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http://www.macnn.com/articles/03/04/25/billboard.has/

Billboard has details on Apple music service

updated 02:45 pm EDT, Fri April 25, 2003

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Billboard reports that "high-quality design and simplicity of use are expected to be the hallmarks of the new digital music service from Apple Computer," as it offers expected to be unveiled on Monday. The article notes that the service will feature songs from high-profile artists not previously available via online services:

"Label sources tell Bulletin that the service is an a la carte download store -- not unlike that of rival Liquid Audio -- that is built into Apple's iTunes player. No subscription is required for the service, and tracks are expected to retail for an average of 99 cents. Once purchased, tracks are transferred to the consumer's iTunes music library and are automatically synched to the user's iPod portable player. "

"Content can also be burned to CD. Credit-card information is stored on file in the store's shopping-cart system so the consumer does not have to re-enter the information for each purchase. The offering is expected to be made available initially only to users of Apple computers."

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04/25, 02:57pm | report spam | close Reply |
Cool Beans!

This could be BIG, BIG, BIG!

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04/25, 03:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
Music

This is going to be not just big, gigantic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sign me up!

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04/25, 03:11pm | report spam | close Reply |
Only 5 Labels? :(

There is a lot of great music that is not on those 5 major labels. Like the Mac, there is a lot of select music on smaller lables. I feel Apple is leaving all that oppotunity open for say MS.

Grab as many Record Labels as you can strike a deal with.

As I see it, there won't be that big of a selection to choose from.

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04/25, 03:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
Er...

So at 99 cents a track, doesn't it, in effect cost the same amount for music as it does to get a non-MP3, CD-quality version with lyrics and liner notes (that you can make MP3s from, take in your car, etc.?). I mean, fifteen tracks at a dollar a pop is $15.

I know, I know, the idea is that you only buy the songs you want, but how do you know what you want until you've heard it, y'know? I guess it's good for radio stuff, but not much else.

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04/25, 03:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
Wow...

Billboard really spilled the beans... Or they could have just read all of the c*** floating around the forums...

They didn't give any new informaiton...

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04/25, 03:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
99 cents...

to assuage my conscience? Good deal. I hope it's as simple and diverse as predicted. I'd hate to see an "i" version of a record club where your options are pretty much Mariah Carey, Aerosmith, Ricky Martin and J.Lo. That would be death.

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04/25, 03:15pm | report spam | close Reply |
Err....

How will this work when people will still be able to download what they want using Kazaa? This will be a failure like .Mac is. Sure people will sign up, but it won't be the huge moneymaker that Apple hopes it will. Nothing like a huge distraction from the true business.

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04/25, 03:15pm | report spam | close Reply |
I'm not going to use it.

But if it brings even a few thousand people over to the Mac, I'll be happy...

What's next? Movies?

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04/25, 03:18pm | report spam | close Reply |
wonder

From a business standpoint why wouldn't it be available to anyone? Isn't MP3 a standard format? THere is no real reason to keep it apple only, perhaps apple just wants under 5% of the worldwide computer marketshare to make money from and let MICROSOFT have the other 95% of the market. Microsoft will follow and make it available to anyone if they think they can make money, and who knows, they may een do so at a loss to gain the other 5%, look at X-Box, do they make a profit when one goes out the door? Noooo......

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04/25, 03:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
re kazaa

>how will this work with kazaa...

BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT THEIVES AND GIVEN THE CHOICE WILL DO THE RIGHT THING...

>This will be a failure like .Mac is.
talk to you mother as to what a failure is. she produced one.

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04/25, 03:26pm | report spam | close Reply |
they will

probaly give you a 30 sec preview. of songs.

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04/25, 03:27pm | report spam | close Reply |
What a joke

A buck a song is way too much - Emusic is a monthly 9 buck subscription for as much music as you want. Just buy the CD instead - as the above poster points out, no-one other than radio listeners who want one track will use this.

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04/25, 03:29pm | report spam | close Reply |
RE: re kazaa

Ouchie!!!

Nuff said

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04/25, 03:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:wonder

From a business standpoint why wouldn't it be available to anyone?

to give the mac loyalists first dibs. it'll probably end up like the ipod, 3-4 months later the windows version will be released.

Isn't MP3 a standard format?
yeah, but it'll probably use AAC/MP4.

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04/25, 03:41pm | report spam | close Reply |
a buck a song

just to clarify, the story says they AVERAGE 99 cents per song. some cheaper, some more... Directly integrated into iTunes sounds great. now what about bit rate?

