Apple to Launch Music Service? 877
discstickers writes "The San Jose Mercury News is running an article about an Apple music service that might be ready to launch next month. $.99 a song with the ability to burn to CD doesn't sound too bad."
$1/song? I'll bite. (Score:5, Insightful)
Still a little pricey. (Score:5, Insightful)
99 cents a track.
~12 tracks on a disc.
~12 bucks for the music, and you have to provide the bandwith, physical media, and case. oh, and no liner notes.
Thanks, but I'll go to my local indie store, where they have the media, case, and liner notes all for 12 bucks.
Apple DRM... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which indicates there is something in it that stops the rest of us using it. This would further indicate either a closed format with codecs only for these two. Or DRM on top of something that exists.
Now is that bad ? Maybe not, but I was pretty sure that the Slashdot perfect model was
Download for
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:99c / track? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's worth looking into at least.
Re:99c / track? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not if:
a.) The selection's good.
b.) The quality is guaranteed.
c.) The transfers happen quickly.
d.) There's an ability to preview the song.
Believe it or not, the price tag is not the major contributer to using Kazaa. It provides the best service. But it's got plenty of room for somebody with good bandwidth to come in and make a better model of it.
You have to remember, this is the same country where people drive gas-guzzling SUVS, pay $3.50 for a coffee and pay over $1.00 for bottled water. They want quality and service, the cost isn't really that big of issue.
The best source for these rumors was /. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just waiting for some electronic music distributor to realize that they'll make more money if they distribute MP3s and use social pressures to discourage piracy. If an album cost $4 online, and they'll let you do whatever you like with the music, why would you steal?
Even Apple doesn't get it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well then (Score:4, Insightful)
So the big question is (and always has been), are people generally more like you or more like me?
If the service really does offer MP3's for download at $1 a song, then we might get a chance to find out.
Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
~3% Not Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$.99 for a song?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Try before you buy (Score:5, Insightful)
iPhoto Purchasing System (Score:3, Insightful)
To order music through a similar system of Apple's would be a dream! I hope they're having success in offering a variety of services (.Mac, iphoto ordering, etc), and the addition of music seems a natural step for them to take.
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)
For that matter, there should be more than a few java based gnutella clients. Those should work too.
Re:$.99 for a song?! (Score:3, Insightful)
But, hey, why am I surprised that people are still finding this too expensive? Hell, if they offered them at $.01/song then people would still bitch.
Excepting that this service doesn't apply to me (since I own neither a Mac nor an iPod), it sounds pretty damn good. I'd be happy to pay $.99/track for songs I like as long as they were high quality and readily available. I'd certainly buy more music than I do now.
$0.99 is still too high... (Score:3, Insightful)
-11 tracks @
-Alternately, the CD is 9.96 at my local Target.
-With tax, that's $10.65 (with CD cover, notes, lyrics, etc).
Can anyone then explain which is the better buy, especially after I pay for the DSL connection from home, and the blank CD?
Oh, and if I may add, the cost of the music for taking my friend to the store to get the CD, then rip it and share it with me...$0. Of course, that's just so I can listen to it and decide if I want to spend my $10.65 on it as well ^_^
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the existence of 'free' (modulo the long term social cost of killing the creation of future music) alternatives could prevent this potentially sustainable model from catching hold.
Normally, when a society wants to proscribe some activity which is destructive to its long term health (such as the widespread freeloading of music), it uses social norms and, in extreme cases, laws to prevent them. Hmm - maybe copying music without giving anything back to the artist ought to be socially unacceptable, or maybe even illegal?
Re:At first glance... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:99c / track? (Score:5, Insightful)
An Apple-designed service can be expected to be well-designed, reliable, and cool. If 4 major record labels really do provide content this could take off in a major way. This could materially increase Apple's marketshare. Contrast this with Microsoft's DRM-laden plans and you'll see that there will be a clear choice
My employer pays a lot of ASCAP fees, and we have to support Limewire because we have legitimate needs for rapid access to a vast music library. The #1 question during the iTunes 'rollout' was "can I download MP3s with this ?" That answer is about to change.
LA Times (Score:3, Insightful)
As seen on macslash [macslash.org]
What gets me is the "registered iPod" bit...can't we do anything anonymously anymore? Geeze!
Re:Still a little pricey. (Score:4, Insightful)
And some songs you don't want...
