Slashdot Mirror
Apple Music and the Terrible Return of DRM
An anonymous reader writes: Apple's rumored music streaming service looks set to materialize soon, and a lot of people are talking about how good it might be. But Nilay Patel is looking at the other side — if the service fits with Apple's typical mode of operation, it'll only work with other Apple products. "That means I'll have yet a fourth music service in my life (Spotify, Google Play Music, Prime, and Apple Music) and a fourth set of content exclusives and pricing windows to think about instead of just listening to music." He points out Steve Jobs's 2007 essay on the state of digital music and notes that Jobs seemed to feel DRM was a waste of time — something forced on Apple by the labels. "But it's no longer the labels pushing DRM on the music services; it's the services themselves, because locking you into a single ecosystem guarantees you'll keep paying their monthly subscription fees and hopefully buy into the rest of their ecosystem. ... Apple Music might be available on Android, but it probably won't be as good, because Apple wants you to buy an iPhone.... There's just lock-in, endless lock-in. Is this what we wanted?"
That means I'll have yet a second music service in my life (Spotify and Apple Music)
FTFY
Oh, yes, please release that wonderful service in Europe. I want to see how long it'll take until EU starts digging into it and following with an investigation and fines.
Nobody is actually forcing you to participate in any new service, are they?
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
You people could break all those services if you just staged a massive account cancellation. Then they would...oh, I forgot. You're weak.
I never wanted monthly music rental to begin with, so ... no.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
If all his inventory was purple and all the competitor's were white, he'd be out saying how purple demonstrates the individuality of the user while white is bland.
If his were white and the competition's were purple, then of course white is what someone with a serious design background would come out with.
Bill Gates was similar. Back in the '90s, during the browser wars, MS released an "Open letter to Netscape" with Microsoft's pledge to abide by "open standards" for HTML. Of course, they promptly forgot that once Netscape was acquired by AOL and had lost all its market share.
It's B-school 101 shit.
I'm not ever going to go back to the difficulty of vinyl, it's just too damn much work to keep both the physical media and the player maintained such that they produce good quality output, but I can honestly say that having CDs has helped. I rip my CDs to a non-DRM digital format. I can play them on my phone, on my computers, on most DVD players from either disc or from flash, and even on some car stereos that support mp3 from CD or from flash. If I have a device failure I can copy back off of other devices, or worst case I can re-rip again from source media.
No one's digital store method has ever satisfied my want for being able to always access the content that I have paid for. Sometimes things are removed from the catalog, so they could later no longer be downloaded again, or the content is streamed instead of stored locally, or other things.
I want control over my stuff. If I own media then I have control.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You only rent the music and you use up your over priced data plan.
Anything web-based is a trap.
I know this is Slashdot and all, and Apple bashing is kind of a national sport, but TFA is nothing but conjecture. How about we wait until there's an actual fact to talk about before fueling the servers with anti-fanboi rage?
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
That means I'll have yet a fourth music service in my life (Spotify, Google Play Music, Prime, and Apple Music) and a fourth set of content exclusives and pricing windows to think about instead of just listening to music.
Talk about first-world problems...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
... is irrelevant.
"We" are not the CEO and shareholder of Apple.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I used to immerse my turntable in water, well almost, recording the record on real to real tape, then keep the record as a master. Full analog sound with no static nor scratch sounds;-)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Then it's gone along with all the music and the money fools paid for this service.
Rather than grudgingly saying OK, we should simply refuse to pay for something we don't own afterwards. I realize that this may mean not having access to desirable stuff from time to time, but after all I find it a rather satisfactory lifestyle.
Very easy, own it forever, works on every device, costs nothing, etc etc.
This seems like a false dillema - how much agonizing do you do over whether you'll subscribe to DirecTV or DIsh or both or neither? If you want one you pick one, and if it turns out you don't like it you switch.
Really the music situation is much better than that, there are more choices and none of the awful contracts. You can switch easily if you wish and some of them offer free trials, or even entirely free versions. This is no worse than any other subscription service and better than many. Of course it's different from actually owning the music, but no one has claimed equivalency there. You can always just buy the songs if you want, from many sources.
I used to immerse my turntable in water, well almost, recording the record on real to real tape
I just used to think about doing that, I never actually did it. I guess you could say I did it on imaginary to imaginary tape. ;-P
Real to imaginary tape was quite easy too (but with little benefit), but I never figured out how to do it the other way around.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Real to imaginary tape was quite easy too (but with little benefit), but I never figured out how to do it the other way around.
You end up with all noise and no signal.
"There's just lock-in, endless lock-in. Is this what we wanted?"
