Steve Jobs is "a visionary, but he's on the wrong platform."

[Freg3000]

Sounds like Buy.com's iMusic will fail.

MacMinute (http://macminute.com/2003/07/22/buymusic)

The only thing I see that they have the ITMS on is price, but I'd pay 20 more cents to have much less DRM.

Let's see. Can't burn to CD. Can't put it on multiple computers. Doesn't have the Big 5. Its Windows Media format....

It's everything that it was cracked up to be, which isn't much.

[Flowbee]

Ha! What a larf. I might suggest to Scott Blum that he's *not* a visionary AND he's on the wrong platform. I don't believe that people will be interested in buying music that they can only listen to on their computer. I think this music store will be more of a publicity stunt for Buy.com than an actual attempt to sell music online.

[tizza]

let's hope iTMS for Windows comes sooner rather than later nonetheless ...

[beg_ne]

Yet another example of the PC world copying Apple...and doing it very poorly as usual.

[iJon]

well it was sounding like a threat until they said that songs have different DRM, thats crazy. well this is a very popular song, so you are not allowed to burn. im more excited to see how many people buy from it, i have money that it doesnt even make a million the first week, even with 95% of the market.

iJon

[Snowy_River]

Are there any personal music players that even support WMF? Isn't that choice of format going to automatically restrict the possibility of listening to them on, say, your Windows iPod?

To me, this seems like a remarkably poor marketing move.

Of course, I really do hope that Apple (Steve) can convince the labels that this will be a good thing for Windows, too.

How much money do you suppost the label's have made since iTMS has been launched for the Mac? How much more will they make when it's launched for Windows?

I know, I know, preaching to the choir...

[ig-88]

uh.... did it get haxored? all i see on the page is a dumb jpeg of a rocket.

http://ak.buy.com/buy_assets/v6/buymusic/rocket.jpg

some launch.

[Flowbee]

Originally posted by ig-88
uh.... did it get haxored? all i see on the page is a dumb jpeg of a rocket.

some launch.

I saw that too. I thought about doing a quick photoshop 'parody' but figured nothing would be quite as funny as that lame rocket.

[MrMacMan]

WOW, that is LAME!!!!

Lamest image ever.

no site and 1 image, LAME.

[Wonder Boy]

I felt threatend for apple until i read that buy.com would use windows media files. After i read that, i felt a lot better.

[gMac]

God I hate to be the first to point this out, but I think the "flame" beneath the rocket is a photoshoped scan of the April 1998 Penthouse centerfold.

[Nermal]

At least the rocket says what it is. Local singer Anika Moa's site had a black background, a photo of a lemon tree, and HTML title tag of "no more lemon trees for you". You'd have no idea she was a singer if you didn't already know.

The site's since been updated, now it says "sorry we're late, trafic was ****" (including the spelling mistake).

[macnews]

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Join me in a little time warp here back to late April/early May.

(insert funky music and graphics)

The Apple music store won't suceed because of the limiting resrictions. Why buy when you can get it for free? They don't have enough of the market and the limits are just too much. It is bound to fail, people can already get the songs for free. The limits are just way too restrictive.

(back to the present)

Buy.crap launchs new, cheaper music store. (sounds good so far). The DRM will be more restrictive, you may not even be able to burn some songs. (crap out).

What a laugh. Windows users are used to illegal downloads. There are more services for windows users than macs to do peer to peer or illegal (not that they call it that) downloads. And now Mr. buy.com "visionary" thinks he has the answer? They just don't get it. There is more to the apple music store than going to a web broswer and downloading a file. Bringing up the store in itunes just has the right look and feel. Easy to use. Makes me almost feel like I'm in a brick and mortor store only at home. Then you add the reasonable DRM (I think Fair Play describes it very well) and bamm... success.

This is hardly a threat and their graphic so far is just so..... impressive!;)

[Java]

Originally posted by Freg3000

Let's see. Can't burn to CD. Can't put it on multiple computers. Doesn't have the Big 5. Its Windows Media format....


Need we say more?

So what buy.com is letting me do is listen to all of my music on one computer and nowhere else.

Hehehe. I can't wait to see this project fail misrably.

Yet another try at copying Apple.:p

[Macette]

i'm still getting the rocket when i look at that page... whassupwithdat?

[arn]

Originally posted by Java
Need we say more?

So what buy.com is letting me do is listen to all of my music on one computer and nowhere else.


Buy actually does have all 5 Labels on board.... and we're not guarenteed that Apple won't run into the same roadblocks as buy.com... in terms of more restrictive licesnsing issues.

I'm not sure if Apple could launch iTunes on Windows w/ the same restrictions... let's hope Steve's RDF is still strong.

arn

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by arn
Buy actually does have all 5 Labels on board.... and we're not guarenteed that Apple won't run into the same roadblocks as buy.com... in terms of more restrictive licesnsing issues.

I'm not sure if Apple could launch iTunes on Windows w/ the same restrictions... let's hope Steve's RDF is still strong.

arn

I hope he signs the same deal with iTunes Windows as with iTunes Mac or else with will suck as much as the next pay service.

[arn]

Originally posted by MrMacman
I hope he signs the same deal with iTunes Windows as with iTunes Mac or else with will suck as much as the next pay service.

obviously.... but did you read the rumors link (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/05/20030512103510.shtml) in the article from the main page? That's the concern.

anyhow... I wonder if the international readers noticed that the rocket has "USA" on it. Not that it really matters I guess cause I doubt Mac users can use the service.

arn

[chewbaccapits]

"BuyMusic founder Scott Blum called Apple CEO Steve Jobs "a visionary, but he's on the wrong platform."

You know....I would care more about this cheap comment if it came from a person who could MATCH the caliber of Steve Jobs....

[andrewh]

While we would love the ITMS to be the only one of it's kind, and prove to the windows world that macs are superior and thus making us superior for choosing them....

The addition of several downloadable music stores will benefit us in the long run. To me there is nothing more disappointing about the iTunes store than "partial albums" and scarce selection. We know it's the record companies being awkward and artists not wanting to participate (like the Stones, foo fighters, chili peppers, etc). But as the record companies get comfortable with it and the artists start to feel like they are missing out they will feel the competitive edge to sell their music online. Yeah, it will take the mass of windows users to make it happen unfortunately. So while it sucks that once again Apple is the innovator that won't reap ALL the rewards, it is good for us because let's face it we weren't going to give up our macs anyway, and the best can get a little better with a few less restrictions.

Yes, I know there will be MORE restrictions for the iTunes store for Windows in the short term. I'm talking about 2-3 years from now.

But I agree the buymusic attempt is a joke in comparison to Apple. Kind of reminds me of the candy iMac colored George Forman grills that came out after the iMacs. it was amazing how many products copied Apple. No imagination!

