Each has a context, and each applies to different situations. 'Steal' and 'Theft' do not *only* apply in situations/contexts of scarcity. How about someone who steals ideas? Or steals 'intellectual property'?
And how about a converse situation? Say you have a nearly limitless amount of an item, a suprlus as it were. Is it not stealing then, if you take something that isn't scarce?
Millions of apples, hundreds per store, thousands everywhere, and you go into a supermarket and take one. Is that not theft, even though there is *no* scarcity of apples?
How about a can of soda?
Or a jellybean from a bulk candy counter?
Or am I bringing up strawmen?
The point is that there are people who 'deserve' recompense for the act of production, invention, distribution, advertising, replication, and manufacture of this music, and by 'copying', you bypass all those mechanisms (good) but fail to recompense the people who made it possible (bad).
The Apple Music store *also* bypasses those mechanisms (good), which leads to an increase in efficiency, but *also* gives them some money for the effort (also good).
But not being played on Windows/Linux is not about DRM!
It's the lack of a suitable player!
Same with playback on portable MP3 players; they aren't MP3s!
And... it can be used in 'all' applications on the Mac. It imports fine into iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, Quicktime... and if Quicktime can open it, then every app that uses Quicktime can use it.
Developing a game is developing a game, regardless of architecture. It means learning the basics of good algorithms, good story design, good interface, optimization, perhaps some marketing and research.
Specific tools may be different, sure, but that's like saying, "Is it worth learning to program on Linux if you're going to be working on Mac/Windows/Solaris/AIX?"
The answer is yes. Skills are skills, while experience is experience, and you need both.
Apple's AACs are no worse, technically, except Apple has *given* the user the easy ability to get around the copy protection. Burn to CD and rerip.
A copy protected CD? You need to apply whatever brand of magic is required to bypass the copy protection. Which I don't know, off the top of my head, for all the variations.
Sure. Since you can't offer the MB that Apple can, you can't offer backup. You can offer iPhoto/homepage integration. You can offer the same homepage templates. You can't offer the Freeplay Music service.
I use and love.Mac
I think competition is a good thing
Apple should offer exactly what they are good at: Integration, ease of use, usability, service.
If someone can do something better than Apple, it's in Apple's service to *work* with them so everyone wins, not to sue them out of existence.
To use a different example.
Apple grows Apples well, and oranges only mediocre. I can grow oranges well, but no apples at all.
So it's in Apple's interest to sell apples, and then work with me to offer their customers oranges.
I can't sell apples, but at least I get my oranges sold.
I guess it means you're optimistic on DRM, trusted computing, Palladium, and Microsoft, then?
Or, rather, you trust that market pressures for backward compatibility will weigh in and make the computers of today compatibile with the Microsoft OS of 2 years hence.
When you say PC, you mean the machine you have right now on your desk, right? You don't mean the machine that will be available in 2005, because those are two very, and probably incompatible to some extent, things.
This only applies to the US. The global market will be huge too, if Apple can pull that off. Japan has a higher Mac rate than we do, for example.
This only applies to people who own Macs. 4% of the US market. The Windows side will be *huge*.
This only applies to people who have downloaded iTunes4 and Quicktime 6.2, and I believe as the month progresses, more Mac users will have downloaded both programs. Again, I think we'll see the customer base grow.
This only applies to people running OS X 10.1.5 or greater, and not anyone running 10.1 or OS 9. We're still in the process of seeing people switch from older versions of the Mac OS to the newer versions, and I wouldn't be surprised if the population of OS X users is something like 15%. That means, again, that the customer base can grow (triple, easily).
So the 1 millions songs is actually quite low, and if you're optimistic, quite easy to achieve as more people sign onto the store in the next month.
But from my interaction with fellow Mac users, I really doubt it!
I think you'll see that the money will go *up*.
Right now only a small percentage of OS X users even know about the service, until Apple starts pushing the ads on TV. So as more people update to iTunes4 and Quicktime 6.2, you'll see many more sales.
Then you've got the people who are switching from OS 9 to OS X. They are still a large portion of the Mac community, and that should provide a huge customer base; and word of mouth will work, which is what the million songs is quickly becoming.
Then you have the fact that the user base is going to get *huge* when a Windows port comes out.
So 1 million songs in one week is a small seed; you have an established customer base that will grow, not shrink, as more albums and music is provided.
Even if 60% goes to the music industry, this isn't something to laugh at. We'll see if, in a month, Apple can maintain $1m a week (or greater). I would not be surprised if it could keep it up, or something higher.
