mcs328

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguid...le-music_x.htm

Apple is rolling out a service to let users download songs for a dollar each. And 5 record labels have given Apple the go-ahead. It's legal and permanent ownership of the song. I'd pay a dollar for a good song than 15-20 for the CD. Even the the CD singles are like 3 bucks by themselves.

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Joshua

I would do it, just not with Apple. I hate Apple! Now wheres Dellmusic.com when you need them??

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"Like I ****ing said, "Ok, so I hear it may be a repost. Blah But I had never seen it, so..." **** you Canta." -Jenny 12/4/2003

Cantacuzene

$1 per song.


Thats more expensive than buying the cd in the store. No thanks. I prefer $0 per song.

mcs328

Not if you just want the one song. Of course free is better to me also.

sbp

Another step in the right direction.

I'd go for a $1 a song I really wanted than buying a whole cd full of filler crap.

Memo

It's not going to work. Sometimes people feel bad that they cheat artists (companies really) out of their $15 by not buying a cd. It's gonna be really easy to say "ah, it's only a buck" and just go for free. People like free.

verve247

Actually it's 0.99 a song or $10 a album, including covershot of album cover.

the problem with this service is that it's too frickin' easy to buy a song. An html window seamlessly opens right into itunes. Check it out: http://www.apple.com/music/store/

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LPMiller

AAC is a mac only format, no need to worry.

I don't see what's evil about actually paying for songs. I download stuff all the time, but I'd much rather own it, especially if it's some obscure 1 hit wonder. There will always be those that go for freebies, and songs have been traded since they were first able to be recorded on something, but I think this is a good idea.

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Merlin

This fits with the Wall Street rumors that Apple was looking at buying Universal Music.

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mcs328

Hmmm 10/album and cover art? I guess if I liked the whole album then sure. If I could preview the songs beforehand then even better. I wonder how bad they would go after you if you "stole" the cover art to make your own CD label.

I'm hoping it takes off so well that they reduce the price or have like specials every now and then. Buy 2 tunes get the 3rd free or something.

The way I look at it is yeah it costs me money versus free. But it's perfectly legal and I own a copy to do whatever the hell I want to do with it. In fact I'm doing the Music Industry a favor. I'm dowloading a digital copy that costs them the price to maintain the server to download the song. They might spend money on advertising but they don't have real manufacturing costs for the CD, CD case and paper for the cover art.

If they do this Business model right they can make money. I'm sure some percentage will be willing to spend money to legally own a song and that's really the strongest selling point coupled with the price.

Speedfreak

I think I will stick to "making backups" for now.

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ribitch

just popping my head in to see whats going on.

YAMPU - Yet another misinformed PC User

AAC is a format created by the MPEG group. Its not a mac only format.
http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/aac/

I believe winamp supports it, and there are also players for linux that will play it. Apple plans on releasing support for the Windows world by year end.

$1 a song is a good deal if you ask me. CD's are only 9.99 when bought this way. Screw the 14.99 average price at bestbuy. I copy a cd and the original sits on the shelf and the MP3's are burned to a MP3 backup CD, and an exact duplicate is used for my home system or car system. I have no need for the CD case, booklet, and anything else that comes with it. So why pay for it?

The DRM sucks, but is still really flexible in my eyes. unlimited CD burns of it, up to 3 systems can use it, and unlimited rendezvous streaming. The downside is you can only make 10 burns of the same playlist, but i doubt i will never have to do that.


edit:
http://www.apple.com/music/ads/nic.html

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LPMiller

Uh, pardon me, but I own a mac thank you very much. Keep the clicky acronyms to yourself. I don't play the platform game.

As to AAC, blame CNet, they were the one that said it was a mac only format. I don't actually care all that much either way.

eSDee

Eff off Ribitch I am the resident Mac pro now buddy!!

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spigidygak

Hehe. . . you better step off . . . if only i wasn't so lazy to reveal me new setup. . .

Anyhow I've been playing around with itunes 4 now for a while and the store is really great. And you know, for those of you who download yer mp3s and say you do it 'cause the whole cd sucks. . . here's a solution finally. Buy what you want and thats it. Funny thing is I doubt anyone will actually do it. But Apple has done the best job of this music service I have seen yet. BTW, AAC is made by dolby and it does play on winamp fine, i've played around with it before when I was on xp. It sounds better than mp3 or ogg at same bitrates.

