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iTunes Sells 500 Millionth Song
TJPile writes "Apple's iTunes Music Store can now say half a billion served. One look at Apple's front page says it all. Sunday, at 2:44PM EST, Amy Greer of Lafayette, Indiana bought Faith Hill's Mississippi Girl to win."
If I knew that the 500 millionth iTunes song purchase was coming up soon, I would at least have the decency of buying a good song.
Sorry, but this is the obligatory gripe about the non-existence of an Australian iTunes Music Store.
Hasn't anyone patented 'the display of multiple round numbers in celebration of sales achievement' yet? McDonalds should get on that.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
In all likelyhood, Apple would not be able to sell you music that did not have some form of DRM. We should be thankful that at the very least, the Apple DRM is unobtrusive and allows users some flexibility with their music.
If you look at the time line on the right side of the article page. It was just a little over a year ago that iTMS sold it's 100 Million song and now they are at half a Billion, 400 Million songs in just one year. I think that's amazing.
I know Uber users complain about the DRM but I can tell you that most people, just don't care. They have their songs they can burn them to CD put them on their iPods. That's about all most people want to do.
-S
It is said that a child learns wisdom from the parent,
but the truly wise parent learns joy from the child
Right, because the record labels would ever go for that. You're funny.
...and that's all there is to it.
I'd like a free pony too, but I'm more likely to get my pony than you are DRM-less RIAA music.
The first question that comes to mind is... how many of the downloads were free? I have seen so many ads for free songs (giveaways, contests, promotions, etc) on itunes, napster, etc that I have lost count. I wouldn't even hazard a guess at the paid:free ratio, it could be anything, 1:10, 1:1, 10:1...
How long ago Kazaa passed this mark and if any information was collected from it. I also wonder if information was published about said person and their music taste on a major news site. ;)
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
"One look at Apple's FRONT page says it all." That's http://www.apple.com/ I can't help it if the editors butcher my submissions. I had links to Apple.com, the iTunes Music Store, and the winning song in my submission, but they were cut.
So at 99 cents per song, that's a little under 500 million in revenue over 3 years. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the 33 billion dollar annual global music market.
But considering that most of it came from last year's sales (400 million?), I'd say that even 1% share of global music market from a single store is quite huge contribution.
Especially when they are selling their music a lot cheaper than those new Britney Spears albums and whatever happens to sell well these days in the US.
http://codeandlife.com
The fuck they do. I got blindsided by their DRM last week after a reformat of my computer - apparently you can only do that twice and still access the same music - each time it assumes its a new computer (I KNOW I haven't upgraded 5 times since I bought those 3 CDs). Now I'm fucked.
Can I blame Apple? Not really. Just because I didn't read the TOS/EULA/Whatever doesn't mean they're at fault. All the same, though, knowing that I only have 5 format/reinstalls before my music becomes untouchable isn't good enough. Not for me or my money. They can keep their "cheap music". I'd rather buy it at full price and do what the fuck I want with it, thanks.
Apple's iTunes Music Store can now say half a billion served. ...Except that you didn't link to their lovely half-a-billion front page, you linked to the store page which they forgot to update since 'over 430,000 '.
For the teeming horders: clicky on the apple in the top left, et voila.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
>All the same, though, knowing that I only have 5 format/reinstalls before my music becomes untouchable isn't good enough.
From the Apple website:
To deauthorize all computers associated with your account:
Click Music Store in the Source list.
If you're not signed in to the store, click the Account button, then enter your account name and password.
Click the Account button again (your ID appears on the button), enter your password, and then click View Account.
In the Account Information window, click Deauthorize All.
...and that's all there is to it.
Just look
at what the prize winning losers were buying!Jessica Simpson? Kelly Clarkson? Brian McKnight?!
Oh the agony...
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There are ways of getting around the DRM. For one, you can just use a converter. I just converted about 50 or so of my protected files into MP3's that can be played on any ordinary MP3 player, using JHymn.
Need help - license plate reverse lookup. NY plate CSE-2960. Guy almost hit me, blamed me, pissed me off.
You didn't expect that sales would suddenly accelerate up to the 500M mark, what with that enormous prize Apple was dangling out there for all to see?
For more information, click here.
Hmmm. And now much revenue did YOU earn over the past 3 years? I think thats phenomenal for a player of Apples size.
What he mentioned deauthorizes ALL computers EVER authorized by iTMS with your account - whether the computers still exist or not.
You can use it once a year.
Since it seems like you only use one computer with your iTunes account, that'll take you back to 5 "reformats"...or just remember to deauthorize before you reformat next time to avoid all this in the future.
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Yet strangely McMansion, McSlave and burgerinduceddiarrhea are missing.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
...what the headlines would say if the 500 millionth was "Grab the devil by the horns and f**k him up the ass" by Sum41?
LOL
Oh my. This is like Christmas now. Granted, it's like someone taking my Christmas presents - that I bought for myself - and giving them back - but it's better than no presents at all. Thanks!
Now I have to scurry off and burn these CDs to disk and re-rip them. This is entirely too much effort expended on music I legitimately own (license). Yar.
The point is I just lost about 90$ in music
You're either ignorant or flamebait. Contact iTMS support and they will reset your authorised computer list for you, allowing you to re-authorise and play all your music again.
no, you haven't lost anything. If you follow the instructions, (sign into itunes, de-authorize, then reauthorize your newly formatted computer), youll regain access to all of your purchased music on that computer. I recently had to do the same thing, and once I learned how to deauthorize all, I had no problems getting it done.
