Apple Sells A Million Songs in Debut Week 841
Scrameustache writes "According to an Apple press release, the iTunes Music Store sold over one million songs during its first week. Over half of the songs were purchased as albums, and over half of the 200,000 songs offered on the iTunes Music Store were purchased at least once.
Those new iPods are selling like hotcakes too..."
And some people thought this would never happen! (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see how this one keeps up for the next year!
Re:Hooray (Score:5, Insightful)
Even then, does Apple's model adequatly compensate the artist? Does it allow entry for independant artists? Does it even have the potential to work against the RIAA, or will it simply strengthen its grip?
About what I thought (Score:5, Insightful)
they'd have sold a LOT more (Score:5, Insightful)
If they weren't restricting to credit cards with a US billing address. Like VISA isn't the same globally?
Ralf
Was I misled? (Score:2, Insightful)
Daniel
Re:Keeping their promise on adding stuff, too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Keeping their promise on adding stuff, too (Score:5, Insightful)
Why did it work? (Score:5, Insightful)
The secret is in the direct tie to iTunes. It's difficult to overstate how convenient it is to be able to shop for music within your music player as opposed to fiddling with some web-based download service.
This is the kind of thing which Apple's control over hardware, software, and consumer applications together permits it to excel at. What is astonishing is that Microsoft has proved so poor at this kind of coordination.
ASA
Re:Was I misled? (Score:5, Insightful)
if you only have the songs on one machine and the machine burned up... i don't know how that works out. I guess like anything else you just have to back it up. It might not sound ideal, but if somebody breaks into your car and steals your CDs (or your house burns down) i don't think Old Man Geffen will ship you replacements for free.
Re:they'd have sold a LOT more (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is fraud prevention. Who's to say you couldn't go on a shopping spree and accumulate 1000 new songs overnight with someone else's credit card? As can be seen from the current RIAA vs. Verizon case, the ISP won't likely help identify the thief in a civil suit, and most credit card companies could care less about fraud prevention in a criminal suit so long as they get their money. And that's just in the US - credit card fraud overseas is much more difficult to trace and prosecute. For now, it's probably just a case of cover-your-ass...
Re:I hope this doesn't rescue the recording indust (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything which encourages people to purchase music directly by cutting out the retail link can only help artists in the long run. If people get used to this kind of thing, they're much more likely to purchase music from independent artists someday - because independent artists will probably never be able to afford to get their CDs into record stores, but it won't be too much trouble for them to get onto download services.
ASA
Re:Me thinks CmdrTaco gets an Ipod Free.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Visa would be quite happy (Score:5, Insightful)
This causes problems online though as customers and territories are now now no longer tied together - you could buy from whichever territory offered the cheapest identical product. One big free market.....nope, couldn't have that, could we? so that's why you need a US Visa.
API (Score:4, Insightful)
(Never gonna happen, I know.)
-jfedor
Re:3. Profit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well obviously $30mil in profit is nothing to sneeze at. Plus for Apple we're talking about an adjunct to their primary business. I know some others are talking about "replacing" the current model, but Apple would be more than happy to have a reliable $30mil coming in every year.
But one aspect you're missing is, how many more ipods are being sold because of this? How many more Mac "switchers"/converts are being created now? This is just another way for Apple to create market share for themselves by adding value to computers, taking them beyond just generic tools and making them useful for more people (other than surfing of course). Plus, it gets them in bed with the entertainment industry even more. With Steve's association with Pixar and therefore Disney, the next obvious step would be some type of video distribution. I'm not talking general purpose VOD, nope, I'm talking things like kids shows and cartoons, where the demand for high resolutions (and therefore bandwidth) isn't nearly as much as more adult fare.
So overall you can't look at this as a thing upon itself. It is merely part of the bigger picture that Apple to drawing to keep itself significant in the market. Kudos to them.
Re:Why did it work? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:About what I thought (Score:4, Insightful)
Great, but do they have the Proyecto Mirage CD I've been looking for? How about Synthetik's ADSR? The first Feindflug album? Weena Morloch's KadaverKomplex? Anything by Insurge?
Thanks to economies of scale, the price of CDs are inversely proportional to demand. Which is fine if other people happen to like the music you do, but sucks if they don't.
