Apple Negotiates For Unlimited iTunes Downloads 133
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Bloomberg reports that Apple is in talks with record companies including Vivendi SA (VIV)'s Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG) and EMI Group Ltd. to give iTunes music buyers easier access to their songs on multiple devices. The deal would provide iTunes customers with a permanent backup of music purchases if the originals are damaged or lost and would allow downloads to iPad, iPod and iPhone devices linked to the same iTunes account. The negotiations come as iTunes is facing competition from new Web-based services such as Spotify Ltd., Rdio Inc. and MOG Inc. that focus on letting customers listen to songs from anywhere with an online connection, instead of downloading tracks to a hard drive. 'Long-time iTunes users know that one of the more obnoxious differences between music and app downloads on the iTunes Store is the fact that apps can be re-downloaded a seemingly infinite number of times,' writes Jacqui Cheng. 'In contrast, users can only download music tracks once — if you find yourself without backups and your music disappears, you must beseech the iTunes gods to let you re-download all your music—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, should they hear your prayers.""
I ripped all my music from CDs (Score:1, Interesting)
I just got an iPhone 4. I really don't know why I waited so long. I suppose I was just happy with my previous phone.
But one of the key reasons I bought the iPhone was because of its MP3 capabilities. I have a lot of CDs and wanted to listen to them on the road, so I decided to burn all the CDs to the iTunes.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that buying the CD gives me something that iTunes music downloaders don't get. That is unlimited access to my music without DRM and without having to pay some online servic
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Anyway, what I'm getting at is that buying the CD gives me something that iTunes music downloaders don't get. That is unlimited access to my music without DRM and without having to pay some online service for it.
Erm, you seem to think iTunes has DRM. It doesn't.
And unless you're stealing your CDs from Walmart, one would assume you paid something for them.
What you are getting with your CDs is the full chunk of data that you can compress to the level of your choice before putting it on your portable player. And of course a physical "backup". I used to buy used CDs for this reason, but for the most part I now am willing to trade that for convenience and lower cost in most cases, so I buy from iTunes and Amazon.
Older iTS purchases still have DRM (Score:4, Informative)
Erm, you seem to think iTunes has DRM. It doesn't.
You are correct about CD rips, Amazon MP3 purchases, and newer iTunes Store music purchases. But older iTunes Store music has DRM, and the iTunes Plus deal with the record labels doesn't include converting existing m4p files to m4a. Movies on iTunes Store still have DRM because of the six major movie distributors' wishes. Applications on iTunes Store still have DRM despite some developers' wishes.
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Did they finally eliminate the DRM tracks? Last I'd heard about that was that DRM free tracks were introduced alongside the DRM encumbered ones and could be had for a small premium. I could be wrong, but I think you had to pay an upgrade fee to trade up the DRM encumbered ones for the DRM free tracks if you'd already purchased them with DRM.
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They introduced the DRM free tracks alongside the protected ones and then some time later they stopped offering the DRM protected ones. Music sold with drm will still have it unless the user upgrades it and while the price for upgrading was fairly reasonable (IIRC it was the same as the price difference at the time they were selling both) they made upgrading an all or nothing thing (I can see credit card fees would make them not want to upgrade one track at a time but still all or nothing seems over the top
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And if you lose your CD, you do not get a free replacement either.
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You had to pay an upgrade fee, yes, but every track sold NOW has no DRM. And there are plenty of tools which will remove that legacy DRM for you on your old files, if you so desire.
Which is good because upgrading wasn't such a cut and dried affair. The track generally had to be from the same album as the original, and must be a track you paid for, and the collection of music on iTunes isn't static. I have an entire "sampler" album I got on iTunes free of charge and was never able to upgrade it to iTunes+, I imagine because it was a sampler album. I also have a couple tracks from an artist who I guess had a change of licensing deals with their record label or iTunes. I have the track i
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No, it was 128. I still have 20 DRMed iTMS tracks and the music files are 128 kbps. Audiobook files were 32.