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)
Says who? I can guarantee I wont find 15 songs I want on their site. It'll be all mainstream top 40 type of stuff that I dont buy (its on the radio ad nauseum, why would I?)
I dont use P2P, but I do download some mp3s once in awhile, and it's usually from a friend or someone I know who has similar tastes sending me obscure old punk or metal that is hard to find in stores, and impossible on services like this.
Show me a link to Mr Bungle on Apple's music site. Not even a really obscure example, but I can guarantee it wont be there.
Re:Hmmmmmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine it would be a much higher adoption rate, if it were all this, and the RIAA and record congloms saw $$ coming in.
But in a sense you are right. There will always be those that weren't going to pay for it to begin with.
Someone mentioned one of Apple's good philosophies above.
Kepp the honest people honest by offering incentive such as 5 liscense packs of OS X for only $70 more
Re:Even Apple doesn't get it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple Corps? (Score:3, Insightful)
What ever happened to Apple's agreement with the Beatles? Way back in the early 80s (or so), the Beatles were concerned about trademark infringement against their "Apple Corps" music label, but the issue was settled when it was clear that Apple would not be in the music business. Things got dicey again when music processing became a normal everyday computer-based activity, but I could still see a clear distinction. A service like this, though, would be a likely trademark conflict.
Anybody know what became of that agreement?
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
That depends: does the customized CD have the original CD audio files, or CD audio recordings of a lossy-compressed format? If I'm going to be paying for it, I want CD-A, not MP3s.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
But please, if you remove the RIAA from the picture, and thus their bilking of the arist, the artists would like to be paid *somehow*.
I give my music away on mp3.com, besonic.com for free. But if I entered into a recording contract, I would like to imagine that people dont want all their music for free, for ever, no ifs ands or buts.
Kazaa is preferable to handing over money to the RIAA's members, but paying 1$ a song should be preferable to most people than getting all their music for free.
Even building a cheap mini studio to make music can cost anywhere from a grand (if you dont mind poor sound quality and only listen to intrumental/vocal music), to ten grand (approaching radio-quality production quality, more electronic type music). While many artists would like to give music away for free, its just not economically possible. So please temper your opinions with the realization that money has to come from somewhere
People say musicians make money from touring, but alot of the new kind of music coming out doesn't make sense in a live context (electronic music, mostly.) So its a pipe dream to imagine that getting distributed copies of music should always be free because musicians can just tour
Thanks.
Re:99c / track? (Score:1, Insightful)
99 cents a song... that's... (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, I don't have any problem morally with downloading a couple of songs for free if I don't like the band neough to buy the album. It's just the same as getting a copy from a friend, or recording it from radio or whatever. If I like them, then I get the album, and for 99cents a song, it'd be about as cheap to get the CD, then it's better quality, especially if you were to write the mp3 to CD (two encodes, loses that little bit more quality).
Re:$1/song? I'll bite. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree that being able to pick song by song would be nice in the short term, I do think it would have some long term consequences that may not be so good.
Imagine some future world where everyone gets their music via these services... you could easily wind up with a situation where every new song is overproduced (and possibly run by one of those 'AI' music-hit detectors mentioned here previously) to try to ensure it is a hit, since any time spent writing/recording it will be 'wasted' if not enough people pay for the song by itself. Right now you have an environment where artists can put some experimental tunes in between the sure-fire hits. Maybe these tracks hit the mark and become huge, maybe they tank, but at least they are trying something different. If everything is per-song I think we'll eventually see even less artist experimentation and artist growth than we do now, and that is scary.
Re:$.99 for a song?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, yes and no.
For one, you hear a lot of complaints which run "Why should I pay [$12-20] for a CD when I only like two or three songs on it?" If that's true, that means you're only paying $2 or $3 with this pricing scheme, so it suddenly becomes less goofy.
For another, $12 is the exception, not the rule, for pricing--if you can find everything you want on CD at Target, more power to you. I can't. Best Buy charges $13-16 for CDs, generally, and they have about the best price to selection ratio of any place that I've found. The actual list price for CDs seems to be $18.99--and you may think people never pay that, but if they find the CD they've been looking for at the Virgin Megastore and nowhere else, you can bet they grit their teeth and pony up the cash.
Sure, there are going to be people for whom $0.99 a song is too much, and I think it'd be a good idea to have something like a "10% off when you buy the whole CD" promotion (and maybe to let you buy the physical CD for another $3-5 or some such). But I don't think it's going to be that big a deal.
