Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Never... and I don't really plan on doing so. I just like having a CD of my music, produced professionally, etc. Perhaps I'm behind the times, but the only stuff I get from iTunes is my podcasts.
If iTunes remembered online that I owned the rights toa piece of software and could download it again at a later time perhaps I would use it (thats me speaking blindly, I haven't even looked into it that much). My wife has downloaded a few songs from iTunes if I recall, but we both have a decent CD collection and tend to support the artists that we like by getting their whole CD.
Is it just me, or was the new iTunes release a step down from the last one? I just don't like the interface as much.
Justin
http://hatchedeggs.blogspot.com/
Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
A lot of iTunes users had large CD collections before iTunes. So saying that most of their music is on CD is a pretty misleading statistic. Better is to look at music bought in the last n weeks.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
"it is clear that users prefer DRM-free music, and are willing to pay for it and take the trouble to rip it."
I have an iPod, I rarely buy anything from the iTunes Music Store, and it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with DRM. The albums I want to buy are quite often in the $12-$13 range on iTunes, and I can get them in CD form at the same price or even cheaper. When I buy the CD I get a) higher quality, and b) a permanent backup I can store in a closet or cupboard.
I think what's really going on is that people can see the obvious: the price structure (digital vs. physical medium) is currently way out of whack. You don't save anything by buying the digital version! Why would you do it? It's not like I ever find myself saying "I just HAVE to own the new Audioslave, and I can't BEAR to wait 3 or 4 days for it!"
#DeleteChrome
1) Most iPod user don't buy using iTunes
2) Every other online music store is a failure
Therefore, people don't like DRM.
Yeah, I see how that conclusion follows those two assumptions. How about, iTunes is successful because the iPod is successful and yet, that said, most people prefer to own a CD version of their digital music. Perhaps because they can encode either lossless or at a higher bitrate than offered by iTunes?
The average Joe most likely thinks that DRM is one of those new pop bands he's heard about.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
(drat - hit submit rather then preview - wish there was an edit)
For those looking to rip CD's, but not learn how the command line LAME encoder works, check out audiograbber. Makes quick work of turning a collection into MP3 format.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Just because everyone that buys an iPod doesn't buy music from the iTunes store doesn't mean that it (iTunes) isn't successful. Success is measured in different ways. If they are making a profit then they are successful. You don't have to dominate sales to be successful. Also, given that Apple has like 80-90% market share for all legal music downloads then I'd call them successful.
It's going to take a while before downloads overtake CD sales (if ever), but that doesn't mean that a new technology in a new market isn't successful.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Music will soon be free, you just have to watch ads as it downloads.
"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
...but it also matters the reason you got them. You can easily get gigs and gigs of "assorted music" to fill up the space, for example by copying the collection of a friend. That means you'll have a lot of music that is basicly filler too, either because it was your friend's filler music or you don't like the same music as him.
That, and it basicly comes down to this: You can have water (silence) or mixed soda (P2P) for free or pay for brand soda (iTMS). Of course you'll have a ton of people that never wanted to buy a soda in the first place, but who'll happily take one if it's free. And if it's one they hate, all they lost was a little time in line.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'm an eMusic subscriber (no DRM, VBR MP3, but only independant artists), and I still buy CDs. In fact, I buy CDs that I have downloaded through eMusic. There are a lot of songs that I'm quite happy to have as MP3 only, but occasionally I'll find certain gems where a FLAC CD rip is in order. Especially true of with electronic music, you just don't get those crystal clear piercing synths and airy vocals with lossy codecs.
However, DRM is still a big issue, which is why I will forgo commercial artists in an iTunes like store and instead settle for the slightly more involved process of discovering equally good independant artists through eMusic.
... you can definately tell the difference between a 128kpbs song from iTunes and a song that you ripped yourself at 192 or more kbps.
My God! It's full of eval()'s.
I was totally with the article up until the last sentance, which makes a stupid, spun, assumption based on a causality. "People are buying CDs more than online music," great. "People PREFER buying CDs to online music," still good. "Online music has DRM," yes. But "Therefore people must not be buying online music because of the DRM," is NOT a good proof. DRM is one of MANY characteristics that separate CDs from music downloads, and I would argue it to be one of the least important to people. Even the "lossy/non-lossy" arguement is a very small, elite few, compared to the masses, of whome hardly care about the quality of their music. No, the three biggest reasons why CDs are still more popular is: tradition, the regularity of going to shop at a place, where you can then pick out music. And the third, which I think is probably the biggest, is the ownership of a physical object after purchase.