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Who would steal their CDs from Wal-Mart? All of their discs are censored.
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Why not Android? (Score:1)
I just got an iPhone 4. [...] one of the key reasons I bought the iPhone was because of its MP3 capabilities. [...] I really like the Genius automatic playlist generator. I use it to all the time.
I was under the impression that all Android-powered phones could play MP3 music as well. So of all the advantages that Android has over iOS, it appears you gave them up for Genius playlists. I acknowledge that you may have found it worth it, but my priorities happen to differ.
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Even if you dismiss the app store as being completely due to the iphones head start, Androids advantages are all subjective and nearly all are trade offs. Androids interface can be very nice and very configurable but isn't nearly as simple to use for the non technical. With iOS you dont have to depend on the phone manufacturer to feel generous and give updates, unless the hardware simply cannot support the new features with apple you just get them. With an apple device you know exactly what your going to
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No matter what the interface, as long as it's sufficiently reasonable, there will always be some people from each broad category (like "geeks" and "non-technical", etc.) who like each interface. The question isn't whether there is one non-techie who finds Android easier. What matters is that category in aggregate.
I do trust you don't think that your wife is representative of this category as a whole. Simple observation of society outside of your immediate household does tend to show that your household is t
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Essentially any modern phone can play mp3s. Even nokia's S40 "dumbphones" that go for 50-ish without contract can play it. Often in better quality then iphone due to specialized DSP on board for cases when they're branded as "music phones".
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What is this fascination with the cheapest possible device that can do some specific function? BadAnalogyGuy didn't say he bought an iPhone because it's the only phone that can play music, he said it bought it because it can. No matter which phone he chose (including a $50-ish Nokia), he would have had the same reasoning. It's not that he bought an iPhone specifically, but that he got a new phone in order to play music.
What bothers you so much about him buying an iPhone anyway? I never give people shit for
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What is this fascination with the cheapest possible device that can do some specific function?
I think it might have something to do with the fact that some of us prefer to have money left over to buy other toys. For example, that's why I stick with a dumbphone + PDA instead of a smartphone: cheaper service for the few calls I do make means an extra $50+ per month in my pocket.
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I think it might have something to do with the fact that some of us prefer to have money left over to buy other toys.
But the experience counts for something, too. I owned a factory refurbished Sansa Clip I got for $20. It's 1 GB of storage is enough for me for the most part and I liked that it had a screen and got good battery life. But it was a pain to deal with as far as transferring files because I had to use Windows Media Player. I already had my entire music collection up and running in iTunes and WMP didn't recognize things like compilation albums correctly. I also had all my purchased CDs ripped to AAC, which the C
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I still don't understand why someone would want to live the cheapest life that money can buy. You only get one shot at life. You get no credit in the end for having saved money. What good is a life if one doesn't splurge now and then? I understand there are times when splurging is either irresponsible, or perhaps even outright impossible, but that's obviously not the situation the OP finds himself in. Clearly he can afford the iPhone.
But more importantly, my issue is when someone chimes in giving someone st
Loss of economies of scale (Score:2)
It's not like he was spending *your* money. He was spending *his* money.
The situation I fear is that so many people buy iPhones that non-Apple phones and/or non-phone media players lose their economies of scale, or so many people buy iPads that netbooks lose their economies of scale. At that point, people for whom splurging is irresponsible or who require features that Apple is known to deny end up with no options other than tough shit.
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I just got an iPhone 4. [...] one of the key reasons I bought the iPhone was because of its MP3 capabilities. [...] I really like the Genius automatic playlist generator. I use it to all the time.
I was under the impression that all Android-powered phones could play MP3 music as well. So of all the advantages that Android has over iOS, it appears you gave them up for Genius playlists. I acknowledge that you may have found it worth it, but my priorities happen to differ.