Re:~3% Not Bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Err no... (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean duh, dude do you know whut a iPod is.
His question wasn't really off the mark when you factor DRM into this. I'm sure he's well aware that the iPod doesn't have a CD player, he was merely asking if copying the track to CD marks the song as 'used' in the DRM system, and thus stops you from transferring it to the iPod.
In other words...maybe you're the one who needs to do a little thinking before posting, jackass.
Make a record executive happy. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you really like music, you would never accept a lack of subsonic. You buy full albums of artists you like, and you Kazaa / live 365 to find new artists. If you don't really like music, you probably have never even heard of Kazaa. Maybe you will like this service, then.
In a world where costs have been cut dramatically, you can't go on charging the same. Tapes were a step above records acoustically, and CD's were a premium above tapes (despite being cheaper to manufacture). What do MP3's offer? They're cheap. Charge a premium for a lower quality? Nuts.
All you can eat 128k MP3's for 19.95 per month, with 180k MP3's available for 29.95, and lossless CD for 59.95. Why is supply, demand, and competition such a hard concept for record executives?
Re:99c / track? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apple DRM... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard that you can buy books from audible.com using iTunes. Supposedly, the download is encrypted, but you can move it to your iPod at will, and you can make MP3 CD's through iTunes that will play in any MP3 CD player (and, by extension, copied to any other medium). I imagine any Apple Music initiative would work in a similar manner.
If any company is going to make a DRM scheme that protects my rights as well as the copyright holders', I'd bet money it will be Apple.
They just may be able to pull this one off... (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem that the industry KNOWS is presenting itself is the fact that the idea of an album or LP is quickly becoming an anqiquated concept. Before the mid-to-late 70's, LP's didn't sell all that well - record labels made their bones off of 45's which sold for around a dollar, or roughly $3-4 today.
The concept of downloading legitimit music is such a good and strong one that the process will eventually become inevitable, but labels don't have a model where they can profit from this.
When you spend $15-$18 on the latest pop-crap-metal-teen-craze, your not paying for the other 10 tracks you didn't hear on the radio - your paying the dues that it took that one track they did manage to get out there, and even THAT is condisdered a huge success. Even today, only about 1 in 30 signed by a major get to even that point.
For backcatalogs, it's certainly a good idea, but it suffers from "Greatest Hits Syndrome", or where sales have lowered to such a point that it's more profitable to sell the singles than hope they people buy the full record. Same with on-line singles - it's a bottom of the barrel effort that there's no backing away from, and you can bet there going to make damn sure there's not other outlets before defaulting to this.
For new music, it's simply not going to happen. Sure you see a few labels experimenting with this, but not on a wide scale. They know there's no money in it - it's simply another promotion to get the name out there.
What I see happening is albums as we know them dying out, and Apple may be in a good place to present this eventually. It's not going to happen overnight by any means, but if labels realise that they can produce a single, and not have to spend the production on a full 40 minutes of filler, they might buy into the idea.
Problem remains, the artists simply won't. And there's your stalemate. Even crap rockers have SOME integrity, and won't give up on the idea of the LP for a long time coming. It could be that full lenghs aren't even dealt with by the majors, or at least not promoted. They once again become secondary to the process - you push the single, find the best way to get it out there fast and cheap (duh), and let the artist have there little masterwork remain out of the spotlight for those who aren't spending there parents money.
Once teenage girls are paying for downloaded music, it becomes a viable model. But not until then.
Paid For? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does Apple plan to sell Recordable Media for these tracks, that comes tarrif free?
Even if your math is right... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not like the album concept will disappear. This just gives more choice. I would gladly pay $20 for 20 great songs.
One of the problems with "Napster", et. al. (Score:3, Insightful)
Forget about it being free--it was just easier to go to Napster or WinMX and get the song you wanted. No funny players to install, no crazy licensing software, and all the songs were there.
I believe that if the record companies got together and made millions of songs available for download at prices ranging from $.10 to $1.00 depending on the age of the song, and maybe a subscription that gives you a set number, they'd do well. But it has to be simple--type in the name of the song, click download, and get an MP3.
Let's hope Apple gets it right. (Will this also cause the old lawsuit between Apple Records and Apple Computer to come up again?)
