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iPod Users Buy CDs, Shun iTunes
twitter writes, "The BBC's summarizes a Jupiter Research study, 'iPod fans shunning iTunes store.' From the article: '83% of iPod owners do not buy digital music regularly... only 5% of the music on an iPod will be bought from online music stores. The rest will be from CDs the owner of an MP3 player already has or tracks they have downloaded from file-sharing sites... [T]he only salient characteristic shared by all owners of portable music players was that they were more likely to buy more music — especially CDs.' This is despite years of iTunes promotion and apparent success. Given the outright failure of other music services, it is clear that users prefer DRM-free music, and are willing to pay for it and take the trouble to rip it."
lol. If you had ears worth a damn you would know that encryption of any kind irreversibly changes the data being streamed through it, and thus causes a definite change in the sound. I don't know the exact reasons for it, but you cannot deny that the data is being changed. According to Quantum theory anyway, you cannot help but change something like the resulting wave form simply by observing it, and you NEED to observe it in order to change it into an encrypted form, and then again in order to apply the unencryption key.
In my experience it changes the music in odd ways different to the changes that compression cause. It gives a bass that's more harsh, and increases the midrange while levelling out in the high end. That's an issue totally separate to what happens when you compress with AAC or MP3 or whatever. If you want to test, make an mp3 and then make two identical copies of the file. Run one of the resulting compressed files through an encryption utility (it doesn't have to be Apple's fairplay, even sending it via PGP email will do) and then decrypt it. Play the never-encrypted file and play the encrypted then decrypted file one after another, you'll easily tell the difference.
You're the kind of guy that the audiophile crystal audio clarifier salesman loves to see walking in the door.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
Ssh.
It may not be rational, but if it gets the plebes to opose DRM, it's good for everyone in the long run.
It's homeopathy! The bits remember being encrypted!
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
Actually, it's worse than that. Encryption and decryption tends to stress the bits, so that rather than representing 0's and 1's, the bits can be off by up to 0.01, leading to degradation of the sound quality of the resulting audio data.
Sony has patented a superior bit, which should be hitting the market in late 2007, but in typical Sony style, these new bits, which represent 2 or 3, instead of 0 or 1, will not be compatible with existing bits. So while audio files that utilize the new Sony bits will lose far less fidelity per bit from being encrypted and unencrypted (less than 0.001% according to laboratory testing), they will not be compatible with the iPod without an expensive bit adapter.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I expect that the reality is that people prefer buying physical things to buying something as ethereal as a downloaded file.
Blizzard makes over $100 million a month selling a chance to get a purple sword.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.