Any advantages you think Android has over iOS are 100% opinion, just as any advantages iOS has over Android are 100% opinion (even things that are objective, like "Android has WiFi tethering, iOS does not" (no longer true, but it was) or "iOS supports 'Retina' display resolutions, Android does not", are subjective in terms of whether they are an advantage and/or how important such an advantage is to each individual person)). What makes one thing an advantage, and to what extent, it relative. For most people
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I acknowledge that you may have found it worth it, but my priorities happen to differ.
You need to learn to realize that other people can have wildly different opinions about things
I thought I had said that. If not, that's what I meant; how should I have worded it?
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I acknowledge that you may have found it worth it, but my priorities happen to differ.
You need to learn to realize that other people can have wildly different opinions about things
I thought I had said that. If not, that's what I meant; how should I have worded it?
Maybe, but I did not get the impression that you realized his opinion could be *wildly* different than yours, and instead that he simply valued Genius so much that it overwhelmed everything else, when in reality I suspect that a lot of the things that you see as "advantages" of Android over iOS are not the same to him as they are to you.
But my main issue is that you seemed so eager to question his choice in device/OS. It really doesn't concern you (or me). I never give anyone shit for buying Android. I unde
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Anyway, what I'm getting at is that buying the CD gives me something that iTunes music downloaders don't get. That is unlimited access to my music without DRM and without having to pay some online service for it.
I think a house fire trumps physical CDs.
DT
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Yes house fires are nasty, lukilly they are rare and uncorrelated enough that insurance against them is affordable.
OTOH i've never heard of anyone insuring a media collection that requires online activation based DRM (as opposed to mere copy protection) against the provider going out of buisness and given that such an event would hit a load of people at once it would be difficult to insure against on a large scale without exposing the insurers to unacceptable risk.
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Yes house fires are nasty, lukilly they are rare and uncorrelated enough that insurance against them is affordable.
OTOH i've never heard of anyone insuring a media collection that requires online activation based DRM (as opposed to mere copy protection) against the provider going out of buisness and given that such an event would hit a load of people at once it would be difficult to insure against on a large scale without exposing the insurers to unacceptable risk.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with iTunes music, and is a somewhat unreasonable near-term fear with regards to Apple. Specifically, what are the odds, do you think, that Apple will shut down their authorization servers any time soon? By 2030, for example, do you think people will be unable to authorize their computer with Apple (for non-music purchases, music purchases won't require this, and perhaps by then, neither will any other media).
I expect internal optical drives to become a thing of the past,
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I think homeowner's insurance trumps a house fire. In any case, CDs are the least of my worries at that point.
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Anyway, what I'm getting at is that buying the CD gives me something that iTunes music downloaders don't get. That is unlimited access to my music without DRM and without having to pay some online service for it.
Unless you didn't phrase what you meant very well, iTunes downloads offer the exact same thing. Unlimited access to your music without DRM and without any further payment to an online service (you do have to pay initially, but you have to do the same thing with CDs).
I recommend you also buy CDs so that you don't have the DRM problem mentioned in the article.
This story is not about DRM, it's about redownloading music. This goes above and beyond the CD. If you lose your CD, you don't get a free replacement. That's what Apple is trying to get for people who buy their music online.
Hard Legit Vs Easy Not-so-Legit (Score:1)
a move in the right direction.
As long as they make it harder to be legit then not, I'll never be in the basket with the other apples...
About time (Score:2)
This is why I stopped using iTunes completely a few years ago, other than to put podcasts on my (now defunct) iPod nano.
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I stopped using iTunes because it's so damn slow. Anything more than 10 songs there was major lag scrolling down. And that was on reasonably fast hardware with discrete video card.
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Better service.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know who lets you download your songs as many times as you want?
The Pirate Bay
Re:Better service.. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Better service.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure why this has taken Apple so long.
Because it wasn't in their contract with the big 5 to be able to do so. (If you read the summary you would have been able to at least infer that much.) Any changes to the contract require concessions. It's give and take. I would bet they have been after this for a while but the big 5 were too greedy.
