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Steve Jobs Announces (some) DRM-free iTunes
Fjan11 writes "Steve Jobs just announced that starting next month on you can buy higher quality 256Kbps AAC encoded DRM-free versions of iTunes songs for $1.29. Upgrades to songs you've already bought will be available at the $0.30 price difference. Currently EMI is the only publisher participating, accounting for about 20% of the songs available." There's also reports from Reuters and ABC News. The deal excludes the Beatles. You can also read the official press release from Apple if you still think this a late joke; this story confirms earlier speculation.
If you were one of the thousands of bloggers/netcitizens demanding DRM free music, give yourself a hand. This is a win for us.
Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
.. everyone who wanted DRM-free music put your money where your mouth is!
Uh, no? Jobs isn't stupid. As the summary says, these files are encoded at a much higher bitrate. So what you're really paying more for is higher quality files. Of course, you could get higher quality files on anti-DRM principles, but the result is still the same: You get twice the "standard" bitrate for about 30% more. You can decide for yourself if that's a deal or not.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
There's also an EMI Press Release.
Just like McDonalds you can Super size for $0.30 more that gives you more than you actually need to consume.
DRM is *very expensive to produce. There's the R&D costs, programming, buying up congresspeople. How is the DRM going to make a profit if their product's marginal utility (apparently) is -$.30?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I think this is a good deal for people like me who like to buy the whole album instead of singles. We get higher quality at the same price without being locked-in.
I didn't see it mentioned in a brief look at the articles above, but albums will automatically be 256kbps and DRM free at the normal price. This should help encourage album sales. Ideally, they would offer the lower quality songs without DRM as well, but this is undoubtedly prevented by their current contracts with the other labels. Only by offering a new "product" were they able to remove the DRM. This is the same reason that they are unable to remove the DRM from songs released by indie labels that requested no DRM.
In May, go buy some of EMI's DRM-free catalog. Even better, when the indies get on board, go buy some of their stuff on MP3 as well. Encourage others to ask other labels for DRM-free music. With any luck the RIAA will realize that DRM != Sky falling over their heads.
Also, thanks to all the people and organisations who've worked tirelessly against DRM so far. DRM isn't just bad for customers (cf Stallman's Right-to-read), it's also bad for business. The software companies figured this out in the 1980s, lets hope RIAA (and then the MPAA) do too.
Go somewhere random
I hereby rescind my Apple-phobia. Jobs has achieved a BIG GOOD THING. /you'll still have to pry my iRiver out of my twitching, techno-spazzed fingers.
Good on ya, Steve!
ceci n'est pas un 'sig'
No, it isn't what you're paying for at all. You are paying for a 256kbps file instead of a 128kbps one and the extra bandwidth and distribution costs associated with higher quality files.
So what exactly is their justification for leaving DRM on the $0.99 tracks? It can't be that they are afraid people will release them into the wild if the higher quality tracks are now DRM free, so why not remove it?
I don't think the Beatles or their heirs are doing anything radically different from the 60s, at least in terms of business. They are still charging for music.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
No, it doesn't. As others (who have read the article) said, the .30 price increase is due to the doubled bitrate. It might be a convenient cop-out, but it still doesn't give anyone the right to distribute the file.
Starmen.net
This is excellent news! I love that they are offering the option to upgrade any previously purchased songs to the 256 kbps DRM free version for 30 cents a track. I plan on upgrading all of my tracks as soon as they are available. While I think that $1.29 is a little bit high for a track without DRM (I'd like to see them for the same price as the version with DRM), it's reasonable enough for me. You get twice the quality and no DRM for 30 cents more a track.
It also appears as if deals with other studios are imminent. From the press release [apple.com]:
First, it's stupid to make it cost more. Second, I tried PureTracks for a while, and having DRM content mixed with non-drm content is a real pain if you are only looking for non-drm content. Finding the non-drm content can be a real pain. I've gone with eMusic for now for my download music needs. It's not the best, but I buy most of my music on CDs anyway.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Since the AAC files are DRM free, you can just transcode to MP3. And there are a number of players which can play AAC, including the recent Sony players. So this in no way keeps you locked into using the iPod only (a point Steve even touched on at the event, saying that Apple wasn't worried about it because they compete based on having the best platform, not based on having people locked into their products).
My current music collection is high quality MP3s (192-256Kbit) I've ripped myself which I listen to on Slimboxes connected to quality speakers.
I never bought any music from iTunes because:
- Apple's DRM protected files were too low quality for me to bother with (I would have to rip to CD then reencode to MP3 which usually meant hearable artifacts.)
- DRM meant that the music I bought would never be 100% protected from "upgrades" forced on me by the RIAA (much as Apple already reduced the number of authorized hosts).
- I've already bought the same album in 3 formats: Vinyl, Tape, & CD. I refuse to pay a fourth time unless I am sure that it would be the last time.
I'm not overenthused about the premium over itunes normal pricing, but there appears to be enough goodness in this announce to finally get me onboard.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Many portable players actually support AAC. The real problem is with GNU/Linux; AAC's patented, so there's no legal decoding free/open source decoding software. I already asked them to offer Ogg Vorbis. Either way, though, it's a lot better than DRM and I intend to partake..
The format is still locked to the Ipod, which is entirely the problem!
Ummm, no it's not. AAC is a fairly standard format (though not as ubiquitous as mp3). Many players out there will play non-DRM'd AAC files with no problem. The Zune comes to mind. Hell, my Samsung phone will play them. This is a good thing all around. And since album prices are staying the same, I can only view this as a good move.
This guy's the limit!
Are you sure? My PSP will play un-DRM'd AAC files as will the music player on my N800.
Nope. Read the summary! You get higher quality sound too. 256kbps > 128kbps.
Man, say what you want about Steve Jobs. He's got a famous temper, he doesn't compromise, he likes closed systems, etc. and so on. But one thing he definitely has is balls, and sometimes we can benefit from it.
So, he apparently finally has convinced one label to drop the DRM, and yes, he's charging more for the content, but he goes and ups the bitrate, just so the content from the non-participating labels looks like shit in comparison. That takes some cojones, and I gotta say, I admire him for that. Could it possibly be that DRM will become one of those horrible memories from the past that we can all suppress? Time will tell, but at least today, I say this is relatively good news.
And, you know..."fuck the RIAA" goes without saying.
gameDB
A couple of other brands will plat AACs, and you can get players for handheld devices.
It will be interesting to see just how many AACs start appearing on the filesharing networks.
Personally, while I see it as a good thing from different angles (customer: music can be played on any software/player, reseller: Apple makes more money because people will come to them to buy DRM-free tunes, supplier: EMI makes more money from the higher per-song price, artists: still get screwed) I don't see it as jumping for joy news. I'm not much of an audiophile, so the higher quality would probably be lost on me, and I drank the Apple kool-ade years ago, so I'll be using iTunes/iPods forever so the presence of the DRM doesn't really impact me..
Question(s):
1: If you buy music through iTMS, will you spend the extra $$$ for the higher-quality DRM-free versions?
2: Will you spend the $$$ to take up the offer to "upgrade" any existing music you have previously downloaded?
3: How long will it be until major label #2 makes a similar announcement?
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
Sounds like a good deal at first, and maybe it is.
But where does the extra money go? Does it go towards Apple's bandwidth bill? Or does it go straight to EMI's coffers? We know Apple gets pennies per download, so I suspect the latter.
The question is then: Is it fair to give more money to the record company for something that costs them nothing to produce and distribute?
I have to wonder at the reasoning for the price increase. Maybe it's simply that they're greedy, and think they can get away with it. If so, fair enough, you bastards. Maybe Someone secretly wants DRM-free music to fail, but doesn't want to be accused of price-gouging for the sake of it, so they throw in a quality carrot.
I guess my point is: The price increase isn't justified by what they're offering - we're giving EMI more money for a service that Apple's providing. If the extra money goes to Apple, then I'm wrong. But I suspect I'm not.
Argh.
Yeah. What a draw - 256Kbps. Strange that they don't offer the higher bitrate without the no-DRM option - almost like Jobs is trying to muddy the waters, draw attention from this... err... frank admission that "Fairplay" is not a benefit to the consumer, it's actually just crippling a product so it can't be used properly, and customers will pay to do without it.
This is pretty smart though - if this is Jobs manouvering to destroy the record companies case for DRM, it's a very nicely calculated move, taking EMI who are in financial difficulty and using them as a wedge to split the industry... I wonder if he would have done this without the intervention of Norway and the EU?
Go easy on them man. As we all know Paul may need a future source of revenue.
Hey the 90's called. They want their format (mp3) back.
Seriously, AAC is so much better than mp3 that it isn't even funny. Get with the program. There are several free/open AAC implementations. If you don't like your 256kbit AAC then you can easily transcode to whatever you want since it's DRM free.
TCAP-Abort
"I wonder how long it will be before they move to more popular formats."
Given that iPods have a 70% share of music players sold, I think Steve Jobs is probably pretty comfortable with the "popularity" of AAC.
Wow, I'm not surprised that EMI is offering DRM free downloads (it's about time!) but I'm surprised they're partnering with Apple. I thought they'd want to "stick it" to Apple. I guess EMI realizes Apple is the best bet for selling music online.
Penny - plain text accounting
Here's where that doesn't quite work though. The record companies have been trying to pound it into our heads for years that we're not buying a song, we're buying a license to listen to that song. If that's the case, then we should ALREADY have the right to listen to a higher quality encoded version of the song. Yes, I'm well aware that the record companies will say that you only purchased a license to listen to that specific lower-quality encoding of the song, but let's be honest, that's pure crap. Quit re-selling us the same stuff we already purchased! If there's some huge cost associated with re-formatting the material, then fine, charge a nominal fee. But in this case, the files were most likely encoded at higher bit-rates long ago.
This is a great first step but I'd still need to convert the music in MP3 before I can do anything with it. The format is still locked to the Ipod, which is entirely the problem! I'll probably buy a song to help move things along but until the format is MP3 it ultimately doesn't change much for me. When next month and which artists? Will this be all ITunes stores or just The States?
No, its not just the iPod.