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04/25, 03:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: bit rate

Bit rate will be good. Not perfect, but very good. Apple is all about quality.

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04/25, 03:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
5 Labels

Well, those 5 majors control over 90% of the US record industry. They each have dozens of subsidiaries...

There is a very healthy independent record industry, with some of those labels being distributed by majors and some having truly independent distribution...

I assume that Apple would strike a deal with any label that would like their content in the system... It can only benefit Apple...

Let's hope that some of the indies like Sub Pop, Epitaph, Fat Wreck Chords, Vagrant and others get into the act.

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04/25, 03:45pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: Smaller labels

Smaller labels can come on board too, don't worry about them -- I predict you'll see TONS of them sign on once the thing is up and running.

Apple wisely (and correctly) concentrated on getting the Big Five, because that's where 85% of all popular music is coming from. By having *every* major act's catalog available, they covered everything the no-taste masses would want and then some.

Jazz, indie rock, underground, classical, progressive, experimental ... it'll all be along in due course.

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04/25, 03:48pm | report spam | close Reply |
Just remember...

Charging what the traffic can bear means maximizing economic return means it WILL be too high for some people.

Just because YOU think 99 cents a track is too much doesn't mean it's too much for other people.

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04/25, 03:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
Response to "Err"

HOW WILL THIS WORK WHEN PEOPLE WILL STILL BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD WHAT THEY WANT USING KAZAA? THIS WILL BE A FAILURE LIKE .MAC IS. SURE PEOPLE WILL SIGN UP, BUT IT WON'T BE THE HUGE MONEYMAKER THAT APPLE HOPES IT WILL. NOTHING LIKE A HUGE DISTRACTION FROM THE TRUE BUSINESS.

By providing a legal option the record labels can more effectively go after the illegal downloaders. Continue to use Kazaa and you may receive a knock on your door from the FBI. Apple should fill the void when the market is moving and the Mac gets left behind. This will be a huge incentive to stem consumer flight from the Mac platform due to better opportunities on the Wintel (evil) side.
BTW: What makes you think dot-mac is a failure? Are you privy to internal P&L statements from Apple. Just because you don�t like the cost doesn�t mean that Apple isn�t profiting from the product (either directly or indirectly). As Apple moves from hardware-centric to software centric and away from the narrowly defined niche as a computer maker, it will be out-of-the-box thinking like this that continues to drive them.

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04/25, 03:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: Kazaa

It's hard to top the reply that was already posted, but if you want some further thoughts:

1. CDs will VERY SOON be fully copy-protected. No more ripping from commercial CDs. It may take a year or two for this to be fully implemented, but it's coming. And you can expect the RIAA to be MUCH more successful in shutting down file-swapping once some of these individuals they're suing go to jail or pay huge fines. Given this, Apple's DRM deal is the best one could hope for.

2. Jobs has convinced the music industry that they can't undo time and reclaim all the "lost" money due to piracy. All he's promising them is a better direction for the future and future releases. If people go for Apple's model, it could be the death knell to the RIAA and the DMCA geeks have been praying for.

3. MP4 (or AAC, whatever they're calling it) is half the size of an MP3, and history has shown that Americans go for CAPACITY over almost anything else. A 40GB iPod will be able to hold *16,000* songs in AAC format (that's around 2000 albums). People will love that, and with an AVERAGE song price of less than $1/song, smart people will realise that it's not worth their time to rip their entire collections any more, just buy the stuff they actually want selectively and go. The "I work at Taco Bell" and "PC cheapskate" crowds will continue to favour MP3. Apple (nor anyone with half a brain in their head) doesn't want their business anyway, because you can't make money off those cheap-a** thieves.

4. I imagine Apple will leverage special deals for .Mac subscribers and other incentives. I predict they've have no problem getting at least 200,000 patrons, making them the #1 download service -- and that's BEFORE they open it up to Windows users!

In short, if I had a few thou I'd be putting it in AAPL as fast as I could. I think this is going to be a hit. Will it wipe out piracy? No, and that's not it's job. It's job is to *change the adversarial relationship between artists, record companies and the public.* I think it has a *real* good chance of succeeding at that.

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04/25, 04:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
Oh, yeah!

About time! Apple brings back the Personics system. Pic your LP. Outstanding....

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04/25, 04:10pm | report spam | close Reply |
On piracy...

This won't kill piracy, but it will change the nature of it. People who still want to download album after album will still do it, just like software is pirated. But what it will stop is the casual piracy that right now is the big problem.

Here's hoping!

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04/25, 04:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: Kazaa

Apple's hallmark is design ... everything from appearance to ease-of-use starts with a good design (or plan, if you will) ...