Re:Better service.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Because Apple's store is way too dominant for their liking and they'd rather have a bunch of stragglers fighting to sell their music at the lowest possible markup? The record companies wanted to raise prices, particularly on the one or two hits that'd otherwise sell an album but Apple refused. The only reason Amazon got to open an MP3 shop was because Apple was bullying them around.
For them it's not getting better, it's getting worse. On the iPod, Apple needed the big labels. Now many people will get an iPhone or iPad for the apps, selling music is secondary. That and digital sales have increased massively, they can't afford not to be on iTunes anymore. They don't like that Apple is becoming the gatekeeper and is fighting it, but I don't think they'll win this one.
This [fildelning.se] is a pretty good graph on where we're heading, the CD is dying and digital is taking over. The iTunes Store is looking to be the Wal-Mart of digital downloads and the big 5 the manufacturers being squeezed to the lowest possible margins. That's not a future they saw coming and are trying desperately to back out of.
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The record companies wanted to raise prices, particularly on the one or two hits that'd otherwise sell an album but Apple refused.
Actually, Apple has been allowing that since April 2009 [msn.com].
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I look at the chart you linked and see significant, precipitous declines where the RIAA either ignored negative feedback or outright attacked customers:
Late '70s - disco was pushed on radio, tv, everywhere, and audiophiles (LP buyers) rejected it (the sale of hissing cassettes stayed flat unti CDs came along)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco [wikipedia.org]
1990s - CD sales flatten as the loudness war gets really noticeable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war [wikipedia.org]
2001 - CD sales take a nose-dive after the Napster decision
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This [fildelning.se] is a pretty good graph on where we're heading, the CD is dying and digital is taking over. The iTunes Store is looking to be the Wal-Mart of digital downloads and the big 5 the manufacturers being squeezed to the lowest possible margins. That's not a future they saw coming and are trying desperately to back out of.
Might want to look at this [businessinsider.com] before you use that chart as a reference again.
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Very nice link, I'll bookmark it. If anything it just makes it ever so much clearer that the CD is dying a rapid death though.
Re:Better service.. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is how I see it. Just like with the codec changes a few years ago that heralded a 30% price increase, the record labels want to raise the price yet again but Apple want to make it look like they're resisting.
Recording industry: We would like to raise prices for digital downloads.
Apple: Absolutely, we agree, after all we're getting a percentage.
Recording industry: Excellent, lets say another 30% added onto the RRP.
Apple: We have one minor provision though.
Recording industry: Provision?
Apple: Well, the plebs trust us, we've got an image to maintain and raising prices like this would be seen as being "evil" and "uncool" so we want to give a token gesture that would allow us to disguise this as something for their own good.
Recording industry: Pah, we care nothing for the sheep. What do you have in mind.
Apple: Something trivial, something they already have access to, say the ability to redownload songs they've already paid for.
Recording industry: Well I suppose so, we've already planned for the recordings we are releasing tomorrow to be outdated by next week, we'll be releasing the same recording with a new drum beat over the top. The sheep who does not have it will be the laughing stock of its herd.
Apple: Excellent.
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Ignoring the copyright issues involved, you seem to think that torrent tracker and seed availability are somehow more reliable than DRM-free corporate-backed cloud solutions.
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Considering the number of these "drm free corporate back cloud solutions" going belly-up being quite significant, while essentially all posted reasonably popular bands have their full discographies in reach of a simple search on TPB, and these have been seeded for longer then most of the companies have been in existence...
And considering how many users got a really nice finger from these companies when they went belly-up...
Yeah. You got that one right.
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Yup, The Pirate Bay.
Its easy to be the best at competing when you don't have the same costs...
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Apple could have the same infrastructure cost if they use bittorrent to distribute their content. The Pirate Bay still has to pay for it's servers.
We could argue about the cost of producing music for ages. I will bet dollars to donuts, however, that a negligible fraction of your download price from apple goes to actual production costs.
