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Bands Bypass iTunes With iPhone Apps
iminplaya writes to tell us that the band "The Presidents of the United States of America" (yes, the peaches guys), are trying to expand their engagement with fans by selling their music via Apple's App store, something others have experimented with but never dealt with on this level. "The app, called 'The Presidents' Music — PUSA,' sells for $2.99 on the App Store (iTunes link) offers users access to four full albums, including the band's early 'lost' recordings. This includes the previously-unavailable FroggyStyle — 'unless you have one of the 500 cassettes the band sold in 1994, you've never heard this before,' reads the app description. The app also features a number of extras and exclusives that the band says are updated regularly, and fans can read the band's blog directly from the app on their iPhones or iPod touches. The music, however, is not actually contained within the application itself; instead, it is streamed to the app from a server, requiring the user to be connected to a network of some kind (iPhone users on the cell or WiFi network, iPod touch users on WiFi) in order to access the media."
Please buy my app (profanespeak) to read my comments on this article.
Personally, I know them better for their song "Lump" (which Weird Al parodied as "Gump") better than I know them for "Peaches".
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If the content is streaming, I don't see Apple having a problem with this. After all, I can stream numerous radio stations already through iTunes or through an iPhone app. I don't think Apple will be concerned unless the app allows you to save the music. Besides, there's probably some agreement the developers have to agree to that states no app will directly compete with iTunes.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
If looked at purely as a method of accessing the artists' work it seems ineffectual. However, as a total package this is a genius appeal to the "always on" "web 2.0" environment of today's Internet. For 2.99, a price I think many will pay, users recieve a portal on their mobile device into the world of their favorite artists. Bios, extra content, tour dates, blogs, and ALL their music in one place. Sounds like something a fan would gladly pay 2.99 to have access to.
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
More bands should be offering their music for free on the Internet itself. Look at how well Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead (for starters) have done with their Internet releases.
Yeah! All you need to do to make it big on the internet is to already be a multi-platinum selling band before the internet came along. Simple!
One of the reasons people buy iPhones is for integration both on the phone and desktop. You know, all your music in one place. This will also have limited use for Touch users who wan't to listen to music without be near wifi. I for one do not want 100 apps from various artists scattered across my phone.
Masnick's Law! You can always see it coming from a mile.
[Chorus:]
Movin' to bittorrent, gonna steal a lot of songs
Movin' to bittorrent, Gonna steal me a lot of songs
Movin' to bittorrent, gonna steal a lot of songs
Movin' to bittorrent, gonna steal a lot of songs
(Wow)
Songs come from a torrent,
they were put there by a pirate
In a country overseas
If I had my little way,
I'd steal songs every day
So many songs to be played
[Chorus]
Take a little app where the tunes all exist
Heard a rotten song and was pissed
And dreamed about you, RIAA,
I used my encryption down inside
Make a little room my songs to hide
Pirate's bounty in my PC or Laptop or a Phone
Millions of songs, songs for me
Millions of songs, songs for free
Millions of songs, songs for me
Millions of songs, songs for free
Millions of songs, songs for me
Millions of songs, songs for free
Millions of songs, songs for me
Millions of songs, songs for free
I love PUSA. Love them. I have their Mount Rushmore concert taped from MTV on VHS, complete with the Mount Rushmore Hug Of The Day, and I still have dreams set to "Mach 5". However, I do not, and WILL not, own an iPhone, so I guess I don't get access to this sort of thing. This is a confusing message I'm being sent. Only people with iPhones can get this music, and people with iPhones have enough money to throw around to not need this.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Firstly, it just bypasses iTunes in loading new music onto your phone - there seems be a not-inconspicuous "BUY NOW" button, which I would guess would take you to the iTunes Store so you can... purchase the song!
I've seen similar apps on the store, GameRock being the one I use. It seemed appealing enough - access to all the music game's library of music (Guitar Hero (1..n), Rock Band 1/2, etc), but honestly, it sucks.