That has been Apple's m.o. since forever, so nothing new to see here, move along.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
DRM is a means of limiting the distribution of a purchased (or licensed) digital file by the owner (or licensee). Exclusively locking a subscription service to a platform is not DRM. Rather, it is a means of boosting the sale of the platform by offering additional platform-only services. We can discuss the harm and inconvenience that platform lock-in may cause. However, we should not confuse the issue with DRM. That will just inflame old passions, preventing someone from approaching this new distinct issue from a fresh perspective.
No doubt many people against DRM will also be against platform lock-in. Perhaps others may not. For instance, I am generally against DRM. I purchased a digital file; I would like to be free to make copies of it for my own use. However, with platform-based subscriptions, I just can't get all that upset about it. I don't own an Android device, so I won't subscribe to Google Play. Also, there are a wealth of quality subscription services out there that run on all of the popular platforms. So what's the big deal?
Honestly, it's actually impossible to tell the difference between the silly shit people actually do with vinyl and the jokes.
Because except for the water part, I know people who have definitely done the reel to reel thing.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
We do that and the article won't be posted on Slashdot until six months after the thing starts up. This gives us some time to get the dupe ready on a timely basis.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That means I'll have yet a fourth music service in my life...
Apparently that is what you want, or you wouldn't plunk down money for this service. Apple isn't holding a gun to your head forcing you to comply with their business model.
If you want it, pay for it. If you don't want it, don't pay for it. Paying for something you don't want and then bitching about it is useless and stupid.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
I did that too on a 10" TEAC 4 channel. Probably needs new belts by now :)
I used to downmix that to cassette for the car. Worked a treat!
The other benefit you have is hrs of music off one tape.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
All one has to do is not use the service, then they starve and die, because do you want a future where the only way media is available is streaming?
I don't.
But the real question is this, are there more of the people that don't care about this DRM issue, or more that do?
How many of you can do without your "entertainment"?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You forgot the WOOSH.
(Reel and not Real)
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Well what this story talks about is something that could be what happens. Apple Loves to do things to get people and keep people in their system to keep buy their over priced crap.
In 2015?! LOL! I cannot possibly understand how iTunes, Spotify or Google Play manage to exist, unless you consider them charities for singers.
"DRM is a means of limiting the distribution of a purchased (or licensed) digital file by the owner (or licensee)."
Well if you think about it locking it to Apple devices that is limiting the distribution by Apple so in a Sense it IS DRM.
I just wish Dell, HP, or IBM didn't keep people buying their even more over priced crap.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Duh,that's because the real component of a purely imaginary signal is zero!
I've done the water thing - well, if it's the water thing I'm thinking about.
A long-lost post from some group on usenet told of how the ABC radio jocks would play vinyl: mix up a litre of 50/50 water and alcohol, add ONE drop of dishwashing liquid, and apply to the surface of the vinyl - not dripping-off-the-edges wet, just enough to make the surface thinly covered. Now play the record. Make sure you dry it before putting it away, of course.
I tried it, and it works - it's not perfect, but it seems to eliminate or at least reduce lots of the usual unwanted noises. Probably reduces wear from friction, too.
But who plays vinyl these days? I get nostalgic about once a year and trawl the collection, maybe listen to one or two albums before going back to CDs or streaming.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
If you pay streaming royalties it behooves you to do some protection of the content so that it really is just streaming, not downloading. If you think it doesn't behoove you, then the content providers will ring up up and change your mind for you.
As to the vendor lock-in, that's separate. And it's Apple's policy it seems. So I just get all my music from Google and Amazon instead. And Spotify I guess. Problem solved. I have to give up AppleTV compatibility but I gain compatibility with my Android devices and (in the case of Google and Amazon) the ability to play music right in a browser.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I won't use the service anyway. I don't use streaming services for music because why would I? I'll continue to buy a few tracks that I can then use on any devices, as for space on devices? Windows Music + my library on OneDrive is sufficient for the job, no DRM needed.
"That means I'll have yet a fourth music service in my life (Spotify, Google Play Music, Prime, and Apple Music)"
Well, this is easy to rectify. Just stop using all the others you don't want to use and you'll be down to one, or none. See, life is so easy.
With the music the big labels are promoing, how can one tell the difference?
We've come a long way since wax cylinders. But right now we're having growing pains. Everyone wants a piece of the digital streaming pie. The thing is that everyone also wants to lock you in.
Streaming needs to be more open. The music itself needs to be separated from the service. I don't want to feel like I'm making a lifelong commitment by investing in streaming purchases, building playlists, etc.
