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Teens Don't Buy Legit MP3s Because They Can't?
iSeal writes "According to a recent study, 13-17 year olds are both the most likely to pirate music, and also the most likely to own a portable MP3 player. Yet, as this article goes on to say, the lack of credit card ownership prevents teens from buying music online. The author maintains that since regular record shops don't sell MP3s, or gift cards to places that do sell MP3s, its practically impossible for teens to buy legit MP3s on their own. From the article: 'If the only way to obtain music online continues to be through illegitimate means, then we are no better off than in the days of Napster.'" I'm not sure I agree with some of the conclusions here (you can buy iTunes cards at Walgreens), but it's an interesting discussion.
I don't buy MP3s because there's no freaking way to just buy the files - not stream them, not download DRMed crap, but just buy the plain old MP3s.
Rhapsody? iTunes? Can't do that.
Only independent websites (e.g. magnatune.com) have the decency to give you something worth paying money for.
Not the same in the US?
I'm not at all surprised that teens don't buy MP3s. Almost no one sells them! iTunes sells AAC tunes, so that doesn't count, and almost all others use WMA. The only exception I can think of allofmp3.ru and indie record companies which only cater to a niche market...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
They can pay with mobile phone credit.
liqbase
There is no fucking point. If the cops ever stop at my house, I'm screwed anyway: I copy CSS protected DVDs (illegal), I listen to copyprotected CDs on my MP3 player (illegal), I have and know how to use Wireshark (formerly known as Ethereal, soon to be illegal where I live), I encrypt my data (my own data, not illegal but encryption means I'll never get my hardware back). I might as well go all the way. That's what legislators need to get through their thick heads: If you make normal behaviour illegal, you produce criminals. Not only do you hang a sword over the head of good citizens, you also cause more illegal behaviour. If people don't have a fighting chance to be law abiding citizens, then they stop caring about the saner parts of the law as well.
Sure, I'd buy a lot of stuff online. If only paying for the stuff wasn't such a great big pain.
Why is it that international banking is such a great big headache? When the money or goods - virtual or not - cross the borders, everyone seems to be grabbing part of it, if not the governments then the people who transfer it?
Why isn't there a simple, universal, reliable, regulated method for transferring money internationally, no matter how big or small sum? A simple service you'd get automatically when you open a bank account, anywhere, in any bank in the world?
Because people go for the "it works for me" kind of approach. To American companies, credit card "works for me". As long as there's a stopgap measure that covers 85% of who they consider their market segment at the time, there's no problem. They just happen to ignore the tons of people who silently mutter "well, I'd love to get this, but I can't".
Sure, I'd love to buy music. I'd love to buy tons of music. I use Linux and have a (non-Visa-logo) Visa Electron. No iTunes for me? Well, looks like I'm still sticking to ocremix.org and remix.kwed.org for my music needs, then, it's not like other people are producing much music worth listening to anyway.
There used to be some sort of non-DRM MP3 store that had grand total of two songs available and required SMS messages as payment. That rocked. Yay. Too bad they never went past the pilot phase. Would have been the perfect model.
Think of Google. They went for the "long tail" thing - index every nook and cranny of the web, make web advertising easy for small sites, both as advertisers and as advertising space sellers, and make life easy for advertisement viewers too. Then think of search engines of 1996. Small indexes, tons of big-name advertisers, ludicruously priced annoying ads, "let's just focus on the big sites because that's where the money is". That didn't go too far, now did it? And where's Google now?
(Not saying Google Money Transfer would be a particularly good idea - PayPal is a private company and has a lot of problems not found in banks. Not saying Google should necessarily go to the music store business either. =)
iTunes is selling MP3s? Since when? Last i heard they where only selling DRM encumbered stuff (which is the reason i personally haven't bought anything from iTunes
I remember back when I was young, we could go out and by music on optical discs. They played in your stereo, in your car, and you could even rip them to MP3. You could even head down to a used record store and pick up used CDs for around $8. Of course, back in those days, we had to walk both ways, up hill, in the snow.
That reminds me, my daughter's 6th birthday party is tomorrow and I need to pick up a case of beer. Kids like Miller, right?
I drank what? -- Socrates
That's not at all the reason why. The reason (at least for me) for getting MP3s 'illegally' is because I have such a varying taste of music and munch through it so quickly, it's not economically viable for me to buy the amount of albums I actually download just to try out an artist. I'll download an artists discography and randomly insert their tracks into my regular playlist, usually as I go to sleep. If a track wins my attention, I'll remember it and it'll become part of my regular listening. However, most bands cannot capture me with more than a couple of songs. For the bands who do, I don't want to buy low-quality DRM ridden MP3s via some crappy software. 3 bands have managed to "Woo" me enough for me to spend money on them, so I go to CDUniverse and use my Paypal account (doesn't require credit card) to get their albums (or DVDs) posted to me. One local band (The Living End) has managed to get me as a fan, and I've bought all their releases bar one since I started liking them. I downloaded the one I didnt buy (illegally), and didnt like that much of it. But, I've gone 2 of their concerts based around that release, so theyve more than made their money back off what I "deprived" them of by downloading it. I bought their live version of the same album because I like the songs live. So, no, we don't download illegally just because it's cool.
Even if teenagers had credit cards, I think teenagers would still more likely opt to illegally download mp3s just because it's "illegal", therefore it's cool to do so.
In the US, I have noticed a trend since the 60s and 70s to make more "normal" things illegal, and it makes the tension between the system and the government and the people very high. Abraham Lincoln said it best:
"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things
that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Which was then followed up by HS Thompson:
"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
So much is illegal, but its not "that illegal", and that is crap. In societies where sex, alcohol, and drugs don't have these insane and intense laws and taboos against them, they do less of them than here. In societies where pornography and nudity are more tolerated, they have much less rape, child abuse, and teenage pregnancies than we do. In societies where drugs are legal, they do less of them than we do. And the legal consequences keep getting more severe here.
Back to MP3s, I think its completely stupid that after 10 years of them being around that its still basically illegal to get them. I just got an iPod, and nobody told me that I couldn't just put MP3s on it. What Apple did, was pretty slick to appease the record business, but its a PITA that I have to go through hoops to put my legal MP3s on it from multiple computers. Honestly, if I knew this from the beginning I wouldn't have bought it. I will never buy "legal" MP3s from "legit" sources, because my freedoms will be limited even more. Instead, my plan for new music is to buy used CDs, rip them, and sell them back. And even that takes a bunch of silly effort. I have so much music, and its a pain to manage it between my home, my car, and work, and elsewhere.
This only happens if you configure your iPod to let iTunes manage it completely. It'll also ask before it wipes out anything on the iPod.
:)
If you set the iPod to manually manage music, you can use it on as many computers as you wish without a problem. Heck, you can even copy DRMed iTunes tracks from a number of different authorized machines to it, and it'll play them all without a problem.
Please, stop circulating FUD just because you don't know how to use the software.
-Z