If Apple can create a service that makes it just as easy (or easier) to be a good law-abiding citizen, then you would expect a certain level of success.

After all, LimeWire and KaZaa and the like aren't that great ... sometimes what you want is there, sometimes it isn't ... other times it goes away while you are looking for it ... if you want a song ... or album ... and you are reasonably certain that it will be there, and of good quality (No corrupted or mis-labeled RIPs, you don't have to try every conceivable misspelling of the artist's name... or other brain-dead ways people list files on peer-to-peer services) then where would you look first?

Hey ... I'll often pay a little (even a little more) to avoid hassles ... the pizza delivery business is actually based on this concept ... and they are not a failure.

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04/25, 04:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
Smart people???

"40GB iPod will be able to hold *16,000* songs in AAC format (that's around 2000 albums). People will love that, and with an AVERAGE song price of less than $1/song, smart people will realise that it's not worth their time to rip their entire collections any more, just buy the stuff they actually want selectively and go"

Yeah, right, let's do a simple math trick. 16000 songs at 1$ cost 16 000$ to fill your iPod.

Now, someone who prefers paying 4000$ to Apple because it thinks it takes too much time to rip it's cd collection is not what I consider a smart person.... or this person could be even smarter and buy a computer that rips CDs faster... like a PC... Oh! Maybe it's a trick from Apple... selling slow computers that rip slowly so they can sell more songs....

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04/25, 04:27pm | report spam | close Reply |
Spoiled Surprise

Man....people can't wait til Monday?....now this is going to be lackluster.

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04/25, 04:41pm | report spam | close Reply |
Billboard article details

The Billboard article said that details would be posted in their premium content area this afternoon.

Anyone know what else they have to say?

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04/25, 04:42pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Smart people???

" Now, someone who prefers paying 4000$ to Apple because it thinks it takes too much time to rip it's cd collection is not what I consider a smart person.... or this person could be even smarter and buy a computer that rips CDs faster... like a PC... Oh! Maybe it's a trick from Apple... selling slow computers that rip slowly so they can sell more songs.... "

Um, I don't that anyone expects people to buy music they already have - think McFly!

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04/25, 04:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: What a joke

"Emusic is a monthly 9 buck subscription for as much music as you want."

You have to pay - tada - $.99 if you want to listen to that music offline, on your iPod, CD player etc.

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04/25, 04:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
CD copy protection?

" 1. CDs will VERY SOON be fully copy-protected. No more ripping from commercial CDs. It may take a year or two for this to be fully implemented, but it's coming. And you can expect the RIAA to be MUCH more successful in shutting down file-swapping once some of these individuals they're suing go to jail or pay huge fines. Given this, Apple's DRM deal is the best one could hope for."

You wanna fill us in on how this could possibly work? CD-Audio is by its nature an unprotected format. Are you claiming that labels will start releasing music in a new format, that isn't compatible with old CD players? The tricks that have been so far used to make a CD un-rippable are easily bypassed.

So...what the h*** are you talking about?

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04/25, 05:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: CD copy protection?

"You wanna fill us in on how this could possibly work? CD-Audio is by its nature an unprotected format. Are you claiming that labels will start releasing music in a new format, that isn't compatible with old CD players? The tricks that have been so far used to make a CD un-rippable are easily bypassed."

I can see that you're not from Europe, where Sony, EMI and others are releasing their music on copy-protected "CDs"

I say "CD" because they can't call them Compact Discs, since they don't live up to Philips' standards.

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04/25, 05:01pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: CD copy protection?

Btw. some CD players have problems playing the copy-protected albums.

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04/25, 05:28pm | report spam | close Reply |
my voice to the chorus

"Emusic is a monthly 9 buck subscription for as much music as you want."

" You have to pay - tada - $.99 if you want to listen to that music offline, on your iPod, CD player etc."

EMusic does not charge extra to listen to music offline or anywhere else. all music you download is in MP3 format, and you can copy it to players, burn CDs etc. with complete freedom.

I am amazed how much emusic gets passed over when it offers exactly what people are asking for. music without restrictions, and a service to go along with it. try them out, they have a free trial offer.

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04/25, 05:38pm | report spam | close Reply |
Did you people notice...

how much coverage their is about the Music Service... but not about the iPod ??!??

I hope something happens to the iPod as well Monday

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04/25, 05:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: CD copy protection

I was recently sent a CD by a friend via amazon.de, by a band on the EMI label, and which was "copy controlled". Since I believe it's perfectly reasonable use for me to have a copy of this music on my Tibook for when I travel, I asked iTunes to do its stuff.