Re:At first glance... (Score:2, Insightful)
Still, it shouldn't be hard to keep the price lower than 99 cents and still make money. Logically, the lower the price per song the more attractive the service will be and the more customers they'll get.
eMusic manages to get by on their $10/mo for unlimited downloads. I bet Apple could too.
Don't like this system. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would I pay $1 a track, $15 a cd when I can go to a used Record/CD store, pick-up used copies of the artists I want to hear for about $6-$9 a pop. And lets say that Artist releases 5-6 Songs off said album I got as a used CD, Those with this music service from apple will have to go out, get to the site, log in, find the track, pay for track, wait for confirmation of the payment being recieved, then once that confirm is recieved - download it, and then play it where as all I had to do was find case, open case, remove cd, insert cd, play, enjoy.
Oh and I don't have to worry about falling victim to someone else's idea of "High Quality". Commonly people and services will encode at 128 or 192 to save space on their drives, and if you even remotely concidered yourself an audiophile, such sampling would be really sub-standard to your ears. =)
Besides, I for one am still really leary of any site that wants me to pay for digital downloads, what's really there to stop the RIAA or some of their Brain Washed supportive Artists from coming after members on that service? And what's worse from such acts like in the case of Napster, this time they'll have your Real Name, Real Address, Real Credit Card information, etc where as on Napster you at least had Annoniminity from such worries.
Arrrr... Use $1 not $0.99 (Mod Off-topic Please) (Score:2, Insightful)
When will companies stop pricing things ending in .99? It is deceptive because it is an attempt to disguise the true price of a product ("Oh it's only a couple cents, not dollars."). It is annonying because I actually have to THINK (bog forbid) about it to figure out the real price and it makes it hard to do math ("hmm 3 tracks are .99 x 3 = $2.97" instead of just $3).
Even if it is too much expect companies to change at there very least we can stop perpuating their pricing games in everyday conversation and writing. Next time you post a price, round up!
END OFFTOPIC RANT
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW... I went to a Mr. Bungle concert back in the early 90s in Cleveland. Very cool show. I wish I knew who the opening band was though. They were awesome too.
Re:$1/song? I'll bite. (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe, that there are different kinds of music consumers. On the one side we have the Top-40 audience. They only want the hits. They buy CD-singles and compilations, download single songs from file-sharing services and listen to heavy-rotation radio stations. On the other side we have the album buyers. They buy the full album, adore soulseek, and hate most of the radio stations. I am sure that there are different in-between types of music listeners, but for the sake of simplicity let's just look at these two.
If you only like hits then that is what you will keep buying. I would hope, that full albums will not be priced number of songs*$0.99. So album buyers will still listen to all songs an artist has to offer. A lot of artists will continue to make the music they want to and not only machine-selected hits.
Song Length?? (Score:3, Insightful)
More like 0.99n + 99 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'd imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
Some rockstars care about the quality of their product.
Re:Still a little pricey. (Score:3, Insightful)
And you know, if they would hook into mp3.com or AudioGalaxy ... this would really, really take off. Commercialized formula music over here, indie trash to sort through for the gems over here. Take yer pick: $0.99 per.
Re:Possible negative effects (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait.. wait wait wait. If someone likes it, it must be good for something. Granted, we all grow older and wiser, to learn what "good music" really is. So if every song is good, whether it is because I liked it for the arist or because I'm naive is good!
I liked greenday about 10 years ago. I still love 'em. Good stuff. And about 80% of their tracks, I'd say is definitely worth downloading.
What if every artist was a greenday and not a one/two hit wonder.
Re:99c / track? (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyones analogies to other real-world products are cute, but they don't apply. One guy said, (paraphrasing) "you can live off grass and rainwater, but you dont, do you?" No... but if there was a totally free, in-home chef that would make me food exactly like I'd pay for at a restaurant, but it takes him a little longer or I can't get exactly what I want off the menu at any given time, I'd probably choose that alternative a lot of the time.
People post, "Kazaa is annoying", "slow downloads", etc. For movies, maybe. For most songs (I realize a lot of smaller artists are not represented as well), downloads are plentiful and fast, and for a 5 MB file it's QUICK.
Others post, "You have to supply the bandwidth, CD, no liner notes, etc". This is true. But a LOT of people don't want a CD, don't care about liner notes. If you like the band enough to want all 12-15 songs, I totally agree, buy the CD. But for most people, this is more of what they want. And obviously the people that would use KaZaA or this service already have cable modem or DSL (or dialup and don't care about speed).
