Slashdot Mirror
iPod Owners Not Thieves
An anonymous reader writes "Remember last year when Microsoft head Steve Ballmer said iPod owners were music thieves and their iPods were full of stolen music? It turns out they're actually less likely to download music using filesharing software than owners of other MP3 players. A lot less likely." From the article: "A survey of US and UK music buyers reveals that although 25 per cent of people admit to downloading music from file-sharing services, only seven per cent of iPod owners do so. Proving that iPod users are either scrupulously honest or more paranoid they'll get sued by RIAA than owners of lesser music players."
In my opinion, I think there is some competition to consider before making that bold statement.
My work here is dung.
People who have iPods have demonstrated a willingness to pay for ease of use and simplicity. That they would spend money at the iTunes Music Store to easily download music rather than go through the hassle of downloading it from a p2p network should not be surprising.
> Proving that iPod users are either scrupulously honest or more paranoid they'll get sued by RIAA than owners of lesser music players."
Not really. It's just that it's so much easier to buy from the iTunes store than it is to run some lame P2P app.
I suspect a lot of iPod owners just assume that the only place they get music for it is by ripping from their CDs or buying from itunes.
The stat doesn't indicate that Ipod owners steal music less frequently than non-ipod owners. It's possible from those numbers that all owners of MP3 players steal music at the lower 7% rate. The rest of the illegal music downloading could be coming from those of use who don't own any MP3 players. The article doesn't mention any other MP3 players or their stats.
Not saying that it's wrong, I'm just saying that you haven't backed it up with anything.
--
RumorsDaily
"Proving that iPod users are either scrupulously honest or more paranoid they'll get sued by RIAA than owners of lesser music players."
Or, that since they have a legal, inexpensive way to obtain the specific music that they want to play, they are more inclined to actually spend $5.00 to get five songs from five different bands instead of $16 for twelve songs from one band, with only one song that they actually want.
Or still, that the people who bought iPods coincidentally are also the same people who already have large CD collections, so they were inclined to rip and encode their music specifically so that they could play it on the iPod, rather than having to resort to scavenging the Internet for music because they were too cheap to pay for it...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
After using iTunes, who wants to sift through a bunch of songs of questionable quality, infectiousness, and organization. Really, what a waste of time.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm no Apple fanboy, but I give them major kudos to pull off what the RIAA and the major labels are too stupid to understand. This was a technological and economical war from the beginning. Damn them for perverting it into a legal one as well.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
"A survey of US and UK music buyers reveals that although 25 per cent of people admit to downloading music from file-sharing services, only seven per cent of iPod owners do so. Proving that iPod users are either scrupulously honest or more paranoid they'll get sued by RIAA than owners of lesser music players."
Another option is that Ipod owners are scrupulously DIShonest, making their numbers a lot lower. Come on, this is like a survey of inner city people who regularly J-walk. You have three categories, the ones that do and admit it, the ones that don't and are proud of it, and the ones that do but say they don't because they are too self conscious.
The iPod is closely associated with iTunes, which makes getting music legally more convenient than downloading. Also, iPod owners are likely to have more money to spend on music than owners of less expensive mp3 players.
Once you bring the price down to a certain point, the average person will pay for a legal copy.
Parent is right.
Ipods can't even do vorbis or FM radio.
There are much better alternatives.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I'm an ipod/itms user and don't have any illegal music.
... fake files, wrong tags, crappy quality - even sometimes system sounds heard during playback).
when I was younger I had lots of stuff I'd downloaded just because I could, but didn't even listen to most of it. so I got rid of all but my favourite downloaded songs. there weren't that many and from then on it just seemed easier to go to itms than the hassle of p2p (minimum share 5GB! banned for 1 hour! minimum 3 share slots! banned for 1 hour!
then the situation was either have illegal content for the sake of a handful of songs, or just replace them with legitimate versions for the sake of a couple of pints.
itunes just makes being "honest" easier than not. appealing to laziness is far more successful than appealing to respect for disgusting organisations (RIAA) or appalling laws (DMCA).
Paranoid? How about "three times more likely to lie to a potential RIAA lawyer that they download music?" Or "three times less stupid?" Perhaps, less inflammatorily, we could say "iPod owners are three times more informed about the rapacious RIAA barrators."
I don't think it counts as paranoia when they're publicly taking down 8-year-old girls and 72-year-old grandmas. It's self preservation.
John
Sounds like flamebait to me. Calling every other music player "lesser." Yeah, no other music player holds up to an iPod.
Instead of jumping all over the place, how about considering iPod users are more likely to have money hanging out of their pockets than other MP3 player users? Having more disposable income is highly likely to influence the choice between buying and finding less spendy ways to accumulate music.
Maybe because I don't have a pile of cash to throw at Sam Goody I'll rip my collection of CDs, I've been accumulating since they first came out, and make my own music (since I'm scrupulously honest) and if I can't get actually buy it I may resort to downloading.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
... the iPod is a fashion accessory to many these days and the type of people who buy gadgets because they are fashionable are the kind who just stick the iTunes CD into their PC and let it do it all for them. The idea that they could install eMule and seek out music for free won't have entered their heads. They'll be too busy deciding what fashionable accessory to get next (probably a PSP).
are more enticed to use the bundled iTunes legal purchasing software that works well with their computer, their iPod, and the fact that they really don't understand computers? Isn't this software Darwinism? Build good software and they will come, right?
My brother got a nano and he got my dad to buy some music from iTMS, even though he had previously gotten them for free off of peer networks. He could have gotten those songs for free, but since his iPod came with iTunes, he used the included software to get some music. Songs at a reasonable price, found using software he can use. It all makes sense to me.
Get Firefox!
I agree 100% with the parent.
It all comes down to pain. How much pain is inflicted by $1? How much pain is inflicted by finding a decent P2P app, avoiding viruses, then getting a quality download. Most of the users I encounter will pay the dollar.
Perhaps because their capacity is so damned huge. But the marginal benefit to go from 4GB to 60GB is very small, much smaller than from a CD player to 4GB. It's like saying projection TVs are cheaper per square inch than CRTs: projection TVs are still fairly pricey and most people cannot use them to their fullest for lack of a large enough living room and a good enough sound system.
Most people couldn't fathom of filling up 60GB with music, particularly paid music, so either they're clueless about purchasing decisions, or they're buying the large Ipods for something else, namely prestige.
There are people who pay for music. There are people who steal music. But you're someone who pays someone else to steal music for you!
-- SIGFPE
Anyone that trusts a survey where people disclose any illegal activity is a good candidate for buying swamp land. Surveys are dodgy at best and when they ask about questionable activities I'd say they are most likely worthless.
It's simple economics. If purchasing music is easier than stealing music, then people will purchase music rather than stealing it. That is to say that if the value represented by the combination of time, effort, and money needed to legally aquire music is less than the value represented by the time and effort needed to steal music, then purchasing is the obvious choice. All irrelevant claims of "bestness" aside, the iPod, iTunes, and the iTMS makes aquiring much easier than any other method (easier is of course not better). But the point being that iPod + iTunes + iTMS is, for most people (not /. readers), "cheaper" than file sharing.