Business Models: Napster to Go vs. iPod 517
CNet offers an interesting comparison between Napster to Go and iTunes.
For $15 a month, Napster to Go offers over 1 million songs (access to which lasts as long as subscription is valid), while songs for iPod must be purchased and last 'forever' (but it takes about $10,000 to fill an iPod). Is Napster to Go the future of digital music distribution? Would moving to an all-you-can-eat model hurt iPod business and balance the power among authors, studios, hardware makers and consumers?" It might take $10,000 to fill an iPod with songs downloaded from iTunes or with music converted to MP3 from newly purchased CDs, but there's a lot of downloadable and legit free music out there, not to mention Griffin's RadioShark.
You can fill it for free. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:5, Funny)
Where the "screw and subvert legitimate businesses and content owners at all costs" attitude is considered "Insightful".
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Funny)
Aww jeez thats just wrong. Next I'll tell you how to rob a bank and get "informative".
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Informative)
Wow. What a playlist!
Ah, but then again, iTunes doesn't have a free trial at all. Sure, you can download
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Interesting)
Buying second hand CDs isn't illegal, yet. (If this isn't what you meant, sorry but it definitely came across that way. A "or if you want to go the legal route" would have cleared up any confusion).
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Interesting)
If I have a loaf of bread and you take it I've lost that loaf of bread and I cant eat it anymore.
If I sing a song and you sing it too I've lost nothing and I can still sing my song.
Physical property exists and has value and use and can be lost with or without the law. Intellectual property exists solely as a construct of the law; without the explicit right to forbid you to sing my song I have not lost anything. The value is entirely derived from my ability to prevent you from e
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not about my recording of the song, it's about my song.
it's about limiting peoples rights to do what they wish with their creativity, memory, abilities and property [...]
If you are using your creativity and abilities non trivially, copyright can't touch you (traditionally, lets not get into recent evils given the name `copyright' to
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:5, Insightful)
The interface is clunky, everything is slow, many songs (usually one from each album) isn't available unless you pay extra and the downloading is slow.
I stopped using my 14 day trial about day 5.
I might consider using a similar service, but it would have to be put together better and it would have to have a wider selection of music. For example, there's a band called X that I really like. They put out 6 or 7 albums, and only one of them is available on Napster. Sure, they aren't super current and they were never huge, but they were a big enough band that their catalog should be available.
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is is to friggin' hard to just pay for music? There's a lot of people working hard to deliver an album, and they deserve to make a honest buck off it. If you don't like the major labels, fine; neither buy nor listen to music they produce. But whether you listen to independents or majors, at least do your part
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:5, Insightful)
It isnt. However, I dont want to pay for the marketing, the videos, the lawyers, the exec payscale, the parties, the execs coke habit, the payola, the execs cousins nephews marketing, videos, birthday party and coke habit and the execs cousins newphews floozies new wardrobe.
How can a music company refuse to release a finished recorded album from an artist selling platium on the grounds that it wont make a profit? How can it fail to make a profit? Where is the hard work and what is the honest buck? Pretty much anyone who can afford a car can afford to pay for a complete professional recording, and could make a profit from a few thousand sales at todays prices. How exactly does copyright benefit the artist and public in such a case?
I'd love to just pay for the music. But it appears that choice usually aint on the menu. Paying for everything _but_ the music appears to be the dish of the day. But that's monopolies for you.
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Insightful)
If they didn't have the marketing, and the videos, then you would never even hear about the bands that you probably listen to. Unless you only listen to classical music.
Need proof? Here are links to successful independent record labels, but you tell me if you've heard of any of their bands?
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Those may be your concerns, or you may have others, but I still believe that the majority of people who complain about DRM do so mainly as a knee-jerk, Slashdot-groupthink reaction.
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Interesting)
Itunes isn't the only way to purchase music that has DRM. Many, many CDs do as well, which make playing on some players difficult, playing on computers difficult, playing with a CD-RW difficult (by difficult, I mean impossible on certain hardware).