[iJon]

Originally posted by gMac
God I hate to be the first to point this out, but I think the "flame" beneath the rocket is a photoshoped scan of the April 1998 Penthouse centerfold.
well i havnet seen that centerfold, but it does resemble a p***y. good catch, good catch.

iJon

[Pancake]

Originally posted by iJon
well i havnet seen that centerfold, but it does resemble a p***y. good catch, good catch.

iJon

I'm really tired and didn't understand what he meant about the centerfold. I'm usually the guys that gets something dirty out of a clean comment. D'oh!


Ontopic, I was a little nervous when I first heard about buy.com's service, but this just isn't something to be worried about.

[stingerman]

Apple has a music ecology, that is what makes them so successful. Because of this Apple has made a ton of money off of iTunes Music Store. Do you really think there is any money to be made selling songs for 99 cents. So they keep .35 cents and who knows how much after their costs (CC charges, bandwidth, servers, support personnel, developers, advertising). Maybe when the Windows version comes out it will actually mean anything on its own. But look at all those iPods it sold. My goodness, was it 350,000 at an average of 400 a pop. And who knows how many ibooks and powerbooks it help sell as well.

This is why the other Music stores will fail. Unless their have something else to up or cross sell (Like Apple does), it just can't make enough money to support the overhead. Buy.com can't afford to keep losing money and they will lose money on this venture for a long time before they can even hope to break even.

[pretentious]

From the AP (http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/030722/buymusic_1.html) story
The service has about 100,000 more songs than iTunes but comparable to pressplay, which was acquired by Roxio and is expected to undergo a relaunch later this year under the Napster brand

How did they get more songs than Apple???

[OSeXy!]

Originally posted by stingerman
Apple has a music ecology... look at all those iPods it sold. My goodness, was it 350,000 at an average of 400 a pop. And who knows how many ibooks and powerbooks it help sell as well.

I think that's a very good point. Even though I'm only standing on the sidelines here in Europe, I think apple's 'digital hub' marketing hype might actually become a reality. Ultimately iTMS is just one piece of a very compelling package, and it's the possiblilities of the whole package taken together that make any one bit of it seem desirable.

Of course Apple won't want iTMS to be a real 'loss-leader' when it goes PC, but even in the long term, if they can just break even on actual track sales, I think you're right Steve will still be laughing because of all the other (much higher margin) kit which will be sold to support the tracks themselves.

Buy.com must hope that people will use their other services while they're online. They are playing off the interest Apple has created to bring volume to their site. Time will tell what kind of parasite they are (hopefully not the kind that kills the host).

[SiliconAddict]

MS's DRM method sucks like a massive black hole. It'll bomb as soon as the word spreads. People are already pissed at MS for MS Reader on the Pocket PC and having to activate it. People already know that MS holds the keys to the castle, so to speak, when it comes to DRM on windows. Bring on WMA. It’ll go down in flames. The price of cheaper songs may be temping but as soon as you start dealing with MS software and their draconian methods 70 cents isn’t going to seem like such a great deal.

[Nermal]

Originally posted by arn
anyhow... I wonder if the international readers noticed that the rocket has "USA" on it. Not that it really matters I guess cause I doubt Mac users can use the service.

arn

Yep, I noticed, and I also think that it won't be Mac-compatible. Wait and see I guess, but I don't have much hope. iTMS isn't available over here until February :(

[tcmcam]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Are there any personal music players that even support WMF?

Actually, a great number of portable players support the Windows Media format (WMA). I think you'd find that there's greater support for WMA in the industry than AAC (today).

But, AAC is supported on the BEST SELLING portable (the iPod). Also, many of the WMA portables out there don't support the DRM features of WMA, so I don't know how you could copy these things to a portable (other than Pocket PC).

If more devices supported AAC (other than iPod), I think iTMS would be an even bigger success.

We also don't know what bitrate the WMA files are...

[pretentious]

4:30 AM P
It's started :(

[MattG]

I am just blatently in SHOCK!!! They totally ripped off Apple's commercials! People holding iPod-like portable music players, singing and dancing to music. And then the catch phrase, "Music for the rest of us." Isn't (wasn't?) Apple's slogan "Computing for the rest of us?" UGGGGHHH what a rip off!!

In the commercial with Tommy Lee, they stage it like he's going onto the Apple photo shoot, where they were taking pictures of the guitar that's in all the ITMS ads. Ad the end of the photo shoot, he takes the guitar and smashes it!

[MattG]

Today would be a great day for Apple to announce the ITMS for Windows...

[avkills]

I still can't even see the server. I see no link from their main site either...lame and stupid. They suck.

-mark

[Malic]

...Microsoft is releasing an update for Windows Media Player for MacOS X.

[henryblackman]

I hope Apple sues over these adverts. They make out that BuyMusic.com is better! Hello. Don't think so. Frankly I suppose it's indicative that as Mac users we have access to more innovative software, and all the music we want.

I think BuyMusic, especially the slutty "Get Loaded" at the end just makes it sound cheap. Isn't that just appealing to the kind of people who will download for free anyway?

[Lord Bodak]

Originally posted by arn
Buy actually does have all 5 Labels on board.... and we're not guarenteed that Apple won't run into the same roadblocks as buy.com... in terms of more restrictive licesnsing issues.

I'm not sure if Apple could launch iTunes on Windows w/ the same restrictions... let's hope Steve's RDF is still strong.


This is an example of what's wrong with the recording industry. ITMS for Mac has _proven_ that this pricing model will work.

Now the big labels will say "oh, since Windows has more users, we need to be more restrictive." Then ITMS for Windows will fail for the same reason buymusic is going to fail-- people who only want to listen to music on their computers are simply going to get it for free via p2p.

Then the industry will say "we were right, the pricing model doesn't work" and we'll be back to the same crap we had before ITMS.

[kaltsasa]

has anyone actually looked at the pricing. Most popular songs are higher than .79. With varying restrictions from 3 to 10 burns which in my opinion is unacceptable. I'm one of those people who burns a new cd every week for the car, and then tosses it for the next weeks mix. The iTunes music store makes it easy for me, with unlimited burns. Look at these sample prices from buymusic.com with the restrictions. If this is the best another company can come up with then they deserve to fail and rot. Sure seems to me like I'm getting the better deal with the itunes music store.