I think $.99 is a good deal for a track, a GREAT deal. But when it comes down to logging on to some secure server, giving a credit card # up, etc, it's just going to be quicker to hit KaZaA or whatever P2P alternative there is and download.
I agree with the parent, I don't think anything like this, however good the service, will take off as long as a free alternative exists that is anywhere near as user friendly as the for-pay service.
Mark
Re:Still a little pricey. (Score:2, Insightful)
If it is dance music on vinyl and I can spin it in a set, then I'll fork over for the vinyl. If it's a CD of a group that has one good tune than I will leave it in the store. If it's an MP3 it sounds like shit on a real system anyways.
Most people get the mp3s to listen to on some consumer garbage system. On my still relatively modest system the stereo fields of most mp3s sound like shit. They lack depth and the bottom end of the music is quite mushy. I think a dollar for an mp3 is too much because I would have to buy the cd later.
But of course the anwer is ogg right ? wrong. I believe that CDs already sound crap at 16bit by 44.1khz. Either give me at least the sound quality of CDs or f**k off. All digital technology is doing for the distribution of music to date is making it cheaper to hand out a crappy representation of the artists work.
If you would have heard the music in the control room before mixing/dithering down to 16, 44.1 like I have I believe you would feel the same way I do.
Re:Still a far cry from emusic (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Still a little pricey. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I'm not going to tell you *not* to got to your local indie store, of course, but there's some stuff you left out here.
Now, they *could* mess up and not provide any of this stuff, which would be lame, but Apple is the only outfit I can imagine that might possibly get this part basically right on the first try. We'll have to see.
On a related note, the expected debut of this new service could well be what is holding up the introduction of the long-overdue updated iPod line.
Apple Records, Inc. (Score:5, Insightful)
$1/track strikes me as a pretty good deal. I imagine the price is not imformed so much by Apple (while you may think their stuff is expensive, this scheme does nothing to directly contribute to their bottom line, i.e. hardware sales), as it is likely informed by whatever potential deals they want to strike with the existing content providers.
The pieces are all there - Akamai's hooked up, hell, the whole QuickTime network must be in bed with several studios already with the movie trailer video streaming service (easily the best on the net). One wonders if they have already laid the groundwork for those music-based partnerships.
And, lets not forget QuickTime. It's fantastically powerful and flexible, and they could package their media any way they wish. Some have mentioned the lack of liner notes, artwork etc. I would consider that moot if they provided, some real digital packaging. In Mac OS X, you can assign graphic files to the background of windows, you've got those 32bit 256x256 icons... if I could browse through my MP3 folder and have those icons sized nice and big with the appropriate artwork, fully tagged ID3-wise, and it's a high-quality file... yeah, I'd bite. Absolutely.
On another note, there is DRM of a sort in the iPod, specifically for the Audible content, but I think that is unique to their format and not system wide.
Re:At first glance... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't like this system. (Score:1, Insightful)
1) It's going to be faster and easier to get a song via Apple -- you can count on that. I'll bet they have "one click ordering" (they already have this in iPhoto for pictures, fwiw)... I'll bet you enter a song name in iTunes (or a band name) and it will get you a list. Click on the song, click "order" and it will be charged and downloaded. It will NOT be a browser interface -- those are ridiculous.
2) Give me a break on the audiophile stuff. First, 256kbps has been judged identical to CD in double-blind testing with audiophiles. Since you're a pro, I'm sure you've read the sites. Plus 192 is perfectly fine for the iPod or any device where you're not sitting in a room with perfect acoustics.
$1/track would seem fair to me... I'll bet there are 200 or 300 songs out there (total) that I'd like to have but I don't wanna buy the CDs. Cost of CDs would be 3x to 5x what it would be for a buck a song. Some you can get used.. but I'm not willing to travel to 47 different stores that offer used records to find the one I want. It's hit or miss, unless you want an old Richard Marx CD -- they'll have 30 copies of that
Oh blah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow, I really don't see the big value..
Also, your "indie store" might not be so "indie" after all... check into it.
Re:Still a little pricey. (Score:3, Insightful)
Go listen to Abbey Road, Dark Side of the Moon, A Love Supreme, or (gasp) almost any symphony from what the modern industry calls the "classical" genre, and you'll see that an 'album' doesn't have to be a collection of bad songs with a few hits thrown on there.
Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Attention: I started this rumor. It was me. I made it up.