I haven't had that problem myself, because I don't buy ANY new music. At all. I don't like new music period. But I hear people have prob
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Insightful)
How about playing it through filters? Maybe Apple's EQ isn't good enough? Maybe you want real crossfeed or spacialization? Maybe you want speed up/slow down/vocal removal? It annoys the hell out of me that I can't do these things in iTunes.
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3)
Buy the friggin' CD. Then, you own it. Problem solved; that hasn't ever not worked for me.
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Many, many CDs"? Hahahahahahano.
You're just feeling doomed and gloomy, bud.
Re:You can fill it for free. (Score:4, Informative)
Your points are confusing and angry. So you're saying that any artist who makes money from their CD sales is already so rich that they don't need this money?
Since you understand so much about the record business, why not provide us with examples of these artists and the figures you looked at so you could come to these conclusions.
For someone accusing others of having no understanding, you seem to have a child's view of the world.
DRM quality (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:DRM quality (Score:5, Informative)
Re:DRM quality (Score:2, Informative)
Old Versions (Score:3, Informative)
Re:DRM quality (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, I wrote one that lets you queue up a list of files and then the program will tell winamp to play each file and it will record the DirectSound output. It basically does what the no longer working outputstacker plugins did.
Of course the quality isn't going to be as good as some of the other services, but if you want a permanent copy of your "Napster music" instead of paying Napster $10-$15 each month for the privilege, you don't really have a choice.
Re:DRM quality (Score:4, Insightful)
and they claim Itunes is bad?
yeah... they are sure to win this fight, esspecially with their informative (aka stupid) commercials and trendy brightly ipod mini colored website (very original). "napster to go" is sure to sweep itunes and free p2p -- and then maybe it will cure cancer.
Mike
Re:DRM quality (Score:2)
Until your subscription expires... (Score:2, Insightful)
It all sounds impressive to begin with but there are too many catches.
Re:Until your subscription expires... (Score:4, Interesting)
What happens if Apple goes bankrupt? No trolling, real interest because I don't know how it's handled. How are the certificates for the iTMS files managed? Do they have to be renewed? Can you transfer them from PC to PC without a central authority?
Re:Until your subscription expires... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Until your subscription expires... (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole "what happens if they go bankrupt" argument is a giant waste of breath, because nobody in his right mind relies on encoded files. That's just dumb. The first thing everybody who buys music on line does is burn that music to CD. With iTunes, that's free. With Napster, it's an extra per-song fee on top of your $15 monthly charge.
So all this talk about DRM is just a huge waste of energy. The real issue is cost. Napster costs more, period.
Small Print (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither Napster nor iPod - just FREE GOOD MUSIC. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Neither Napster nor iPod - just FREE GOOD MUSIC (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Neither Napster nor iPod - just FREE GOOD MUSIC (Score:5, Informative)
Because "fees" never go up (Score:5, Insightful)
I would expect nothing less from the music rental services..
I have a feeling that renting your music will be harder and harder to get stuff you want. (like some bands charging more than 9.99$ for an itunes album..)
itunes "playlist" which users post there mixes is very clever. When you select a song, you can search for playlists with that song on it (more songs you might like..)
However the napster "try" part is a way to discover new music I might or might not shell out cash for. Then again alot of bands have sites with free downloadable mp3s..
If my free 3 month trial of XM radio has taught me anything (I bought a car), there is a lot of music out there I don't care for.
Re:Because "fees" never go up (Score:3, Interesting)
Your glass is half empty, mine is half full. If having XM has taught ME anything is that there is a lot music out there that I don't care for, but a whole lot that I DO care for. Sure, I'm probably only interested in less than 10% of the stations and of those only a fraction of the songs I hear do I really like, but that's still a HUGE number of artists that I wasn't aware of
The thing no one ever seems to mention (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you stop paying your $15/month or $180/year, which will likely become $17, and $20, and so on, in the future, you no longer have access to your music.
If you want to keep it forever - or burn it to CD or use it on something other than an approved device - you have to buy it for a dollar. Just like with iTunes.
Also, that money you're spending on Napster is 180 songs, or 18 albums per year, on the iTunes music store, that you get to keep forever. I suppose it just all depends on your usage style.
That, and whether you want to use the hard-drive based music player with 92% market share.