No one *trusts* Microsoft. They have a history of rapage and pillage. So they *need* more strict and draconian contracts with Microsoft because:
Microsoft products are unreliable Microsoft products are insecure Microsoft is unreliable Microsoft is untrustworthy
Whereas Apple, along with Jobs, has these benefits: Macs are still heavily used in content creation. They have a halo effect, that way Jobs runs Pixar, and has an understanding of content. Another halo effect Apple sells content creation tools. They understand IP concerns on all sides (users, producers, and distributors)
That, and Apple really does have a smaller, more controllable audience.
I've actually browsed eMusic after the iTMS debut....
It actually sucks in comparison. So how much of this success due to a significant advance in implementation?
I think a lot of it *is* implementation.
The iTunes Music Store implementation is an enhanced database, with the iTunes program acting as the database browser. You can search against all four ID3 tags (artist, album, genre, song), unlike eMusic where you can only search against one of them at a time, and then you can sort by all ID3 tags, like track length, name, album, artist, genre, composer, etc, again unlike eMusic. Then there's the ability to hyper-link browse in the iTunes store; every artist, album, composer, and genre is a hyperlink, which means you can easily go from a song to an artist, or an album, or other albums, or other songs, etc.
It's like the web, re-invented all over again, vs static and non interactive text pages.
The price is seductively attractive too. No subscription fees (which eMusc has), and no unorthodox usage rules. Burn to a CD no problem, unlimited file copy no problem, etc.
And Timing, too. Apple can take advantage of their iPod; 130,000 sold last week, with 700,000 in the wild. That's huge.
You're testing the quality of the encoder, not the quality of the format, necessarily.
What program did you use to encode AAC? What program did you use to encode MP3?
On a Mac you'll find the average user uses iTunes for both, and with *that* metric, iTunes AAC does sound better than iTunes MP3. And in that case, it makes perfect sense that people would reencode. Higher quality, smaller file size, what's not to like?
And I've burned to CD (obviously should be indistinguishable from the AAC) than reimported as mp3 (same quality as other CD->MP3 rips). I assume if I had ripped from CD->AAC, then I would have better quality, since I find an AAC sounds better than an MP3.
And... why am I a troll? Did I trigger some troll-alerts?
To my knowledge, a 600dpi 3' by 2' print at 36bit CIE/LAB/Whatever is already 1.1GB in size; throw in a layer or two, and you're up to 4GB easily.
Or a smaller add print, just for magazine, at 200DPI, 8" by 11", 36 bit, 15 layers... that's already 200mb right there. Then say you're working with multiple sources and files, so you have 10 or 15 documents open, of similar sizes... that's easily a GB right there. This is just for the raw files, not counting all the scratch needed during computation and processing, while saving, compressing, etc.
So you have multiple programs open, including Photoshop: Say you need something in Classic, which is really the entire of the old Mac OS, and a program, which may take it's own chunk of RAM, and that's another several hundred megabytes. Then the same with VirtualPC, maybe you need a PC only piece of software... Windows itself takes several hundred megabytes, including the virtualizer, and the program may take another couple hundred, and whatever file you're using can use a hundred or so...
It's not out of the question that people are already saturating 2GB, since that is the current hard limit on many Macs, and will easily grow to take advantage of 4GB if they had it, much less >> 4GB.
Slashdot Mirror
And why not call it stealing?
g
There are other euphemisms, of course.
Advertising
Distributing
Broadcasting
Sharin
Listening
Advocating
Each has a context, and each applies to different situations.
'Steal' and 'Theft' do not *only* apply in situations/contexts of scarcity. How about someone who steals ideas? Or steals 'intellectual property'?
And how about a converse situation? Say you have a nearly limitless amount of an item, a suprlus as it were. Is it not stealing then, if you take something that isn't scarce?
Millions of apples, hundreds per store, thousands everywhere, and you go into a supermarket and take one. Is that not theft, even though there is *no* scarcity of apples?
How about a can of soda?
Or a jellybean from a bulk candy counter?
Or am I bringing up strawmen?
The point is that there are people who 'deserve' recompense for the act of production, invention, distribution, advertising, replication, and manufacture of this music, and by 'copying', you bypass all those mechanisms (good) but fail to recompense the people who made it possible (bad).
The Apple Music store *also* bypasses those mechanisms (good), which leads to an increase in efficiency, but *also* gives them some money for the effort (also good).
But not being played on Windows/Linux is not about DRM!
It's the lack of a suitable player!
Same with playback on portable MP3 players; they aren't MP3s!
And... it can be used in 'all' applications on the Mac. It imports fine into iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, Quicktime... and if Quicktime can open it, then every app that uses Quicktime can use it.