It ripped the CD, but the sound was horrible: mono and heavily compressed. For the record, the same happened when I just played it with iTunes: I only got half reasonable sound out with the crappy little player bundled on the CD, and if that's not restrictive, what is?

Anyway, I then tried NMP3 Ripper (which uses LAME), and all but two tracks ripped just fine. The author of NMP3 Ripper claims not to know why it worked and iTunes didn't, but hey ...

The other two tracks were recalcitrant; I only ever got the first 7 seconds as an MP3. Glarp. But y'know, it wasn't exactly difficult to stick the CD in an external audio CD player and pipe it to the audio in on the Tibook and redigitise it without copy protection. Ok, it's one generation removed from a pure copy, but with even a half decent system, who is ever going to be able to tell the difference between this MP3 and a "pure" MP3?

The point here is that determined thieves (like me, in this instance, I suppose, although I swear on Steve's stock options that it was just for my private use, my CD, my Tibook) will get around this form of CD copy control someway or other, as long as the labels make it possible to play the CD on a regular CD player. And it just takes one copy on the Internet and ...

The real losers will be the genuine music lovers who'd just like a copy of "their" music (i.e. a CD they purchased) on their Tibook or iPod; this will just deeply frustrate and annoy them. Getting those last two tracks as MP3s took ten times longer than ripping the rest of the CD ...

For the record, I went to see this EMI band play shortly after getting the CD (they've made their money out of me double), and felt (unjustifiably, I admit, since they surely had no choice in the matter) ill disposed towards them for the copy control. This kind of technology could end up hurting musicians more than helping ...

Roll on Monday and let's see what happens.

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04/25, 05:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: EMusic

"EMusic does not charge extra to listen to music offline or anywhere else. all music you download is in MP3 format, and you can copy it to players, burn CDs etc. with complete freedom. "

Sorry, I was thinking of Listen.com (who has much more content than EMusic).

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04/25, 05:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:CD copy protection

I say "CD" because they can't call them Compact Discs, since they don't live up to Philips' standards.

then use 'cd' in quotes or something like audio disks. your original post was 'unclear'

Also, they do sell copy protected disks in the US, and most techy-type people don't appreciate them whatsoever.

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04/25, 06:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
.Mac failure?

That's news to me. From every report, .Mac has been a much bigger success than Apple expected.

Now maybe when next Sept rolls round, we'll see a huge drop in subscriptions (I doubt it) and THEN one could fairly say that .Mac was a flop. But with nearly 250,000 subscribers I can't see how .Mac can be seen as anything but a success. At an average price of $75, that's $20M Apple wasn't making before.

What have YOU done that sold 250,000 copies, hmm?

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04/25, 06:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: CD copy protection

To reply to your message:

YES, I *am* saying that the record industry will abandon the CD-Audio format the MOMENT they come with a protection scheme that works as well as DVD does. CDs in the future will NOT use an unprotected format, PERIOD. It doesn't have to be absolutely unkrackable, it has to be hard enough to do that most people won't bother.

Further, once the music industry has in place a downloading system that is a) legal and b) working on a large scale, they will MUCH more voraciously pursue (and sue) people who pirate music. If you think shutting down Napster didn't make much of a difference, you have another think coming. That was just the opening salvo. Now they are moving into the "sue individual people" stage.

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04/25, 06:38pm | report spam | close Reply |
fully what?

'CDs will VERY SOON be fully copy-protected. No more ripping from commercial CDs'

Don't see this happening. You can't fully copy protect media as long as you can see and hear it. You can make it harder (DVD for example), but as long as the audio is played, it will be ripped. Take tools like Audio Hijack for example: copy anything you want that makes a sound on your computer. In the worst senario you just record from another device (discman to 'line in' on a computer). They can only succede in making it harder.

As far as the mac music service is concerned, I think it will be great. I'll even order a song or two just to see how it works :) Advantages over Limwire and the likes will be:
a. quality
b. reliability
c. SPEED! (ever download a sw update from apple? BLAZING fast
d. can't think of d yet

The poor pirates (me) aren't going away, but the honest people will get a very nice option after this weekend

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04/25, 06:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
LOL

"BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT THEIVES AND GIVEN THE CHOICE WILL DO THE RIGHT THING..."
You crack me up. Do the right thing? Even been to college in the last 3 years. There is no morality at all there.

"talk to you mother as to what a failure is. she produced one."
I don't know, you mom is the same as mine.