A list of players is available on wikipedia
Its a substantial list, and its an open format. Its actually much better than MP3, and at 256 kb/s its probably about the same as a 320 kb/s MP3. In other words, very good quality. Apparently you can even play it on the Zune, although I suspect that the zune will DRM it before transfer. Not that this matters, as pretty much nobody actually has bought a Zune.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
Another advantage of the higher bitrates is the ability to slip in watermarking. Thanks to perfect digital replication the instant this appeared on P2P they could trace the file back to the person that purchased the media.
Think about it. Apple has not released the details of the tracks other then "256kb aac" w/o DRM. They don't say that it will be delayed downloading (rather then the buy, download, listen now) could be "Thanks for purchasing. Your music will arrive shortly in you library and purchased media areas." Then about 5 minutes later the track downloads. And seeing how apple doesn't allow for a redownloading (i think) they simply add the watermarking into the database and delete the track.
EMI find a DRM free version of the music on the internet (Coldplay-Clocks.m4a) and downloads it from people. They compare the watermark, it comes back to you, you get sued like no other on the planet as an example.
(the old tired method of this but):
1) Announce DRM Free media
2) Release DRM free media w/ Watermarking
3) Download version from internet
4) Link watermarking to individual
5) SUE THE PANTS OFF OF THEM!!!
6) ??? (Repeat?)
7) Profit somehow.
Its a possibility. Don't just celebrate yet. I've got a feeling this wont be with out some strings
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
How dare you suggest Apple has anything other than the noblest intentions. Pistols at dawn sir!
As others have pointed out, there are plenty of players out there other than the iPod that support AAC and you can bet your ass that the number of players that support AAC in the future will skyrocket after this announcement.
256K DRM free? I think I'm going to start buying music again!
Does anyone know if these songs will be watermarked with your AppleID?
It's a shame they don't give you a choice of AAC or MP3. My iPod plays AAC, but my Cowon does not.
It would also make the other big music companies sit up and take notice, when they suddenly start losing their golden-egg laying geese.
My sig has been answered.
Good for EMI. I'm really tempted to go out and buy a copy of Pink Floyd's 'More' (on EMI), since I don't have it on CD. It's like a missing tooth in my Pink Floyd collection. But I'm afraid they, and the rest of the big music companies, need to do more than that to restore my faith.
Still, for anyone who's using iTunes: if you're deciding between an EMI tune, and a non-EMI tune, I'd suggest picking the unencumbered EMI one. The music industry, like any industry, listens to our dollars more than our words.
After Jobs made his "get rid of DRM" speech a month or two ago, they were coming out of the woodwork blasting him for being a hypocrite. Maybe these know-nothings will now realize that he couldn't make these changes on his own, he needed the labels themselves to come along.
NOW that one of them is promoting anti-DRM versions, expect the indy stuff to follow suit. These same anti-Jobs people will lament the fact Jobs didn't do this with indy bands 1st. It's called negotiations people. Getting a major label to do this is 10 times better than having ONLY the indy bands DRM free. This is a major change in thinking for the big labels. And that made it well worth the wait.
Maybe if the anti-Jobs people would focus more on Microsoft and their disabling of the Zune wifi for a change, even more progress can be made in the DRM free world. But I'm guessing that the anti-Job reaction to his speech wasn't atually about his speech, it was more about being Microsoft lap dogs.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Yes it's locked to an iPod, but only if your audio player of choice doesn't support the open & non-proprietary AAC (and remeber kids, no licensing fee to make a player support AAC vs MP3). Large numbers of phones being made today support AAC. Theres no good reason why companies like Creative & Sandisk don't get on board.
Two points,
1) MP3 is patent protected
2) Even the Zune playes ACC
Makes perfect sense to me, in the "big picture" scheme of things. As another poster said, Jobs isn't stupid. This price increase is at just the right price-point to where it doesn't seem like you're paying "a lot more" for these DRM-free, higher-bitrate tracks, yet it's a significant enough increase to potentially give a big boost to EMI's sales figures of purchases made from the iTunes store. Give this a little while, and then watch as analysts start comparing the relative quarterly profits of EMI vs. the other record labels selling on iTunes who still embrace DRM.
It's going to be a powerful incentive for others to switch when they look at the dollar figures and say "Woah! EMI is kicking our butt in sales!"
2 more weeks and you should have an 8-core Mac Pro as well as a new version of OSX released. Here's to hoping the rumors surrounding the April 15 NAB conference are true.
Yea, and then maybe they will offer a better graphics card than a 7300gt in a system that costs $2500 too, ot not charge double the retail value of the card to double up. Maybe they will update to a ram faster than 533 or 667 mhz. Maybe they will not charge an arm and a leg for a moderate upgrade in RAM. Maybe Steve didn't actually do anything but be in the right place at the right time. /waits for Bill Gates to kill DRM entirely in the Zune market place.
Some of these comments make me wonder if Slashdot has been overrun by spoiled, bratty teenagers. It's like they've been given a brand new car and they're accusing their parents of ruining their lives because it's not the right color.
Crap--I just accidentally made a car analogy.
Yeah, it's important to have some perspective here. You can argue till your face turns blue that DRM doesn't work/doesn't make sense/is evil/whatever, but the reality of it is that there are people out there with different opinions. And a bunch of those people are old businessmen who run big companies that see, over the horizon, the end of the business model on which they've built their little empires and made their fortunes.
/. mentality is correct, and DRM is not a workable solution, then the market will flesh that out and we can all get on with our lives. But to expect and preach anti-DRM like the heavens will open up and everyone will see the light and hold hands and all DRM will disappear tomorrow is not only unrealistic, it makes you look silly.
It's easy for you as a consumer or a musician to argue for the new "music economy" because you have little to lose and much to gain. A lot of these big record companies have plenty to lose. You might be able to make an argument that with the right business savvy and some smart decisions that they have a lot to gain as well, but nothing is guaranteed, and big companies tend to be risk adverse.
The point is, if the general
Baby steps are what we should expect and really hope for. Each sign of progress should be a reason for celebration, not a bitch session about everything you still don't like about the music industry. Yay for steps in the right direction!
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
The press conference has only streaming WindowsMedia and Real, no Quicktime?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I think you are confusing standard AAC with Fairplay. Fairplay is AAC with Apple's DRM applied. AAC itself is an open, non-royalty based standard which was developed to be the successor to MP3. See the wiki article. Many different media programs like WM, RealPlayer, Winamp, and iTunes will play AAC without the need for conversion as well as many MP3 players like the Zune and some cell phones. Sony uses it as the standard audio format for the PS3. If you want to convert to MP3, it can be done but time consuming and you would be decreasing the fidelity. I suspect that eventually most devices will use it instead of MP3 as there are no royalties on it whereas MP3 has a royalty.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
My understanding is that they allow others to license AAC.
"Contractual Obligations"
I'm sure that even though Apple has a crack team of lawyers ready to go at a moment's notice, they would much rather not have to use them in an actual courtroom if they don't have to.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
AAC is not a proprietary file format. The only proprietary aspect of Apple's downloads was the DRM, which these files don't have.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
From the format's wiki entry:
That lock-in is softer than a pair of fur-lined handcuffs. Probably about as easy to escape, too.
we already pre paid for DRM free music. Hail the all mighty blank recordable media levy. Now you people just make sure its available on your end.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
They are locked to iPods because of the other digital audio player manufacturers. All these things use the same chips in them. Enabling AAC on another player is simply a matter of paying Dolby Labs and updating your firmware.
If a second label agrees to do this on iTunes, I guarantee you we'll see a bunch of firmware updates for MP3 players to add AAC support.
The good news is that this now provides a way for people to purchase EMI's music DRM-free. This should not be understated, as EMI has led the DRM-war in Europe with copy-protected cds.
Does this also mean a reversal in policy regarding copy-protected CDs? Will *normal* Phillips-compatable cds now become available on shelves?
Apologies: the above blockquote should have carried the following reference.
g
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Codin
No more than an MP3 is a "soft lockin". Except AAC is completely open unlike MP3.
Unless you're trying to imply that MP3 is more open simply because it was here first.
There, fixed that for you.
However, at least they are making the association of DRM free being better, by associating it with the higher quality encoding.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
"EMI expects that consumers will be able to purchase higher quality DRM-free downloads from a variety of digital music stores within the coming weeks, with each retailer choosing whether to sell downloads in AAC, WMA, MP3 or other unprotected formats of their choice."
So if you're too lazy to convert AAC to MP3, wait a few weeks and go buy it in MP3.
My last two Nokia phones could play AAC files as easly as as MP3. I would guess this is common as 3GP files can be AAC anyway (AMR is only realy passable for voice).
wouldn't it be better to buy the single* encode it at 320Kbps and get the B-sides too?
*Provided you get find the single in HMV, otherwise you're stuffed
Summation 2
The iTMS has a couple of advantages over buying physical CDs: convenience and the ability to buy songs piecemeal. Convenience is a standard reason to charge premiums, so why is this such a punch in the nuts to you? Are you equally pissed that 7-11 charges $4 for a box of cereal that costs $3 somewhere else? (Then again, maybe you are. :) Just go shop at the supermarket instead.
It's not a new computer, but 10.5 comes out in June :D
Doesn't anyone use Google anymore? Do a quick search on AAC and do a little reading; you'll find that the same wonderful people who created MP3 also had a huge hand in creating AAC. Like MP3, it's a technology available to anyone who wants to pay a licensing fee. And like MP3, you should be able to create a LAME-like codec that doesn't infringe upon anyone's copyright. Suspecting you won't take the time to look this up either, I decided to do the research for you.on this point too. Guess what? FFMPEG has an AAC decoder and the code is non-infringing! Moreover, the iPod isn't the only portable player supporting AAC -- there are lots of them. Heck, even the Zune supports AAC! Do you think that would happen if Apple owned all of the rights to file format?
Actually, albums are still $9.99.
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
The funny thing is, you stress over how your mix sounds and then I buy the CD and rip it to 128kbps MP3 and play it through my earbuds or my 14 year old stereo and can't hear a damned difference.
Maybe you're the one with the problem.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
The nerve of Steve Jobs is incredible. He is asking people to pay again for songs that they already bought!
Other services have been selling songs at a more reasonable bit-rate all along (eg. Yahoo was selling songs for a while at 79 cents for 192Kbps), only Apple was selling at 128Kbps. Even the NYT writer (who loves Apple) wrote that 128 is insufficient and that people were making a mistake to spend money on stuff at this quality. The loyal defenders insisted that when and if a higher quality became necessary and available it would be free for everyone who had already bought it.