Through Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, Google Music, Amazon, and whatever else is out there..I've stuck to my own offline music collection - it's much more portable (like others have stated already). If a company wants to start a streaming service they need to provide something of value other than the music itself. The "industry" is tired and old and proprietary and the rest of the world is sick of it, including artists. I have a strong feeling Creative Commons is going to be the rebel yell of the very close future. Artists don't want to sign contracts because they're keen to the fact that they're never going to be as rich and famous as they think - they're just going to tour for years to pay off the debt they've accrued for the "privilege" of being promoted by a big label.
All artists want (and have ever wanted since the beginning of music) is to know that they have made a positive impact on other peoples' lives with their craft. Making a living from it has always been secondary to true musicians. This is more possible and accessible with the Internet.
SO! Streaming services are currently acting as big labels. People have already bypassed labels. So all of this is pretty moot to me. So instead, I am investing my time into a project that will provide value to people aside from rehashing the whole 'buy the White album again' scenario which has already infested streaming services' business models. It's new and exciting and something nobody has done before with music online.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Who indeed...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
You are welcome on my lawn.
The author isn't technical, and doesn't understand the words he uses. He thinks that if his device won't pair with his bluetooth speakers, it must be because of DRM. If Google Play Music is better on Android than on iPhone, it's because of DRM.
He is slowly coming to an awareness that interoperability is hard. The author is a "bro" who describes himself as "married to a babe." That's cool but all he wants to do is listen to music and all this technology is inconvenient to understand. It won't let him listen to music the way he wants (the subtitle of his article is "give me convenience or give me death"). It's hard to feel sympathy for him.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Let's assume that Apple isn't going $14.99/mo and it's going to be the usual $9.99 /mo. $120 a year is a decent amount of money to spend on music, if you want to take the time to buy it.
Imagine a family of where 2 adults both spend $10/mo, heck, $240 a year? That can buy you over 200 tracks a year, that you will get to keep. If you want to save more, buy used CD's and rip them.
You already have tons of music ripped, everyone does, do you really think you're going to spend $120 a year on new singles?
It's entirely possible. Don't bother denying it, the guilty always deny it.
I dislike DRM like pretty much everyone else who isn't a content industry lawyer, but I really can't find much to complain about when it's used in the context of a rental or subscription service. How else are they supposed to ensure you can't continue using the content when you're not supposed to be able to anymore?
DRM on stuff I'm supposedly purchasing is another matter entirely, if I own it I want to truly control it, but if I'm renting it or paying for temporary access where it's clear from the beginning that I only have it as long as I'm paying I don't see a problem.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
does anyone really pay for music anymore? i mean, really... there are so many venues for free music it's ridiculous... there is no way i'm paying one bloody cent for music
Interoperability isn't difficult. Overcoming the commercial resistance to interoperability is; and that's not a technical issue.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
Google Play music lets you upload 50,000 of your own songs and works on most any platform. In fact, in keeping with Google tradition their iOS app is better than their Android app.
I think what Steve Jobs was saying was (he thought) people wanted to own their music (so no DRM, but initially it was a requirement post-Napster internet) and not stream it. Music is (was) a type of identity but more people now seem to want to stream and not buy so much. I have 2 teens (you mileage may vary) - my daughter gets most of her music from spotify, my son listens to entire albums on youtube. They have no interest in my mp3 collection. I would imagine there is so much free steaming (pandora, spotify, youtube) many people now see music as ever present and free. Not sure how that's going to change.
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
> There's just lock-in, endless lock-in. Is this what we wanted?
No.
Learn to sing, learn to play an instrument, join a choral group, join a band -- have fun!
Paying for the commercialized schlock the record companies are trying to shove down your throats is crazy!
If everyone stopped paying for it, it would go away, and maybe, just maybe something worth listening to might emerge.
But in truth, that ship sailed long, long ago.
<sigh>
Stop being lazy and BUY your music and rip it to DRM free versions. If I want to pay for streaming music I pay for Sirius/XM that in the long run is a lot cheaper as it does not consume bandwidth on my phone while I am in the car 1 hour a day. Otherwise I play songs from my 60gb collection that grows monthly as I buy more music.
The sad part is that all these streaming services are barely better audio quality than FM radio, Spotify and the rest are so repetitive it's insane I gave up on it months ago and haven't looked back.
"I don't own Android device, so I won't subscribe to Google Play."
Google Play Music works fine on iPhones. And it works best in (nearly any) desktop browser.
We've seen it in videogame land with steam, MMO's (DRM'd rpg's) and the rise of "Free to play" the corproations are going to turn everything into a locked down playground and calll it a "Serice" they want you to merely "rent" not own anything.