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04/25, 06:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
Err

" By providing a legal option the record labels can more effectively go after the illegal downloaders. Continue to use Kazaa and you may receive a knock on your door from the FBI. Apple should fill the void when the market is moving and the Mac gets left behind. This will be a huge incentive to stem consumer flight from the Mac platform due to better opportunities on the Wintel (evil) side.
BTW: What makes you think dot-mac is a failure? Are you privy to internal P&L statements from Apple. Just because you don�t like the cost doesn�t mean that Apple isn�t profiting from the product (either directly or indirectly). As Apple moves from hardware-centric to software centric and away from the narrowly defined niche as a computer maker, it will be out-of-the-box thinking like this that continues to drive them."
LOL, why will apple's solution work when others have failed. What the h*** does apple know about selling music over the internet.

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04/25, 06:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:re:bitrate

>Bit rate will be good. Not perfect, but very good. Apple is all about quality.

it better be. i rip my music at 192 HQ VBR and i can still hear artifacts in some music.

i hope they dont do what they did w/ the itunes sampler and make it all 160kb

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04/25, 06:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Err

" LOL, why will apple's solution work when others have failed. What the h*** does apple know about selling music over the internet."

Propably just as much as they knew about selling MP3 players before they introduced the iPod - just named an American Icon by RollingStones.com

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04/25, 07:19pm | report spam | close Reply |
Losers

Most of you are plain losers.
You'd b**** if your 24k Rolex was free.

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04/25, 07:41pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:24k Rolex was free.

Ha ha. Mine was, and yes, the insurance sucks.

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04/25, 08:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
Err

" Propably just as much as they knew about selling MP3 players before they introduced the iPod - just named an American Icon by RollingStones.com"

Whats your point? That has nothing to do with what they are about to do. .MAC is close and that hasn't been a well received as Apple thought. I'm very interested in seeing what happens, but I'm guess as with everything Apple does, it will be on the expensive side.

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04/25, 08:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
lame

I want a format better sounding then the CD. Like SACD format which it fantastic. All this talk about downloading music is frustrating to me. I don't listen to music on my computer. This is going backwards to me.
I'm just afraid that there will be to much attention on downloaded music and not enough attention to moving to a better sounding format then the CD. What's the use of artists recording music these days at incredible resolution for them to just make an mp3 out of it.
Looks like musicians can start using the old 4 track tape recorders cause people aren't going to care or hear the difference on their computers.
I WANT SACD!

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04/25, 08:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
Judge says file-swapping

http://www.msnbc.com/news/905306.asp?0cv=CB10

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04/25, 09:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
Judge file-swapping legal

check out this new headline -

Judge says file-swapping is legal

http://www.msnbc.com/news/905306.asp?0cv=CB10

"A federal judge in Los Angeles has handed a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record industry and movie studios� lawsuit against the two companies."

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04/25, 10:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
RE:Smart people???

hate to burst your bubble. 2000 albums at $15 an album is $30,000. $16,000 doesn't seem so bad now.

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04/25, 10:35pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: re Bitrate

Keep in mind that this is AAC audio we're talking about. 160Kbps AAC sounds like 320Kbps MP3, so actually 160 would be phenomenal.

It's much more likely to be 128Kbps AAC, but as Apple uses 160Kbps as an advertising standard for the iPod, perhaps they WILL use 160Kbps AAC as the default. That would be amazing.

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04/25, 11:15pm | report spam | close Reply |
marketshare

"" LOL, why will apple's solution work when others have failed. What the h*** does apple know about selling music over the internet."

Propably just as much as they knew about selling MP3 players before they introduced the iPod - just named an American Icon by RollingStones.com ""

...TOO BAD THEY CAN'T APPLY THEIR SKILLS OF THE IPOD TO MARKETSHARE IN THE COMPUTER BUSINESS, THEY JUST MUST ENJOY BEING A NICHE COMPUTER COMPANY....

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04/25, 11:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
subscriptions vs. pay per

"Emusic is a monthly 9 buck subscription for as much music as you want."

Well, for those of us who don't buy/download a ton of music, $9 per month could cost us money. I'd prefer just to pay for what I use. Plus I've got enough monthly subsriptions to float a boat.

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04/25, 11:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:re:re:bitrate

r u sure it will be aac??? i dont believe i have read taht any compression format has been officially specified yet and probally wont be until monday

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04/26, 01:28am | report spam | close Reply |
what's so great here???