To say nothing of the fact that Apple will introduce a subscription plan if they need to, anyway.
Re:The thing no one ever seems to mention (Score:3, Insightful)
The ipod only had 92% of the hard-drive based mp3 player market. That's still a very small market. Maybe i'm out of touch living in Ottawa Canada, but I have seen very few people with ipods. walk down the street, and look at people who have portable music players. They are 90% they are CD players. Because this is the easiest and cheapest way for them to listen to their music. You can get them for about $40 now
Re:The thing no one ever seems to mention (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like yours skipped.
Re:The thing no one ever seems to mention (Score:2)
That, and whether you want to use the hard-drive based music player with 92% market share.
You said:
The ipod only had 92% of the hard-drive based mp3 player market.
I'm sorry, but is that not what I just said?
Of course, the iPod has over 70% share of all music players, hard-drive based or not, so I suppose the point is moot.
And if people want to buy CD players, good for them. But in the US, iPods are pervasive and it's hard to go anywhere with a lot of people going about their business and no
Re:The thing no one ever seems to mention (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, he did say he was in Ottawa, Canada. iPods start (20 GB) at about $380 [bestbuy.ca] Canadian, which with taxes is $437.
sure they do ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point could be equally well made about every other subscription service, though -- why rent city water that keeps getting more expensive and goes away when you stop paying, when, with a larger initial investment, you could dig your own well and have water forever?
The answer is, gee, they both make sense in different situations. It depends *how much* more expensive the initial investment is than the subscription, and whether the specific resource you are buying will always be sufficient, or it would be better to have a provider committed to keeping new sources available.
You acknowledged that it depends on your usage style, but I just wanted to drive this point home: pointing out that a subscription service stops when you stop paying for the subscription, and therefore is different from a one-time purchase, is no longer insightful. They're both different; they both make sense sometimes.
Personally, I pay $100 per year for Rhapsody. For me it makes sense -- there's no way I could purchase enough music for $100 to satisfy my needs, and downloading music for free would cost me literally thousands of dollars in terms of time spent. If it doesn't make sense for you, fair enough -- but don't act like it's a blinding insight to point out that I'm renting rather than buying.
Re:The thing no one ever seems to mention (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I assume you're trolling here - or mind-shatteringly stupid, one of the two - but I'll bite. Where did I say anything about listening to music on Windows? I said "the same fundamental argument that has been buoying the entire Windows platform for a nigh on a couple decades now". To even presume that has *anything* to do with listening to music assumes that my initial statement about iPod's 92% share of the hard-drive based music player market has ANYTHING to do with the sound quality of the music coming out of it. Since my initial statement didn't say that, and since my subsequent explanation made no reference to it - and since you continue to feebly derail the perfectly factual claim that iPod's marketshare stunningly outshines any competitor, and has done so in a comparatively small amount of time - I can only assume you're the idiot you seem to be.
Still, I have to assume that you agree with it since you seem to be using it as the basis for your own argument that the iPod's marketshare affects one's listening experience.
I never made any argument that the iPod necessarily "sounded better". Though AAC at a given data rate may indeed sound better than various other codecs at the same given data rate, that was not, and never was, the argument that was made. But the user experience of the iPod, and its tight integration with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store is so tremendously better than any other combination of player, platform, or music store that it's quite laughable. This, of course, has been confirmed by numerous reviews by anything from traditional IT press to the New York Times.
And, to anyone who even stumbled on the doorstep of a business school in a drunken stupor, by iPod's 92% share of its market.
Napster's model, whether implemented by Napster themselves or another company, will pressure Apple, there's no "if" about it.
Now I know I'm dealing with a real mental giant here. I alluded to that, quite specifically, in my first post when I said:
To say nothing of the fact that Apple will introduce a subscription plan if they need to, anyway.
Perhaps me repeating that for a third time now will drill it into your mind, eh?
Then, I said:
But, as I said, if the subscription model of a competitor pressures Apple, they'll release their own. And then it's goodbye Napster for the second time again, since Apple's model is invariably guaranteed to work infinitely better from a user's perspective, as has been shown time and again.
