me.
I do not have the ability or resources to even get the WMA specs to make a non-DRM'd implementation. I cannot write a compliant encoder, decoder, or DRM facilit
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.