$0.99 per song is too much! like other people have mentioned, that is the same price as buying an actual CD, which has a case, and liner notes, and can be ripped to mp3 anyway. the arguement is that you only buy a cd for 1 or 2 songs. why is it this way? if i like a band, i want to hear everything they have, not just a few songs. i dont think all the bands are in the studios, working their asses off to write 3 good songs, and then bullshitting the other ~10 or more. give me entire albums for ~$7 to 10, and it might be ok...

and about integration with iTunes: i dont give a flying f*ck about iTunes. it runs really S***** on my computer (400 MHz, yes it's a little slow) but seriously, i click a button in itunes, or i try to select more than one song or something, and the damn thing locks up and gives me the spinning cursor. EVERYTIME I DO ANYTHING pretty much. solution: i dont use itunes. so i dont care about integration with itunes. because itunes sucks. the only time i ever run itunes is to sync my ipod, and to rip a cd. i dont want to have to open it to download music, when i can just go to a web browser (i.e. safari, which runs really well on my computer, in stark contrast to itunes).

re: downloading stuff fro P2P: yeah i do it, and i'll continue to do it until it's impossible (which i dont think will ever happen, not too soon anyway). and when i find stuff i like, guess what? i buy the album! i've downloaded countless albums, because i heard about them from someone, or i just wanted to check them out or whatever, and when i i think they suck, i delete them. and when i think they're good, usually i buy them. how is shutting down file trading going to affect the music industry? i wont download anything, so i wont know if it's good or not, so i'll never buy the album. THAT'S where the RIAA is going to lose sales. not from me downloading stuff and never giving them a penny. if you, or someone you know, gets music only by downloading, and doesnt buy stuff because it's available online, that's where i draw the line.

oh yeah i was subscribed to emusic for a long time, and i think that's the best service there is for buying and downloading music. the only problem, and the reason i cancelled my subscription, is their music library. it's more than any one person could ever listen to, but they dont have a lot of mainstream stuff. if apple (or ANYONE) came along with a service like this, with a $10/month charge (or even $15 or $20, or maybe a sliding scale based on how much you download) that had a comprehensive selection of music, i would be all over it. i think that's all i have to say at the moment... as you can tell, it's a subject i'm very interested in. if anything else comes to mind, i'll let you know ;-)

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04/26, 03:15am | report spam | close Reply |
re: what's so great here

Let me respond to this point by point:

"$0.99 per song is too much!"

Well, let's grab a recent CD and compare, shall we? I just picked up The Postal Service's new album "Give Up," which contains 10 songs and sells for $14 (not including shipping) on Amazon.com, $18 retail. Let's call it $16 average. That's $1.60 per song.

For the extra money you get: a) a cover b) a back cover c) lyrics.

The band probably gets about $1 of that money. The record store gets about $8, and the record company gets $7.

Now let's say you buy the album from Apple's music service instead. Cost: $10 instead of $16. Who knows, maybe Apple's service includes free downloadable covers, or possibly for a small extra fee they will send you covers/lyrics/ephemera. Why not?

Out of each dollar you spend, let's say Apple gets 10%. Let's say the record company gets 70%, and the artist gets 20%. So Apple gets a buck, the record company gets $7.00, and the artist gets $2.00. The percentage the record company gets is probably quite a bit lower really, but for the sake of argument let's say they're greedy b******* who won't concede a nickel. :)

You save more than 33% of your money, the record company makes as much as they did before with DRAMATICALLY less cost to them (ie higher profit), and the artist gets a 100% increase over the money they got before.

So no, 99 cents a song is *not* too much if more of the money is going directly to the artist.

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04/26, 03:22am | report spam | close Reply |
re: what's so great here

[iTunes] runs really S***** on my computer (400 MHz, yes it's a little slow) but seriously, i click a button in itunes, or i try to select more than one song or something, and the damn thing locks up and gives me the spinning cursor.

Dude, that's your computer, not iTunes. It runs great on almost everyone else's computer. I have a little original iMac I run it on, runs flawlessly. Your poor system maint is not Apple's prob.

re: downloading stuff fro P2P: yeah i do it, and i'll continue to do it until it's impossible (which i dont think will ever happen, not too soon anyway). and when i find stuff i like, guess what? i buy the album! i've downloaded countless albums, because i heard about them from someone, or i just wanted to check them out or whatever, and when i i think they suck, i delete them. and when i think they're good, usually i buy them.

Good for you! You're the type of person the RIAA should be *embracing,* not alienating. But they're a******* and they don't get P2P. And since the courts tend to agree with THEM and not YOU, maybe you'd better start looking at alternatives. They are suing individuals who serve songs now, if those kids go to jail or pay huge fines how much "good stuff" do you think is still going to be out there in a year?