Rock Your Body
Larger image
Artist: Justin Timberlake
Release Date: 11/5/2002
Label: Jive
Track Price: $0.99
Content Usage Rules for Album and Tracks
Downloads - 3 Transfers - unlimited Burns - 10


Dangerously In Love
Larger image
Artist: Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z,
Release Date: 6/24/2003
Label: Columbia
Album Price: $12.69
Content Usage Rules for Album and Tracks
Downloads - 3 Transfers - 5 Burns - 5

[Lord Bodak]

Originally posted by stingerman
Apple has a music ecology, that is what makes them so successful. Because of this Apple has made a ton of money off of iTunes Music Store. Do you really think there is any money to be made selling songs for 99 cents. So they keep .35 cents and who knows how much after their costs (CC charges, bandwidth, servers, support personnel, developers, advertising). Maybe when the Windows version comes out it will actually mean anything on its own. But look at all those iPods it sold. My goodness, was it 350,000 at an average of 400 a pop. And who knows how many ibooks and powerbooks it help sell as well.

I would venture that $0.35 per song is more than the average brick & mortar store gets per song when they sell a CD.

[Frozone]

#3 -- Approved Electronic Devices. The Digital Downloads are sublicensed for play only upon Approved Electronic Devices. Approved Electronic Devices are subject to the Content Use Rules above and include the following: (i) personal computers registered with this Site, and (ii) Portable Devices that receive and store digital music files, and play them back in analog form, but which are incapable of transferring Digital Downloads to other Electronic Devices. Portable Devices must support the Windows Media Audio (“WMA”) format and meet “Class 1000” standards. WMAs are not compatible with any Macintosh Operating Systems. All computers and portable devices purchased through the Site are Approved Electronic Devices, unless specifically stated otherwise.

I guess that means we mac users can't use it. But who cares when we have the best services that's out.:D
By the way that's from the TERMS OF SALE page

[MattG]

I sent Buy.com a comment on how unprofessional their web site is. As soon as I did, I got an auto reply of:

Thank you for contacting BuyMusic.com.

We have received your email. A BuyMusic Agent will respond to your
message as soon as possible -- most customers receive an email response
within one business day.

Thank you for your patience.

We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

BuyMusic.com -- "Get Loaded!"

**Please do not reply to this email, this email address is a non-working
mailbox.**

Then, 20 minutes later, I got:

You previously sent BuyMusic.com an email. Due to the nature of your
request, we have escalated your email to an expert queue, where it will
be answered as soon as possible by a specialist in the subject you asked
about.

We are committed to respond to your email as soon as possible.

We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

BuyMusic.com -- "Get Loaded!"

**Please do not reply to this email, this email address is a non-working
mailbox.**

I wonder if someone's actually going to respond...

[MattG]

Originally posted by Iceman06
#3 -- Approved Electronic Devices. The Digital Downloads are sublicensed for play only upon Approved Electronic Devices. Approved Electronic Devices are subject to the Content Use Rules above and include the following: (i) personal computers registered with this Site, and (ii) Portable Devices that receive and store digital music files, and play them back in analog form, but which are incapable of transferring Digital Downloads to other Electronic Devices. Portable Devices must support the Windows Media Audio (“WMA”) format and meet “Class 1000” standards. WMAs are not compatible with any Macintosh Operating Systems. All computers and portable devices purchased through the Site are Approved Electronic Devices, unless specifically stated otherwise.

I guess that means we mac users can't use it. But who cares when we have the best services that's out.:D
By the way that's from the TERMS OF SALE page

They go out of their way in several sections of the web site to mention that Mac users are SOL.

[Frozone]

What email did you use to get in touch with them. I can't seem to find an address.

[j33pd0g]

Windows Media Player Version 9 is required to download music on BuyMusic.com. - Or is it really only required to play music downloaded at BuyMusic.com? Who cares anyway... Windows Media Player suck eggs...
Will BuyMusic.com be able to handle the traffic like Apple can?

[Lord Bodak]

From the BuyMusic site:

There are two types of licenses: Primary and Secondary. The primary license is downloaded to the machine you used to buy your music (for example your home computer). Your primary license enables you to copy your music from your primary computer to your digital media players and to burn it to your CDs as many times as the record label allows.

If you download a secondary license, you do so onto a secondary computer (for example your work computer). Your secondary license enables you ONLY to listen to your music on your secondary computer. A secondary license does NOT allow you to copy your music from your secondary computer to your digital media players or to burn it to your CDs.

Make sure you mean to buy your music from your primary computer so that it contains your primary license. The licenses are non-transferable. You cannot buy your music on your work machine and then transfer your primary license to your home machine. The computer you buy from becomes the primary computer with the primary license for that song.


So here are the questions. What if I get a new computer and get rid of my old one? My primary license is now gone? Even if I had full rights from both computers, what if I am out of "download" credit for a track but I get a new machine?

And since you have to use the site to get the secondary license, what if they go under? My music is now trapped on my PC forever?

I don't know much about SDMI, but how do they limit the number of burns? It seems they would also have to use the website for that (or can the music actually store how many burns are remaining? If so, I imagine someone would find a way to hack the file to increase the count). So if they went under, you couldn't even burn to CD...

My opinion: doomed from the start.

[Lord Bodak]

Originally posted by tcmcam
We also don't know what bitrate the WMA files are...

From the site:
Our songs are 128 bit WMA files (DRM wrapped).

[MattG]

Originally posted by Iceman06
What email did you use to get in touch with them. I can't seem to find an address.

http://www.buymusic.com/support/email.aspx
"Website Comments"

[Frozone]

Originally posted by Lord Bodak
From the BuyMusic site:



So here are the questions. What if I get a new computer and get rid of my old one? My primary license is now gone? Even if I had full rights from both computers, what if I am out of "download" credit for a track but I get a new machine?

And since you have to use the site to get the secondary license, what if they go under? My music is now trapped on my PC forever?

I don't know much about SDMI, but how do they limit the number of burns? It seems they would also have to use the website for that (or can the music actually store how many burns are remaining? If so, I imagine someone would find a way to hack the file to increase the count). So if they went under, you couldn't even burn to CD...

My opinion: doomed from the start.

Mind if I copy and paste that into the email i'm going to send them along with some other stuff I want to ask and say?

[alia]

As a current Windows user, here are three reasons why I won't be purchasing ANY music from buymusic.com...

1. It requires the download of Windows Media Player 9. I refuse to download this app and I refuse to install Microsoft Passport. I like my privacy, thanks....

2. It doesn't work with my ipod. I don't burn CDs. I use my ipod. If it doesn't work with that, oh well for them.

3. Non-transferable rights! I have to download from my primary pc?! I can't transfer the music to another machine?! That's so lame... the songs that even allow more than one download won't let you burn from those machines or transfer to digital devices from those machines. The amount of downloads they are going to lose just from people who would download from work, but won't because they can't transfer them will be staggering.

No thanks!

Also, from what I've seen so far... their selection isn't all that... I think maybe that 300k songs is an exaggeration.