This is what lead to this "DRM coffee pots" bullshit, companies always want to own everything and you to have nothing. That's the whole purpose of servicing/propertizing and taking ownership away from the average buyer for everything. As soon as corporations saw shit going on in videogame land thanks to steam/mmo's/f2p the saw the money league of legends/world of tanks were bringing in and hence everybody wanted in on the 'x as a service' bandwagon where you merely milk the idiot masses.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/05/07/2211220/keurig-stock-drops-says-it-was-wrong-about-drm-coffee-pods
I just wish Dell, HP, or IBM didn't keep people buying their even more over priced crap.
Don't forget Gateway! Their laptops are a complete rip-off, especially when one could get a Macbook with comparable hardware for only 3x the price.
lucm, indeed.
Sales up 240 per cent, Lies Damn Lies and Statistics Last year they could have sold 10 records this year 24 thats 240% of last year What are the raw numbers ?
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Why is GP -1, flamebait if parent got +5, Insightful posting a thoughtful response to it?
"Flamebait" is not supposed to mean "I completely disagree".
"Apple bashing"? How inarticulate and ultimately blindly supportive of a known repeat bad actor to keep their customers from controlling the iThings they buy. It's hardly far-fetched to see how the company receives bad press. They've made an ugly history for themselves rife with mistreating workers, users, and harming the environment. They found they could get away with non-freedom in software also exploits app developers "mercilessly" as Richard Stallman put it on his reasons why one shouldn't do business with Apple. Apple also uses digital restrictions management on eBooks which is set up so that those eBooks won't work on jailbroken iThings, stuck users with a U2 album and made it hard to delete, censors bitcoin apps for iThings, deauthorized a Wikileaks access application, banned an erotic novel from iTunes because of its cover, left a security hole in iTunes unfixed for 3 years, and more.
Digital Citizen
But who plays vinyl these days?
Who indeed...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
TL;DR - hipsters.
I did that in the 70's and 80's in my preteen and teens. First play of a new vinyl album was to a reel to reel at 7.5, last two I had were an Akia and a Denon. Second play was to a cassette, last one was a Nakamichi. I still played the vinyl but if it got bad, I had the reel to reel to fall back to. For about 6 months my dad had a SV-P100 which was one of the first "consumer" digital recorders and it used VHS tapes but he sold it. In the late 80's I moved out on my own. I switched to CDs and recording them to Sony a Hi-Fi VCR that you could turn off the ALC. This was before cd ripping and burning was possible. I had a Sony DAT but only used to sparingly.
All and all, the music situation is a lot better than it was 10-15 years ago. There are a lot of services for music that allow people to purchase tracks, such as Apple, Amazon, and Google.
The above allow one to have their MP3 stash scanned, and download tracks on another device that are of decent quality, as well as streamed. I buy tracks on one store, the use another for playing on another device.
Then there are services like Pandora, Rdio, Spotify, and others. Rdio is nice because it allows offline saving of tracks, although encrypted. Then there are utilities like SoundTaxi.
So, all and all, it isn't like the 2000s where if one wanted decent music, you had to pirate it and risk a multi-million criminal judgement from the RIAA. One can obtain songs quite legally these days.
I never wanted monthly music rental to begin with, so ... no.
I never wanted a saddle horse, but I haven't seen the need to post that inconsequential fact to every equine forum on the net.
That said, I bought a year's subscription to XBox Music on Pi Day for $31.40.
30 million tracks available for streaming or downloads to up to four devices.
Broadly representative of all musical genres, all eras of recorded music, hit and miss when it comes to the spoken word, no audiobooks. Metadata is sparse. No album notes, no lyrics, but still a resource that is miles wide and deep and useful even to the hardcore CD and Vinyl enthusiast.
P2P and USENET are bottomless time sinks, here you can summon up 50 to 100 albums or tracks for sampling in one click and fill your shopping cart or playlist from there.
Oops - you seem to have recorded this link on vinyl.
I have a top notch stereo/Dolby/whatever sound field u need system (All Sony for compatibility), beats anything I could hope to put together again. It's sitting in storage as the introduction of HDMI made it obsolete.
Got a Denon DHT-1312BA receiver as it came with matching speakers ( hell of a time saver), but it's got nothing on my old system, can't even use any of the peripheral components of the old system - unless of course I'm happy with stereo only.
--- While people scoff at the mention of the Usenet or Newsgroups, what's not commonly known is everything is hidden in plain sight, and where you'll find your DRM-less music.
Just need to find it's location, not as popular as it once was old groups are being used for new purposes, alt.biniaries.astronomy.sky is now just one huge movie collection (hard to get across just how many movies it contains - didn't count just scrolled down the list till I got bored) but it's slow going (unless you find a decent server). My Usenet is still free, slow is just fine with me.
So what's the big deal?