Now you have to pay again just to get decent sound quality!
I think I'll stick to ripping from CD's.
It's more expensive if you are paying a la carte instead of buying the whole album. And it's about the same if you don't shop around for the best prices. For some the convenience offsets any price differences. Besides what other (legal) options do you have to get some of the songs? PlaysForSure is no better. Also, you get album art just not the physical nedium when you purchase a song. That right saves me the trouble of either finding the album art online or scanning the album.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
New albums from EMI are $9.99, 256kbps, and DRM free. RTFA.
Now, sure, if you build a MIX AND MATCH album of you're fav singles at 256kbps, it would wind up costing you $20. But name me a music store where I can go in and buy a mix-and-match CD?
You're comparing apples to oranges there.
Why not get a player that supports AAC? Just saying "WMA" makes me cringe.
There are all kinds of players that can play AAC besides the iPod.
And lots of other players are format-upgradeable , and thus will probably support AAC soon now that DRM free tracks will be on the iTunes site.
AAC is an open standard. Sure it is patent encumbered, but so is MP3.
If you bought some WMA/MP3 only player that's not upgradeable, that's your own fault. You locked yourself in.
Hmmm.... as has been pointed out several times above: AAC is an open format, AAC is technically superior to mp3, mp3 has patent parasites, and many players (including the Zune) already handle AAC. Shucks I thought all of this was common knowledge amoungst the folks who hang out here.
I gots to wonder is all of these AAC soft lock-in type posts are just paid trolls... the kind that always seem to pop up when there are discusions relate to a certain company's strategic interests... now where'd I put that tinfoil hat.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
I think one reason for AAC is that AAC is the future of digital audio whereas MP3/non-DRM-WMA is the current/past. With as fast as the industry changes, these media players become obsolete very fast. I would predict in a few years, AAC will be the norm.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Soft lockin? Is that like chocolate handcuffs?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Relax. Leopard is coming. This will probably happen all the same time the iPhone comes out in June.
Well, the apple store is down right now - isn't that usually a sign that something is up?
Three things occur to me here.
1. Critics have maintained that Apple should allow independent artists to offer their music iTMS without DRM, but the standard response is that this would be technically infeasible. Now that this is not the case, I hope to see Apple offer DRM-free music from independent producers soon.
2. The Big Studios have been pushing to get Apple to charge a higher rate per song for years now. This outcome has Apple saying, "Hey, get rid of DRM and we'll do it." I wonder how tempting that will be to the other studios.
3. Anti-DRM advocates need EMI to be very successful; a rise in sales will allow the initiative to grow, while a drop in sales will herald calls of piracy. This is one case where giving money to a large company may actually do some good. (I know many purists would scoff, but big corporations are like big, very cunning animals: they are dangerous, but perhaps can be trained.)
Luckily for Steve Jobs, only a very tiny fraction of his customers are /.-ers.
-- Cheers!
Wow, paying to watch re-runs on TV must piss you off . . .
It's simple and complicated at the same time but it's something the consumer has to deal with and it goes like this: you're not buying a license and you're not buying a free distributable item, you're buying an instance of a licensed product. You've paid a small price for the physical item an an additional price on top of that for the license. The problem you're having is that you can't buy one without the other. It's like that with any copyrighted product that I can think of. How about books? Artist prints? If it's not an original, then it's just a duplicate, so the additional cost for each new item is mostly just in material costs. But I'm having trouble thinking of anything in the world that is like that. If you lose your book, you buy a new one.
So in short, they will continue to re-sell things you've already listened to. And consumers will continue to pay for it. If consumers weren't like that then you wouldn't see tv-series being sold on DVD. People wouldn't buy the DVD after seeing the movie in the theater, and cable companies wouldn't show re-runs.
What's the argument for the lower bit-rates at all?
You can fit more songs onto an iPod shuffle at AAC 128K. At 256K you'll only get half the amount of songs on there.
It's called "convenience." Is the fact that you have to pay more to pick up a six-pack of beer when you're paying gas a huge injustice (You know, 7-11 could put their logo on a piece of dog poo!1!11oneoneoneoneeleventy) than when you go to the grocery store.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that it's probably more expensive than it should be. In fact, I was of the impression that we wouldn't get DRM-free music on the iTunes store unless the labels would agree to sell it at the same $.99 price point, which would mean Apple and the music labels would never get past their impasse. Obviously, I was wrong here. And I personally think that yeah, $1.29 for a single is high and it should be cheaper. But that's no reason to be a dipstick and insist there's NO advantage to buying music through iTunes over brick-and-mortar. You make reference to the time it takes to download the music. Compared to the time it takes to wait for Amazon.com to ship it, or for you to drive to the nearest record store? It's all but guaranteed to be much shorter.
If you want instant gratification and DRM-less music there are NO other *legal* options for this than eMusic and iTunes. That's a combination that neither filesharing, brick-and-mortar, music catalogs, or other online stores offer. You can either take a cheap shot at Apple's customers or realize that this is in fact a big deal.
and for what? I can already make my Apple iTunes songs DRM free. The higher quality? I have been wondering when 256bit was coming. That was the rate used by the local radio station (pretty sure most use it). So Jobs can now increase the price and make us feel good about it.
:)
I guess he is magic
He could probably sell a Hummer to a Greenpeace activist
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Yeah so go to your local music store and tell them you want to buy a song. I would guess the vast majority of ITunes sales are single songs that you simply can't purchase at your local music shop, rather than full albums. There's also the convenience factor, yeah I will pay just as much or more for (non-DRM) digital music than the cost of the physical album, because I can listen to it right now without even getting out of my chair, and it's already in a digital format, I don't have to rip it. I also don't find any artistic value in the album cover, it's just clutter and I don't want it.
The non-DRM costs more because if the price were the same as the lower quality DRM versions, who would ever buy the DRM songs? Nobody of course, and the labels don't want that, at least not without some compensation (more money). Jobs has said ITunes would remove all DRM restrictions if the music industry would agree, and this is a stepping stone in that direction. They're taking it slow and gauging interest, and you can be damn sure other labels are watching closely. If (when) the industry realizes people will pay more to lose DRM hopefully they'll jump on board.
EMI is actually a bit less mainstream comparing other major music label like Sony, and maybe that's why they are the first willing partner of this new system.
My biggest concern is RIAA start to 'encourage' kitties to 'pirate' those music and turn around use that as DRM-good examples. Since EMI is the first one to break rank, it wouldn't hurt to punish them that way as well.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but AAC isn't proprietary. The only proprietary piece that iTunes uses is the Fairplay DRM which isn't used on these new tracks.
These new tracks should play on anything that supports AAC.
*sigh* back to work...
This is a definitely a step in the right direction. What they should be doing, though, is removing the DRM-infested tracks from iTunes and replacing them with DRM-free versions. That way, you'd have two tiers of DRM-free tracks: the “standard” quality $0.99 tracks and the higher-quality $1.29 tracks.
However, I will not yet be able to directly benefit from this announcement, because:
Again, this is good news, but it seems to me that Jobs and his cohorts are taking the tiniest baby steps possible.
If iTunes were available for a GNU/Linux distribution (without using Wine), and if iTunes tracks were available in a free format, such as Ogg Vorbis, then I might even consider making an exception and using iTunes on my system.
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.
What players, besides iPod, support the non-DRM AAC format?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
How can I see what EMI albums are available on ITunes?... I'd like to restrict purchases to non-drm music, with all the drm crap filtered out? Can this be done?
Unless this contract with EMI prevents Apple from selling DRM free music from other labels, does this mean that anyone who wants to sell their music DRM free can negotiate this kind of deal? Or is Apple going to come up with some excuse as to why they can sell music from EMI with no DRM but cant sell music from ? Now that they have this DRM free music from EMI, they can't claim any technical reasons for why they won't let the small labels sell DRM free...
Does no one else wonder why the hell is this 30% more expensive?!
How does this respond to the pressure that Apple has been under in Europe about the close ties between the Apple Store and the iPod? Now that some songs can be purchased DRM free that can be played on any player, is Apple home free?
It will have a higher encoding (256 kbps), so that means it will cost Apple more to store it and more in bandwidth charges. Since they also probably have to product differentiation for contractual reasons, this is a way to keep the other labels from screaming bloody murder (it offers a carrot instead of just a stick for bringing the other labels on board).
Just because PureTracks has a sucky interface for it does not mean that Apple will.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Moderator, what if this was just some guy who enjoys listening to music released at no cost? There IS free music out there you know.
There's no Search by Label option. D'oh!
I payed $50 for an FM transmitter that lets me listen to my iPod on my car stereo. There is quality degradation (though reception is pretty good with the model I bought), and the audio loses a bit of definition in the high- and low-frequency ranges. Clearly, I am only listening to this music as the artist "sort-of intend(ed) it." However, I had the option to spend about $200 and install a new car stereo that would let me plug my iPod directly into it with a digital cable. This is a price hike without which I cannot listen to the music "as intend(ed)!"
I chose to spend $50 and live with some signal loss rather than spend >$200 for a nicer-sounding system. Users have the choice to spend less for lower-quality versions if they want, or they can spend more for higher quality versions. $0.30 is hardly prohibiting, if you're buying music in bulk off of iTMS anyway. Some people would rather pay less and get less, for whatever reason, and that's their choice.
I do, however, agree with your statement that this is not as large a victory as some would think.. from my understanding they aren't selling high-quality MP3s, they are selling high-quality AAC files; sure, my iPod will play them, but my iRiver won't.. neither will my sister's Rio or any other number of portable music players out there.
Aikon-
I would guess EMI said we're going to try this non-DRM music thing but we want more per song. Whether or not that's fair is up to the individual consumer, and the consumers will decide if non-DRM songs are worth $1.30 or not. Personally, I think DRM music at .99/song (or really any price over free) is overpriced and unfair, so I don't buy it. However I will happily pay $1.30/song for higher quality non-DRM music.
Will I be able to still buy them at 128 if I choose? 256 is quite a waste of bits for a guy who can barely hear over 16 kilohertz. :D
People are foolish to buy from iTunes. You get half the music, the hassle of DRM and are locked to one hardware device - the iPod. Now Apple is trying to pawn off higher bit rate AAC as "premium" quality. "Premuim Quality" is lossless - just go buy a CD and rip it yourself.
www.itjerk.com
If you want instant gratification and DRM-less music there are NO other *legal* options for this than eMusic and iTunes. I just walk down to my friendly local neighborhood used CD store and buy them there. No DRM, much cheaper prices, and much better quality. But I guess in the current Big Box consumer culture of the US, if you can't get it at Best Buy, then it doesn't exist to most people. Sad.