Alia

[Lord Bodak]

Originally posted by Iceman06
Mind if I copy and paste that into the email i'm going to send them along with some other stuff I want to ask and say?

Go for it, as long as you let us know what they say (if they even answer) :)

[q1232]

Has anybody thought that this is a good thing. If this fails, with all the restrictions applied, then maybe the big 5 will give Apple the same rights as they have on our side.

[solafide]

Have you seen the commercials? Two of them are a complete rip off of Apple's original iTunes Music Store commercials, complete with white background and headphoned people singing to a song. They even ripped off one of Apple's favorite marketing phrases ... music downloads "for the rest of us".

Well, we can see Steve Blum's "vision" extends from at least his couch to his TV. Why hire expensive ad companies, when you can copy the work other's have done.

The web site is poorly constructed and does not hold a candle to the ITMS' interface. Also, the songs aren't all 79 cents, they only "start at 79 cents". Most of the songs I looked at were 99 cents.

[Frozone]

Okay...Email has been sent....Now i just got to wait for a reply, if i get one, and i'll post what it says.

[kaltsasa]

The more I look, the fewer artists I see with 7.95 priced albums...In fact I havn't seen one and I've been browsing for a half hour. These are essentially the price I would pay for a CD in a store if I shopped around for a good deal, with restrictions saying pretty much that I can't do a whole lot. With these prices, It's not easy to see how buymusic.com can succeed.

Tropical Storm (2002) (Explicit Content - Parental Advisory)
Larger image
Artist: Beenie Man
Release Date: 8/19/2002
Label: Virgin
Album Price: $13.59
Content Usage Rules for Album and Tracks
Downloads - 1 Transfers - 3 Burns - 3

[j33pd0g]

Have you tried their nifty search feature? I keep getting "The specified server could not be found." Message. Doesn't matter what catagory I pick to search from - same lame message.

[freundt]

Sorry,

not to troll, but Steve was not a visionary when it comes to iTMS. He was just able to do what emusic and alot of other services were not - Convinve the big 5 to give him less restricitve DRM.

Emusic service has no DRM (At least when I used it TWO YEARS AGO) uses mp3 as the format and you are free to do whatever with all the files. So what was the downfall of Emusic? The big 5 refused to participate.

PressPlay, MP3.com, etc.. There are tons of services that came out before iTMS with the only caveat being more DRM.

So.
Once again.
Not to troll, but iTMS is visionary only in that it got the big 5 to participlate with less DRM. (and I think that is because it uses such a little used audio format on a platform with < 5% user base. - no to disparage the audio format - it's just not supported as widely as mp3 or wma)

Felt like that needed to be said considering all the "the Window's world copied Apple again and does it poorly again" comments.

[solafide]

Take a look at the Tommy Lee commercial. They show the very guitar model that Apple uses as the banner for their apple.com/music site being photographed, and then Tommy Lee slips in afterwards to pick it up and smash it.

A not so subtle message as to what buymusic.com thinks it will do to Apple's music service.

In their dreams...

[kaltsasa]

I tend to agree, I was an emusic subscriber. While it was great for a couple months, I quickly ran out of decent music to get from them.

[zim]

So, they expect that their buyers are going to be smart enough to remember how many times they burn a song?

I hope buymusic.com fails, not because I am scared of apple getting competition but rather because they went the anti apple rout, how do you spell originality? Seriously, that is the best they could do for ads?

Does anyone else here check out the new releases or just added section at iTMS? Today seems to be a record day for number of songs added to iTMS, not that I was interested in any of them, just was happy to see so many added.

In support of iTMS, I purchased a song today!

[Lord Bodak]

Originally posted by kaltsasa
Tropical Storm (2002) (Explicit Content - Parental Advisory)
Larger image
Artist: Beenie Man
Release Date: 8/19/2002
Label: Virgin
Album Price: $13.59
Content Usage Rules for Album and Tracks
Downloads - 1 Transfers - 3 Burns - 3

$14.99 for the CD on BestBuy.com. Then I can make as many copies as I like for home, work, car, portable player.

Add the cost of a blank CD-R and a jewel case (admittedly, not much, but still not free), and what have I gained?

[MattG]

Originally posted by zim
In support of iTMS, I purchased a song today!
I'll do the same when I get home!

[Frozone]

Originally posted by MattG
I'll do the same when I get home!

Hahahhaha...Everyone that uses the iTunes Music Store should download a few songs and send the count of songs sold this week to records numbers to send a message to BuyMusic.com.

[a_kim]

I'm buying an album today. Who's with me? :)



Originally posted by MattG
I'll do the same when I get home!

[neier]

Originally posted by Iceman06
Hahahhaha...Everyone that uses the iTunes Music Store should download a few songs and send the count of songs sold this week to records numbers to send a message to BuyMusic.com.

I think we're all waiting for Arn to tell us what song to download (from the previous thread about Billboard tracking the downloads). ;)

[a_kim]

Well, as promised, I just bought an album I've been meaning to get for a while. Telegram by Bjork. Booyeah.

[rjwill246]

Originally posted by freundt
Not to troll, but iTMS is visionary only in that it got the big 5 to participlate with less DRM. (and I think that is because it uses such a little used audio format on a platform with < 5% user base. - not (sic) to disparage the audio format - it's just not supported as widely as mp3 or wma)

Felt like that needed to be said considering all the "the Window's world copied Apple again and does it poorly again" comments.
But the Windows quote is so true, in this case, especially. SJ got done EXACTLY what the others could not do. Don't assume for a minute that because other services preexisted iTunes Music Store that Steve is not a visionary. On the contrary, he knew exactly what the problems would be -that comes from being IN the industry- and Apple took its time to get both iTunes and the Music Store to come together superbly. The drongos who started these earlier services were absolutely NOT visionaries as they introduced flawed and unworkable schemes... something they should have known in the first place.

The rip off of the iTunes site, though poor in execution and with all the gaudy icandy liik of XP just goes to show where vision is lacking. Can't somebody in the Wintel world do anything with class? It must have happened somewhere but I have yet to see or recognize it. It will be interesting to see if Apple has some intellectual rights in the look and feel of their Music Store.. and if so, whether they will take any action.

[jessefoxperry]

I'm buy'n an album today from iMS (probably two). come on guys.....show the BuyCrap.com execs what's up

[michaelrjohnson]

Originally posted by Freg3000
Sounds like Buy.com's iMusic will fail.

MacMinute (http://macminute.com/2003/07/22/buymusic)

The only thing I see that they have the ITMS on is price, but I'd pay 20 more cents to have much less DRM.

Let's see. Can't burn to CD. Can't put it on multiple computers. Doesn't have the Big 5. Its Windows Media format....

It's everything that it was cracked up to be, which isn't much.