[TMB]
Gotta Love the Monopoly (Score:2, Insightful)
And everyone on slashdot applauds...
What Am I Missing? (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA reps the companies that get the music into the download -- engineers, producers, designers, and, yes, lawyers -- all of whom need to be paid, and will get their slice. The size of that slice is spelled out in a contract which both parties sign. Is the size of that slice "fair?" I dunno. What percentage of the price of that soda finds its way back to the chemists and bottlers? How many pennies on the cigar dollar get back to the guy rolling the leaves? How many nickels on the Big Mac pricetag work their way back to the cattlerancher? Do we stop consuming these products (and a million others) until we "ger answers?"
Say I'm a small-town chemist who just developed a new flavor -- how do I get my soda bottled and onto the shelves at the 7-11? You mean -- it's not easy?? I can't just pull my truck up to the back of ths store and stock the shelves myself? I have to make a [shudder] DEAL?! Oh, the Injustice!
Is this new venture going to change the world, overthrow evil, and bring about a Glorious Workers' Revolution? No, silly, it's gonna let you download music easily and legally onto your computers and disks. No more or less than it was designed to do.
I've never had a use for Apple, Macs, or Steve Jobs, but my hat is off to them on this.
RAAA, I hate to say I told you so! (Score:2, Insightful)
RAAA, get a clue!
Re:3. Profit? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't assume they can't keep that rate up. Of course, it may slack off for a while, but bear in mind the service is currently available to only a very, very small segment of the potential market: Apple users (5%) who use iTunes or own an iPod (??%, but certainly less than 100%). When they release their Windows version, it should ramp up sales by at least an order of magnitude. When they get the European and Japanese online, it should double it again. I wouldn't be at all surprised if 18 months from now, they were chugging along at a steady state of $250 million a year, plus whatever they make from the iPods and extra Macs.
Re:What Am I Missing? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't going to hurt the RIAA and bring their downfall. Its going to allow the RIAA to shift their focus by providing a testbed for buying music online in this manner, and its going to show them that it works. In effect, this is only molding the RIAA into something that we all might be able to deal with. But hell, if I can buy my music in this way for all the time to come, I really could care less if the RIAA has a hand in it.
Re:3. Profit? (Score:2, Insightful)
Plus, I'm a lot more comfortable that a consumer-oriented company like Apple is spearheading this one. They've always been advocates of giving us more and restricting us less. Look at their track record... switching over to a BSD kernel, coming out with the ipod, releasing portions of their source code, giving out developer tools for free, giving us free software that is arguably the best out there (ilife). If that means I have to use their playerto use iTMS, then be it. It's better than Microsoft using WMP/IE/etc simply to further their proprietary format and giving us a shoddy media player at best (slowly slowly getting better, but playlists/vis/skins/library management is shoddy at best even at 9.0)
WebObjects serves 1 million songs in 1 week (Score:2, Insightful)
1 million secure creditcard transactions
1 million downloads, at about 3MB each
untold millions of 30 second song preview streamings
a gazillion searches
megazillions of Music Store pageviews
You know, makes you wonder what these Apple guys are thinking, using such marginal, non-Microsoft-based enterprise server products!
Talk about taking risks. No-one ever got fired for buying Microsoft or Dell, uh? Why go to the fringes and buy WebObjects with unlimited users/sessions for about $1000? Are you nuts?
(tongue in cheek, for the humor impaired)
Re:I hope this doesn't rescue the recording indust (Score:2, Insightful)
"The recording industry is evil" mantra is like the "Big business is evil" mantra. It sounds real good and may be partially true, but artists still happily sign with labels without having a gun put to their head.
If a band is playing in some garage and a record exec comes in and puts down a contract, very few bands will say, "No, you're THE MAN! We want to stay independent! Sure, only the people in this area may ever hear us and we may only sell 100 albums a year and still have to work full time jobs, but at least we won't be working for someone evil like you!"
Record companies do put a lot of money into new artists before they even sell jack. That's one of the reasons they take so much on the back end. They take the risk of putting down hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to pay and promote a new artist that no one has heard of and just the year before was only singing in their church choir. If the artist sells lots of albums, I think the record company SHOULD make many times it's original investment because they're the ones that took the risk, not the artist.