The DRM they did is very reasonable. You buy the song, you can burn it up to 10 times then you have to modify the play list to do another 10 burns. . . I don't see that being a problem as I rarely burn a song more than 2 or 3 times to a mix disc.

The coolest thing though is with itunes4, you can share your library over a network. So I can access all of my music on my powerbook as if it was on the local hard drive. Its a really amazing thing.

Hopefully there are rumors apple is going to make a windows version of itunes so that the store will work for 99.9% of the market. Apple got it done right, but its up to people to support purchasing music. . . which I dunno if its gonna happen.

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Cantacuzene

I honesty don't think the average person cares that what they are doing is "wrong." I think very few people are swayed by the moral arguement. I have 3700 mp3 on my computer right now, I can't fathom having paid $3700 for that collection.

spigidygak

Yeah thats the biggest problem, the average person probably doesn't even know its wrong and won't know or care until there is some major penalty.

Cantacuzene

You say that is if it was wrong. I remain unconvinced its wrong. I'm stealling nothing. To steal something you have to deprive someone else of something. You could say I'm stealing from teh artist, but I wasnt going to buy their cd either way, so they arent losing any income.

Bottom line, regardless of your personal stance on the issue its wrong to assume your personal morality applies to anyone besides yourself.

sbp

What do you consider a fair price for those 3700 mp3's?

Cantacuzene

The $50 a month I pay for broadband, and the 80$ I spent on my hard drive.

Merlin

Let's have some fun with that logic shall we?

If you sneak into a movie theatre (you know through an exit or something) are you stealing the movie? I mean you didn't pay but you didn't diminish anyone else by being there. What about sneaking into Disneyland? Etc. There are lots of expamles of businesses that are high fixed cost and service in nature out there.

Cantacuzene

Apples to oranges. Not all analogies are equal. Its best to look at a moral or legal issue on its own and not how it relates to other issues.

Cubsfan

Oh, and don't forget the price of the lawyer when your ISP has to give up your name for downloading songs!

Merlin

So how are they so different? You said it is not stealing because stealing is depriving someone of something. There are lots of times when you are indeed stealing without actually diminishing someone.



This is somewhat troubling as well. If you don't think something is worth it then you can't have it. It is not valid to say I don't think it is worth what they are asking so I am just going to take it, which is what you are doing. Try doing that with a car - you'll go to jail.

Johnnymac

Canta,

While I disagree with your point I do believe that you don't feel you are doing anything "wrong". I am not a fan of telling a person that they have to adopt my version of right vs. wrong, but let's make no mistake about it, you are stealing (legally speaking).

-C

Cantacuzene

You are comparing a service industry (theme park, movie theater) to a tangible thing (a compact disc.) For me to steal a cd I have to deprive a retail store of a copy of it. You are comparing apples to oranges.

Cracker, I agree it is legally wrong. But I'm sure we can also agree that there are illegal things which are not immoral and there are immoral things which are legal. Laws are man made and can be changed.

Merlin

Let's see, you download the songs and burn them to a CD-R. No physical goods involved. No one was deprived of anything physical but, so did theft take place? Obviously the legal answer is yes but what is your opinion.

billxp

Way back in time as a kid I used to tape the songs on the radio to listen when I wanted to. Illegal maybe but I dont make the laws big money does. Today we do the same thing only better. Illegal maybe but I dont make the laws big money does.

What should be illegal is how the poor artist in wanting to be discovered in a industry controlled by a few are willing to sell all rights to their music. The artists own NOTHING. I believe this doesn't happen in the publishing industry. Its sorta like selling your soul to the devil.

Am I rationalizing my actions maybe, but someone brought up some moral issue. What the record companys do to the artist starting out isn't morally right either.

PS
The record industry has no one to blame but themselves. Mp3's came out and they tried to kill the format. Napster was born. We got it for free. Kinda hard to get people to pay after so long. Cant put the genie back in the bottle

My 2 cents

Cantacuzene

Downloading them rather than stealing the cd is making it not theft by the definition of depriving someone of a resource.

The legal answer is that it is theft, but that doesnt mean I agree. Laws get over turned or changed all the time.

Merlin

So do you think intellectual property has any value? And what rights do you think the creators of this content have? I mean must think it has value otherwise why go through the exercise of downloading it? And if folks can't make a buck off their IP why should they bother with the activity? If they don't then society is diminished.