And the obvious answer is... we can't do either!
I think we can count handfuls of atoms, possibly even hundreds or thousands... But you're asking for trillions of trillions!
Sure it applies.
Developing a game is developing a game, regardless of architecture. It means learning the basics of good algorithms, good story design, good interface, optimization, perhaps some marketing and research.
Specific tools may be different, sure, but that's like saying, "Is it worth learning to program on Linux if you're going to be working on Mac/Windows/Solaris/AIX?"
The answer is yes. Skills are skills, while experience is experience, and you need both.
Except that no one has actually counted/created a structure composed of a mol of any particular element.
The minute you can do that, then you can reliably and predictably create a fixed metric by which any one in any place can measure mass.
I'm surprised you got OS X working on an 8600. Don't you need a CPU upgrade for that? Or will OS X work on 603/604 CPUs?
Complain about copy protected CDs.
Apple's AACs are no worse, technically, except Apple has *given* the user the easy ability to get around the copy protection. Burn to CD and rerip.
A copy protected CD? You need to apply whatever brand of magic is required to bypass the copy protection. Which I don't know, off the top of my head, for all the variations.
Sure. Since you can't offer the MB that Apple can, you can't offer backup. You can offer iPhoto/homepage integration. You can offer the same homepage templates. You can't offer the Freeplay Music service.
.Mac
I use and love
I think competition is a good thing
Apple should offer exactly what they are good at: Integration, ease of use, usability, service.
If someone can do something better than Apple, it's in Apple's service to *work* with them so everyone wins, not to sue them out of existence.
To use a different example.
Apple grows Apples well, and oranges only mediocre. I can grow oranges well, but no apples at all.
So it's in Apple's interest to sell apples, and then work with me to offer their customers oranges.
I can't sell apples, but at least I get my oranges sold.
Right about what?
You mean no one else can offer webDAV?
No one can reverse engineer protocols?
I think Apple would be right to respond by increasing their value, whether it be via quality, reliability, service, price, or features.
Suing a competitor is hardly 'right'
That's hardly better than muscling out the competition through legal contracts and price structure schemes.
It seems there is an opportunity for a third party to establish a competitor to .Mac
Maybe 80% of the features at 70% of the price? $69 a year, or $5.99 a month, for an email, synching, calendaring, etc?
I guess it means you're optimistic on DRM, trusted computing, Palladium, and Microsoft, then?
Or, rather, you trust that market pressures for backward compatibility will weigh in and make the computers of today compatibile with the Microsoft OS of 2 years hence.
Are you sure about that?
When you say PC, you mean the machine you have right now on your desk, right? You don't mean the machine that will be available in 2005, because those are two very, and probably incompatible to some extent, things.
That's what competition is for! That's why there are alternatives!
:)
Like... Mac OS X
Like... Linux
Yes, it sucks if the majority platform becomes stupid, but there are still workable alternatives.
Of course, if Microsoft decides to drop Office support for Mac, then we've got another problem
Or maybe Apple will see this as the opportunity to finally release OS X86... I'm joking!
No one has mentioned several important things.
This only applies to the US. The global market will be huge too, if Apple can pull that off. Japan has a higher Mac rate than we do, for example.
This only applies to people who own Macs. 4% of the US market. The Windows side will be *huge*.
This only applies to people who have downloaded iTunes4 and Quicktime 6.2, and I believe as the month progresses, more Mac users will have downloaded both programs. Again, I think we'll see the customer base grow.
This only applies to people running OS X 10.1.5 or greater, and not anyone running 10.1 or OS 9. We're still in the process of seeing people switch from older versions of the Mac OS to the newer versions, and I wouldn't be surprised if the population of OS X users is something like 15%. That means, again, that the customer base can grow (triple, easily).
So the 1 millions songs is actually quite low, and if you're optimistic, quite easy to achieve as more people sign onto the store in the next month.
Actually, go to apple.slashdot.org and read a Wired article on an exploit.
:D
I think the iTunes Music Store uses WebObjects, which might already be XML
But from my interaction with fellow Mac users, I really doubt it!
I think you'll see that the money will go *up*.
Right now only a small percentage of OS X users even know about the service, until Apple starts pushing the ads on TV. So as more people update to iTunes4 and Quicktime 6.2, you'll see many more sales.
Then you've got the people who are switching from OS 9 to OS X. They are still a large portion of the Mac community, and that should provide a huge customer base; and word of mouth will work, which is what the million songs is quickly becoming.
Then you have the fact that the user base is going to get *huge* when a Windows port comes out.
