19 replies to this topic

[Montana]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18944841/

The inaugural batch of iTunes Plus songs includes music from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Pink Floyd and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums.

The DRM-free tracks feature a higher sound quality and cost $1.29 apiece — 30 cents more than the usual 99-cent price of other, copy-protected songs at the market-leading online music store.

If available, users could upgrade existing purchases to DRM-free versions for 30 cents a song or $3 for most albums, Apple said.

London-based EMI, the world’s third-largest music company by sales, and Cupertino-based Apple announced their partnership in April to deliver the industry’s first major offering of DRM-free songs, sharing a vision of what both companies say their consumers want: flexibility and CD-audio quality.

Good deal.

[pong]

AH. I can't read any more Montana posts until that signature is gone. I'll get a headache.

[DrJimmy]

and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums.

must be a prank.

[dp_glono]

And Lefsetz HATES it: http://www.gloriousn...eels_rushed.php

[amotin]

Sorry, what's the point if they're still encoded in AAC?

[yancy]

I can't read any more Montana posts until that signature is gone.

[Paul]

Good deal.

Not so much.

The DRM-free tracks feature a higher sound quality and cost $1.29 apiece — 30 cents more than the usual 99-cent price of other, copy-protected songs at the market-leading online music store.

If available, users could upgrade existing purchases to DRM-free versions for 30 cents a song or $3 for most albums, Apple said.

So if I bought Check Your Head by Beastie Boys on iTunes originally for $9.99 and now want to upgrade it to DRM-free versions in higher quality (that will still only work on my iPod), it will cost me a total of $12.99 when I could have just gone to Best Buy and for that same price bought a physical copy that would have real artwork, still exist after a hard drive crash, and allow me to rip it in any format and any quality that I want. Or if I was buying it for the first time, it would cost me $11.99, and as a music fan, someone who doesn't treat it as a disposable product, that extra one dollar for the physical CD allows me so much more freedom. The 99-cent per song rate makes sense as well, especially as an impulse sale, so they're really just shooting themselves in the foot with this increase.

I'm saying this as an iPod owner and as someone who like's Apple's store better than any other big digital download location, but all this feels like is a way for Steve Jobs to compromise with the record companies on higher prices. They've seen that legal music downloads haven't decreased internet piracy, so DRM really isn't stopping them from losing the sales/money. The CD market is going to bottom out in a few years pretty much regardless of anything that the music industry does, but digital downloads will in now way take off like they need to in order to continue supporting the business because there is no reason for someone who already has an album on CD to rebuy it digitally. Repurchasing of back-catologues is what fueled the initial growth of cassettes and CDs, partly due to supposed increased sound quality and the ability to take your music places, but since everyone already has all the old music they like on CD, there isn't a logical reason beyond lossless, good remastering jobs that would convince anyone to pay the same price for a file that they would have paid for something physical.

[Ennui]

Bittorrentz.

[Chronodiggity]

Bittorrentz.

Wut?

[fabulous muscles]

New version of iTunes is buggin'. It lags while I surf flash sites, skipping songs and pissing me off.

[sKinnY]

New version of iTunes is buggin'. It lags while I surf flash sites, skipping songs and pissing me off.

yeah it does...this thing also drags ass just searching. at least mine does anyway. downloads seem to go fine though.

[Oldster]

I can't read any more Montana posts until that signature is gone.

Easier to just turn off sigs.

[yancy]

Less drastic to just adblock stuff that annoys you. And it's easy.

[throughsilver]

Less drastic to just Ignore stuff that annoys you. And it's easy.

I usually hate 'fixed!' posts, but: fixed!

[Seamus]

and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums.

must be a prank.

I seized on that line initially as well. In fact, it's the only part of the article that I can recall--as it's the most unbelievable statement in the piece.

[yancy]

Less drastic to just Ignore stuff that annoys you. And it's easy.

I usually hate 'fixed!' posts, but: fixed!

Actually I'd rather not see your blog banner to begin with. Thanks again, adblock.

[throughsilver]

My heart is rent in twain.

[fabulous muscles]

My last.fm plugin disappeared ever since I updated iTunes a couple of days ago. WTF.

[nobodies]

The one thing that nobody really has mentioned: Arstechnica did a dissection of the downloaded DRM-free file and found that the purchaser's name and account number were encoded into the file. So much for privacy. I suspect that's another concession that Apple made to the record companies.

Edit:
Gizmodo's unscientfic audio comparason of iTunes v. iTunes plus tracks.

One of the hyperlinked articles at the beginning of the thread mentions this. I don't like it, but I don't necessarily blame the record company. Isn't the idea behind the drm-free tracks is so that itunes songs can be played on any player, and burned and transferred without restriction (or are the new drm-free tracks still limited to ipods)? Even while making the tracks more flexible, you can't expect them to promote piracy.

However, like others have said the price-point is still too high. I'd much rather have the cd and artwork...or even better the vinyl (and with multiple vinyl albums including coupons for free mp3s....that's just the best option right now).

Another thing....isn't it already pretty easy to remove the drm crap from the $.99 itunes tracks? Just burn them to a cd, and then rip the tracks as an mp3 file. I've heard this degrades the sound quality somewhat...but as far as I'm concerned, if you're buying mp3s/aacs to begin with...you're not super concerned with sound quality.