If people put money down on something, they want to be able to physically "hold it in their hand" (so to speak). It's human nature, we're used to dealing with physical objects. Being told, "now you have it, now go have fun" without any physical evidence doesn't naturally feel as ligitimate has being able to spend money, and hold in your hand the item you just bought. This may change, but currently people are comfortable exchanging money for items, admissions, but we haven't yet completely bought into this "paying money for non-physical data" thing.
I remember a study that showed that the majority of computer users didn't consider illegally downloading software or media to be anywhere as offensive as shoplifting. Similarly, I would suggest that people don't consider purchasing something online to be of the same legitimacy as buying something in a store.
Give me a decent, unbiased study that shows me that the common person gives much of a shit about DRM, and I'll listen, but this says nothing at all.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
It's not that hard, man:
Windows: FOR %i IN (*.wav) DO lame -b 192 -h -m s %i
Bash: for i in *.wav ; do lame -b 192 -h -m s ${i} `echo ${i} | sed s/.wav/.mp3/g` ; done
How about you link to these "tests". Encryption does not change data so that you can't get back the original data. When you connect securely to a web site, does all your information you send and receive get garbled?
Ewige Blumenkraft.
FTA:
It's even covered in the summary
But I didn't know anything about compression back then. 128 bitrate? Sure. Why not? The shareware ripping program I'm using says it's CD quality. Good enough for me!
Because I'm lazy, I long ago gave away all of those old CDs (over 100), or lost them, or threw them out because I didn't feel like packing them for a move. Over the last few years, my CD collection went from physical to ephemeral. But they're frozen at 128, and my ears can hear the difference.
Yeah, I was an idiot. Yeah, I should have done the research. Yeah, I should have cared about that more than I cared about, you know, graduating from college.
My music tastes haven't changed much since then. I still discover and purchase and grow my collection, but still - it would be nice to have all of those Queen songs I love actually not sound like garbage when I play them in my car.
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
No, please *don't* do that. Unless your ripping MP3s at the maxium bitrate (320 kbps), there's no good reason to use CBR. At the very least, use ABR. And unless you need a very predictable file size for some reason, VBR is the way to go. Try "lame -V 2 --vbr-new".
Dude the ears of old audio nuts claim that DIGITAL data sounds different when sent through fiber optic digital links rather than other digital links. It is a figment of their imagination. It is not like one has to guess. You do a checksum of the file before encryption, and you do a checksum after encryption, either the number has changed or not. Most encryptions are fully reversable.
Who cares? The article also says that ipod owners were shown to be more likely to buy music in general. That means that regardless of how much of their music collections is pirated the music industry is alienating their best customers with DRM.
If you would like to buy music from an online store, but you don't want DRM and you want top quality, check out magnatune.com. They let you download CD-quality (either as uncompressed wave files, or as FLAC), MP3, or Ogg Vorbis. And you can listen to everything before you buy. (128 kbps MP3, lower quality than you get when you pay.)
Not only do they not have DRM, but they encourage you to give away up to three copies of the music you buy, as a form of advertising.
They have a sliding scale on prices: you can choose what you want to pay, within a reasonable range. (I just checked, and at least for the album I checked, the range was from $5 to $18.) If you only like one song on an album, pay less for the album. If you really want to encourage an artist to make more albums, pay more. That's cool.
When you buy an album, the artist gets 50% of whatever you pay. Not 50% of the profits, and then they cook the books so they "don't have any profits"... 50% of the gross income. That's outstanding. I love their slogan: "We are not evil."
I have no connection to them, other than being a satisfied customer.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
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.
The DRM on iTunes isn't that onerous. You can still convert to MP3. I guess what some people are upset about is that there's no lossless way to convert AAC to a non-lossy format. I doubt that the average person cares. The sound quality on an iPod, after all, is limited mainly by the earbuds, not by the compression scheme.
I suspect the main reason people don't buy much music digitally is the same as the main reason people never bought e-books: price. People just aren't willing to pay the same amount of money for a string of ones and zeroes as for a physical object. They want a discount to reflect the fact that the digital thing is worth less to them than the physical object, and they also know damn well that the publishers can afford to give a discount, because they don't have any distribution costs.