It's easy to say "Oh, with the Internet any artist can distribute music on their own!" Yeah, that may be true but you still have to figure out some way to get people to your site. Record companies spend a lot of their money on promotion and marketing. If you put up a web site to sell your CD, MP3, ACC, whatever, but can't afford the money to promote it, aren't getting air play, have no video on MTV, no one knows who you are, your songs sound like they were produced in a garage, and you just hope you can just get by by having one fan tell another who tells another, you're probably not going to make a lot of money.
Some people talk about the record companies and their high prices like they're the Iraqi regime. They're keeping a tight grip on MUSIC, people! It's entertainment, not food and water. If you hate them, don't buy their music, don't steal their music. Just walk away and go read a book.
You know what I call that? (Score:3, Insightful)
And a bute rebuff against what the **AA's are trying to do; here is proff that they've been trying to defend an outdated bussines model.
Re:Only a million? (Score:2, Insightful)
bkr
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because people over the age of 16 understand that it takes work, time and money to make music, and would be happy to pay a fair price for a product delivered in a manner that they like?
$.99 for low quality DRM files?????? (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Tidbits and the future of iTunes Music Store (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If I had a million dollars (Score:1, Insightful)
US citizens that have a Mac running Mac OS X updated to QT 6.2 and iTunes 4 released a week ago.
Who has time to backup all their random crap? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who has the time to do these constant backups of all the random crap on your computer. I try hard to keep copies of stuff like tax records, but I don't backup my music collection or other random junk.
Apple should allow people to download the songs again that they've already purchased. Live Phish [livephish.com] allows you to do this. Maybe there is some DRM issue that makes this difficult, but, otherwise, I don't know why they wouldn't allow this.
-prator
Re:And in other news (Score:3, Insightful)
AAC just makes it harder to rip the audio, not impossible. It will take a while for such tools to appear. Also I suspect demand won't be very high since most people will prefer to have their mp3 directly ripped from a cd (AAC is already lossy, decoding and then reencoding only loses more quality).
However, it seems that Apple, unlike the RIAA, gets the point. People are willing to pay for the convenience of being able to find what they want fast and easy, not to finance obsolete distribution methods. The 99 cent price is by all means very reasonable (though still a bit high) and there are many people who'll be happy to pay for the convenience of not having to hunt down each and every track they want to listen to. On the other hand this puts the market value of my current mp3 collection at roughly 3500$. Much less than the RIAA would want us to believe but still a substantial amount of money.
Idea for the RIAA: make lots of noise about sueing people, offer mp3 owners to legalize their mp3 collections for a reasonable price -> profit. If they do it right they could squeeze some revenue out of this without actually having to do anything beyond handing out electronic licenses.
Re:AAC questions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
However, what we (read: us consumers) need is for Apple to succeed, whether this is overpriced low-quality music or not. Based on my last trip to various CD-selling locations (just a few days ago), $12-$14 will not buy you the album from the record store
If Apple can make a success out of selling on-demand, relatively cheap music to individual consumers, and have some reasonable method to both allow those consumers to exercise their Fair Use rights while cutting down on piracy (even if it is only illusory), then the RIAA loses its most important argument: That online access to music, and swapping of music, costs the industry money. I mean, how true can it be if Apple is making money by lowering prices on music?
At the very least, it strengthens our (read: the anti-RIAA contingent) basic counter-argument to the RIAA: it is the exorbinant price of music, not piracy, that it costing the RIAA member companies money. Lower prices, and albums will sell better.
Re:Why did it work? (Score:2, Insightful)
The simple fact of the matter is that most Slashdot posters wouldn't know consistancy of opinion if it slapped them round the face with a wet kipper. It's fashionable to like Apple, it's fashionable to dislike Microsoft. The fact that they are just two sides of the same coin is something most would apparently rather ignore.
Re:Me thinks CmdrTaco gets an Ipod Free.. (Score:3, Insightful)
What a load of toss. Linux users don't have a "moral objection" to paying for things, far from it. Apple users are known for paying for goods with ridiculously high margins because they've convinced themselves that their kit is "higher quality" than what the proles use. Or something. Nobody uses Macs at work anyway so they don't get the opportunity to warez stuff.
I mean come on. It's pretty simple - Macs are only bought by an affluent section of the market that places a great deal of importance on "lifestyle tech". This is simple market dynamics - stupid stereotypes of what non-Mac users think or do just shows you to be a fully paid up drone.