All I have to say:

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

[jessefoxperry]

Ok, maybe these buymusic executives are smart. if you want to search for a song you get "can't find specified server" and it doesn't even do anything in safari! dont let anyone search for music! man these guys are imaginative, way ahead of steve

[rundevilrun]

Let me see... buymusic.com...

1. Excessive DRM
2. WMA format
3. Doesn't work with mozilla (on windows xp)

That's three thumbs down!

[Frozone]

Here's the reply i got from Buy.com and they didn't exactly reply to all of the message.

----
Hello,

Thank you for contacting buy.com.

We are responding to your request for information about license
restrictions.

We apologize for any confusion. When you purchase and download music
from BuyMusic.com, your music files are accompanied by a license with
certain minimal restrictions. The music files are encrypted with SDMI
license technology to be sure that they are used according to your
license restrictions.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you mean to buy your music from your primary
computer (Example: Your Home Computer) so that it contains your primary
license. The licenses are non-transferable. Example: You cannot buy your
music on your home machine and then transfer your primary license to
your work machine. The computer you buy from becomes the primary
computer with the primary license for that song. You can only copy music
from your primary machine via your primary license.

See License Restrictions for details at
http://www.buymusic.com/support/help.aspx#License_Downloading

Downloading, Transferring, and Burning
Each record label has control over these license restrictions including
the number of times you may:
- download your songs from BuyMusic.com to your computer(s)
- transfer your songs to another computer(s)
- transfer your songs to a portable digital media player
- burn your songs to CD
BuyMusic.com complies with each record label and adjusts the SDMI
license on each of your music downloads accordingly.

Two Types of Licenses: Primary and Secondary
There are two types of licenses: Primary and Secondary. The primary
license is downloaded to the machine you used to buy your music (for
example your home computer). Your primary license enables you to copy
your music from your primary computer to your digital media players
F4you download a secondary license, you do so onto a secondary computer
(for example your work computer). Your secondary license enables you
ONLY to listen to your music on your secondary computer. A secondary
license does NOT allow you to copy your music from your secondary
computer to your digital media players or to burn it to your CDs. F4

Before You Buy: Icons Show Number of Copies Allowed
When you download songs, your licenses are downloaded too. When you
lookup a song, notice that each song displays icons showing the number
of times it may be copied via the primary license.

The Disk icon shows the number of times the song can be downloaded to
disk.
- The Digital Media Player icon shows the number of times you can
download the song to digital media players.
- The Computer icon shows the number of times you can download your
music with a secondary license to a secondary computer.
- The icons apply only to your primary license on your primary computer.
The icons do not apply to the secondary license on your secondary
computer. You cannot use the secondary license to copy music at all.

After You Buy: Your Receipt Shows Number of Copies Allowed
After you've purchased your music, you can go back to see how many
downloads you have left and find out if there are any restrictions on
the number of disks or media player downloads you can make. Log in, go
to your Account page, and open the receipt page to view the music you
have previously purchased. Your receipt shows the same information as
the icons on the song description page.

Example: Downloads: 2 - Digital Media Players: Unlimited  CDs: 3. In
this example, you could download your music to one primary and one
secondary computer (two downloads total) AND you could copy your music
to your digital media player as many times as you like (unlimited) AND
you could burn each song to a CD three times.

The receipt page applies only to your primary license on your primary
computer. You cannot use the secondary license on your secondary
computer to copy music at all.

Uploading to a Shared Web Site  Not Permitted
Your license does not permit your music files to be uploaded onto a
shared server or made available on internet web sites (Example:
KaZaA.com or Morpheus).

Although you might be physically able to upload the files to a shared
server, the music files will be rendered useless to anyone who downloads
them because of the DRM license encryption technology.

If you have further questions, please contact us at
support@customerservice.buymusic.com.

We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

Team buy.com
www.buy.com

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
Order Number:
First of all...Your commericals are a TOTAL rip-off of Apple's iTunes
Music Store commericals.
So here are the questions. What if I get a new computer and get rid of
my old one? My primary license is now gone? Even if I had full rights
from both computers, what if I am out of "download" credit for a track
but I get a new machine?
And since you have to use the site to get the secondary license, what if
they go under? My music is now trapped on my PC forever?
I don't know much about SDMI, but how do they limit the number of burns?
It seems they would also have to use the website for that (or can the
music actually store how many burns are remaining? If so, I imagine
someone would find a way to hack the file to increase the count). So if
they went under, you couldn't even burn to CD...
And it's not copatible with the iPod?!?! That alone will make many
people not use it b/c they use it instead of CD's. The iPod is the best
Media Player on the market and the most popular and even if it's made by
Apple your just killing your self by not allowing support for it.
Your music service is doomed in my opinion.
.

------

[DillHarris]

I find it absurd that here is a company that reaches 95 or whatever percent of the PC market, yet they bash our 2.5 or so percent of the market? How lame is that? Yeah, real original.

Regarding the DRM... Who wants to have to keep track of what they do with their music? Thats the beauty of the ITMS. Simple, straightforward and effective.

[MattG]

Originally posted by Iceman06
Here's the reply i got from Buy.com and they didn't exactly reply to all of the message.

----
Hello,

Thank you for contacting buy.com.

We are responding to your request for information about license
restrictions.

We apologize for any confusion. When you purchase and download music
from BuyMusic.com, your music files are accompanied by a license with
certain minimal restrictions. The music files are encrypted with SDMI
license technology to be sure that they are used according to your
license restrictions.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you mean to buy your music from your primary
computer (Example: Your Home Computer) so that it contains your primary
license. The licenses are non-transferable. Example: You cannot buy your
music on your home machine and then transfer your primary license to
your work machine. The computer you buy from becomes the primary
computer with the primary license for that song. You can only copy music
from your primary machine via your primary license.

See License Restrictions for details at
http://www.buymusic.com/support/help.aspx#License_Downloading

Downloading, Transferring, and Burning
Each record label has control over these license restrictions including
the number of times you may:
- download your songs from BuyMusic.com to your computer(s)
- transfer your songs to another computer(s)
- transfer your songs to a portable digital media player
- burn your songs to CD
BuyMusic.com complies with each record label and adjusts the SDMI
license on each of your music downloads accordingly.

Two Types of Licenses: Primary and Secondary
There are two types of licenses: Primary and Secondary. The primary
license is downloaded to the machine you used to buy your music (for
example your home computer). Your primary license enables you to copy
your music from your primary computer to your digital media players
F4you download a secondary license, you do so onto a secondary computer
(for example your work computer). Your secondary license enables you
ONLY to listen to your music on your secondary computer. A secondary
license does NOT allow you to copy your music from your secondary
computer to your digital media players or to burn it to your CDs. F4

Before You Buy: Icons Show Number of Copies Allowed
When you download songs, your licenses are downloaded too. When you
lookup a song, notice that each song displays icons showing the number
of times it may be copied via the primary license.

