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[+] Open the Meta Bar Tag: itunes. There are 6 posts tagged itunes. Open the Meta Bar to choose a different tag.

Skinny Line

I agree. I get tired of hearing the (somewhat new) argument that Apple ruined the music industry. Music sales in general were absolutely tanking before the iTunes store and Apple solved a problem that no one else had been able to solve to that point: how to get people to buy music online. Today, many people I talk to would rather buy online than steal online because purchasing is easier. The caveat? Apple did it their way. Tough cookies. Change it if you don’t like it.

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Music industry executives may well not like what’s happened to their industry, but is it really bullying from Apple? Or isn’t it simply that Apple does not do what the music executives wish? That Apple runs its music store its own way? What the music industry really doesn’t like is the whole idea of downloads. They want to go back to selling $18 discs. Pre-iTunes, “music downloads” were pretty much all free bootlegs.

John Gruber, NYT on The Tablet and Apple’s Relationship With Content Publishers

Skinny Line
01/26/10

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Skinny Line

Huh. Is anyone outside of the music industry surprised by this at all?

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In short: top tracks that remain $0.99 moved up, tracks that jumped to $1.29 moved down.

John Gruber, iTunes Music Price Changes Hurt Some Rankings

Skinny Line
04/13/09

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Skinny Line

Yep.

We’ve seen it happen with other services, and eventually the lights will go out on Fairplay-at least on the music side-and some people will be left with useless files. I wish it weren’t true.

Consumers think they are buying media. Media providers think consumers are licensing it. Consumers don’t know the difference.

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The key to DRM as Apple implemented it is that it’s centralized; for the tracks to play Apple must continue to operate its authentication service. Now that the company is clearly moving away from DRM, how long can I expect it to maintain that service? Over time, it will inevitably become less and less profitable and more and more of an annoyance to the good folks in Cupertino.

Khoi Vinh, iTuning Out DRM

Skinny Line
01/15/09

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Skinny Line

While we’re on the subject.

Bonus: “There’s nothing wrong with today’s announcement. A step in the right direction. But one that should have been taken years ago and is so small as to be almost insignificant.”

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Getting excited about multiple price points at the iTunes Store is like being thrilled there are three price points at the gas station. Or losing your cookies that Coke comes in multiple-sized cups at 7-11.

As for being DRM-free… Whoopee! As I’ve stated countless times, the only people who care about DRM don’t pay for music, they just steal it. Otherwise, Amazon would have eclipsed Apple and the Seattle company would own the online music market, not the one based in Cupertino.

Lefsetz Letter, iTunes Variable Pricing

Skinny Line
01/08/09

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Skinny Line

Not so fast iTunes

Crazed Hits (and many others…) are getting it all wrong. Again.

01/08/09

Crazed Hits doesn’t allow comments on their site, or I would’ve just shared this there.

Point #1:

People, for real, let’s get something straight: AAC (or M4A) files, as some people call them, are NOT drm-infested files by default.

AAC is just another type of lossy audio file, like MP3.

Point #2:

“Also, even though iTunes may be DRM-Free now, all of its downloads will still be restricted due to the fact that they are delivered in the AAC file format which is only compatible with iPods, iPhones, and a limited number of other devices.” (emphasis mine)

This is just flat out wrong. I’m not trying to defend Apple for choosing AAC over MP3, although I still think it’s a better format myself, but this comment shows a complete ignorance about iTunes:

iTunes can covert non-DRM files between a multitude of formats.

So, if you buy non-DRM files off of iTunes, and for some reason want to convert them from AAC to a lower-quality format MP3, you are welcome to do so. No skin off your back. And now you can play your iTunes Store music on your old Rio MP3 player. Or you can just go buy the same music in a lower-quality format from Amazon.

Sigh.

Related: Upgrade My Library, Gratis

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Skinny Line

Upgrade My Library, Gratis

File this in the, “Fun to think about, but it’ll never happen,” category.

11/20/08

Record labels, here’s a crazy idea: let me upgrade my DRM’d music to non-DRM’d music for free (or at least some sort of nominal, one-time flat fee that covers bandwidth and credit card processing).

Continue Reading…

Skinny Line

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