So far, your argument has been based on complete fallacy:
- That I'm arguing that an iPod somehow makes the music sound different, when I did no such thing (though the iPod makes it easier for the vast, vast majority of people to actually *listen* to their music), and
- That I failed to acknowledge a possibility that Apple might release its own subscription model. It indeed may, as I've said in the first post, the second post responding to you, and this post.
But it's not as clear cut as you think. Napster's business model - as shocking as this may be to you - may fail [theregister.co.uk]. And then what happens to your precious model? Oops, the last couple of years worth of downloads and $360 down the drain. So long, and thanks for all the fish. If - and that's a big if - Napster's model survives the oversight of the content owners (or, indeed if it even becomes profitable itself, another big if) - Apple may see fit to introduce its own subscription model, as I've said for, again, a third time now.
And then you drones can drool over the MacWorld videos of it when Steve Jobs announces that Apple will also offer a subscription plan. You'll think it's the best thing since sliced bread, but lots of us will remember how horrible you thought it was before it got the Steve Jobs Reality
Forget monthly payments (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind a monthly fee for something I'll use within that month, or that has a time-based cost component, but you try to bill me monthly for something where I can pay once (even a higher up-front fee) and you'll lose my business. It's not worth it, long term.
Re:Forget monthly payments (Score:5, Insightful)
Monthly subscription do several things, in this setting: they limit the life of your music, they limit your financial flexibility, and they lock you into a particular vendor. I'm actually less worried about the first and last than the middle choice, from an economic standpoint. (Though they are something I like to avoid as well.)
Under a subscription model I can't decide that this month I'm just a little short, so I should skip buying any music. Or that there is a great investment, for only $20, which I have to have. Or that, this month, I'd rather watch another movie. Sure, $15 sounds like nothing. They add up though, especially over time. And when you are tight on cash anyway...
Look at it this way: With Napster to Go, I have to spend (at least) $15 a month on music. With iTunes/CDs, I can spend $15 a month. Or more. Or less. Or none. It depends on my situation that month. And that is good financial planning.
Napster can be iTunes too. (Score:4, Informative)
Dupe? (Score:2)
Either ways, 128kbps isn't enough, even on a cheap player with cheap earphones, you can easily tell the difference, no need to be an audiophile either...
That many? Who cares! (Score:2)
Besides that, who could really listen to all that music in the first place? I use my iPod for more than just playing music. My MP3 collection is 17 GB and even on shuffle I still hear things I haven't heard in years. The rest of the space is storage for files between work, home, and wherever else I am.
1 million songs? It would take you close to 6 years to listen to all of that music.
Re:That many? Who cares! (Score:2, Funny)
Problem with both of them: Changing your hardware (Score:2)
Re:Problem with both of them: Changing your hardwa (Score:3, Informative)
I know that apple's iTMS works only with the iPod as a digital media player. I currently own an iPod (albeit, the short-live iPod+HP), and am about to send it in for service (under warranty, thankfully) due to hard drive spin-up problems (or corrupted FAT sectors, or something). I know that if it weren't under warranty, the next thing I buy will most likely be a Creative Jukebox or something.
I've only bought about 14 songs on iTMS, mainly because my dad bought me a prepaid gift card, b
Re:Problem with both of them: Changing your hardwa (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true at all. When you buy from the iTMS, the music goes into iTunes, not to an iPod.
From iTunes, you can either play it as is or route the music to other places such as burning a CD, which lets you play it in a portable CD player, car player, etc. You can also rip that CD in both iTunes OR ANY OTHER MUSIC PROGRAM, to put on ANY OTHER MUSIC DEVICE.
It's really the convenience and hyperfast synching that confuses people that iTMS is ONLY for iPods, but it's more true to say that iTMS is a way of getting music into iTunes. Where it goes from there is still largely up to you. It's not forever locked onto an iPod when you buy the track.
All-you-can-eat model (Score:3, Insightful)
Buy vs. Lease (Score:5, Interesting)
Granted, if all you're looking for is a way to get a few crappy, er, "currently popular" songs to listen to for a week, Napster's your choice. If you're a collector like me, you wouldn't touch Napster with a 1,000,000' pole.
