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iPod Users Buy CDs, Shun iTunes

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-part-of-"my-music"-do-you-not-understand? dept.

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."

9 of 550 comments (clear)

  1. DRM is a hassle by BWJones · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is exactly what I have been doing since the beginning of iTunes. DRM on my music simply does not satisfy for a number of reasons including 1) quality (I can tell the difference). 2) It's a hassle to have to deal with the inability of others on my subnet to not be able to listen to (share) the DRM encoded songs. 3) I already had a huge amount of music on CD and have relied on ripping to iTunes as a back up means.

    Interestingly, iTunes has increased my music purchases significantly, though on CD,

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    1. Re:DRM is a hassle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      DRM on my music simply does not satisfy for a number of reasons including 1) quality (I can tell the difference).

      When is this faux-audiophile bullshit going to end. DRM does not change the sound of music. It does not sound any different.

      A DRMd 128kbps AAC file decrypts and uncompresses to the exact same waveform as a non-DRMd 128kbps AAC file. It sounds just as bad.

      A DRMd lossless format decrypts and uncompresses to the exact same waveform as a non-DRMd lossless file. It sounds just as good.

      You cannot tell the difference between a DRMd file and a non DRMd file all else being equal. End of story, no argument, thank you take the next gate out of here.

    2. Re:DRM is a hassle by Yaztromo · · Score: 5, Insightful
      ol. 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.

      This is the biggest load of crap I've read on /. in a long time. Congratulations!

      Encryption makes the data appear pseudo-random, however the decryption will return the bits, before they are inserted into the audio buffer, to the exact same state they were in prior to encryption.

      Your own test bears this out -- just do a comparison of the resulting files. The computer has no way of knowing that the "encrypted" file was ever even encrypted (as you aren't replacing the bits -- you're duplicating them). If you can hear a difference, it's only because the voices in your head are getting louder. Or maybe your tinfoil hat is askew.

      Yaz.

    3. Re:DRM is a hassle by cskrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      PGP is a lossless encryption whereas fairplay uses a watermark technique. Big difference in algorithms and quantum theory has nothing to do with it.

      The difference between a DRM'd song and one that you rip yourself is an issue of control. With iTunes you are stuck with 128kbps AAC encoded by their in house encoding/DRM software. When you rip a song yourself you have the option of using any one of myriad different encoders, algorithms, bitrates, configurations, and etc. I usually use 240-355 VBR WMA encoding for personal use.

      Personally I've only purchased one album from iTunes (unfortunatly I can no longer play it because I've changed computers too many times) and while their encoding method is fine for listening through earbuds, it shows noticable degredation vs. PCM on my 7.1 home theater setup. But it has nothing to do with watermarking DRM and it definately has nothing to do with quantum theory and schrodinger's cat, it is all about the bitrate and the encoding software. And Apple uses a substandard encoder set to a bitrate that is almost pallatable to AOL dial-up customers.

      --
      My God! It's full of eval()'s.
    4. Re:DRM is a hassle by Redlazer · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Perhaps the reason youre more willing to suffer the same problem with Xbox Live Arcade is because its a different application, a different type of entertainment.

      Music and games are entertainment, but they fill different facets of the entertainment genre.

      Also, a video game seems "worth" more to the average person - you can get more out of it. A song is entertaining for the 3 minutes its playing.

      -Red

      --
      Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
  2. but I already have a TON of CD's by marz007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do I need to buy all those again, if I buy, I'll probably buy via iTunes, but I've got a large catalog already purchased. This isn't shunning.

  3. Who would've thought? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So appearantly the majority prefers freedom over convenience? Well, at least it keeps my hopes up for humanity.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. 1.5 Billion Songs != Shunning by thefinite · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Shunning" is such a silly word to use for this. Just because the iTunes store has not entirely replaced the CD in its few years of existence does not mean that users are shunning it. Their business is growing faster than CD sales are growing. Steve Jobs even said in the recent Apple Event that they are the first music downloads store to crack the top five sellers of music in any form. He also said they are now passing the 1.5 BILLION song mark.

    But I guess no one will read an article that says "iPod users gradually adopting iTunes Music Store to supplement CD sales."

    --
    Boom Shanka
  5. Playing devil's advocate... by supersat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I agree that DRM'ed music should sound no different, but let me play devil's advocate for a minute.

    It might be possible that the decryption algorithm introduces some jitter by taking a varying amount of time to decrypt a chunk of data. A poorly-engineered system might pass this jitter through to the DAC, resulting in degraded audio quality. It might also be possible that the decryption operations cause the CPU to introduce additional noise on the power rails, which might also impact audio quality in a poorly-engineered system.

    So, I don't think it's impossible that DRM affects sound quality. I'm just not convinced that it actually does.