And don't forget about CD copy protection. It's coming the second they get a scheme that works. It doesn't have to be unkrackable, it just has to be "not worth the effort" for most people to bother.

Or would you rather MICROSOFT be allowed to set the standards for DRM, where you can't play a downloaded song anywhere but on your computer? Or maybe you prefer a DRM that charges you *every time* you copy or play the song (yes, both of these ideas have been proposed and are implementable!)?

Something to think about.

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04/26, 03:25am | report spam | close Reply |
oops!

Readers: please put quote marks around the first and third paragraphs of the message above. That's where I was quoting an earlier poster. I guess MacNN's forum software doesn't honor HTML beyond the i and b tags.

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04/26, 04:21am | report spam | close Reply |
Sssssss

I care because I am a little gray Alien...

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04/26, 10:22am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: CD Copy Protection

The real losers will be the genuine music lovers who'd just like a copy of "their" music (i.e. a CD they purchased) on their Tibook or iPod; this will just deeply frustrate and annoy them. Getting those last two tracks as MP3s took ten times longer than ripping the rest of the CD ...

Yep, and blame the Napster users (and those that followed) who decided that they should be able to share every song they own with everyone in the world.

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04/26, 10:42am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: labels, sharing, cost

What's amazing is that most P2P users who complained about the RIAA's harrassment did so with the argument that if the RIAA had a decent system of downloading music for a price, they'd use that, but until then they were 'protesting' the RIAA by stealing their music. When other services came on board, none were good enough because (a) they didn't have any major label or just one major label, or (b) it was too restrictive (or MS only). Now, they hear rumors of Apple's service, and they say "Well, still not good enough!". What do they want? Oh, all the music they can download (including as much new stuff as possible, which of course is what the record companies make their money on) for one low subscription fee. Why? Oh, I could get the full album for $15 (not that they do, since they steal it off of LimeWire, but that's not the point) and its the full album! Well, that's great, but then you want to rip it and put it in your computer/iPod. How often do you use the actual CD? Most people don't. I know, "but you have it". Great. And, oooh, you get the COVER ART (which of course is on a tiny piece of paper, as opposed to album covers, and thus there ain't that much there) and liner notes (wow, you mean people read the liner notes??? Well, I guess there are people who read the credits of movies...)

The problem most people seem to miss (yet complain about) is that the RIAA is in the business of making money! Yes, they want money! And I'm sure you want money! Everyone wants it (hey Steve Jobs wants it, and he gets a lot of it...). They're not going to basically give away their only source of income (bands make their money on concerts, RIAA on the record sales). Thieves will of course still steal music. Only if it was being given away by the RIAA would they take it from them. Maybe they'll justify it by saying its a protest, or that they're just 'trying out' the music and buy more CDs because of it, but they'll still steal (just like people who still shoplift even though they've got the money to pay).

To the people who claim they download music to try it out to know whether to buy the album, one question: If the Apple service streamed the music for appraisal purposes, rather than letting you download it, would this be suitable, or is there something wrong with this thought?

The 5 majors is an important point because no other service has all 5 majors.

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04/26, 12:45pm | report spam | close Reply |
..

Personally, I always downloaded music because I don't want all the CD's around. I don't mind paying on a per-track basis, but I want them all to be digital, not CD's. I think Apples service will be the answer to what I want. :)

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04/26, 03:01pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Re: labels, sharing,

> To the people who claim they download music to try it out to know whether to buy the album, one question: If the Apple service streamed the music for
> appraisal purposes, rather than letting you download it, would this be suitable, or is there something wrong with this thought?

Yes, it will be. I'm more concerned whether or not there's going to be enough non-mainstream music available from Apple's service that is not played non-stop on MTV or otherwise artistically worthless.

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04/26, 08:11pm | report spam | close Reply |
Content

This service will absolutely clean up if the right content is available. I would expect to see a big surge in both Apple's stock and marketshare if they can pull off having as much variety as possible. First of all, Apple needs to pull obscure independent labels on board, and have some sort of "partners program" where any regular joe with a commercially available record can post his library of tunes. Personally, I don't want to type for instance "New Amsterdams", "Soul Asylum", or "R.L. Burnside" and get a message saying "Sorry, no results were found". That is the type of variety in genre/known bands that I would expect. If Apple fails to deliver on this, users will tail off consistently. All I can say is BRAVO Apple, I'll be downloadin' the day this service opens! Can't Wait. (After years of Limewire/Kazaa downloading, I'm sure this would be music to the record companies' ears! I'm ready to go legal :)

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04/27, 04:45am | report spam | close Reply |
Listen up, dummies!