The last time I started up iTunes on my wife's mac (I don't use it much myself), it gave me a little informative message suggesting that I make a habit of backing up all my music regularly. Uh, and what would I back it up onto? CDs? In that case, why not just buy a CD? Sure, a lot of people prefer to buy pop music a song at a time, but personally I buy mostly jazz and classical, and I'm not interested at all in buying single tracks.
Find free books.
Also with CDs, one is not locked in with iTunes. If one decides to switch to a different player, one can recreate one's library if need be.
Basically I'm fighting format lock.
Why would anyone want the cold, lifeless sound of digital music when they can have the warm, refreshing sound of a compact disc?
While I don't doubt that a lot of PMP (personal media player) owners get music on the players via the old tried-and-high-quality methods of ripping CDs, I still like downloading from the iTunes store. Yes, sometimes the sample of the music is too short or was taken from a poor section of the recording (solution would be to allow three 30 second samples per track as long as song is over 2.5 minutes long), and the quality is somewhat low for complex pieces (for example, always rip Pink Floyd and The Crystal Method - PF deserves it and TCM requires it), but the price is right for legally purchased tracks.
I look forward to new music Tuesday to listen for new tracks by my favorite artists and for trying to find artists that deserve my attention. With radio being as commercial as possible, iTunes is about my only source for new and fresh music.
From the summary:
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.
I love Slashdot. It injects its agenda into every story. Nothing implies or suggests that CD sales outnumber iTunes sales because users are buying music that is "DRM-free." More likely, it's simply because online music sales are still a very new market, CDs are still a much more well-established medium, and you also get printed cover art and a CD booklet, often with lyrics.
Every comment in this discussion that will be citing this as proof that consumers are rebelling against DRM will make me smile. You see what you want to see. This isn't even getting into the fact that iTunes DRM is the most liberal DRM scheme out there, so liberal that you never notice it's there (I certainly never have), can freely make as many backups of your music as you want (so the right to fair use backups is fulfilled), and so forth.
Like I said, you see what you want to see. I posit that the vast majority of consumers not only don't care about iTunes DRM but don't even know what iTunes "DRM" is or means.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I'm almost of the same opinion as yourself. I do wish they'd give better quality [lossless]. But I still have a minor issue with the DRM. For the most part, it is quite fair, but I'm not thrilled with the vendor lock-in that's involved. I rip all my music to Flac. Then I re-encode to various bitrates of mp3, depending on what I'd like to do with it. I can fit plenty of mp3's [or oggs for that matter] on my 1.5GB iRiver. Or I can encode them to an even lower bitrate, fit songs on my 512MB USB drive, and play them in my brother's car stereo [has a USB port, plays mp3s from it]. I can burn the mp3s to a CD [as data], and play them in my car stereo. I can stream my mp3s over my network to my Tivo, to play through the TV. I can play them in Linux.
None of this is possible without either breaking the law [US] and your agreement with Apple, or otherwise going through a second lossy compression [AAC->CD->MP3]. Until that is all possible, legal and simple, I won't be buying a large number of songs through iTunes.
In other words, it's time for Apple to open up licensing for FairPlay.
Nothing to see here
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.
The survey apparently compared (iTunes purchased songs) and (every other possible way of getting a song onto your iPod)
My entire music collection is legal, but I can tell you one of the major way my friends get music - from their friends, through sharing their music collections.
Everyone here on SlashDot seems to be saying "This survey shows that people would rather buy CDs than music online! This probably says they do not want DRM!"
I think the article is saying "People will take *free* music their friends recommend over paying for music online."
This is not at all surprising, and really does not speak to people's views on DRM.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Does someone have to actually explain to you that the GP is a joke/troll? Just because someone includes technological jargon like signaling or if they discuss their career, doesn't make that person serious. Anyone who has the slightest concept of a bit won't really believe that a computer would play a bit-for-bit copy of a song any different from the original. Of course an encrypted file has to be decrypted at some point in the process, at which point it is exactly the same as the original (someone else replying to this troll mentions "lossless encryption"... they showed that they know less than the original troll, as encryption has to be lossless. It's not the same as compression.) The computer doesn't know that the one file was ever encrypted. The GP knows that. Most of us here on Slashdot know that.
Congratulations to all who bit at this troll, and took it hook, line, and sinker.
Let's ignore your assumption that this person is a troll for a second (something which I do not necessarily believe, although I also can't discount it as a possibility). When a technical falsehood like this goes unchallenged, those who are less technically inclined are likely to believe it, and pass it on as truth.