The big deal is this is Apple doing something! OMG!!!
This is just yet another Apple hit-piece. Every one of them is the same, Apple announces something and (depending on the author) it is the most heinous act yet from the most evil company that exists or it is the thing that will send Apple into bankruptcy because they are the most incompetent company ever.
How was this stopped in the past? I won't say because it might give people ideas.
Thank you for your cautious attitude. Who knows what kind of doomsday scenarios could happen if the wisdom of some anonymous coward who knows best was leaked on Slashdot.
lucm, indeed.
But why? Analog sound is garbage.
I rip my CDs to a non-DRM digital format. I can play them on my phone, on my computers, on most DVD players from either disc or from flash, and even on some car stereos that support mp3 from CD or from flash.
some cars even have built-in cd players so you can insert the entire cd instead of needing to rely on a flash drive.
"How to lie with statistics" was exactly what I thought as well, since the last numbers I saw indicated that vinyl represented a low, single-digit percentage of the entire music market. It's enjoying a brief renaissance among certain crowds, but those crowds are far from the norm, and most of them are starting to wise up to the fact that the audio fidelity of vinyl is provably worse than that of virtually any typical, digital medium (quick note: I am NOT claiming that it sounds worse, since that is strictly a matter of opinion; rather, I am asserting that the audio fidelity is worse, i.e. it is not reproducing the original sounds as accurately, which is a matter of fact).
That would involve waiting at least another week, and in a world moving a thousand miles a minute, we simply can't wait that...
*whispers from off-screen*
...nevermind, I forgot we were talking about Slashdot. Posting news is a timely fashion? As if!
Real pros record on water...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Dude, man, what?
DRM? DRM is a pretty loose term. CHMOD is DRM if you want to be pedantic, so isn't your password! Digital Rights Management.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Judging by how much they make. Yeah, they produce products most people want. Deal with it!
digital music is fixed with loudness war so it sounds like shit
The contact pressure from the stylus is high enough to cause the water to boil. You don't see it. But it will cause more wear than just playing the record dry. I did the reel-to-reel thing too, but not since the Reagen administration. Then I got a CD player.
I did that too on a 10" TEAC 4 channel. Probably needs new belts by now :)
You could pack about three hours of music on a 10 1/2 reel. It was great for partys, etc. Throw on a tape and forget it. I've been thinking about getting a reel-to-reel player to mess with. They're pretty cheap now days. But would probably go with a two- channel player that can play 10 1/2" reels and has auto-reverse. Direct drive would be nice to have for the reason you mention. The pre-recorded music catalog for this format is pretty weak. Time to think about taking my old, dusty mp-3s out of storage and making some new tapes from them. :-)
But why? Analog sound is garbage.
all sound is analog.
To nitpick, that would have been +140%
Since we're not allowed to make a criticism of it, all Apple know is that it didn't work. Maybe pirates. Maybe someone hacked their system.
They can't find out, because any reason why you didn't use this service would be a complaint, and, according to you, we're not allowed to complain, we're only allowed to avoid using it.
Although who died and made you king of the universe, giving you the right to tell everyone else what they're to do is opaque to me.
But, hey, you don't have to post on this thread "ZOMG! Just stop complaining!". Just don't read it or post on it. Then when slashdot and dice find out nobody cares about this sort of article, they'll not do it again, right?
As you can see, MUSIC can get you pretty fucked up...
Now you see, some places in the Third World it might be difficult to dance to this because .And a lot of times they run out of,
the kerosene record player is not a very efficient device..
they run out of spunk right in the middle of the chorus...
We suggest that in places like the Fourth World where things are really tough that you
keep the record player going by rubbing two sticks together. And if all else fails, throw
the record away...
They're pretty good musicians
But it don't make no difference
If they're good musicians
Because anybody who would buy this record
Doesn't give a fuck if there's good musicians
On it
Because this is a stupid song
AND THAT'S THE WAY I LIKE IT
thanks to F.Z.
Go well
As far as I know, Google Music Play doesn't use DRM. I've purchased a handful of albums there and there's a download link available, no problem. I think it's limited to a few downloads, but i don't really need much more to get my music out and play it on my computer or wherever. It's mp3, not vorbis, though...
Exclusively locking a subscription service to a platform is not DRM
You're confusing the ends & the means. The end goal is platform lock in, the means to do that is DRM.
If there was no DRM, you would just be able to save the streamed file, this is unlikely to be the case.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Maybe they sell overpriced stuff to people who haven't found out yet that Apple will fuck them up big-time? And, since you're insisting nobody point out Apple having a bad idea that will fuck people up big time, this ensures for Apple the maximum number of uninformed consumers who only ever hear how good Apple are. This, of course, means more profit for Apple and less need to give a shit for their customers.