Apple is Evil? (Score:1)
...So, how come they want to negotiate with the music cartels?.... Whats in it for them, they're only after are hard earned money, with their rip off ipads/macs/music store... as we all know.
(/sarcasm!.... I'm actually an Apple lover... but, this is directed at all the haters that seem to frequent Slashdot these days).
Re:Apple is Evil? (Score:4, Informative)
Plus, do your homework, Apple blatantly ripped off Xerox's PARC designs for their paperless office and made it into their Lisa and Mac offerings.
If by "blatantly ripped off" you mean "paid them good money to get access to" then you are absolutely correct.
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What mysterious flamebait are you spouting? You say Apple killed the album by allowing a la carte downloads of individual tracks. I say Apple finally allowed consumer freedom and choice since most people buy an album for only one song anyway. Ever listened to the awful filler on the rest of Britney Spears' albums after track 1 ends?
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Plus, do your homework, Apple blatantly ripped off Xerox's PARC designs for their paperless office and made it into their Lisa and Mac offerings.
If you did any research you'd know what Apple learned from Xerox was the idea of a GUI for example using icons to represent files and using a mouse as an input device. The actual implementation of GUI of Xerox was far different than Apple's designs. For the most part Xerox's system was a prototype whereas Apple would put in the effort required to have a fully functioning system. As an example, in the Xerox system, the windows could not overlap whereas Apple figured out a way to do it.
The second thing you'
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and how about the "we want 30% off all the profit from content you sell on iDevices." bullshit. It's like a Junior Mafia Guy negotiating with the bighead Mafia chiefs, slowly scheming his way to be the Godfather...
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You want to have songs on your iPod AND your iPhone? No deal! Buy it twice!
Not true at all. 100% false. Truth this is not.
I've got my songs on 3 iDevices, paid once.
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Let's not forget the fact that they attempt to maintain complete control over your device. There's an App we don't approve of? Too bad! You can't have it.
The Android way: There's an app we don't aprove of? Just download it from one of the other stores - where there is even more malware than on our store.
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The Android way: There's an app we don't aprove of? Just download it from one of the other stores - where there is even more malware than on our store.
You know that Android isn't the opposite of Apple, right?
(There are more than 2 big players in the smartphone market. For example, RIM, according to the most recent Nielsen report [cnet.com], has as many post-paid subscribers as Apple!)
Additionally iOS isn't immune to malware -- and "apps" aren't the only attack vector smartphone users should be worried about.
Last August, for example, simply visiting a website was enough to jailbreak your iPhone. If that can be done by visiting a website, what can't be done?
The illu
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The Android way: There's an app we don't aprove of? Just download it from one of the other stores - where there is even more malware than on our store.
You know that Android isn't the opposite of Apple, right?
So your point is a platform is free as long as there is enough malware, and Apple isn't free enough.
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So your point is a platform is free as long as there is enough malware, and Apple isn't free enough.
I don't recall anything saying anything about freedom.
Reread my post, it's mostly about how iOS also has malware and how iOS users should be aware of the problem. You know, so that they can be careful to avoid it. The false sense of security they have from the "Apple doesn't have malware" myth can be dangerous for them.
Licensed content (Score:5, Insightful)
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Obviously, the record companies disagree with you..... why else would Apple have to negotiate, rather than just flick a switch to allow multiple downloads.
I guess, their argument is, if you damage a CD, you have to rebuy. You should have to do the same for digital downloads
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And yet, quite a few other online stores allow for multiple downloads, and have for years. I'm sorry, but was Apple really that short sighted or is this another Steve Jobs blow job incoming? Er snow job.
Re:Licensed content (Score:5, Informative)
There's no real COPYRIGHT LAW reason why you shouldn't be able to - but the cost of doing another download has other costs that need to be accounted for (the cost of the bandwidth, the cost of making a new connection to the download servers, etc, etc). It's easy to assume that cost is zero, but I can imagine it being something that people take seriously when it comes to capacity planning.