Re:Buy vs. Lease (Score:3, Insightful)
How many good CDs worth buying get out per year? Not too many if you ask me, and too many of those only got 1 or 2 songs worth listening to.
Take that 15$ a month * 12 months, that's 180 songs off ITMS, even with an average of say, 3 good songs per CD, that's 60 CDs worth of "good tunes", which is more than what's put out yearly in the first place imho.
Of course YMMV, mainly depending on what you listen to (what ge
Re:Buy vs. Lease (Score:3, Insightful)
This is one of the most compelling reasons behind buying a home over renting. I was telling a friend that I prefer to rent because it is cheaper and I don't need the extra space. My friend told me that for just a little more a month you could be spending that money on a house payment.
When you rent, you get a place to live but that money is gone. When you buy (or mortgage) you get a p
Re:Buy vs. Lease (Score:3, Interesting)
Look really close before you buy. If you take the difference between rent and a housepayment and invest it, you are likely to come out even with buying a house.
The first year you own a house your payment is about $100/month, with the rest of the money interest. That $100 is the investment, the rest is money thrown away.
The advantage is you own the house after 30 years and don't have to pay rent again. IF you don't keep moving to bigger and better. If you live that long. If...
Personally I decided
Right.... (Score:5, Funny)
No, FTP servers and underground P2P are. Morons.
I have a TON of Mp3s (Score:2)
Re:I have a TON of Mp3s (Score:2)
One more thing about iTunes (Score:2)
Plus you can buy 15 songs per month and that makes it about 44 years to fill up your iPod (assuming a month is 4 weeks and you get the free song).
re (Score:3, Insightful)
Let Napster burn thru their millions trying to convince people that subscription is the way to go.
The moment... and I do mean the _moment_ apple sees this catching on and taking root, they will come out with iTunes subscriptions and blow napster out of the water...
Re:re (Score:3, Interesting)
Other Differences... (Score:2)
Re:Other Differences... (Score:2)
Existing collection... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Existing collection... (Score:3, Interesting)
I can just stop buying more CDs outright and still listen to those that I already bought.
Plus, I have started getting podcasts, speeches and other legit audio tracks for cheap or free.
Subscription rocks (Score:2)
Re:Subscription rocks (Score:2)
Netflix and Napster are both rental companies, but Netflix is obviously a rental company in that you have to send the disk back in order to get the next one. Napster, though, seems to be kind of slippery about thier rental-ness (sic). When they copmare themselves to iTunes it's as though they're saying they're a music store like iTunes.
And it's that kind of deviousness, rather than their buisnes
Napster is... (Score:5, Insightful)
2 can play this game (Score:5, Insightful)
I can buy a song on iTunes for $1 and keep it for the rest of my life, lets just say thats 80 years.
Since the Napster songs go away as soon as you stop subscribing I need to pay $15 a month for the next 80 years. That folks, is $14,400.
Considering I still listen to my grandfather's 78's that price just keeps going up and up.
Isn't there room for both? (Score:2)
Now lots of people aren't going to like that and I can see their reasons, but for me I work from home and don't drive. For $10 a month my music is almost always with me through my PC. Napster To Go t
Rhapsody worked for me ... (now where's iTunes?) (Score:3, Interesting)
The criticisms about the interface definitely apply to Rhapsody too, though -- playlists suck, OS integration sucks, locating music is mediocre, software is Windows only. Definitely can't hold a candle to iTunes. 90% of my music used to be illegal downloads. Now 90% of my music is paid for, via Rhapsody, and it saves me money. If iTunes offers a similar service for $10 a month, they'll be getting my money in a heartbeat.
All of that, of course, assumes I don't need this stuff to be portable. If iTunes to go has come out by the time I'm *not* spending 12 hours a day near a Windows box, they'll be getting another iPod sale and a subscription. If it hasn't, it'll be Napster
Now you know.
I was interested, until... (Score:2)
http://www.napster.com/using_napster/ipod_and_n
Sounds great for $180/year (Score:2)
Or, even worse, Napster could raise it's rates after I'm pretty committed.... or introduce higher-priced music categories that don't fit into the $15/month category.