Guys, I'm not sure if anybody is going to believe me or not, but I started this rumor way back in December [slashdot.org]. I made it up. It was all a big lie. I posted it because it sounded reasonable enough to me, and because I wanted to get people talking about it. I wasn't trolling in the strictest sense; I just posted something that I knew to be false but that should have been true.
I'm posting this anonymously because I'm a pretty well-respected poster here on apple.slashdot.org. I post a lot, and it wouldn't be too hard for you to guess who I am. I'm a little embarassed to admit that I did this, but I did.
The post got modded up to +5, and somebody sent a link off to MacRumors.com and other rumor sites. Nobody believed it at the time, which makes sense because I made it all up, but a couple of days ago MacRumors.com pulled it out of storage and posted it on their front page. Now the Merc has picked it up.
Look, one of two things is true here. Either (!) this is just complete crap that I made up and that a lot of other people have been fooled by, or (@) this is all really happening, and I fucking called it months before anybody else.
Either way, I'm feeling pretty fucking powerful right now.
Re:RIAA and their Ignored Salvation (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:~3% Not Bad (Score:3, Insightful)
a) 3% marketshare is small, yes, but that's a good thing, as far as the record industry is concerned: if this is found to increase the levels of piracy, at least it won't spread to the other 97%.
b) Apple consumers are, generally speaking, probably more likely to go for something like this; Apple's products cost more, therefore the odds of Apple customers having broadband and iPods is higher, plus they are less likely to be using p2p becuase it is free if they have more money than the average computer user.
Then again, I could be talking out of my ass.
Re:$1/song? I'll bite. (Score:3, Insightful)
Since electronic distribution makes changes easy to make, I can see a lot of experimentation done in terms of pricing. I can even see a lot more artists not going through record companies at all because they can make more money recording for on-line services like Apple's.
Re:RIAA and their Ignored Salvation (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference between one of these CD's and one you purchase in a store is that the one you assemble would presumably not have any filler that you don't like. You would get 12 songs that you enjoy for $12 rather than having to buy approximately 6 discs at $12/each to get two good tracks off of each one... which is the better deal?
The radio companies aren't stupid... they know they put out filler. Most people don't do the math and figure they just paid $12 for a CD for that ONE song that they liked... thus paying $12 for that ONE song...
I can purchase songs at 30c/each AND
Again, your pricing off the filler... think about just getting the "quality" songs that you personally enjoy... none of the B.S.... the songs are worth more then, no?
the ability to get a partial refund -- say, 90% -- for songs that I download but don't enjoy. So lets say that I download 200 songs in a given month and I decide a third of those (65) of those are worth keeping. I'd pay $19.50 for the ones I keep and another $4.95 for the ones I "returned." Frankly, I'm not going to bother spending 10 minutes of my life tracking down that song I just returned to them on Kazzaa to save 30c.
Go to amazon or any one of the millions of sites out there that offers previews... just preview the song there. And if you're going to argue that point, why pay ANYTHING for a song you don't want?
Re:Possible negative effects (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's another perspective. Some kids in a band start getting pretty good, a little local press and some regional gigs. They even get a label scout to come check them out, but she says "I like your sound, it's just not what we're pushing in the industry right now. Sorry."
Band flips a bird to the industry, spends a few thousands bucks on a used Mac and some really nice mics. They record an album and get the drummer's graphic designer girlfriend to design a fancy new logo and website. Then, they start distributing their tracks online at $.50 a pop. It gets picked up by a few indie music bloggers and then all of the sudden they're making enough money to upgrade their equipment and tour the east coast.
Towards the end of the tour, the record scout is back, ready to talk about a deal. "Nah," the drummer says. "We're making plenty of money doing what we love, we don't have to sell out to you bastards and we're going back into the studio here in a few weeks to record our second album. Feel free to download it in a few weeks!"
Every day, it's becoming cheaper and cheaper to record music. For $10,000, you can set yourself up with a near-professional quality setup. That $10,000 wouldn't even come close to the studio time required for an album. Online distribution is the last step towards breaking industry stranglehold on music.
if its not one thing, its another (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole point it, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY THE WHOLE ALBUM! This isn't meant to replace gonig to the store and buying a CD. It is supposed to COMPLIMENT it. Buy one song. If you like it and feel comfortable buying the whole CD, why on earth WOULD you sit there downloading inferior quality files to burn to a generic CD-R without any liner notes? Look, wookies don't live on Endor, OK? IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!