The Disk icon shows the number of times the song can be downloaded to
disk.
- The Digital Media Player icon shows the number of times you can
download the song to digital media players.
- The Computer icon shows the number of times you can download your
music with a secondary license to a secondary computer.
- The icons apply only to your primary license on your primary computer.
The icons do not apply to the secondary license on your secondary
computer. You cannot use the secondary license to copy music at all.

After You Buy: Your Receipt Shows Number of Copies Allowed
After you've purchased your music, you can go back to see how many
downloads you have left and find out if there are any restrictions on
the number of disks or media player downloads you can make. Log in, go
to your Account page, and open the receipt page to view the music you
have previously purchased. Your receipt shows the same information as
the icons on the song description page.

Example: Downloads: 2 - Digital Media Players: Unlimited  CDs: 3. In
this example, you could download your music to one primary and one
secondary computer (two downloads total) AND you could copy your music
to your digital media player as many times as you like (unlimited) AND
you could burn each song to a CD three times.

The receipt page applies only to your primary license on your primary
computer. You cannot use the secondary license on your secondary
computer to copy music at all.

Uploading to a Shared Web Site  Not Permitted
Your license does not permit your music files to be uploaded onto a
shared server or made available on internet web sites (Example:
KaZaA.com or Morpheus).

Although you might be physically able to upload the files to a shared
server, the music files will be rendered useless to anyone who downloads
them because of the DRM license encryption technology.

If you have further questions, please contact us at
support@customerservice.buymusic.com.

We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

Team buy.com
www.buy.com

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
Order Number:
First of all...Your commericals are a TOTAL rip-off of Apple's iTunes
Music Store commericals.
So here are the questions. What if I get a new computer and get rid of
my old one? My primary license is now gone? Even if I had full rights
from both computers, what if I am out of "download" credit for a track
but I get a new machine?
And since you have to use the site to get the secondary license, what if
they go under? My music is now trapped on my PC forever?
I don't know much about SDMI, but how do they limit the number of burns?
It seems they would also have to use the website for that (or can the
music actually store how many burns are remaining? If so, I imagine
someone would find a way to hack the file to increase the count). So if
they went under, you couldn't even burn to CD...
And it's not copatible with the iPod?!?! That alone will make many
people not use it b/c they use it instead of CD's. The iPod is the best
Media Player on the market and the most popular and even if it's made by
Apple your just killing your self by not allowing support for it.
Your music service is doomed in my opinion.
.

------

Figures, just an automated response. Come on Buymusic.com, sew your balls back on and make a real response!

[alia]

BTW, the search feature works fine for IE on PC. Kind of lame for them to not even bother making the SITE compatible with macs...

at least Apple's coming out with a version that will work for PCs. These guys are having lots of fun rubbing the non-mac-compatible-thing in people's faces. Not a way to do business. Professional? I don't think so.

Alia

[CrackedButter]

The front page looks familar to itunes4 as well, strange.

[zulgand04]

I just bought a bunch of songs, i've been meaning to get. Itunes is so much better then buy.com, yea .79 for songs i would't listen to in a lifetime, and almost 14$ for some cds with restrctions, not worth it.

-Neal

[dxp4acu]

Did you see those buymusic.com commercials on their website?!?! It's just an apple ripoff! Hey, let's have some people sing with their mp3 players along with a white background! Woo Hoo!!!

[jessefoxperry]

Is this guy on crack? He's trying to be too much like Steve. USA Today Article (http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2003-07-21-download_x.htm)

[Frozone]

...Says Buy.com founder Scott Blum: "In the computer industry, a month is a huge amount of time, and we're going to take advantage of it." He says he's prepared to sell 1 million songs a day. "I expect to do 200 million to 300 million downloads in the first year."...

Hahaha...yea right...There service may do alright at first but once people start finding out and understanding that most songs are not $.79 and that some are over $1 then they will start to back away and stop downloading. If iTunes Music Store was released right now for Windows exaclty like it is for the Macintosh then Buy.com's Music Service would be swept under the rug.

[MasterX (OSiX)]

I was thinking about timing, didn't SJ say he was working on the iTMS for over a year? We know he wasn't ripping the songs back then, because they use the .m4p (AAC Protected format) of MEPG-4. Althought MP4 and AAC were ready far before now, if I remember right the DRM spec for MPEG-4 was only finished soon after iTMS came out (weird in its own right)

So i'm wondering how the bullocks buymusic managed to rip 300,000 songs betwen when iTMS came out and now. Plus SJ said iTMS had 300k songs, right? And it seems to me each week they add more than the week before, I ddi the math I think we're supposed to be at about 320,000 songs or more by now.

Finally does anyone know anything abourt DRM on windows? I know that's MS's big deal with WM9 format, but i don't know anything about it. I know on MacOS X you use iTunes 4 to manage accounts (enable playability) and this info is passed on to QuickTime 6.2 so you can use protected files as if they were plain ones.

[MasterX (OSiX)]

One more thing, I realllly wish I had a picture of the iTMS facilities. Imagine 10 PowerMacG5s with some custom ripping software. Each with a pile of CDs next to their mac and another room with a 100 Xserves and Xserve RAIDS in it. Almost as impressive as amazon (which although it uses HP technology, is beautifully automated)

[MasterX (OSiX)]

(While i'm still ranting)

From the USAToday article:
--------
"If you don't support Windows, you cut off 97% of the market," Blum says. "The iPod is the best little product I've ever seen, but it's like building the best car in the world, yet it doesn't use everyone's gas."
--------

If "everyone's gas" is Windows Media Player i'll drive hydrogen.

Oh and iPod for windows (which isn't even a product anymore) is compatable with iTunes you ninny. Plus there will be iTunes Windows soon enough, then you can feel the burn. Ooooh i can't wait. THis reminds me of when Mike Dell said he was first with laptops with 802.11.....

[DaveCalifornia]

Here is what I sent to Scott at buy.com LOL

------

Dear Scott Blum
You are funny and your buy music sucks. Let me guess, you are [***]. Why did you have to bad mouth Macintosh. Steve Jobs is "a visionary, but he's on the wrong platform." Wrong platform? You should get that ***** from your mouth. Well I wish you well, I won't be shopping at buy.com anymore!

Thanks:D

[wilco]

Originally posted by DaveCalifornia
Here is what I sent to Scott at buy.com LOL

------

Dear Scott Blum
You are funny and your buy music sucks. Let me guess, you are [***]. Why did you have to bad mouth Macintosh. Steve Jobs is "a visionary, but he's on the wrong platform." Wrong platform? You should get that ***** from your mouth. Well I wish you well, I won't be shopping at buy.com anymore!