How do we know free music is legit? (Score:2)
but there's a lot of downloadable and legit free music out there
Say you have an independent band whose members write the band's songs. How can they prove in a court of law that the songs they wrote are in fact original musical works [slashdot.org]?
What I said last time (Score:2)
Why is a story that's primarily about Napster posted on apple.slashdot.org? I thought stories about Napster went on yro.slashdot.org.
A better comparison (Score:2)
What about the artists? (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems to me that the best that could be hoped for is some (small) percentage of the revenue subscription is divided up by the proportion of downloads per artist.
Because a subscription service will encourage more indiscriminate listening behaviour, this may have some strange consequences. On a positiv
Let's do the math (Score:3, Insightful)
Napster charges $15/month for unlimited downloads, right?
Do the math. Find out if you really download more than 15 songs per month, and that will indicate which one is the better deal. Cause who would pay $15/month for a service when you only download perhaps once a week?
Who wants 10,000 songs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm not typical either, but I'll bet the typical user is closer to 550 than 10,000. And how did I get my 550? Mostly ripped from CDs in my existing collection, plus about 90-100 bought from iTunes over the last year. That's $90-$100 for me instead of $15x12 or $180. And I get to burn them to CD if I want (and I do want), and keep them for as long as I want. My monthly bill? Whatever I happened to buy that month. Maybe $2 or $3 or even zero. The Napster math makes absolutely no sense to someone like me. I don't want to rent my music, I want to own it. It's cheaper this way too.
Re:Who wants 10,000 songs? (Score:4, Interesting)
10,000 songs at 4 minutes a song (on average) is 667 hours or almost 28 days of music. So basically, if you download 10,000 songs in your first month, you'd have to listen to music almost continuously to listen to every song.
Of course, it's ridiculous to assume you'd actually listen to 10,000 songs each month, but it's equally ridiculous to assume that iPod owners will actually fill their iPod completely, and that they'd do so entirely from iTMS rather than other sources such as ripped CDs.
I expect that Napster to Go will get a lot of pack rats; people who spend time downloading a ton of songs because they can, but who actually listen to a much smaller percentage of those songs. iTunes will be preferred by people that actually enjoy listening to music rather than hoarding it.
Re:Who wants 10,000 songs? (Score:3, Informative)
Truth of the matter is, (Score:2)
Napster2Go has some major problems (Score:2)
When you "rent" and when you "buy" (Score:4, Insightful)
These decisiojns happen all the time - think of major purchases like a home or a car, there are both choices - 36 mo. car lease vs. buying the car - rent an appartment vs locking in that 30 yr. mortgage.
On the surface, looks like the answer is simple - offer both because there is choice and then you let the people decide - and that is a simple answer and I think that it is a good one.
But consider the flipside for a moment - these major purchases I just mentioned offer both models from a financial model too - not everyone can afford the downpayment and 30 yr mortgage, some people like a new car every three years and would rather rent. Point is, these comparisons aren't that comparable.
The original slashdot article was comparing business models and the problem with the $15/mo napster model is that there is no "rent-to-own" scenario. There is NO ONE in their right mind who would rather rent music for 20 yrs. versus buy the albumns they like for a lifetime - especailyl the way that music sort of picks you - we listen to the same 80's trackes over and over - country music, old hip-hop, whatever.
So perhaps the better model is a "rent-to-own" where you pay a lower monthly amount ($10) and you get X songs per month to download and Y ( X) to 'register' as your forever and they don't count against your X downloads next month and don't expire when you stop paying.
Vioa! You get to 'try' new music and 'keep' the stuff you like - all for one low price per month. And just like a cell phone, if you want more songs to get registered forever, just pay an additional fee - just liek a per minute fee over your air minutes.
Now right now the $0.99/track, $9.99/albumn model is WAY easier payment plan thatn my cell phone bill, but perhaps there is something to the convolated system AT&T, Cingular, SPrint, and others have created.
But what would this model do to the industry? (Score:3, Interesting)
However a total transition would mean that no single band is making the money. Possibly leading to one of two extremes. One, the record labels continue only pouring their money into a couple of bands (and their own wallets). To an extreme not seen today. These are the reason people sign up for service. Music becomes completely manufactured etc. Why bother supporting these smaller bands.