The whole point is to let people choose a few songs here or there. Or to give a band who can't get the $ together to record a whole album a chance to have their music distributed AND receive some money from it. And do you think it'll just be major label music? Let me tell you this - if this whole thing DOES go through, you can rest assured you'll see a "featured
And as far as the whole "I can get it for free on KaZaa" argument - well, have it then. When the DOJ comes knocking on your door after the RIAA's spyware tracked u down after downloading a bugged file, let me know how that free prison food is. Besides, the kind of music I like generally isn't available on KaZaa, because KaZaa reflects, for the most part, a large portion of society that listens to really bad pop music. If I were to trust any company to make cool, obscure music available to the masses, its Apple.
So before you start bitching and whining about price and convenience, please know what you're talking about. They're not trying to replace going to your local record shop to buy a new album. They're trying to offer a NEW service that will be easy to use, fun to explore, and relatively inexpensive considering the years of joy that a single song can bring.
To the $0.99 whiners (Score:3, Insightful)
If a single song cost less than 1/Nth the cost of an N-track album, then why wouldn't you just download all the songs individually, and save a little money?
I challenge any of the whiners out there to present me with an example where you pay *more* for a set of something than you would buying them seperately.
If you pay $12 (or more) for a 12-track CD, there is no way to say paying $0.99 a track is a rip-off, except for the hardcopy/liner-notes argument, which in my opinion is offset by not having to go to the store or wait days for Amazon.
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)
"I won't download from a paid service - too expensive"
"I won't download from a paid service until I can burn to CD"
I hate to say it, but sometimes I think the RIAA et al is right - no matter what they do, a large percentage of people will NEVER pay for legitimate downloads so long as free alternatives are available.
I'm just trying to antcipate what the excuses will be if and when they DO offer CD audio downloads. Probably something along the lines of "they're too big, why should I use my precious bandwidth, and then burn onto a CD that I buy?". Yeah, that sounds about right.
In any case, I think Apple will make an excellent testing ground for a music service. Small, dedicated, user base, wide acceptance and love of the iPod, etc etc.
The key word is SELECTIONS.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone else see the bullshit in this?
I think we are missing something (Score:2, Insightful)
In addition to this, everyone who says they want the songs DRM free, there's a problem with that.... you know that the first thing everyone who pays a buck a song would do is put it in their shared folder and let it fly. same songs, same quality, for free on kazaa, imesh, etc = low money for apple = goes out of business quickly.
I'm not saying DRM is good, I'm just saying that it may, in the long term, be necessary.
Imperfect Selection (Score:3, Insightful)
Pay by the MB, not the song (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:At first glance... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, seriously. If you're buying an entire CD for just two songs, it's a travesty. Furthermore, if (all other things being equal) we measure how good an artist is by the average strength of their songs, than an artist producing only two good songs per CD sucks, quantitatively speaking.
Now, of course, those of us who buy mix CDs have an alternate problem - usually either the entire CD sucks, or the entire CD rocks. Thankfully, Amazon.com is there to save the day
Time To Harvest The Crust From Your Eyes - Fugazi (Score:1, Insightful)
My reasons for being reluctant for this technology to become commonplace mainly center around the specifications for the audio file's quality, and its ability to be backed up. All of the current online providers only offer MP3, WMA (shudder) and Real, none of which offer anywhere near acceptable listening quality for me to pay for. (any of these formats is acceptable for preview purposes)
In this respect, using AAC [vialicensing.com] sounds like a great idea, and although AAC files can be DRM-enabled, Apple has required that every song have the ability to be burnt to CD (which effectively eliminates the DRM).
A dollar a song is still somewhat expensive, but again, as with everything Apple, you pay for quality. Hopefully the catalog selection is decent, otherwise it is doomed to fail under the weight of the crap pop that's out there now.. Out of print stuff would be ideal
Liner notes (perhaps in PDF) will hopefully be offered as well.
It's a bold move by Apple, one that will be interesting to follow.
Re:To the $0.99 whiners (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the thing: You aren't buying the same egg.
If I sell you a hardcover copy of a good book(240 pages) [amazon.com] for $20, and then tell you or you could pay 8.3 cents for me to email you an individual page of text, what would you do? Is one of those options not a better deal?
-Ted
Re:Well (Score:2, Insightful)