Which is why there are all these inarticulate defences of Apple. And why you say "Judging by how much they make...".
Judging by how many people live in china, their government is brilliant, far better than the USA government.
See, I can make silly comparisons too!
Geez, it must be tough. Running the gauntlet of anti-Apple articles, clickbait, all that stuff.
Funny, but I'd bet a very large some(for me)of money that Apple receives far more favorable press than it does negative. Not a little more, far more.
I'd also bet that there are far more haters in the Apple camp than in any other. Proof? Go read any positive review for any phone, computer, etc for any company other than Apple and see who shows up in the comments.
Conjecture? Your complaining about conjecture? That's truly laughable. Everyday we are bombarded by teaser headlines telling us about the next great feature the iPhone will have or the size of the screen or one of a dozen different rumors.
No, what I see here is whining. As soon as the conjecture isn't positive for Apple, then it's clickbait. Or big bad conjecture that we should disregard until the 'facts' emerge.
Bottom line=good rumors are ok but bad rumors should be avoided. Gee, insightful.
However, with platform-based subscriptions, I just can't get all that upset about it. I don't own an Android device, so I won't subscribe to Google Play. Also, there are a wealth of quality subscription services out there that run on all of the popular platforms. So what's the big deal?
The problem is with the content side. Exclusive deals really tend to be anti-consumer, like most forms of bundling. You want to watch your favorite show, well to do that you have to purchase some service at an exhorbitant price that gives you that one show plus 500 others you don't care about. Want that channel on your cable? No problem, just pay an extra $30/mo for that channel and 14 more you don't care about. Want a Pepsi to go with your Big Mac? No problem - just forego the combo price, stop at two places, and eat in your car since nobody allows outside food or drink.
The market would only work better if exclusive deals were banned. If people don't want to drink RC cola, then they won't buy it, and most places won't bother to stock it. However, there will no longer be a financial incentive for McDonald's to ONLY carry Coke products, when some consumers might be more likely to purchase a drink if they offered Pepsi as well, and so on.
I'm not saying that Apple should be forced to sell their music on Android, or on Linux, or on Blackberry, or on Palm Pilots, or on Windows 95 and whatever other oddball platform people want to buy them on. However, there shouldn't be any barriers to Apple putting their product on these platforms, and there shouldn't be any barriers to those who sell to Apple also selling to others who ARE willing to put their product on those platforms.
Complaining about how what the kids are into makes no sense? Congratulations, you are now middle-aged. You have become the thing you hated.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
True, there's no reason that Apple had to use their own DRM in the original iPods. There's no reason that Amazon needs to use their own DRM in their ebooks either, but people reward them by giving them money. In many cases the only source for legal copies is from companies that are engaged in illegal marketing.
no DRM? So i can record it?
The Cloud will always be about the services themselves, and soon they will be the banks and we will be the people paying a transaction fee for every withdrawal.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Why bother with a relatively fragile disc if you can carry much more with equivalent quality (for car stereo purposes) on a single flash drive?
Check your math.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Here are the US numbers for vinyl, from Billboard:
https://www.billboard.com/arti...
You are welcome on my lawn.
DRM is fine, as long as it's Apple doing it... right guys?
You forgot the WOOSH. (Reel and not Real)
Um, I think it is you who have been wooshed, not Dogtanian. Dogtanian did nothing but make fun of the difference between reel and real.
Music is free.
Don't subscribe! I doubt Apple will be able to secure an exclusive so tight that the album won't be available for purchase. Renting music has got to be the dumbest idea I have ever heard of, at least to me. I will continue to buy my music until I can't any more. I refuse to be locked into a monthly payment to enjoy music.
"DRM is a means of limiting the distribution of a purchased (or licensed) digital file by the owner (or licensee)."
Well if you think about it locking it to Apple devices that is limiting the distribution by Apple so in a Sense it IS DRM.
Anything that controls how I can listen to music, or how I can watch a video, or how I can play a game, is DRM. By definition.
However, for a streaming music service, what you pay for is the ability to play the music you want, according to the clearly advertised terms of the service, as long as you pay for a service. DRM or just lack of interoperability that interferes with this is a defect. DRM that doesn't interfere with this is absolutely fine.
So if Apple sells a service that lets you listen to music on any Mac, iPhone, iPod or iPad, as long as you pay for the service, then they should clearly advertise exactly what they offer, and should deliver what they advertise, and that's it. If that music doesn't play on your Xbox and they never said it would and listed all the devices that you can use, that's fine. If you can't record it and play back after you stopped paying for the service, that's fine.