Thanks:D

That's very clever. I'm sure your friends on the playground will get a kick out of it.

[MasterX (OSiX)]

I may be in danger of excessive posting now but...

On buymusic.com look at the second commercial. The Zen is quite large, I thought it was iPod size. Guess I was mistaken, it looks more like a laptop hard drive sized thing.

[Lord Bodak]

Originally posted by Iceman06
Here's the reply i got from Buy.com and they didn't exactly reply to all of the message.


That's a neat trick. Read their licensing info, ask questions, get a response that contains, verbatim, the licensing info you were asking about.

What good is this?

[Sabenth]

WTF: This has to be the dumb end of the stick this one . I cant use i Tunes service not in the usa dont know if i can use the buy music site either but i know one thing i wont be using buy .com because to much as far as what i can and cant do with my music choice. i am planing on getting my first ever i pod in a couple of weeks time and its going to store everyting of my music life. i want to be able to put music on it not some digital Music rights law crap on it I DONT WANT TO GO TO LAW SCHOOL JUST SO I CAN LISTEN TO MUSIC.. A month is not a long time in the computing world what a dildo... I TUNES COMES ACROSS as been more pro this buy thing is well cant describe it i need special licnces i can get a car licence quicker ....

... DMR Is a good idea if you want people to keep using Kazza... be my guest...

[Frozone]

Originally posted by Lord Bodak
That's a neat trick. Read their licensing info, ask questions, get a response that contains, verbatim, the licensing info you were asking about.

What good is this?

None what-so-ever. It just tells me that they don't have an answer to the question. I wonder how many e-mails they have gotten so far from Mac users asking questions, flaming, and picking there sorry service to pieces.

[Lord Bodak]

From the USA Today article:
BuyMusic's songs are fully portable, but there's a catch: None can be moved to Apple's iPod, which has 50% of the digital music player market, though they do work with players from Creative Labs, Rio, Lyra and others.

"If you don't support Windows, you cut off 97% of the market," Blum says. "The iPod is the best little product I've ever seen, but it's like building the best car in the world, yet it doesn't use everyone's gas."

So in one breath, he insults Apple for not supporting the majority (of computer users), then ignores the majority (of mp3 player users)?

[zim]

Originally posted by MasterX (OSiX)
One more thing, I realllly wish I had a picture of the iTMS facilities. Imagine 10 PowerMacG5s with some custom ripping software. Each with a pile of CDs next to their mac and another room with a 100 Xserves and Xserve RAIDS in it. Almost as impressive as amazon (which although it uses HP technology, is beautifully automated)

If I recall, apple does not rip the songs, the labels provide apple with the files, correct me if I am wrong.

I would also like to see the iTMS set up, I can only image that it is beautiful.

[Freg3000]

Whenever someone says that apple should sue, I always think that it is wishful thinking, and that they legally would not win a law suit. But, did everyone see those commercials?

The 1st one featured the SAME guitar and the last were almost the same commercials as the iTMS! I am about to barf. Apple legal do something!

[MasterX (OSiX)]

I assumed that the big 5 provided apple will the sources. It's possible that this doesn't mean CD, but I can't see Apple wanting to re-enter the CDDB. I assumed for this reason for most songs Apple is using the CD, most likely with some heavily automated system which randomly selects 30 seconds, compresses that, compresses the song into AAC, then adds the DRM with lord knows what sottware.

Anyone remember hearing anything more concrete?

[alia]

Originally posted by Freg3000
Whenever someone says that apple should sue, I always think that it is wishful thinking, and that they legally would not win a law suit. But, did everyone see those commercials?

The 1st one featured the SAME guitar and the last were almost the same commercials as the iTMS! I am about to barf. Apple legal do something!

Unfortunately, Apple legal probably can't do anything about this because it probably falls under fair use as it's an obvious parody of their own advertising campaign. If it's a true parody, it will be ruled as not infringing on any copyright. Although, if it's a slanderous parody, as these ads obviously are, I am not sure how that works... it might still be safe under the Parody law.

Any lawyers around who can support, refute this?

Alia

[Java]

Not every song in their store is $0.79.


from buymusic.com:
Forever And For Always
Artist: Shania Twain
Release Date: 11/19/2002
Label: Mercury Nashville
Track Price:$0.99

So not EVERY song is the same price.

[LinuxGigolo]

One other thing I kinda wanna know about this new service is... what is Buy using to guarantee that I get fast downloads? Apple uses Akamai... does Buy.com, as well?

[tduality]

Originally posted by a_kim
I'm buying an album today. Who's with me? :)

I would if I only could. :D

(see my location)

[Java]

Originally posted by j33pd0g
Have you tried their nifty search feature? I keep getting "The specified server could not be found." Message. Doesn't matter what catagory I pick to search from - same lame message.

getting the same thing.

[NoVi]

Just to get an idea of what was going on there.. i did a little search on "Beatles" and it showed around 8 songs. As I listened to the 2 available previews I could hear these were definitely not the Beatles, but copycats!

[Frozone]

Why are they going to call it iMusic? Everyone knows that the "i" is used by Apple so that's just one more thing that there service is copying Apple on. If I didn't know that it was already made by Buy.com then I would have thought it was something by Apple if I would have just stumbled across it someday.

So far they have copied Apple's service on:
Commericals
"i" Name

Hmm...Wonder what else

[DaveCalifornia]

Originally posted by wilco
That's very clever. I'm sure your friends on the playground will get a kick out of it.

I know they will! You liked it enough to respond to it.:p

[G4scott]

I believe that this site will barely make it, or go down in flames, and here's why.

1.) With the DRM, you don't know what you can do with one song to the next, since each song can have different restrictions.

2.) Their pricing model is like a fat man in a little coat... They advertise 79¢ per song, but I have yet to see one of those songs. They are probably for independent artists, which much fewer people will buy from. After browsing around, the iTunes Music Store is either the same price, or cheaper than buymusic. There are also albums that have certain tracks unavailable, that are available on the iTunes Music Store. I haven't run across any songs higher priced that 99¢, but I'm sure they're out there...

3.) The only people who are going to use this are grandmas and grandpas, or families that have no clue about computers at all. Hardcore, or even normal computer users will still use p2p networks for their music because it's free, and there's no restrictions. Buymusic is "The Music Store for the Dumb."