So 1 million songs in one week is a small seed; you have an established customer base that will grow, not shrink, as more albums and music is provided.
Even if 60% goes to the music industry, this isn't something to laugh at. We'll see if, in a month, Apple can maintain $1m a week (or greater). I would not be surprised if it could keep it up, or something higher.
Oh, easy I think.
No one *trusts* Microsoft. They have a history of rapage and pillage. So they *need* more strict and draconian contracts with Microsoft because:
Microsoft products are unreliable
Microsoft products are insecure
Microsoft is unreliable
Microsoft is untrustworthy
Whereas Apple, along with Jobs, has these benefits:
Macs are still heavily used in content creation. They have a halo effect, that way
Jobs runs Pixar, and has an understanding of content. Another halo effect
Apple sells content creation tools. They understand IP concerns on all sides (users, producers, and distributors)
That, and Apple really does have a smaller, more controllable audience.
I've actually browsed eMusic after the iTMS debut....
It actually sucks in comparison. So how much of this success due to a significant advance in implementation?
I think a lot of it *is* implementation.
The iTunes Music Store implementation is an enhanced database, with the iTunes program acting as the database browser. You can search against all four ID3 tags (artist, album, genre, song), unlike eMusic where you can only search against one of them at a time, and then you can sort by all ID3 tags, like track length, name, album, artist, genre, composer, etc, again unlike eMusic. Then there's the ability to hyper-link browse in the iTunes store; every artist, album, composer, and genre is a hyperlink, which means you can easily go from a song to an artist, or an album, or other albums, or other songs, etc.
It's like the web, re-invented all over again, vs static and non interactive text pages.
The price is seductively attractive too. No subscription fees (which eMusc has), and no unorthodox usage rules. Burn to a CD no problem, unlimited file copy no problem, etc.
And Timing, too. Apple can take advantage of their iPod; 130,000 sold last week, with 700,000 in the wild. That's huge.
You're testing the quality of the encoder, not the quality of the format, necessarily.
What program did you use to encode AAC? What program did you use to encode MP3?
On a Mac you'll find the average user uses iTunes for both, and with *that* metric, iTunes AAC does sound better than iTunes MP3. And in that case, it makes perfect sense that people would reencode. Higher quality, smaller file size, what's not to like?
Now, where can I get Fischerspooner's Emerge...?
And I've burned to CD (obviously should be indistinguishable from the AAC) than reimported as mp3 (same quality as other CD->MP3 rips). I assume if I had ripped from CD->AAC, then I would have better quality, since I find an AAC sounds better than an MP3.
Too late, you did!
And... why am I a troll? Did I trigger some troll-alerts?
To my knowledge, a 600dpi 3' by 2' print at 36bit CIE/LAB/Whatever is already 1.1GB in size; throw in a layer or two, and you're up to 4GB easily.
Or a smaller add print, just for magazine, at 200DPI, 8" by 11", 36 bit, 15 layers... that's already 200mb right there. Then say you're working with multiple sources and files, so you have 10 or 15 documents open, of similar sizes... that's easily a GB right there. This is just for the raw files, not counting all the scratch needed during computation and processing, while saving, compressing, etc.
So you have multiple programs open, including Photoshop: Say you need something in Classic, which is really the entire of the old Mac OS, and a program, which may take it's own chunk of RAM, and that's another several hundred megabytes. Then the same with VirtualPC, maybe you need a PC only piece of software... Windows itself takes several hundred megabytes, including the virtualizer, and the program may take another couple hundred, and whatever file you're using can use a hundred or so...
It's not out of the question that people are already saturating 2GB, since that is the current hard limit on many Macs, and will easily grow to take advantage of 4GB if they had it, much less >> 4GB.
What do you mean, not needed?
:D
How about Photoshop, which could *easily* swallow 4gb of RAM?
Or VirtualPC running Windows XP + some program?
Or Classic running OS 9 + some program?
Or a combination of all three of the above at once?
Sure, only *some* applications can use the 64bit data paths, but every program can take advantage of the faster bus
And for those who want to foster more cross pollination (in either direction), I present...
:)
Konfabulator!
I know, the K makes it look KDE... it isn't
Um, if it's a real mp4 file, it doesn't matter what you rename it, Quicktime player should play it...
Sorta like taking an mp3 file and renaming it anything... iTunes should still play it, if it's a legal mp3 file...
mov is a container format, like avi.
Quicktime is a framework, with encoding, codecs, playback, and other features.
Quicktimes also has an mp4 implementation, as well as Sorenson, h264, mpeg2, and others.