"I want them all to be digital, not CD's"

Music on CD is digital! Everywhere the topic of downloadable music comes up, there are a bunch of dummies that act like CDs aren't digital. Am I the only one that's annoyed by this?

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04/27, 06:41am | report spam | close Reply |
Listen up, dummies!

>"I want them all to be digital, not CD's"
>
>Music on CD is digital! Everywhere the topic of
>downloadable music comes up, there are a bunch of
>dummies that act like CDs aren't digital. Am I the
>only one that's annoyed by this?

I think they meant to mean they want their music uncompressed - e.g. the Uncompressed WAVE format they are stored as on CD - there is a compromise already once the Music went digital - a greater one when it's compressed as MP3 or MP4.

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04/27, 10:58am | report spam | close Reply |
How about 80 cents

Considering the amount we pay for CDs today, you're not only paying for the mostly bad music on the CD, but also the packaging. Let's bring it down to 80 cents per song so I can download the entire album sans packaging for less than for what I could purchase it in the store. Plus, I don't know about you guys, but half the reason why I don't buy CDs (except for the bands I really love) is because I hate the RIAA and their low standards of quality in the music that they release.

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04/27, 01:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: labels, sharing

Yes, it will be. I'm more concerned whether or not there's going to be enough non-mainstream music available from Apple's service that is not played non-stop on MTV or otherwise artistically worthless.

Wow, I must've missed something lately. Are you telling me MTV is actually showing videos again?!? I don't remember the last time I was zapping past MTV and actually saw an actual Music Video.

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04/27, 05:16pm | report spam | close Reply |
more dummies

"I think they meant to mean they want their music uncompressed - e.g. the Uncompressed WAVE format they are stored as on CD"

First of all, that's not at all the meaning I got from the original dummy's post. More importantly, I'm also sickened by all the dummies that that WAVE format is the normal format of CD audio and AIFF is "some Mac audio format." Let's get another thing straight, dummies, when you listen to a track on a CD, you are listening to an AIFF file. WAVE format is just some Windows audio format, got it?

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04/27, 08:36pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: more dummies

yeah!

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04/27, 08:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: more dummies

"First of all, that's not at all the meaning I got from the original dummy's post. More importantly, I'm also sickened by all the dummies that that WAVE format is the normal format of CD audio and AIFF is "some Mac audio format." Let's get another thing straight, dummies, when you listen to a track on a CD, you are listening to an AIFF file. WAVE format is just some Windows audio format, got it?"

BWWAAA HA HA HA! You do realize that AIFF is an Apple-invented format, just like WAV is a windows format? When you are listening to a CD, you are listening to PCM - pulse code modulation.

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04/27, 11:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
.99 is good

For some $9.00 a month subscription is a good deal but for folks like me whose interest is very limited when it comes to songs 99� a song is a great price. That way I'm not wasting money when there are no songs I like availble that month. Believe me there are some months everything I hear is not what I want.

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04/28, 11:11am | report spam | close Reply |
Points

I think the best way to run a subscription music service is to pay a flat rate for a set number of points, and them set the valuation of songs based on charts and # of downloads. Example, $50/year + .Mac subscription gets you 1000 points. Older, less known songs are 1 point, brand new songs by top-selling artists are 10 points. You can also buy more points throughout the year, and there are plans where you pay more for a larger number of annual points. And they rollover.

Artists who make non-mainstream music are cheaper and get downloaded more, and the "moneymaker" artists have people pay through the nose for them, making the RIAA more money.

And I'd love for Apple to assure all of us that 50-75% of the cost of the song goes to the artist. I'm not gonna give 70 cents to the RIAA and 30 cents to the artist for a song.

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05/01, 08:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
Deal?

$0.99 per song...average of 13 songs per album...sales tax I assume...equals approx. $13.52 for an entire album. This is assuming the album does not exceed 13 songs. In which case, you may be paying more than the average price for a CD. Of course, on the other hand, an album with less than 13 songs may be sold for less than the average price. THE POINT: if you're looking for albums, this may or may not be such a great advancement. All CDs tend to sell for the same price, regardless of song amount. Is $13.52 less than the average sale price? Also consider you receive no case and no album literature. (Ex: Cody Chestnutt - The Headphone Masterpiece, contains 36 tracks. At $1.04 p/song (sales tax), you pay $37.44 for the album via Apple's service. That is more than twice what you would pay in a record store.)

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Billboard has details on Apple music service

updated 02:45 pm EDT, Fri April 25, 2003

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