When you authorize a computer, it send information about that computer to Apple's server, then checks against it when you want to play a protected song. if you deauthorize all computers, it clears the five fields in the database kept at Apple, and allows you to refill them with your five favorite computers again.
Oh, and you can deauthorize from ANY computer with itunes installed, it doesn't even have to be one that has ever been authorized in the past. So, go back and read the grandparent's instructions, follow them without whining, and you'll have your music back.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Right there you lost me. Me no want monthly plan. And I can convert Apple's AAC stuff to non-DRM MP3s and they sound great.
iTMS is not a loss leader. Early on it broke even or had a loss due to one time charges related to startup. In the mean time they have built up a dominating position in market share and mind share. The addition of Podcasts was a brilliant move to get even more people to use the store. Apple is positioning itself for the coming fee based Podcasts. Can you think of a Podcast you would pay $5 a year to listen to? What if Apple collected 1 of those 5 dollars and took care of all the subscription management and payment process.
The songs may be DRMed but its pretty fair DRM - I can make unlimited copies as long as I change the playlist, have legal copies on more than one computer and I can transfer everything to a new computer when I buy one.
The iTMS certainly helps sell iPods but now Apple is getting the reverse benefit. Having sold over 11 million pods in the last 6 months alone, there are a lot of Pod owners out there and by definition they are into music. If each one buys just one song a month over the next year thats over 120 million songs. Show a profit of just $.10 a song and you have $12 million. I still Limewire far more than I get off iTMS but I also have bought way more than one song a month for the last year and so has my wife.
Apple has created a way to earn a very very small fee off something everyone said people wouldn't pay for. They have also used that thing as a way to integrate Apple products into peoples daily lives and added "or a Macintosh" to the list of computer options people think of. Based on last quarters sales numbers, more and more are taking that option. And they make a profit on the service to boot. Apples PR machine is one of the best for NOT plastering how much profit they made off selling songs. They tell analysis that during their financial conference calls not on the front of the store.
Why burn them to disc and rerip them to get rid of the DRM? Run them through jHymn.
...and that's all there is to it.
Why burn them to disc and rerip them to get rid of the DRM? Run them through jHymn.
Because then he couldn't bitch endlessly about the DRM, which he seems to really be enjoying?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Y'know... her tax bill is going to be rather larger because of this.
10,000 song card value: $9,900
10 x 50 song card value: $495
10 x iPod color 60gb: $3,990
4 Coldplay tickets and backstage passes: (no idea here, we'll go for $100 each): $400
Additional reported income: $14,785
Hopefully she'll be able to sell some of that stuff so she'll be able to pay taxes on the cash value. Apple is required to report the maximum possible value of these to the IRS, and it'll be included as income for 2005.
Maybe she's a housewife or a dependant and doesn't have much income for this to get tacked onto.
"On a more serious note, when will the TV and movie industry finally get it? I'm still stuck with downloading Stargate Atlantis over P2P as it doesn't air here (in Finland) at all... Give me the option to pay (a reasonable sum) for Pete's sake!"
It took (give or take) 15 years between the viability of the MP3 format and the first hugely successful online music stores.
The online video retail market right now is like what the online music market was five years ago: it's there, but it's not widely used by content producers or consumers. With Apple, Creative and Microsoft all making noises about video players (either officially or unofficially), we'll probably have to wait less than five years. The leaked Netflix screenshots and other signs have been promising.
Sometimes it sucks being on the bleeding edge. I don't think it's an issue of whether the industry "gets it" -- they get it just fine; they understand that these things take time to build a market.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Because then he couldn't bitch endlessly about the DRM...
Y'all are funny. I see post after post after post of a guy pointing out that DRM is a pain in the ass, then I see you guys comming up with post after post after post of ways to get around it. Then you call him a whiner for not jumping through all the hoops you've lined up for him.
Guess what, you have to do a bunch of extra stuff when you buy DRMed music. It was not whining to point that out. It's not bitching to point out that non-DRMed music is far easier to use on just about any device and that you don't need to worry about special procedures to avoid them imploding on you someday.
This process is called comparing features. When you geniuses wake up and realized that it is possible for Apple products to have some features with a downside, then maybe you can participate in the process. Until them, please continue to inusult and deride the rest of us instead of joining in an honest debate.
TW
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "Amy Greer of Lafayette, Indiana leased Faith Hill's Mississippi Girl to win?"
...
Not to be overly pedantic, but the music labels are horribly opposed to us "consumers" actually owning *anything.* The Sonny Bono Retroactive Indefinite Copyright Extension Act was brilliant. They're struggling to control the distribution channel. Pretty soon they'll be using DRM to control the end-user applications - {clippy}"Sorry, you only have the One Play per Day license on song 'GarbageOfTheWeek.' Would you like to upgrade to the Unlimited Per-Day license for only a few sheckels per month more?"{/clippy}
Yeah, I'm done now
I'm not trying to down on eMusic, but I think they would get a lot more traffic to their site if you didn't have to put in your billing information to even see a hint of their music catalog. I went there thinking "Hmm, they might have (obscure artist I like). If they do I might just sign up!" But they won't tell me the details until AFTER I type in my credit card? No thanks.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
If you were talking about other stores you might be correct.
But once you buy a song from ITMS, it cannot be revoked by Apple - so you own that song.
Now you might then go on to argue about transferrability, and that is an issue - but to me revokability is the line between "owning" something or not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Poor stupid humans.
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