Firstly, you can listen to the setlists contained in each game, yes, but they're shuffled. You can only go next track and pause (and the pause only works for a little while - pause too long and you'll lose the song). Oh yeah, there's a nice big BUY NOW button so you can purchase the track. You can browse the setlist, but that's only if you want to buy a different track than the one currently playing. It's slow switching tracks (several seconds to pull new track information, then several more seconds to start playing), ugh. And the quality's fairly crappy too - like 128kbps (or lower) MP3.
It's a great way to sample an artist's other works, I'll admit, but it certainly doesn't beat actually having the song loaded on your iPod. The random shuffle, the slow next track make it useful as say, a radio that plays one artist only (or in my case, music from one game), but not much more.
The BUY NOW would explain why Apple freely approves these kinds of programs - more iTunes store revenue.
Amusing, but you destroyed the meter of the song. "Peaches" is two syllables while "songs" is one. The way the song is sung ("pee chez") you don't have enough syllables to fill the notes. Try using "MP3s" instead. It should fit into the meter a bit better.
"Moving to the bittorrent, gonna steal me a lot of em-p'threes"
See how much better that sounds?
(Yes, that was a totally pedantic and geeky thing to worry about. I make no apologies. :-P)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
All right, PUSA, PUSA, PUSA! Come on in PUSA lovers! Here at the Titty Twister we're slashing PUSA in half! Give us an offer on our vast selection of PUSA, this is a PUSA blow out! All right, we got white PUSA, black PUSA, Spanish PUSA, yellow PUSA, we got hot PUSA, cold PUSA, we got wet PUSA, we got
smelly PUSA, we got hairy PUSA, bloody PUSA, we got snappin' PUSA, we got silk PUSA, velvet PUSA, Naugahyde PUSA, we even got horse PUSA, dog PUSA, chicken PUSA! Come on, you want PUSA, come on in, PUSA lovers! If we don't got it, you don't want it! Come on in, PUSA lovers!
Sorry, I just watched that movie again 2 days ago.
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This is just another way to deliver music, and not an exceptional method at that. Complaining, as you do, would be like complaining about them putting music on iTunes. Only those rich enough to own a music player can have access to this sort of thing. Even now music players are not cheap. A few years ago when iTunes opened, it was only the rich who have the option of choice, while the rest had to live with a CD player.
Get real. There is little value in this. Only those who like the band well enough to toss them another few dollars are going to this. Everyone else will just rip and load like we always have done. With no significant new stuff in three years, they had to do something to revitalize the catalog, and box sets are not what they used to be.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
So if you think Apple is going to lose money from this, you're an idiot.
This is an app from a band that if they were lucky as a pig in shit, people bought two of their songs from iTunes. In reality, most people bought one.
Thats what hurts the record companies. People aren't buying a CD of 6-15 songs for $10-20 anymore, they go buy the one song they hear on the radio for a dollar and thats it. The record companies loose out on truck loads of money because users no longer have to by the crap they don't want to get the tiny portion they do want.
So all this is, is a way to get $3 from people wanting to buy that one-hit wonder instead of a dollar.
Apple won't care, its great for them, instead of buying that one song for $0.99 where Apple ends up giving a good portion of that away to the labels, and other costs of serving the music. Now they sell one app, which is certainly smaller than a song since it streams the audio from else where, and now they've made $0.90. Thats almost as much as the entire sale of the single song. And they don't even send you the audio! They only have to send you the tiny app.
The record label is happy because they just made twice as much off that one hit wonder, so they have to give out some streams of the audio, big deal, copies of bits are free, and bandwidth is practically free so its not a big deal to them.
What happens next? Why, Ads of course! They stream the audio to you, why not inject a little advertising, its for YOUR benifit, they can tell you about all the other great bands that you can buy as iTunes apps.
Now, congratulations, you have just paid $3 to get the same thing I currently get on the radio. No, I take that back, radio is far more reliable than AT&T 3G service so you've got a bad radio that has an selection thats extremely limited (even compared to most radio stations) playlist, and likely advertising in the near future.
So I restate, if you think Apple will be upset about this, you're an idiot. Everybody involved will make more money (except for the parents of the kids buying this sort of crap) from this. Its just another attempt to hold on to the old business model. What scares me is that from reading the slashdot entries to this point, hardly anyone has realized this. Sheep.
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