Here's the deal... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are three types of people posting on this thread.
1: The cheap bastards who at no price except for free, will music be cheap enough. These people are impossible to satisfy with a realistic business model.
2: The vast majority, who just care about price. DRM is acceptable as long as it's wussy and if the price is cheap enough, who cares. A little bit of inconvenience due to DRM is no big deal if the price is low enough (and mind you, the DRM on these AAC files is pretty wussy).
3: A loud minority for whom a purchase from the iTunes store is a political one, that feel supporting any DRM is supporting the powers that be, the music industry, the RIAA, etc. These are the types of people for whom any purchase can be a political statement. The types of people who berate you for shopping at WalMart or eating a hamburger because it supports the corrupt meat-packing industry. They have a point, but they are in the minority ... most people don't sit and go through a checklist trying to figure out which product is doing the most harm to which people before they go out to the grocery store and shop.
The money is at #2. #1 will never be satisfied and #3 will never shut up. Go get the money, Apple.
Re:What Am I Missing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good to see you're honest about this - I wonder how many Slashdotters actually meant "I'm too lazy to walk down to the local store" when they said "I'm going to stop buying CDs because the evil RIAA doesn't give enough to the artist".
Of course, now there is an option that lets you pay 2 mega-corps instead of 1, people are dancing for joy because they can just move their arm a bit instead of going out of the door.
I hate this argument! (Score:2, Insightful)
Either you like it, and want it, and recognize the value in its production and distribution, and should pay for it, or you find the music valueless and should not want to spend any of your time/effort/bandwidth downloading it.
If it's on your computer, and you put it there on purpose, you should pay for it.
Re:Why did it work? (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple fact of the matter is that most Slashdot posters wouldn't know consistancy of opinion if it slapped them round the face with a wet kipper. It's fashionable to like Apple, it's fashionable to dislike Microsoft. The fact that they are just two sides of the same coin is something most would apparently rather ignore.
Reading for comprehension can be fun, in six quick and easy steps!
If you'll go back and actually read what I wrote before the Redmond side of your brain kicked into overdrive, you'll see that I made no judgements one way or the other of the relative "niceness" of either company, or as to what Apple would do if they had 90% of the marketshare in home PCs.
So, just for you, I'll hit the salient points again:
1) Microsoft has been convicted of having an illegal monopoly in the PC market, and using that monopoly to crush competition in that and other markets. Apple has about 5% marketshare, and thus isn't going to be able to use iTunes to bully anyone but themselves into releasing Mac-exclusive products.
2) Microsoft has the power to use an integrated music service to dictate the future of digital music provided over the internet. Apple, as a niche player, does not.
3) It's logical to be concerned with potential anticompetitive results from pretty much anything Microsoft does, based on their market share, market power, and past history. It's not logical to be concerned with anticompetitive results from Apple, as they don't have anywhere near enough power to influence competitors or control a market.
Re:What Am I Missing? (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I know, there's always been that option for the local band. The point here is that most bands, local and otherwise, would rather spend their time focusing on making music, and so make arrangements for other organizations to handle their distribution for them. These distribution organizations have traditionally shied away from online distribution -- until now, and that's a Big Deal.
It's highly likely that artists not signed by any of the companies represented in the RIAA will eventually make their way onto an iTune download. I don't think that heralds the death knell for Big Music any more than the combination of Amazon.com and small-press publishers presaged a demise for the major publishing houses.
Humans have demonstrated a remarkable propensity to consume, and, oddly enough, are proving more than willing to compensate those involved in both the creation and distribution of the consumables.
Re:$.99 for low quality DRM files?????? (Score:1, Insightful)
What Apple has done will allow to finish this work. I've pretty much cleared all the albums I had downloaded, buying the CD's for them.