I don't respond to AC's.
When will these fuckers get it? a buck a song? Fuck THAT. I will pay up to 8$ for a physical CD and 1/2 that for high quality compressed files. PERIOD. Until these assholes get it, I will get my music elsewhere.
Cheaper than most CD's? Where do you shop, Best Buy? I don't remember paying more than $10 for a music CD any time in the last decade. Besides, everything in my life doesn't come with an Apple logo (my car, for one), so I still use physical CD's.
I don't respond to AC's.
I swear that if Steve Jobs announced tomorrow that all iTunes music would be available DRM-free and would be given away at no cost, people would log on here to complain that Apple should be sending hookers to everyone's house to give them a free blowjob while the music is downloading.
Life needs more saving throws.
1. Critics have maintained that Apple should allow independent artists to offer their music iTMS without DRM, but the standard response is that this would be technically infeasible.
Complete the sentence: "this would be technically infeasible given their current contracts with the labels." You know, like EMI.
Uhm... I don't really know what to say, other than "I wish I could mod you uninformative." Most modern MP3 players also play AAC. It's an official standard, and a much better format than MP3.
The DRM-free files are twice the quality of the DRM-laden ones - that may account for some or all of the $0.30 increase.
This space intentionally left blank.
good post.
Wish i had mod points right now.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
And what's gotten up your ass. Yes lower quality music for the same price is a bad deal.
Yea, so they shouldn't care right, and we should all have rootkits on our computer too. Just because most people don't know what flac or shn is doesn't mean they don't want it.
So the labels, at least EMI, see the plummetting sales of CD's without a concurrent uptick in revenue from online sales and think "we should do something". Steve Jobs thinks "hey, I can squeeze a bit more revenue out of iTMS AND totally hose my competition AND deal with those pesky socialist French leftist coward Europeans ath the same time. Great!"
It's a great move for Jobs. It costs almost nothing, is a huge PR boost, and you can expect that revenues(not profits) from iTMS will rise.
The nerve of Steve Jobs is incredible. He is asking people to pay again for songs that they already bought!
No, you don't have to buy the music again, you just have to pay the price difference between the new format and the old.
The loyal defenders insisted that when and if a higher quality became necessary and available it would be free for everyone who had already bought it.
I won't say that's a complete fabrication, because no doubt someone somewhere said something like that, but I've certainly never heard that argument raised... so it's at the very least a straw man.
or even TFS. You're getting double the bitrate in addition to no DRM. Whether you feel like this is worth it or not is up to you. The only thing you're getting *less* of is DRM, which I suppose, if you want to complain about, is your prerogative.
Dear Slashdotters,
Before you go off on another rant, stigmatizing and denouncing DRM-free downloads from Apple and EMI for being more expensive than the DRM versions of the same songs, please consider that this was an unthinkable turn of events 18 months ago. Accept this news for what it is, an incremental improvement in digital music offerings. What, did you think that the entire music industry was going to turn on a dime to meet your whims? Regardless of the merits of either side, expecting either position to completely fold in one fell swoop is, at best, naive.
This is a WIN!
Just because the consumer side didn't get everything they want doesn't lessen the benefit of this win. This news can be celebrated without criticism while still pointing out that more is needed. If one considers this news from a more expansive perspective, one might see that this is but one of many events in this ongoing debate, not the last word, but one of the first.
Please, please, please, be patient with the music industry, where many seem to be coming around to the idea that consumers need to be satisfied and respected. In other words, exercising context, perspective and patience needn't blunt one's ardor and focus on the issue, but, perhaps, they might blunt the strongest voices denying the benefit gained because their demands were not completely satisfied.
You'll catch more flies with honey
I am not a lawyer. This post does not constitute any form of legal advice.
I'm really curious what the future holds for other labels now that we've had a major break in the DRM ranks. Several independent labels, most notably Nettwerk, have gone on record as being willing to sell their tracks DRM-free (and AFAIK they do on emusic.com), but have been unable to get Apple to do so, citing Apple's desire for "user consistency" or some other bullsh*t...so I wonder if we'll see DRM-free tracks from those labels as well sooner than later given this mornings news.
EMI: We'll let you sell non-DRM tracks, but only if you pay us more.
Jobs: Hmm, customers won't like this price jump, better do something to increase the value of the non-DRM tracks. I know - the same people that complain about DRM also complain about the compression, so lets increase the non-DRM'd songs to 256kbps. But we better keep the old 99 cent tracks around for people who don't want to pay more.
You aren't paying 30 cents more for higher bitrate, you are paying an extra 30 cents for the priviledge of being able to exercise your fair use rights, the bitrate is just an inexpensive value add-on.
So the EU has been pressuring Apple to open up its DRM -- but now iTunes offers non-DRM music. EMI is headquartered in England, I believe, so this seems to be a big "spppbbbt!" from Jobs in the EU's general direction.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
I hate the big box culture of the US, and when I stopped in my local used CD store the other day, they didn't have the particular CD I was looking for. I went home and bought it on iTunes. This is a sad reality of the digital age (like Netflix putting the local video store out of business).
It's not the DRM that makes the iTunes Store popular enough to let Apple stick it to the labels. Not one of the customers of the iTunes Store have bought their music there because they decided the DRM was a must-have feature. The iTunes Store is popular *despite* the DRM.
Fuck the RIAA, except for EMI. We do have to hand it to them for taking the courageous step, breaking rank from the other big labels, and taking a chance on selling standard format music. Now if they can just distance themselves from the suing of little old grandmothers, I might even be motivated to exclude them from my RIAA boycott, provided they have music I'm interested in...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
... for finally doing the right thing.
I know it is hard for those of you into person or brand name worshiping to understand, but it is quite possible to compliment people or companies for the good things they do, and at the same time criticize them for the bad things they do. Just because you define your world into personal (or brand) loyalties, it does not mean the rest of us are similar restricted.
"Cheaper than most CD's? Where do you shop, Best Buy? I don't remember paying more than $10 for a music CD any time in the last decade."
The phrase usually mentioned on Slashdot is the "$20 for a CD." Not in the sense of "I used to have to pay $20 for a CD; at least they're down to $13 or so nowadays," but usually in the context of "How dare the record companies charge $20 for a CD!* This give me the moral justification to acquire my music with BiTTorrent**."
* Not true. ** Not true, either.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Actually, Im rather impresed that those who have d/l the low res version can get the high res version for the difference in cost. 30c for the recode, new backend and bandwidth may not really be "at cost" but I don't see Disney offering to let me buy the DVD of the VHS tapes I own for the difference in price between the two.
And crap is in the eye of the beholder. For a fly, crap looks like a hearty meal. For the content industry, selling you the same thing three times seems like a bargain compared to making you pay every time you listen!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
And, of course, when you rtfa, it turns out you can upgrade the songs you purchased with FairPlay for less than the difference in the price.
.99 = .31; upgrade for .30. If you really want to buy a lot of songs, it's cheaper to buy the DRMed files and upgrade them.
1.30 -
This is another sea change for the industry. Not having to repurchase your library is awesome.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _>8
Too many errors in one post (make fewer).
I like how the deal excludes the Beatles. Oh no! What will the iPod generation do? Guess what Beatles - you aren't that hot anymore. Nobody with an iPod gives a fuck if you don't come to the party.
You know what, nobody at the party gives a fuck if you have an iPod. Get over yourself iHole.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Then he wouldn't have "quoted" the word free to indicate he was being sarcastic.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _>8
Too many errors in one post (make fewer).
That's okay, I've already got my DRM-free complete Beatles collection, which is just about all I listen to these days. No worries, EMI!
He's probably just trying to give a more tangible benefit to the average consumer. They may not know what DRM means, but they understand the words "higher quality".
From what I understand of AAC audio, an essentially lossless CD rip of most CD's can be done in far less than the 320kbps used by mp3.
In fact, some have said that 128kbps is almost as good as 320kbps.
Couple that, with the fact that that you can sample AAC up to 96khz rather than just 48khz, you can encode up to 48 separate channels, and that EMI encodes their tracks from the digital masters rather than a lossy CD.
I suspect that the quality of these tracks may actually rival that of CD's... perhaps be superior in some regards.
I especially like the multi-track encoding idea. Labels could release the music so that the lead vocal, background vocals, and music were all on separate tracks... instant karaoke and instant remix ability. I don't suspect we can expect anything like this very soon, but the AAC format allows for it.
Can anyone confirm, is 256kbps enough for an AAC file to be indistinguishable from a CD in a true double blind listening test?
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
... is, of course, E.M.I. by the Sex Pistols.
...it's easy if you- what? You want to pay how much for rights to the Beatles catalogue?
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I am 38. I also pay for my music. I buy it off russian websites where they hit the correct price point. I am willing to open my wallet, but I am unwilling to pay the RIAA's inflated monopoly position prices. When will the labels get that they will sell 10x as much product by reducing their prices 1/2? And when will pricks like you come tumbling down off their high horses?
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_sig ned_to_EMI
FYI, Capital Records is an EMI label.
Here's to having a 'Search by Label' option in the next iteration of iTunes!
Everything you just said, and by that I mean EVERYTHING, has been refuted by actual sales and well reality.
1. iPods and iTunes. iTunes drives sales of iPods. The iPod dominates the market. Its because of iTunes. I mean I don't know how to make it any simpler than that.
2. Macs and Mac OS X. Mac OS X drives sales of Macs. Even iTunes and iPods drive sales of Macs. Apple's Mac marketshare has been on the upswing ever since the iPod was introduced. The "Halo effect" is in full effect. Apple is selling more Macs now than it has in over 15 years. They can't make the things fast enough.
Basically I don't know where you got your thoughts from because they are just completely and totally in the realm of wishful thinking.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
1. People buy the 256 Kbit/s DRM free songs, 2. iPod memory fills up 3. iPod upgrades galore 4. Profit!!!
http://frank@franklinharper.com/
Complete albums, DRM free, will cost $9.99 (the same as DRM'd albums), so no, either you'll be buying one or two tracks (and thus less than the price of a complete CD), or the entire album (for around the same price as a CD, a cheap CD at that) without DRM.