And before any gamers chime in and say "well, that's bullshit, because Steam lets you download things as many times as you want" - a significant proportion of the Steam Content Server Network is paid for by companies (ISPs) that are not Valve that maintain local mirrors (I manage two in Australia; we have several others because the cost of bandwidth is relatively high, and so there are several ISPs that are voluntarily running them for Valve as a benefit for their customers and to help reduce their bandwidth costs - so Valve get all that bandwidth for free).
Redownload and other pipe dreams (Score:3)
The big four labels will see this as an attempt to renegotiate the royalties, and they'll fight tooth and claw to let royalties drop further.
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It's interesting to see where the balance of the scale is. Is iTunes big enough that they can dictate terms to the labels, and that if the labels disagree they'd be hurt by non-inclusion into Apple's retail presence? Or is Apple hurt more by not having some of the labels available through their store?
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That's not what is meant here. Apple is now the #1 vendor of Music, even more than Walmart. If Apple decided to remove one of the labels from the store, the label would take a substantial loss in profits. Remember when NBC decided to yank all their shows from iTunes, because Apple wouldn't sell more than $2 and episode, and then came back a few months later hat in hand?
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I dunno - most other digital content sold online can be re-downloaded these days, from what I've seen. Steam lets me re-download my games; Kindle Store lets me re-download my books; IIRC, Amazon VOD does it for videos; and all "app stores", including Apple's, do it for apps. Music has been the odd one so far (not just on iTunes; Amazon MP3 is also download-once).
My experience with Apple... (Score:5, Informative)
My experience represents just one customer but I have never had an issue getting Apple to reissue downloads to me after losing all my data. They happily obliged after a hard drive failure and after my computer was stolen. Shame on me for not having backups, but Apple has always been very accommodating.
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Mog (Score:2)
I use Mog and couldn't be happer. I listen to a lot of new releases and it's a lot better to just download however much I want. I used to buy and rip CDs but that's kind of a waste of time IMO. I hate using iTunes to manage and sync files.
Buying spesific songs (Score:2)
I never understood the appeal of buying one song. I'm much more comfortable with a subscription service like spotify (which i use) and wimp where you pay a sum each month and can listen to whatever song you want. I wish the movie and tv industry would go for this model as well and let you play anything as long as you subscribe on any device you want.
Thanks, Slashdot! (Score:3)
I used to have to visit MacRumors.com [slashdot.org] separately - thank you for saving me time by cross-posting all the latest Apple scuttlebutt here!
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I used to have to go to Engadget.com separately - thanks to your apple post, I can now get my daily dose of Apple haters in one place!
Music industry playing services against each other (Score:2)
Since about Day One "The Labels" have been pure evil, while surely its understandable that they DO NOT want Apple to control the present and future of music, should they be able to severely disadvantage one player for being stronger as of the present?
I'm curious after reading some of our other comments. That Apple shot ahead, no questions about it, and dominated the music industry with iPod, but now
Re:But what if... (Score:5, Informative)
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And even the cheeper DRM tracks, will continue to work, as they are not dependent on an internet connection to work...
And, you can burn them all to cd anyhow.
Re:But what if... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:But what if... (Score:5, Informative)
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I stand corrected.... I didn't know that. :-)
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The music industry has pretty much given up on DRM for copies of tracks they sell (as apposed to provide on subscription services etc)..New tracks bought from itunes, amazon etc are drm free and itunes DRM tracks could always be bunt to CD (which are DRM free though the quality loss and/or size increase that results from this method of drm removal is annoying). AAC isn't quite as common as mp3 but there are still loads of decoders and players out there for it.
It's other types of media that are getting locke
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DRM tracks could always be bunt to CD (which are DRM free though the quality loss and/or size increase that results from this method of drm removal is annoying)
No quality is lost in burning to a CD, and neither is it necessarily lost in re-ripping from a CD. Re-encoding the rip using a lossy codec (which is a reasonable expectation), does result in quality loss, but is not likely all that noticeable if you rip back to 256kbps AAC. iTunes has an options to transcode tracks to 128kbps AAC when songs are transferred to iPods/iPhones/iPads, and the quality difference is not generally apparent.