I live in the UK. 60 pence for a track is not bad when you are paying £15 (about $24) for a CD. As soon as the music store makes it this side of the Atlantic theres going to be a very heavy Credit Card bill landing on my doorstep
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Said before? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re-rip quality is So-So. (Score:3, Insightful)
So I ran the output of the original and the re-ripped Cd through a signal analysis package. there as an 11% rms difference between the wave forms. that's pretty huge certainly well above a pyscho-accoustic threshold. (that's about the difference a carpeted room versus a hardwood fllow can make. and easily noticed on ear phones.
also the specta were slightly differently shaped. at the high end. you can hear that.
also the original ACC had no content above 15.5Khz. that's no CD quality though with my ears its hard to hear the difference. It does however mean that when you re-rip you will unvoidably erode the spectrum further, and into a range I can hear.
thus re-ripping a CD is NOT the answer. its not the same as buying something at the music store. so its critical that I be able to play the originals on various devices.
And wait till the Windows version comes out. (Score:4, Insightful)
The sales so far only represent Mac owners in the United States.
How much larger is the Windows user base? We're going to have a Windows version later this year.
How much larger is the international market? Apple's going to start taking International sales soon.
On top of that, Fortune magazine reports that Apple is in talks with AOL to have iTunes be the official music player/music store of America Online. How many more sales will that be?
We're only seeing the tip of the iceberg, folks.
Business Model for the Weight of the Ages (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What Am I Missing? (Score:2, Insightful)
1. You can burn any downloaded track to audio CD. Once it's in that format, it's yours to do with as you wish. No more DRM.
2. People have already figured out how to import downloaded tracks into iMovie and then export to AIFF. No actual CD needs to be burned.
3. Don't even fucking complain about loss of quality or some such bullshit when a downloaded AAC is uncompressed, then recompressed to MP3. Of course it loses more information, but I heard some of those AACs on a nice set of cans, and they ARE CD quality. Re-encode at a high enough average bit rate MP3, and you will NOT hear a difference. Take a double blind test or shut the fuck up. (sorry I had to do a preemptive strike on that issue)
4. To answer your last question, yes you can do it using one of the methods above, or use a program called Audio Hijack to do exactly what you just said. See point 3 Re: quality.
5. Your point about Kazaa is just fucking dumb. Those people are downloading illegally without paying. Plus, they're all (to a good approximation) using Windows. When Kazaa becomes $0.99/track or $9.99/album and iTunes for Windows comes out, let's compare again. You know, Apples to Apples. No Oranges.
6. iTunes for Windows IS slated to come out. Apple is hiring Windows developers for it as we speak. In the meantime, they get a chance to work out the kinks in the system, and get all those indie labels onboard to offer a MUCH larger selection than they have today. When Windows iTunes hits the streets, it will be HUGE. This will be nothing compared to that. Just wait.
7. There is no point 7.
8. So stop bitching and either get a clue, or shut up. The DRM satisfies the eeeeevil record companies, but it's intentionally easy to get around. Damn, I might have to buy a fucking mac if I can't wait for Windows iTunes. They did it fucking right.
9. Oh yeah, almost forgot. AAC is an industry standard. MP3 will be obsolete (and good riddance) soon, thanks to this. Apple did not develop it, they merely use it because it has superior sound quality and it allows their weak DRM to satisfy the record suits. This is the tip of the iceberg, the AAC format has the potential to change digital audio -- can you say up to 96 kHz, 48 channels or some insane crap like that? (I forget exactly) Fuck yeah!
10. That is all.
Re:And wait till the Windows version comes out. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a Windows user (no,I'm not going to apologize!) who lives in Canada. I'm doubly missing out, since I've heard you have to have a US billing address in addition to the Mac to be able to have access to iTunes Store.
I just spent around $130 CDN (tax and shipping included) for 5 CDs to catch up on one of my favorite UK artists who just happens to not have North American distribution (go figure, I thought Lisa Stansfield was popular in the US). That means paying a premium for imported CDs. Because one of the particular imports isn't in stock, I have to add 8-9 days for my entire shipment to arrive.
If those albums were available on iTunes (I can't tell without a Mac), I would have spent $50 US ($75 CDN, no tax - i hope - and no shipping) for the five CDs, had all the tunes downloaded within hours and burned onto CDs.
I'm no audiophile, so the 128kb AAC doesn't worry me too much. I'd rather know I'm getting quality than deal with some misnamed MP3 (albeit free) file with misspelled tags that has "mp3 chirps" in it because some teenager didn't do a good job ripping the CD. Ultimately you get what you pay for.
When the Windoze version of iTunes comes out, and Apple makes the store available to Canadian customers, I'll definitely sign up and buy tunes.