Either way, $1.29 for a track, or $9.99 for the whole album is reasonable by the metric of comparing them to CD prices.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Are you asking them to sell 24-bit raw data? Any other type of compression (including the 16-bit CD format) "degrades" the sound quality. Although, that will make several MP3 players to disappear, since you'll need tons of megabytes for a single file. What are you asking for?
The truly brilliant thing about the $1.30 option is, that it acts as a carrot to draw other studios in - Apple can point to EMI and how they are making .30 cents a song more for songs than the OTHER labels are. Music studios have been chomping at the bit for a price increase - well here it is, however slight. They could have piles and piles (more) of money, if only they drop DRM... who can resist?
It also extends Apple's lead as the foremost online outlet for music from a quality, availability, and ethical standpoint.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It takes a long time to do this, especially when you are late for work. I've found it easier to convert the originals. :)
There are several free/open AAC implementations.
But are there any good ones? Not all encoders are the same, and last I checked libfaac kinda sucked.
If you don't like your 256kbit AAC then you can easily transcode to whatever you want since it's DRM free.
Please, just don't suggest transcoding lossy compression schemes. It's just off the table.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"How dare the record companies charge $20 for a CD!* This give me the moral justification to acquire my music with BiTTorrent**." * Not true. ** Not true, either.
Well, I don't remember seeing single CDs for $20, but for quite a while they were in the $17-18 range, at least at many places I shopped. I never used it as moral justification for downloading the tracks -- it essentially just meant I didn't buy the albums that cost that much, or found cheaper places to buy them (the early days of amazon were very helpful in this regard). But even now I'm skeptical of the GP's claim that "most" physical CDs are not more than $10 -- I mostly buy from iTunes, but when I do get physical CDs they're mostly more than that. Perhaps it is possible to find most CDs for $10 (at least if you ignore shipping charges -- but why would you?), but that's not the same as saying that most CDs are $10 or less... not everyone has easy access to cheap in-person music stores with a wide selection.
I am the man with no sig!
Would you care to explain how having DRM-free indy bands' tracks on iTMS would have made such negotiation with major labels somehow more difficult?
Why certainly.
Having indie labels sell DRM free music first, would have had a different structure than the current deal. Apple needed a way to figure out how to move forward with DRM free music in a way that labels would accept - so they had to work through negotiations with EMI to see how the could arrange pricing and quality options in a way that would appeal to them. Once that framework was laid, then other indie labels could get the same deal, only now there is a single clear option for DRM free music going forward and also a clear path for other larger labels to follow down a road that one has already found to be acceptable. It took a little longer but now everything is simpler both for the consumer, and the music studio large and small.
How many contracts with giant paranoid music studios have YOU managed, Mr. backseat negotiator?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can't believe EMI gave into Jobs; this is the first smart thing big music has done in a decade. I just bought my 1st album from ITunes this morning, and will be spending a LOT more.
I'm probably not the average consumer but they just won me. I don't like CD's because I don't like going to the store, or waiting on Amazon; I haven't paid anything for music in a loong time. The ITunes store isn't perfect, but for me it's easier than P2P, and I can afford to compensate the artists. Cheers to Apple/EMI.
There is still a missing piece for us "Indy" people. AFAIK, Apple still expects us to be exclusive to them i.e. they demand exclusive online distribution. Which still runs afoul of what many of us believe in. We're not especially interested in having 1 big bully distributor dictate all of our terms to us. Having spend time fighting the stranglehold of the majors, seeing the whole thing consolidated to one jumbo major is a step backwards arguably. This betrays the real promise of internet distribution in a big way.
I would (1) always buy the higher quality DRM-free option, and (2) upgrade every song I own the day of release.
As for the other studios, I expect the next one in about six months. Probably Sony last, though they could surprise us.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> mp3 has patent parasites
aac has patent parasites and mp3's expire sooner
I didn't think I had to qualify this as an iTunes only discussion. I figured keeping it Jobs centered would have implied that.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
If we're getting *less* than what we would get with your DRM laden crap
What your argument boils down to is that you feel should pay less because you were paying for DRM before as a "bonus" feature.
Did you honestly enjoy paying for DRM before? You are paying a little more, for a little less, where the reduction is in trappings no-one wanted. Rejoice they are gone!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Your point about used CD stores is spurious and irrelevant to probably 3/4 of the population. If you have one nearby, great, take advantage of it and save money. When I have to spend $3-4 on gas (~40 miles, at ~25 miles per gallon = 1.6 gallons of gas... at the 3/26/07 national average of $2.61 / gallon, that's $4.18), plus a couple hours of my time just to get to a store to save $5 on a CD, the economics you're speaking of become remarkably unappealing. Which is why most of my music purchases are online through Amazon, or direct from the artist. iTunes has now just made the list of places I'll check for music, too, because of this announcement. Good bitrates (I don't have gear that anybody's likely to hear a difference on betwen 256kbps and any "lossless" format), and no DRM at pretty much the same prices as I'd pay to get the CD through Amazon? That's not a bad deal.
That is all.
Physicists get Hadrons!
While I think the lack of DRM and increase in quality is a step in the right direction, people don't seem to notice that the music companies seem to have got their way: They've increased the price of tracks you pay to legally download. When it was announced several months ago that the "music industry" felt that the download market was strong enough to support a price increase, there was outcry - users were all complaining that the price should actually go down and not up. However, they seem to have achieved this increase in cost, but are masking it essentially as a paid upgrade.
"Just pay a little extra for much higher quality... and you can even play your music on whatever player you want!
Great. But what about those that want to keep the comparatively small sized tracks and still play the music on a player other than an iPod?
Like I said, I think it's generally good news, but I don't think it's something consumers should have to foot the bill for.
I haven't posted in a long while, so forgive me if I am explaining the obvious.
Open Audacity, set your sound card as the input, hit the record button and then play your song. Save the recording. Instant DRM removal.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
I have been a big fan of Apple hardware although I didn't like their lock-in on some devices. This will get me to start using iTunes and buy some albums (DRM-free). The quality is HIGHER and WITHOUT DRM. I'm going to invest in an iPod now.
Please people, support this decision. At least by 1 (one) song DRM-free. If everybody would at least do that, then the message would be clear and we might be getting cheaper and more DRM-free music and maybe even video, movies...
I'm building a home mediacenter, even thinking about commercializing and open sourcing it (kinda like Myth-frontend but better, for smaller/integrated devices) and until now, my progress has been stiffled by DRM-infested media.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I don't own Windows or a Mac, so I wouldn't be able to buy. If Apple created a web interface to purchase DRM-free content and plugged iTunes as "a more integrated way to manage DRM-free and DRMed content and a way of getting DRMed content" they'd be able to capture the Linux market and capture the market for Windows users who don't want to install random software on their computer (e.g. people who don't have an iPod so don't want some other software messing up their music player music loader).
I'm not sure I agree. They're continuing to sell the same product for the same price they always have (less, if you take into account inflation.) What they've done is compromised, they'll give us a better product for slightly more (very slightly, again if you take into account inflation.)
And at the same time, what were they asking for? The ability, IIRC, to sell Britney Spear's latest for $2, and old Depeche Mode tracks for 50c.
They haven't really got their way, at least in no way that "consumers" haven't gotten their way on too.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
and I WON! somehow that just seemed appropriate
Haven't seen this in the postive column, but aside from other players that can do AAC (PSP and PS3 which would be nice for Sonyphiles) unshackled locked iTunes is a biggie. I'm at 3 mac-clients now and won't have to worry about additional client-swapping and other rigermoral (like limitiation on how often I can do this etc) as I upgrade to new macs in the future as more of the library migrates (if Apple's Press Release is on target with their library hopes). People with an obscene number of iTunes clients should be quite happy with this development.
I haven't even checked into how AppleTV fits into all this - is it regarded as another client?
whereas Microsoft happily licenses their DRM scheme to whoever asks for it in order to encourage interoperability.
Bull -- they license their DRM scheme, but not to foster interoperability, they do it to solidify their monopoly into a new realm. They want to own digital music as thoroughly as they own operating systems, and this means that they need to get all the hardware manufacturers on board.
They have no interest in interoperability, except where it furthers their power over more hardware and software; look at how quickly they abandoned PlaysForSure with Zune. They were all set to pull the rug out from under all their "partners" that they had licensed PFS to. (Of course, Zune was a flop instead of the amazing success that Microsoft apparently hoped it would be, but had it been successful, SanDisk and all the other makers of semi-generic WMA players would have been left out in the cold, quite by design.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
We won't know for certain until the tracks become available. But Apple has said it is "30 cents per track". And so far, it only includes EMI content. I would *HOPE* that albums that were purchased for a total price that made them less than 99 cents per song will have a cheaper upgrade fee. (Like, say, $3.00 for a $9.99 album, regardless of number of songs.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Not to mention you can right-click just about any song in iTunes and (assuming it's not protected) and have it automatically convert it to MP3. It's always been a pretty cool feature. In summary -- you buy these songs, you can get them to play on anything WITHOUT having to download some potentially illegal 3rd-party app.
Only if you view DRMed and DRM-free music as the same product. I don't. They're different, in terms of what you can do with them, and the DRMed track has far less value to me.
I would pay $1.30 for an un-DRMed track; I wouldn't pay $0.99 for an DRMed one. The price they're charging for the DRM-free track isn't that far from the mark, IMO the DRMed one is, but I guess I'm in the minority there since they seem to be doing okay.
I don't have a problem with the labels making money, as long as they offer a product to me at a price that I think is worthwhile. With DRMed music, they weren't doing that. It's not a useful product to me, and the prices were extortionate. However, $1.30 a track, or better yet $10 an album, for un-DRMed music might convince me to buy a few albums worth here and there. I'm not going to be running out and dropping a lot of money, but I could think of a few really crummy, low-quality MP3s from back in the Napster days that I'd like to replace.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You have a point, but 256k AAC is considerably smaller than 256k MP3. If I was purchasing, that would be a nice advantage.
What I want to know is... why the hell not offer this in a lossless format?
The two major sticking points for me refusing to by digital-only tracks have been DRM (now mooted, yay!) and sound quality... there's no reason for me to settle for something that is lower sound quality than a CD, which is what 256k AAC is giving me.