Slashdot is known as a technical site. If such claims do not go unchallenged, there is a very good chance that someone out there is going to read this, and relay it to their non-technical friends and family as the truth, because they read it on Slashdot.
I routinely have to explain reality to far too many people around me because they read something that is physically impossible on the web, and then believe it (and pass it on). Certain family members in particular are highly susceptible to such claims. They wouldn't be able to spot it as a troll, however dozens of posts from respectable, knowledgeable people pointing out the falsehoods may cause them to question the veracity of the trolls claims.
Troll or not, falsehoods need to be challenged, especially in the technical realm, which is really just "magic" to the layman in the first place.
Yaz.
Playing around with my new 80GB iPod, I've learned quite a bit about everything involved in producing efficient rips of data stored on protected media like DVDs. Depending on the intended use of the content in question, you may actually find it more efficient in terms of time vs cost to simply buy iTunes video content than to attempt a rip yourself.
I've been sampling different methods of DVD ripping since yesterday and have discovered the most efficient way to rip a DVD while retaining overall data quality is to go through a series of three different applications... at least on the Macintosh side of things.
- Mac The Ripper
It seems there is a huge issue with trying to rip directly from the optical drive that often results in several hours of time used to obtain potentially buggy and incomplete data from a DVD. By using this utility to copy the raw DVD data directly to your hard drive, you'll find your DVD ripper will function much faster and much more reliably in a single pass, than it would with ripping straight from the DVD media itself. A 90 minute movie can be copied in about 10 minutes, and then ripped in realtime... rather than taking upward of three hours to obtain the same results.
- Handbrake
This utility converts raw DVD data to a Quicktime-compatible format of your choosing. To ensure easy compatibity with the iPod, try out the new Instant Handbrake software. Despite being a bit buggy and in the beta stages, the results it produces are impressive. When used with raw dvd content stored on a fast hard drive, you can achieve a complete conversion in realtime or faster.
- iSquint
This utility simplifies the process of ensuring your ripped files are in a format that conforms to iPod-playable standards. Depending on the intended use (portable viewing or viewing on a TV screen) you can store a full 90 minute movie using H.264 encoding within 250-500MB of space with very little loss in visual quality. This may add about 2 hours to the ripping process, but is easily worth it for the assurance you've performed the process correctly on your first attempt.
All three of the above utilities are freeware/open source and readily downloadable at any time.
As for CDs though, the ripping process is so trivial, there's no point in not buying a CD of a band you like, when you might well end up spending just as much on the individual DRM-infected tracks.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I actually did some blind tests about a year ago. I encoded a music piece in different formats at different bitrates, jumbled the names and tried to figure out which one was which. It's definitely possible to hear the difference between a 128 MP3 and a 192 MP3. Interestingly, I wasn't able to hear the difference between lossless, 192 MP3 and 128 AAC. Now I'm not saying that with better stereo equipment and/or better ears than mine, you couldn't hear it. But for me personally, 128 AAC is quite simply good enough.
As another result of the stupid regionalisation of the world brought about by DRMs and their like, Apple will not sell music to New Zealanders. Not unless they have a credit card with a billing address in another country, such as Australia. But I don't mind -- I've got 22 GB in my iTunes library so far. If Apple ever relented, I probably wouldn't use their store now. No need for it.
Ah yes, good old ANALOG CDs...
From TFA:
Well no-shit. CDs have been around for decades, and most everyone owns dozens, if not hundreds, of them by now. Meanwhile, Itunes has only been around for a few years... It seems pretty significant that in that short time, they've sold so many songs as to bring decades of CD sales down to only 80% of the tracks on an iPod... though that could have something to do with people listening to OLD CDs less than new tracks.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
This is such a fine, fine passage of baiting I wish I could mod it +1 Troll Art.
These stories are free but worth money.
I don't like DRM any more than you do but it is not the cause of every single consumer ill. Many people (read enormous numbers) do not know what DRM is and why it is bad. There are still plenty of reasons to not buy online music. Here are some:
1. Fear of buying on the Internet. Everyone isn't a slashdot nerd.
2. Relatively low quality. 128kbps mp4 3. Fear of viruses/malware destroying system. No it doesn't have to come from the music to make you lose everything. Backups are not that common among the masses. I think I read a slashdot submission discussing this recently.
4. Built in backup system in the CD. For whatever reason, it's great to have a backup and the original CD makes a good one.