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Not on spotify. Spotify is essentially a net radio where you get to choose what songs you want it to play. But if it goes off the air, you don't get to keep anything just like with the radio.
Of course, it's also free with advertisements and cheap without. But it does require "always on" internet, and a fee if you want to use it on things other then PC, though fee is minimal. Of course, considering that a month of ad-free access with right to use on any device supported by the client costs about as much as o
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I actually tried out iTunes a few years ago; to try and 'come in from the cold' - so to speak - from my pirate status. I had purchased a few songs and some episodes of 30 Days. Then I found out about this little detail.
Never again, Apple.
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So, I take it you don't have any backup system for any of your other data, either? That'll show 'em!
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I've never used the ITMS largely because early on the DRM scheme was only available for iPod or iTunes and by the time they removed the DRM I was pretty angry for the bad behavior. But, this seems to be pretty bad, if they're advertising that you've bought these tracks, then you should be able to download them again it's not like CDs where they'd have to make and send you a new copy.
Re:What?! You can't redownload ITunes songs!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see what's "bad" about this. It's inconvenient, I'll grant you, it would be nice if the iTunes store acted as a backup for all my purchased music, but the idea makes sense when you consider the former paradigm. If you bought a CD in the past and lost, broke or damaged it, you went and bought a new CD. Was one of the ways the music companies kept making money on old stuff. This simply extended that concept to non-physical music purchases. If you "lose" them, you have to rebuy them. Since Apple's music has been DRM free for years and it's extremely trivial to backup the music, the risk of loss actually seems much lower to me that the risk of loss for a physical CD.
I'll be happy if they change this, it will be nice to know that I have yet another layer of backup in addition to the copies on my phone, computer, laptop, and backup disk, but realistically I'm not exactly worried as things are. Anything that wipes out every copy I have of most of my music has probably destroyed a lot more valuable things as well (not to mention the music I still do have on CD).
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But ... I bought it on my iPod! How do I make a backup of it?
You sync it in iTunes.
What's iTunes?
The software that you have to install to use the device.
Where does that install?
On your computer.
But ... my computer broke down last month and I haven't gotten it fixed!
And?
And you have to get the music back for me!
No. Backup is y
Unlimited download of music a logical next step (Score:2)
The problem with your argument is that this old paradigm applied to both CDs with application software and CDs with music. The new paradigm of online purchase with unlimited download is being applied by Apple to applications, the logical next step is to apply this to music as well.
Re:What?! You can't redownload ITunes songs!? (Score:4, Insightful)
So you blame Apple for this... who are the people who are currently working on making the deals necessary to remove this limitation?
Re: (Score:2)
I must admit that I've bought (and downloaded free) apps from the App Store and had to re-download them later for free (due to reseting the hardware). On three iPod Touches connected to the same iTunes account. I just assumed that music tracks were like that, too (never bought one from ITMS). If this gets implemented, then it's a positive step forward.
Re:You mean like eMusic DID? (Score:2)
You mean "like eMusic did", unfortunately. They changed it recently - you are no longer able to re-download things.
Try going to one of those albums from your list. Notice how the button above the album now reads "re-purchase album".
eMusic (Score:2)
eMusic subscription credits not rolling over was a deal-breaker for me though, whatever other intriguing aspects of their service.
I tried for a few months, got some nice albums out of it, but still...
Re: (Score:2)
They aren't on Amazon, either.
Re: (Score:2)
No, this is nothing like Zune's "Pay monthly or lose it all" subscription model.
Currently if you buy a song and it is deleted, the only* way to get it back is to purchase the song again. This is not just on iTunes, Amazon works the same way.
Apple is trying to allow their customers to redownload songs for free, just like they already can for Apps.
There is nothing forcing you to even use iTunes to play the media once you download it from the store.
*For special circumstances they would allow a redownload, it t