(yeahyeahyeah, naysayers will argue that at that bit rate it's "essentially indistinguishable", and they may be right, but as long as a CD is comparably priced, I fail to see why I should give up sound quality...)
All the caterwauling about DRM (which I agreed with) and how Steve Jobs is Satan (which I don't.) Oh, yes, and how low-quality this music is. (Semi-agree: my ears aren't what they're used to, and my big old '80s stereo just doesn't get played so much anymore.) Anyway, now the big announcement, and is anybody happy? No. Their player doesn't support AAC. (Many do, including the Zune, and compatibility is just a reasonable license fee away -- not paid to Apple, but to Dolby Labs, by the way. With Microsoft's loss of that case to Alcatel, mp3 maybe isn't the universal, cheap codec that it once was, anyway. Dolby OWNS AAC.) Oh, and if anybody would like to pay the licensing fee for wma that Microsoft would charge Apple, they are welcome to do so. How about this scenario. You buy an iPod. You get iTunes. Your (unprotected) wma tracks are converted to aac. Then, you can upgrade all your EMI tracks, at the moment, for .30.
NOW how long before the indie labels are offered the same deal? Any other labels? I predict that EMI will make a bundle. Others will jump in. DRM, and the whole DRM business model, is on its way to extinction. Once Apple goes DRM-free, who's going to be any different? There goes Microsoft's whole business model. They will continue to sell 10,000 Zunes a year and paying a piracy tax to the crazy Bronfman kid.
One thing I predict, once the tracks are all available as cheap, protected tracks or slightly more expensive unprotected tracks: there will be browsers for the iTunes haters to interact with the unprotected part of the store.
Now get out there and buy uprotected tracks! Drive a nail in the DRM model! (If the other labels see a huge increase in EMI sales, the "we'll lose all our money" argument is shot.)
Do they realize that an entire album, which I can purchase at a brick-and-mortar or an online retailer, will now be cheaper. I can rip that CD using Apple Lossless encoding. Maybe I'm missing the point???
True, but it's worth a significant amount of money to me (and I expect a lot of other people besides) to not have to go anywhere near a shopping mall or other B&M retailer.
Going out to a store, round-trip, is probably an hour of my time, not to mention gas for the car, and is just a giant hassle. It means fighting for a parking space, and then getting into the store, and finding what I want, and waiting in line behind a bunch of teeny-boppers while some stoned clerk plods along through the checkout procedure. I can feel my blood-pressure going up just thinking about it. That's not how I want to spend one of my few free hours after work or on the weekends, thanks much.
If Apple charges a slight premium to allow me to buy DRM-free music from the comfort of my own home, where I can decide to buy something and have it on my computer to listen to, through my stereo, while drinking my beer, in five minutes -- that's value added.
Apple's real competition, at least for me, isn't B&M stores, it's online stores that sell physical CDs, particularly used ones (Half.com). There, it becomes a trade-off between how much I want to pay, and how long I want to wait. Although waiting in a line in a store gives me the urge to stab people, I'm not normally enough of an impulse-buyer to mind waiting a few days for a $4 CD. I could see buying particular tracks that I want to listen to right now from iTunes at $1.30/each, but it's probably not going to be the primary source of my music.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
What you say is partially right, but they've lost theyre primary weapon - DRM. Now they can't say "the piracy is killing us! we need more DRM", because this will sell. The next logical step would be for some other conglomerate to advertise DRM-free tracks for less. This move alone in my eyes has cracked the floodgates - the rest is a matter of time
Why not get a player that supports AAC? Just saying "WMA" makes me cringe.
I bought it because it was under $40 and it does play MP3. It just also claims to play WMA files in the feature list, but I haven't tried it.
Cringing would be if it supported MTP or Janis DRM that broke the simple thumb drive drag and drop no driver ease of use. It is compatible with any OS that supprts a thumb drive. That is why I bought it. Having an SD slot is a bonus. Easy expansion and an easy way transfer files without needing a cable. I have the choice of connecting with a USB cable, or plugging the memory card into the card slot on a PC or laptop.
The truth shall set you free!
Ever heard of conversion?
Oh yeah. I used to convert my 12 inch LP's to cassette so I could play them in the car. It takes time, effort and most often results in a drop in quality. It is generaly best to purchase music in the format you need in the first place unless you can use both formats. I bought LP's. I could enjoy them at home. I can buy iTunes, but can't play them anywhere but at home on a PC. I can convert them at a loss of quality and time for additional expence either as burnt CD's or higher cost DRM free formats.
The truth shall set you free!
Why should it be less money? You're paying for a higher quality file that you can do more things with.
This space intentionally left blank.
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
With as fast as the industry changes, these media players become obsolete very fast. I would predict in a few years, AAC will be the norm.
I think Apple is in a good spot. I don't think there will be massive conversions of MP3 collections to MP3. I think players that play MP3 and AAC will remain the norm. Players that play MP3/WMA will remain a market fringe item. (Only because MS is still pushing the format so the players are much cheaper)
The truth shall set you free!
Interestingly, there is no support at present for searching by publisher in iTunes (wonder if they'll add that), but if you want to plan your purchases for next month, you can look at this wikipedia article for a list of EMI artists. With few exceptions (the Beatles, primarily, since they're still not available in any online format), the whole catalog will be available...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_sig ned_to_EMI
My faves from the list: The Beach Boys, Bob Seger, Coldplay, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Elvis Costello, Elvis Presley, Erasure (can't help it), Garth Brooks, J. Geils Band, James Brown (Hit Me!), Joe Cocker, Kate Bush, Norah Jones, Pet Shop Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead (pre-2003), The Knack, The Decemberists. They also have a very respectable classical music inventory for folks that that swing that way.
Personally, I think that people who are contining to grouse about quality are somewhat like those that swear by vacuum tube amps. When I did my own double-blind tests of LAME-encoded MP3, I found that the sweet spot was 192Kbps, but that there where occasional passages of very unusual music (orchestral or Peter Gabriel's Passion) where I could hear a tiny difference (a slight beating oscillation) that didn't go away until 256Kbps. So I rip lossless and downconvert to 192K for actual use on most players. Would I prefer lossless? Sure, but 256K AAC not only adequate, but excellent. I will buy extensively when it becomes available, both because I like it and to encourage other labels to do the same.
Final point: cynics may say that EMI is doing this partly because they've been seriously short of sucessful acts lately and will do anything to create sales. See this Forbes article for more. Whether that's true or not, I intend to buy, buy, buy. Scr** you Sony!
Cool feature, not so cool side effects.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Sounds like a nice player. I hope AAC gains more widespread support.
I won't need to convert. Just in on the latest announcement from EMI
"iTunes as its first retail outlet."
I expect other retailers to pick up other formats and bitrates in the future.
Unless they fix the value (quality divided by price) to a higher level, I expect the sales to remain flat at the higher price.
I wonder if EMI will ever figure out how to increase sales. Removing DRM is countered by raising prices.
The truth shall set you free!
Sounds like a nice player. I hope AAC gains more widespread support.
Need to read the grandparent. It does not support AAC.
On the flipside, it does record off the radio, record off the mic, saves recordings as MP3's, connects as a flash drive, accepts SD cards, Plays MP3's and non DRM WMA's. Uses inexpensive AAA rechargable batteries. Cost less than $40.
Not bad for a cheap MP3 player / FM radio / recorder.
The truth shall set you free!
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
Now, if they'll go just one more step, and sell lossless music with no DRM, I'll be one of the first in line to purchase it!!!
I want my 'source' to be as good as I can get it...and I'll transcode to lower qualities myself for poor listening environments like portable players, the car etc. I can do that and have the higher quality sound for my home soundsystem.
So close...so close....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
WTF are you talking about?
In case you're reading this, Apple, I'm ready to be a customer. And a moderately large one at that (I have about $5,000 worth of CDs). Unfortunately I only have Linux machines - is there a good path for me to buy from you?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I'm not sure if your post is meant as satire or not. Assuming it's not let me suggest you are a `tard. Lossless compared to What? any recording of anything is "lossy" in that playing it back does not cause an experience indistinguishable from live music. Indeed some music an never even be played live. So what is lossy?
if the music sounds the way the artist meant it, and the artist is satisfied then that's the music. What you are buying is not "missing" anything the artist wanted you to hear. You are getting full value.
In this case if you are quibbling that 128bit AAC sounds jarring to you tuned ears, well know that they are going to offer higher bit rates too. Moreover, for the 12 people like you, just buy the CD and stop whining that he needs to sell something that satisfies your illusions before you will buy.
On the other hand if your post was satirizing those lossless whiner-clowns then good job. too subtle perhaps.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
this is /. after all. But, I agree this is huge. All other big media companies will look bad if they stay defending their old position on DRM. All it takes to brake an oligopoly is a single traitor, and EMI seemed to be it.
I hope people aren't naive enough to think that either EMI, Jobs or Apple Inc. are the "good guys". They simply showed a longer term vision than the other players. It is not unlike the stance on environment friendly production - the organizations aren't supporting it because they truly care about the environment, but instead they foresaw a chance in being different from the rest in the eyes and perception of the public. This anti-DRM stance is the same, and it would have happened much sooner if there weren't so few publishing/recording groups controlling the market. Now the ball is in the consumers court - if we flock to non-DRM formats, then the other publishers will be forced to play the anti-DRM game as well - the last one to jump in will be seriously hurt. If consumers react with apathy, then EMI might have to reconsider - it will be under considerable pressure from its former peers, pressure that only big money can justify.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
Double the quality and I can only fit half the amount of music onto my iPod.
Come to think of it - maybe that's the plan. We'll all have to go out and buy larger, more expensive iPods to replace the ones we already have...
My Journal
the nytimes article says the album upgrade fee is $0.00, the bump is only for per track purchases.
O RLY?
n fo.apple.com/iTunes7/Win/061-3153.20070316.3RRgf/i TunesSetup.exe
sudo apt-get install wine
wget -c http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.i
wine iTunesSetup.exe
Works for me (on Linux, i use a Mac usually)
Who gave Apple a freebie on this one?
gum2me?
(IANAL, but I've taught myself to parse legalese and legislation, as it seems increasingly important in today's political climate...)