The problem with DRM on music in the past was (1) you purchased the music or at least you were told you purchased it, but DRM stopped you from playing it, and (2) DRM stopped working and then you couldn't play the music at all, not even in the way that you were supposed to play it.
Dude, that's what radio is for!
If you just want to "listen to music", get a one of the free or premium radio player apps, pick any genre' and you can listen to practically any real radio station in the world (including, for example, every singe one in Jamaica) as well as a huge number of "Internet-only" choices.
Many of these have great, high-quality curated content. I'm not a "golden ears" so I'm OK with the audio quality of most.
If you're really into a specific artist, there's always certainly a free channel devoted to them, unless they are obscure. If they are obscure, buy their tracks in and support them ferchristsake! Then you can listen to them any time you want. You are doing them any favors streaming them, because they will get tiny payments if any when it comes out in the wash.
One of the days I might take the time to convert my vinyl. Naw, probably not... I just put on KCRW Eclectic 24 in the car, and it calms me between the nice lady saying "now, take the exit to the right" after I've passed the exit... And that's the sum total of my streaming experience.
Oh, yea, I guess I have a subscription service I don't use. I have Amazon Prime. I use it for the free shipping. If there's a movie they have that I really, really want to see, and I can't get it on Netflix or some free channel on Apple TV, I might go to the trouble of AirPlaying it from my Mac. But never used their music streaming.
I'd bet more people are in the opposite position of you. That is, they already have a streaming service that they don't even use.
Yup, I remember reel-to-reel. Ah, the '70s! A good Teac or Akai deck through a pair of monobloc McIntosh MC60 tube amps driving a good set of horn-loaded speakers is some serious ear-candy. Even by today's standards.
With that system it was always a matter of "Gee, that 3 hr tape is over already?" because there was just no listening fatigue at all and you just did not notice how long you'd been listening, even at significant volumes.
Being a musician (guitarist) the lower-fatigue aspect was greatly appreciated, as I spent a *lot* of time listening; to music I was learning, recorded tracks or idea snippets I was working on, plus normal everyday music listening. It was quite normal for the system to remain powered up and playing *something* for days or even weeks at a stretch.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I'm confused with this hatred of DRM. I grew up in an age of streaming music -- we called it FM Radio. (there was no ".com", ".net", ".radio", or ".fm").
So we, the people, invented the record button. Grab the boombox, push the button with the red circle and presto! The live streaming music was magically transferred to local storage. From there, we called "copying" "high-speed dubbing".
Today, pick your favourite audio application, and just hit record. Magically, whatever you hear gets transferred to local storage -- sans DRM. And unlike in the past, the recording often happens within the "sound card", with zero loss. It can be a youtube video, it can be DVD, or it can be something streaming. If you can hear it, you can record it.
What's the problem?
That would be incredible if increasing the pressure caused water to boil. I think there's a perpetual motion machine in there somewhere.
(Lowering the pressure could cause water to boil, but not increasing it. Maybe you meant the heat from friction, but I doubt there's that much heat being generated.)
Youtube and keepvid.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
There needs to be a way to broadcast high-quality stereo music wirelessly to cheap, ubiquitous receivers that don’t require a subscription feethe entire enterprise could be payed for by advertising!
Remember, this is written by the manchild who threw a fit when people made fun of his studded bracelet pictured in his Apple Watch review.
http://gawker.com/adult-website-editor-throws-twitter-tantrum-over-his-br-1697459743
Another closed ecosystem in which I will not be participating.
Used CDs. Rip them. Populate whatever device you want. If you're not up on the latest tunes, so what? We need to get out of the habit of paying a premium to be the first to see or hear something.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I know, right?
Why buy a greasy, flattened McDonalds burger when you can get a burger from {insert quality regional burger chain} for only 3x the price?
Its just ground beef and a bun, after all.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I priced out an equivalent Dell a year ago on my latest purchase, and the Dell wound up being $400 more, with less capable hardware, but it did have 0.5" more screen!
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Then you should give me a device to USE your service. Not as something I have to buy, but as something to access "your" stream.
That isn't paid for by me, isn't maintained by me and remains yours, given to me just to access your site. Ergo it can obey YOUR needs (IOW DRM restriction to ensure I don't save it to my PC) and not mine (IOW letting me stream to a Linux music server box you won't write a DRM decoder for).
If it breaks, you fix it (or I cannot use your service so I should not pay for it), if I stop paying your feels, ask for it back or disable it.
All of this is fine.
What isn't fine is you demanding DRM that makes my PC I bought no longer do what I want but only allow it if you think it's safe for me to do so.
Seriously shitcan the streaming shit and buy CDs, problem solved.
Fixed that for you.