5. $.99 isn't that great of a price if you want most/all of an album. It solves the problem of having to pay $15 for an album to get a single song but considering the above, it isn't exactly cut-rate pricing.
6. Selection. There is still more available on CD than itunes.
7. Sony. They make me never want to buy anything legit again.
8. XXIA. See 7 above. I know 7 and 8 sound like DRM issues but they aren't here. It's not the DRM infestation, it's the business practices. I can live with Fairplay, not with these guys.
9. Trust. While I don't recall Apple breaking it (have they?), many have. Will my purchases be tracked? Will the music I play in my computer be sent to Real?
10. Format. Sure, mp4 is the flavor of the month now but what's next? I can always re-rip a CD (been there, done that) into the newer better format but my $.99 music is stuck for life.
There you go, ten reasons I can think of while my oatmeal gets cold that DRM shouldn't be blamed for market share. Perhaps ten reasons also why people who get p2p music are still trying to get what they want in a world that has turned their backs on the consumer.
O.K. Have at it.
You could have gone to an out-of-town record store, wore some dark glasses and a stocking cap and bought that album. But no, you had to download it from ITMS, and now you're in a database of Madonna lovers. This fact is already being circulated to investigators, government agents, and companies who might have been future employers but for the fact that your love of Madonna had been lain bare. Nice going :).
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Brilliant.
Apple rakes in billions of dollars in music sales through the iTunes store and the authors make an observation that a lot of iPod owners are buying music from iTunes store.
Maybe the tooth fairy is slipping the money under Steve Job's pillow at night?
Everyone has a mouth but you do not see a Big Mac in every one of them.
Still, no one concludes that "McDonalds franchises are ignored by most people." If the bottom line matters, someone looks at the bottom line. Looking at how many people do not buy something only computes how much the potential customer base can grow if suitable changes are made.
Let the PC get its zen on, for chrissake!
and are willing to pay for it and take the trouble to rip it."
It's never been any trouble to rip a CD- and usually not even to get artwork. The only real appeal (for me) of iTMS over used CD's on Amazon is instant gratification. That means I get to listen to a song as soon as I decide to buy it. Some times a friend will com over and say "have you ever heard 'X' " then we usually muddle over how it went, then I usually plunk down my 99 cents to get it now on iTunes; even if there's a good change I'll buy the whole CD later.
Thats the total appeal for me. Same with the movie store- the appeal is that I can get it now.
-Ed Palma
I agree with what others have already said here (about "people must not be buying tracks off iTunes because they hate DRM" being a flawed conclusion), but I also have an angle of my own to add.
It's human nature to not care about something until you need it. Rights are unfortunately one of those things.
Most people have never even heard the term "DRM". Of those that have, only a minority know what it stands for and understand what rights it takes away. Those of us who hate DRM and everything it stands for are always depressed by how apathetic and uninformed most of the population seems to be.
But DRM is slowly starting to burn people -- ordinary people -- people who previously knew nothing about DRM and didn't care. People are finding out the hard way that when their PC dies, they can't copy the songs back to the PC off their iPod. They are finding out the hard way that they can't take that AAC song they bought on iTunes and convert it to a format that will import freely into other software or work with certain devices. As ordinary people increasingly run into these scenarios, they will learn about DRM the hard way. The good news is that they will also immediately dislike it and be pissed off about it.
Give it another 10-20 years, and I think what you'll see isn't a lack of DRM in the marketplace, but a huge amount of consumer awareness of it and hatred for it. That will set the stage well for things like changing the law, mass-scale piracy, or other methods of fighting back.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Apparently you know absolutely nothing about humour.
Fortunately the people who have created real-world humour schemes are far far smarter than you and have worked out the 'miracle' of lossless humour.
Or, to make it short: Woooosh!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I expect most users use the store a lot like I do: We use the store to test new artists and for the occasional song that there's no way we'd buy an artist's album for. Personally, I find it shocking that the iTunes store makes up as much as 5% of the music on an iPod, when you consider an iPod can hold thousands of songs.
But the slashdot spin on this story is even worse: People may shun the iTunes store, but I doubt most iPod users are shunning iTunes.
I also don't see any link to DRM anywhere in these numbers. It's an interesting theory and may even be true, but it lacks evidence. So far as I can see, the story submitter just tacked it on for the sheer hell of it. Better standards should be applied (and no, I'm not new here, I'm just always midly surprised at how low slashdot can go).