Chap 13, Sec 1323 of the DMCA `(a) DAMAGES- Upon a finding for the claimant in an action for infringement under this chapter, the court shall award the claimant damages adequate to compensate for the infringement. In addition, the court may increase the damages to such amount, not exceeding $50,000 or $1 per copy, whichever is greater, as the court determines to be just. The damages awarded shall constitute compensation and not a penalty. The court may receive expert testimony as an aid to the determination of damages. In other words, the court may award up to $1 per copy the infringer has shared, up to a total of $50,000 per item. The RIAA is meanwhile attempting to collect "$750 statutory damages per song file" (Wikipedia) in pre-suit settlement offers to supposed copyright infringers it identifies. Basically, the RIAA's settlements suggest that every infringer it threatens to sue allowed 750 other people to infringe the RIAA's copyright. Yet, both the RIAA's settlement pyramid scheme, and the DMCA's prescription of up to $50,000 according to the whim of a judge and expert testimony (rather than hard evidence) to "prove" the level of infringement the defendent is responsible for, seems dubious now that EMI is offering DRM-less music through Apple for only $1.29. One must now wonder if the true *compensation* cost per infringer is really $750-a-song as the RIAA typically claims (it's important to distinguish the cost of compensation, because the DMCA explicitely excludes a penalty, see my quote for that tidbit), if EMI is able to afford placing their songs in unprotected format online for only 30% more. Hopefully a suave lawyer will pick up on this, and point out that the RIAA is fluffing their claims to recieve more money than the law allows for pure compensation of infringement.
Oh, and yay! For once, my sig is on-topic!
DRM = Digitally Restricted Media. This is a viral sig, pass it on.
Perhaps the parent should have typed more slowly for you. Apple..doesn't..have..a..proprietary..format. AAC..is..an..MPEG..standard,..just..like..MP3, only..better..quality..at..the..same..bitrate. The..only..thing..proprietary..in..the..songs..App le..currently..sells..is..the..DRM. Without..the..DRM..it..will..be..standard..AAC.
I'm fighting it tooth and nail. I canceled my Netflix account a few years ago, and now go exclusively to my local video store (they're great... they have *everything*... even stuff Netflix doesn't have), and I buy all of my music from local stores, and generally buy it used. I'm not a masochist... I actually get excellent prices, and I have better service than all of this big box, mail-order stuff. The best part of it is that I get to meet actual people that are in my community. I feel bad for people who live in the suburbs these days. It's really desolate out there.
I don't respond to AC's.
I too wish I had some points to mod this up.
I don't know, I spent the last twenty minutes trying to find one of these new, drm-free tracks on the iTunes store with no luck. Looked up artists that belong to EMI, but none of them seem to have any $1.30 songs for sale (as far as I can tell, the only way to determine what format it will be). I even tried searching by that price, but apparently searching for $1.30 breaks the music store. Oops, maybe Apple's interface does suck. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no way to search for these tracks... and I haven't even found any by looking at artists I know are on EMI. Can anyone point to an artist/album on itms that offers these new tracks for us iTMS-impaired people?
Of course, the Zune plays back AAC files just fine, so it should have full interoperability with these files. Hence reducing the iTunes Music Store DRM issue for Zune adoption.
My video compression blog
Another advantage of the higher bitrates is the ability to slip in watermarking.
I wrote about this a few weeks ago - current watermarking techniques are not significant with regard to quality compared with lossy compression.
Watermarking is a real solution to piracy - it enables Copyright Law to be the default mechanism for handing these problems, just like in the Old Days, before the Dark Times, before the DMCA.
To summarize my thesis: Watermarking solves piracy, DRM is about forced repurchasing. Links and more there.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm not asking you to believe anything. The DRM-free files are twice the size, having twice the quality. They're also more usable, the buyer isn't going to have to buy the file again to get it to work on their Rio. In every sense, they're better to the end consumer, and they have more costs to the seller.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
not everyone has easy access to cheap in-person music stores with a wide selection
Well, if you're into music at all, I'd say that that's a problem. I wouldn't live somewhere where my only place to buy stuff was at Big Box stores and chains. That's naaaaas-tay.
I don't respond to AC's.
This news is both good and bad. For one, firstly, it spells the end of DRM. Unfortunately, it may also spell the end of the "one price fits all" policy that has made Apple so popular. This sets a new precident, that at least in some form or another, Apple is willing to negotiate price for material. Also, if this is eventually kills DRM, then Apple's entire music library will inevitably be priced at $1.29, which is not nearly as convenient, in people's minds, as the $0.99 price of yesteryear.
This could be, eventually, very bad for Apple. I'm actually sorta amaized to see them go through with this, since it also means that other music players (like the Zune) will now have access to iTMS, which is not Apple's main money maker. Maybe this is a huge part of the price bump, which may help cover for the lost iPod sales that will result from this.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
If you'd read the article, you'd know that yes you can.
A 30% price increase? Apple fans will forgive it,heaping praise and glory, others (me) will see it as a bigger ripoff.
There is plenty more to do, something for Linux folk, and there remains now less than no justification for DRM'd Indies.
Questions I am curious about:
Are the new non DRMers watermarked?
Who gets the extra money?
DRM vs nonDRM sales of same tunes?
How many new and old customers will buy mainly/exclusively non DRM material?
How many old customers will stick to the 99 centers?
Will EMI sales spike and sustain at iTunes?
How soon before 1.29 becomes the new fix, for everyone, DRM or not?
predicto-matic:
post deal spin: the 30 cent finger will be pointed at EMI, "who wanted more money, for the extra risk". Flamewars will follow.
Other sevices will offer "higher quality" with DRM pretty soon. It amounts to too much cash to leave on the table.
Jobs will in the long term get the credit, and merits the credit for negotiating the move that finally pulled the finger from the dike.
(videos of that to remain DRM'd for now)
I agree. It's not just Apple, there are people who will always hate (insert any company name).
The thing is, you can blame it on marketing all you want, but right now Apple is doing the best for consumers... sure, it helps their bottom line. What, are they only acceptable measures if they cost Apple money? That's insane. But as it stands, they're making significant progress toward opening things up.
And some people just want to shit on it because they're not getting 100% of what they want right away. Grow up, people. You don't get everything you want 99.99999...% of the time, and you get everything you want, when you want it even less.
This is the real world. Steve Jobs isn't hoarding apples, candy, unicorns and rainbows here.
He didn't steal your sunshine. I was just outside earlier. It is just as hot and glaring as it was yesterday. Grow up.
(/rant)
Everyone seems to be focusing on the technical aspects of AAC vs MP3 without considering what happens to that extra 30 cents that iTunes will be charging for non-encumbered songs. I suspect very little of that extra profit will be going to Apple, which means that EMI is probably pulling in about twice as much per track once expenses and royalties are figured in. Is any of that money shared with the artist? I can see EMI arguing that the 30% premium is intended to offset increased piracy, but in that case the artists should be compensated as well.
I only wish I hadn't blown my mod points 2 days ago.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Try next month. I suspect the fact that they're labelled 'Premium' and cost 30 cents more is going to be a big clue about which are non DRM tracks. Probably they'll put a big label on them and it'll be very easy to see which is which.
I just think its wrong that a company like apple will sell you something that can only be used on their own hardware (essentially) and then put so many protection things on that you cant actually use it!!!
but I'm still going to keep buying music on CD only.
Actually, no. They want you to pay $9.99 or so for a typical album, which is a bit below what most of them retail for on CD (256kbps, DRM-free albums will be priced the same as albums are now; it's just the price of individual tracks that's going up).
I mean, sure, mp3s, if you want to make sure none of your users even have the chance to be confused.
Or, un-DRM'd AACs, for probably the most reasonable size/quality on iPods.
Or WMA for Zune. Or Vorbis for Linux geeks. Or whatever.
I'd encode to everything, because encoding music is, at this point, a completely automatic process. Given an hour or two and a decently fast computer, you could encode an album in every conceivable format in every conceivable container, even vorbis/mkv.
But no matter how many you choose to do, I'd throw FLAC in there -- both for archival purposes (if you don't actually keep a multitrack recording somewhere), and so that if your customers are reasonably savvy and want a format you didn't think to support, or if they just want to make sure they encode it their way, they can do it themselves.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The posts quoting a price of $1.30 are rounding up. The actual price will be $1.29.
Yes, I did miss that... figured if they were going to announce it they'd wait until they had something to offer. Ah well, I was going to actually buy something just to show support for DRM-free music, but by the time they actually offer any I'll have forgotten all about it. Guess I'll just stick with CDs.
You would not be saying this if we were talking about the Zune store making a similar choice, and only being available for Windows. Why bother going to an open standard if you have to open Internet Explorer and enable an ActiveX control in order to use it? Or worse, Windows Media Player...
It's an Internet thing. The stupidly simple thing to do would be to put the entire DRM-free store in a standards-compliant website. They can still have iTunes for the convenience on the platforms that support it, but frankly, even on Windows, I wouldn't want to use iTunes, and I neither have nor want an iPod.
And sorry, but $400 to be able to buy music for a much higher cost than simple CDs is just not a smart deal.
Darwin does play nicely with Linux. It does have rsync and ssh. But that's about all I can say about it -- most of my favorite packages are not there automatically, there's a complete lack of decent package management, and the filesystem structure is entirely different for no real reason.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Unless AAC is patented, I really don't. I can already play AAC on an entirely open-source Linux player, on 64-bit.
The only thing I could want beyond that is FLAC, which only matters much to me if I can tell the difference -- and from what I'm hearing here, high-bitrate AAC can actually be better quality than CD. Only other reason for FLAC would be if I ever want to transcode it -- but I don't, as un-DRM'd AAC is playable anywhere I care to make it playable.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I've read in other places that AAC is NOT patented, so would you please provide a link to something definitive that supports your statement that AAC IS patented. Thanks.
Heard any good sigs lately?
And ? The stuff's already encoded. The real question is: Does libfaad suck ? Can we decode the stuff and play around with it afterwards.
Please, just don't suggest transcoding lossy compression schemes. It's just off the table.
Completely with You there. I just can't fathom why anybody would want mp3's over aac's. The only thing better is the raw wav file but that's not on the table so far...
TCAP-Abort
Never mind. I found it.g #Licensing_and_patents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Codin
Heard any good sigs lately?
"Microsoft's music strategy"
and I thought rap was a low point in Music History...
I don't feel like it...