The only 'streaming' music I'll listen to is broadcast radio, and you can say what you want about it, but it's ubiquitos, and it's free. I might even go so far as to get HD radio in my vehicle, getting around the fact that FM stereo is half (or less) the quality of CD audio. Shoutcast was nice for a while before the recording industry ruined that for everyone. Just not thrilled with the idea of yet again another 'service' that I'd have to pay for, on top of having to pay for internet connectivity.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
"That means I'll have yet a fourth music service in my life (Spotify, Google Play Music, Prime, and Apple Music) and a fourth set of content exclusives and pricing windows to think about instead of just listening to music."
Then why use it? Just because Apple puts out a product does NOT mean that you have to buy or use it.
Which is 240% of last year.
100% of last year is a 0% change.
You know math, but fail at understanding how phrasing changes the numbers to assist in lying with statistics.
Depends on the speed you are recording at. I used to use Scotch Classic tape and record at 3.75 in/s for even longer play time. You could go up to 15 and even 30 in/s but my toshiba tape recorder was doing 7.5 in/s max if I remember correctly.
Whatever tape I used degraded over time, hence keep the vinyl as a master copy and re-record it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
A friend of mine bought a Nakamichi cassette recorder for 2000$ in 1985. It used to play and record just about as well as my reel to reel tape recorder that I bough for half that price.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
So long as we can still buy real hard copies of the music such as CD, download or even vinyl then we retain personal control over our collections. I can imagine that in the future new music will only be available on DRM-corrupted streaming services and we will have no choice but to subscribe to one or another of them.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
Laugh if you will, but it's this kind of shit that makes me still buy music on CD. Then I can rip it wherever, and in whatever format/quality, I want.
I like that Amazon Prime automatically gives me access to mp3s to any CD that I buy. That's the best of both worlds. And even if they change that, or I stop being a Prime member -- I still own/have CD quality music.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Oh, its all about the artist. The blessed, long-suffering, divine artist. And who to protect these poor poor suffering, hard-working artist, but the music industry. The proud, sharp tongued, sword carrying music industry. And if you believe that lie, then you keep paying forever for work done in a short time, and protected long after the idea for the music (or the song it was copied from) has long died. The music industry is profitable, giving lawyers and robber-barons an unprecedented source of income. And its not even what is fair or lawful that goes: its what you can get away with. And in recent years, their pockets have been brimming, more than they can carry. And places where copyright is fair and reasonable is a bane to their existence. For everyone else (people who actually make things), copyright is properly seen as the calling card of the unproductive, slovenly, lazy, greedy and self-entitled. In the United States: Those who can't sue those who can.(tm)
And he should of put woosh in his post
Or you could, y'know, listen to the radio.
I call BS.
You never had a reel to reel tape recorder.
Or you can't spell !
That's why CD, despite its flaws, is probably the best format for someone that wants physical media. It's a physical media with a defined standard that discs and physical players have to follow, but can also be read electronically in computers both for conventional playback and for manipulation of what's recorded to the disc, and since the standards predate DRM, it's not really possible to truly lock-out CDs from being converted to literally any other digital format that the listener wants to use.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Hit a used CD store (and now that spring/summer is here, Garage/Yard sales), buy what I want, rip to mp3, put on my player, play anywhere, no , and full control over my playlist with no commericals
*some* music I could listen to over and over. Other times I go back to some of the older items in my collection and am like "WTF was I thinking when I thought that this was good"
I used to put a drop of water at the point where the needle touched the record. It really did help with the static pops. The needle would drag the drop around as the record played.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Same setup here except for the horn-loaded speakers. I found that the sound was better with dome tweeters without a horn. 3 way bass-reflex with conic bass and midrange and dome tweeter. Electrostatic speakers were interesting too although expensive.
Horn-loaded speakers prevailed when you went above, say, 150 W RMS. They seem to be a must in all concerts. I have never seen a dome tweeter in those contexts.
Then again, I hear that horns are hard to tune so maybe I just listened to crappy horn-loaded speakers back then ;-)
Cheers,
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Makes me think, do you know what they put behind those horns back then?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Well what this story talks about is something that could be what happens. Apple Loves to do things to get people and keep people in their system to keep buy their over priced crap.
Hey, will you admit how stupid you look now?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I priced out an equivalent Dell a year ago on my latest purchase, and the Dell wound up being $400 more, with less capable hardware, but it did have 0.5" more screen!
Reminds me of the old days, when Apple always sold smaller monitors than the others. Even when those monitors used the same CRT. Turned out that Apple measured the visible part of the tube, and the others the whole tube. That's way Apple 12" CRT was actually what others sold as a 13" CRT.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.