Then you have independent labels who if they're not getting money from the subscription services (or aren't involved or getting enough) cut back musicians etc. They fall off the wayside. On top of this we have no easy distinction of who to pay for what unless we base sales purely on downloads. This works great for major labels, unless people don't go for it.
Under a second extreme we have the record labels stop spending money to produce hit making acts. Afterall they are locked into deals with napster, and itunes or whoever to distribute their content forever. 90% of their income is now made off these deals. Theres only 2 music companies (or maybe only one major monopoly by this point). Music turns into a cash cow and its you're either on their train or not, no point in spending money on expensive videos etc because everyone pays the same. The labels won't like this (unless they have more and more premium content). The industry starts to collapse on itself.
The industry doesn't like that and if a subscription service couldn't stand in parallel with their current model they won't allow for it, and people who have spent $15/month for 5 years because they thought it was cheaper all of a sudden own zero music to listen to. Sounds wonderful as well.
Of course their are other extremes in between, or the possibility that bands end up taking control of the industry by refusing to go along with their tactics. By not needing these record labels to distribute their music (thank you internet) and the production can be done much cheaper thanks to rapidly advancing computer technology, they can make it on their own.
The futures likely to be a combination of all of these (with the added thought of a pay-per-listen strategy that I could imagine the industry come up with. .
Phil
something that gets overlooked in all of this (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not an apple fanboy (though I'm getting a new powerbook after having used PC's for the past 10 years now) I have to say there is definately a coolness factor in owning it as well as just the way it feels in your hand.
Re:something that gets overlooked in all of this (Score:3, Informative)
$10,000 to fill up an iPod... (Score:5, Insightful)
Napster is different. It LOANS the music to you. So comparing them is like comparing *insert obligatory Apple dichotomy here*.
The price difference is still a choice for consumers. Do I want to be able to listen to that music after I stop paying Napster? If yes, then iTunes, if no, the Napster. Done.
No it's not (Score:4, Interesting)
No it isn't. It's an absolutely crap idea.
The idea that I would buy a licence to listen to a piece of music is completely insane. What happens when Napster goes tits up ? Your expensively acquired music collection is lost forever. When "The Alternative Record Company" go bust my back collection of "The Alternative Record Company" CDs don't suddenly evaporate nor do they become unplayable. I can also rip any CDs I buy to any new formats that are invented so the music pretty much stays with me for life.
Sorry but my view on consuming is very simple. If I buy something it's mine to do with as I please. In other words I can pull it apart to see how it works, I can recombine it to make other things, I can use it in ways it was never intended to be used, I can even smash it to bits, shoot it or put it on a bonfire and burn it. It's none of your bsiness what I do with because I bought it. It's mine now.
Honestly anyone falling for this sort of crud deserves what they get. They deserve to get nothing for their money. They're idiots plain and simple.
Re:another way to look at is AAC Vs WMA (Score:2, Interesting)
How old are you? (Score:2)
Re:another way to look at is AAC Vs WMA (Score:4, Informative)
*BUT* that's not all that important in this case. Important are the sources, the professional encoder used (or not) by the store and the care they took.
c't, Germany's most prestigious computer magazine, tested a number of different online stores recently and the quality differences between different stores, all using wma at the same bitrate, were staggering. It was also remarkable that Sony's Atrac, that's normally not considered to be an exceptionally good audio codec, offered some of the best quality. Apparently it's not the codec bitstream that's the problem in this case but the encoders offered, especially the software encoder in SonicStage seems to be optimized for speed and apparently doesn't really care about quality. Other example: mp3. If you compare the Fraunhofer reference encoder to the latest lame you're gonna think you listen to two different codecs. IOW codecs important, encoders even more important.
Moral of the story: AAC may be better when we look at the freely available encoders but that doesn't necessarily mean that the differences aren't a lot smaller if we look at music stores or that the codec has to be clearly better respectively.
Space Quest IV (Score:2)
From this I'm forced to conclude that if Radio Shack sues they may very well win or get a settlement.
Re:um what about this? (Score:2)