Way to be! I will buy several albums from this, if only to encourage this sort of thing. DRM is a terrible idea and can never hold back file sharing, so lowering the headaches of legitimate customers is a wise business decision.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
I think you can play AAC files with amarok and as we all know it rocks!
I really don't understand why there should be a requirement to pay for upgrades of tracks that their customers have already paid for in DRM encumbered form, obviously it makes sense to squeeze more money out of the poor sods, sorry, meant to say "customers", if apple and their allies can justify it. Is this an admission that the product these users have been sold in the past was of a low standard and so less valuable than non DRM'ed music?
Software Freedom Day!.
I live or have lived around Amoeba, Rasputin's, Salzers, Independent, Reactor... in none of these cases would I expect my CDs to be less than $10 on average unless I was buying them used. When I order directly from record companies it's about $10, but then I have to pay shipping. Used CDs are great, but it requires a lot of time and luck to find what I want.
Until now I've only bought CDs because the non-DRM offerings out there were fragmented, sometimes of low quality and a pain to manage, but this could change things in a hurry.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
I love nearly everything about ITMS except the DRM -- but that kept me away until now. I've used ITMS for research and listening to music samples, then went and got the music from Amazon (CDs) or Usenet (MP3s). I've really been looking upon ITMS enviously. I just didn't want DRM-laden tracks infesting, or contaminating, my music collection. I can't even play DRMed tracks on my Roku Soundbridge, and I love my Soundbridge!
:)
Yes, I am going to start buying music from ITMS -- and not merely to make a political point, but more importantly because this is the service I've been wanting all along. This is why I tend to stand by Apple, even though they aren't perfect and sometimes do things I disagree with. They bring out products or services every once in a while that I really like and that other companies, for whatever reason, couldn't or wouldn't come through with.
The other thing I see is finally moving from MP3 to AAC. I've pondered that before, but I always stuck with MP3 because it works with practically all devices, and because I was generally happy with the output from LAME. However. . . I expect the popularity and acceptance of AAC format to increase drastically. Now it will no longer be seen simply as a vehicle for foisting a DRM scheme, which is how I tended to view it in the past (fairly or not). It can compete more freely with MP3 as a non-DRM format: an apples-to-apples comparison, if you will. We'll really know AAC has arrived if people start trading them on Usenet.
And no, I don't feel guilty about Usenet. It's great for discovering new music that I had no idea existed. It's lousy for getting a particular thing I'm looking for. I see it being very complimentary and synergistic with ITMS. The real loser here is going to be Amazon. Now I'll finally have a source of digital music that is (to me at least) competitive with audio CDs in quality and price, and more than competitive in convenience.
it's also a sign that the store is down!
Not so large a victory for those who decided to buy players that can't play AAC, perhaps. If I had a Zune I'd find this just as attractive as I do owning an iPod and using iTunes on my various computers.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
Im sick of all these formats why have DRM free AAC or WMA?
.mp3 files simple
Just do everything with
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
I have an iPod, and I love it, but iTunes for Windows is the WORST THING EVER. Ok, maybe not ever. But at least in the last 10,000 years or so.
It is massively bloated, requires you to install the equally heinous Quicktime, tries to upgrade itself 14 times a week, doesn't conform to the Windows GUI standard AT ALL*, and tries to seize control of all of your music and video files and associate them with itself. Quicktime is apparently DESIGNED to fuck up your web browsing experience so that you no longer have the ability to download MOVs or anything in an Apple format, and instead are forced to watch it in a tiny plugin window with no real controls, which once again doesn't conform to any kind of Windows GUI standard.
There are alternatives for using an iPod (such as the reasonably excellent ml_ipod for Winamp) but there aren't any for using the iTunes store.
Please Steve, I'll consider giving you my money now that you've stripped away DRM, but for christ's sake, just make a web-only version of your store...
* seriously, how would Mac users feel if Office for Mac literally ran in a simulated Windows XP environment, complete with Windows-style widgets and the XP GUI skin layed over the top of it?
Read Pynchon.
DRM free downloads YAY! $.30 price jump for removing a major flaw in their sales model??? That's messed up. I dig the fact that they're publishing higher bit rates, but it's hardly worth 30 cents each song. It would cost me a small fortune to "upgrade" my itunes collection.
Perhaps a better model would be DROP DRM, price 128k songs at $.50 and 256k songs at $.99
Nice try Steve, but wrong again. I think there's a big place in the market right now for competing digital music stores.
-makoffee
AAC's patented, so there's no legal decoding free/open source decoding software.
1. True
2. False
It is patented, but the license only regulates players. It's allowed to distribute the source to the decoding software, but not the compiled binary. Yeah, it's stupid, but it's not as bad as mp3.
They might be trying to distinguish these new DRM-free tracks as being "Premium" so that consumers don't get confused about what the difference is between DRMed and non-DRMed music.
So, the difference is that the non-DRMed version sounds better, right?Why didn't you say so before?
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Pfft, it doesn't matter anyway. Everyone knows only vinyl is worth listening to.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Good point. I guess it doesn't sound so clever to say "we're going to charge you an extra 30 cents a song for removing something".
:)
Thing is 256kbps isn't supposed to sound any better than 192, from what I've heard 192 or 160 vbr is supposed to be about optimal. Since 256kbps mp3s take up an extra 33% over 192kbps (by my maths) - maybe Jobs is just looking to ship more 80Gb iPods
This is a silly argument. True, there aren't a lot of other players that do AAC now. But if being compatible with iTunes downloads is as useful to Apple's competitors as you imply, they'll all support it pretty fast. The notion that Apple should adopt an inferior format just to save its competitors the trouble of implementing AAC is frankly ludicrous.
g
In fact if their competitors plan on providing video in MPEG 4 format, then I hope they plan on supporting AAC. Not doing so is like supporting MPEG 1 video, without supporting MP3 audio, since in other words the relationship is the same: they are both the audio layer for their respective video formats. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Codin
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
he needs some cheese to go with that wine.
You don't really needa all your music in your music player.
YOu can safely delete 20% of it, fill it with something else and in all likelyhood you will barely notice.
There is so much music there that you will never hear it all even if you devoted 2 or 3 hours a days for the next several years.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I have said it many times, and I say it here: I will not buy DRM music.
And I am installing Itunes tonight to check non DRMed music.
Pirating is cumbersome, illegal and counterproductive (I have never ever pirated musci by the way).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... they will make you feel young and beautiful.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No, it's purely coincidence. Apple either does or doesn't sell indy music, so 50% of people's opinions will match, while the other 50% will not.
Yes but mine matches what Apple is actually doing, whereas you are going against the grain of a very successful company. That lends more weight to my choices, until you can come up with any that make sense.
That only demonstrates a tremendous lack of imagination on your part.
Perhaps, but your ideas demonstrate a lack of business acumen that I'm not sure you should really be airing in public.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As EMI and Jobs made clear in the announcement, they feel that the vast majority of people don't care about getting DRM-free content or higher quality than 128-kbit AAC. And I believe they're right; the vast majority of people buying music on iTunes for their iPods could care less about DRM and bitrates.
So, what could they do? Remove the DRM and bump up the quality and keep the price the same. Problem with this option is that it doubles bandwidth demands, and eats significantly into their profits. Remember, Apple already takes a tiny share of the price (RIAA gets the rest), so bandwidth matters.
Except since the majority of people don't want (or rather don't care) this, they're effectively hurting their profits giving something that people generally don't care about.
Their solution is to offer the option to the minority who DO care, and charge more for it to cover bandwidth. It's the ideal compromise between Apple and consumers.
That said, I don't think the general population not caring will last. Don't underestimate the appeal of perceived quality to the average consumer. They will hear that these new tracks are "premium", that they "sound better". Consumers have proven countless times in the past that they're willing to spend more for something that they're TOLD is better, even if they can't tell the difference. I think that these new premium tracks will slowly take over as consumers decide that they are going to buy the "premium" track just because "it's better", not because they understand why.
Eventually, as bandwidth prices drop further, and as the premium tracks take over, I expect Apple will discontinue the current 128-kbit tracks and either drop the price of the premium tracks to $1, or settle on $1.29 as the new standard iTunes price.
Interestingly, if they settled on $1.29 as the new standard price, they'd be taking the easy road to doing what the RIAA has wanted them to do all along; raise the prices from $1 per song. Apple gets to have an excuse for the price increase.
how about: 'Whiney Mac Apologist' or 'Whiney Mac Audiohole' both of which shorten to 'WMA' and doubles the sting to the machead.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
You can use wathever music player you damn please from now on and you can use those tracks in any way you want. No bullshit.
That is what those extra cents per track give you.
But still you want to be blind, alas, be blind.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... what about if the artists does not perform in your locality or you can't go where they perform?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No, the New York Times article says that full albums DRM-free at higher quality will cost the same as lower-quality DRM-laden albums. It does not mention the 'upgrade' fee to upgrade already-purchased content. That is what the original poster was referring to, the 30 cent charge to download a new DRM-less copy of a song you already bought. It is mentioned that there will be an opportunity to upgrade already-purchased albums, but no cost is specified.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
.... they have my support.
I am celebrating, I don't see reason to stop celebrating just because copyright infringers could have a more difficult time amkign bussiness out of stuff they do not have any rights to (copyright is amonstruosity as it is certainly, but that is a completely different battlefront once DRM isout of the way).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... and mention the re-mixed CDs.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As long as I get free DRM music I don't care who produces it or owns the legal rights to it.
If the music labels will have the last laugh it would be because nobody else managed to steal their thunder while they had their heads up there where the Sun does not shine.
Non DRM means freedom for the music fan, how the music bussiness organizes itself (finally) around a non DRMed world is up to them. As long as they do not do things illegal or unethcial I could not care less.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Nothing simpler than that.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Huh? Fairplay only exists because without DRM, the record companies would not allow Apple to sell music. AAC itself is not owned by Apple but a standard defined by the MPEG group (the same people associated with MP3). AAC is newer so fewer players out there play it as opposed to MP3; however, since AAC has fewer licensing restrictions and is technically superior to MP3, I would suspect that it would be used more in the future. If you don't like Fairplay or AAC, you can always buy CDs or another player or rip to MP3. No one is forcing you to use Apple products or AAC. If you want to buy music from Apple, you have to accept their terms.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
How is it you have all those devices that play music, but not one iPod? Don't you know that they're the best?