4.) You can only listen to music on your computer, or on about 5 different portable audio players. Apple should make a commercial to counter that, showing a guy listening to music on his PC that he bought with buymusic.com, wearing that "get loaded" t-shirt, and his mom comes in to vacuum the carpet, his siblings start to watch TV, and his friends come over, and he can't listen to his music. Then, they should show a kid using a Mac, with an iPod, and the iTunes Music Store, and when his mom comes into the room to vacuum, he takes his iPod with him, and when he gets distracted there, he moves somewhere else, and when his friends come, they go out for a night on the town in their VW beatle, with their music playing from the iPod. It would show how much better the iTunes Music Store is. Apple could also make another commercial where a kid with a CD player is burning a CD, and then the CD gets damaged, and he burns another, and that one gets buried by the dog, and he burns another, and that one gets stolen, and oops, he can't burn any more CD's... Which brings me to my next point:

5.) What if you move to another computer? What if a virus erases your HD? What if a CD fails to burn properly? There are too many risks that come with using a PC to make buying music with such a strict DRM enjoyable. You'd spend all your time protecting your music library, and less time enjoying it.

6.) You can't put music into movies you make. Or at least I doubt you can. With such a strict DRM, I doubt you can do much than listen to your music. You can't put it into a home video or anything like that, where with the iTunes Music Store, you can put it into movies, and burn them onto DVD's.

7.) Their website sucks. There is no customization. Browsing music is a horrible experience, since it just shows things by song, using up at least 30 pixels a row... the iTunes Music Store uses a standard line in a list to display information about a song. It also makes it easy to find albums too, and it doesn't restrict it to 20 results per page. Using their website is a pain, and I'd be surprised if any of their 'dumb' customers who would actually buy music from them could find the music they want.

8.) Windows Media Player. Enough said. I don't feel I need to rag on why using a codec owned by m$ is a bad idea...


I've decided to buy an album from the iTunes Music Store today, and maybe more later on when I have the money. The album, "Anthem", by Less Than Jake, is nowhere to be found on the BuyMusic site...

I also have another question about their store... On their main logo:
http://ak.buy.com/buy_assets/v6/buymusic/headshots/bm_topspot3.gif

Isn't the guy with the sun glasses John Lennon? Which brings me to my next question, if that is John Lennon, where are the beatles?

Hopefully this will do Apple some good. When this store fails, hopefully the big 5 will realize that an Apple-style, looser DRM is required to actually sell music online. People may still pirate, but it will be much easier to obtain music legally, and having a few people buying music is better than none.

EDIT: Never mind, the guy in the picture is ozzy. My bad...

[ersrhead]

Maybe the new Ben Folds EP (itms://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?albumTerm=Speed%20Graphic&artistTerm=Ben%20Folds ) ? It is only available via ITMS, from him on tour, and on vinyl from certain smaller record stores.

Imagine if we pushed something that isn't even available in other billboard-tracked markets to the top of the online sales charts!

[MattG]

Isn't the guy with the sun glasses John Lennon? Which brings me to my next question, if that is John Lennon, where are the beatles?

Actually I think that's Ozzy...

[MattG]

Hello Matt,

Thank you for contacting buy.com.

We apologize for any problems you have encountered with BuyMusic.com.
We appreciate your comments and suggestions and will use them to help
improve our products and services when making future decisions. Thanks
again for your feedback.

We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

BuyMusic.com
www.BuyMusic.com

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
Order Number:
Too bad Apple's service blows yours out of the water. Too many
restrictions. Once the iTunes Music Store is ported for Windows, your
service will be doomed. Like usual, Apple innovates and you guys
imitate--nice commercials!

[G4scott]

Originally posted by MattG
Actually I think that's Ozzy...

Yeah, I didn't realize that... I think you're right...

But if I was mistaken, I wonder how many more people will be disappointed?

[DaveCalifornia]

Originally posted by G4scott
I believe that this site will barely make it, or go down in flames, and here's why.

1.) With the DRM, you don't know what you can do with one song to the next, since each song can have different restrictions.

2.) Their pricing model is like a fat man in a little coat... They advertise 79¢ per song, but I have yet to see one of those songs. They are probably for independent artists, which much fewer people will buy from. After browsing around, the iTunes Music Store is either the same price, or cheaper than buymusic. There are also albums that have certain tracks unavailable, that are available on the iTunes Music Store. I haven't run across any songs higher priced that 99¢, but I'm sure they're out there...

3.) The only people who are going to use this are grandmas and grandpas, or families that have no clue about computers at all. Hardcore, or even normal computer users will still use p2p networks for their music because it's free, and there's no restrictions. Buymusic is "The Music Store for the Dumb."

4.) You can only listen to music on your computer, or on about 5 different portable audio players. Apple should make a commercial to counter that, showing a guy listening to music on his PC that he bought with buymusic.com, wearing that "get loaded" t-shirt, and his mom comes in to vacuum the carpet, his siblings start to watch TV, and his friends come over, and he can't listen to his music. Then, they should show a kid using a Mac, with an iPod, and the iTunes Music Store, and when his mom comes into the room to vacuum, he takes his iPod with him, and when he gets distracted there, he moves somewhere else, and when his friends come, they go out for a night on the town in their VW beatle, with their music playing from the iPod. It would show how much better the iTunes Music Store is. Apple could also make another commercial where a kid with a CD player is burning a CD, and then the CD gets damaged, and he burns another, and that one gets buried by the dog, and he burns another, and that one gets stolen, and oops, he can't burn any more CD's... Which brings me to my next point:

5.) What if you move to another computer? What if a virus erases your HD? What if a CD fails to burn properly? There are too many risks that come with using a PC to make buying music with such a strict DRM enjoyable. You'd spend all your time protecting your music library, and less time enjoying it.

6.) You can't put music into movies you make. Or at least I doubt you can. With such a strict DRM, I doubt you can do much than listen to your music. You can't put it into a home video or anything like that, where with the iTunes Music Store, you can put it into movies, and burn them onto DVD's.

7.) Their website sucks. There is no customization. Browsing music is a horrible experience, since it just shows things by song, using up at least 30 pixels a row... the iTunes Music Store uses a standard line in a list to display information about a song. It also makes it easy to find albums too, and it doesn't restrict it to 20 results per page. Using their website is a pain, and I'd be surprised if any of their 'dumb' customers who would actually buy music from them could find the music they want.

8.) Windows Media Player. Enough said. I don't feel I need to rag on why using a codec owned by m$ is a bad idea...


I've decided to buy an album from the iTunes Music Store today, and maybe more later on when I have the money. The album, "Anthem", by Less Than Jake, is nowhere to be found on the BuyMusic site...

I also have another question about their store... On their main logo:
http://ak.buy.com/buy_assets/v6/buymusic/headshots/bm_topspot3.gif

Isn't the guy with the sun glasses John Lennon? Which brings me to my next question, if that is John Lennon, where are the beatles?

Hopefully this will do Apple some good. When this store fails, hopefully the big 5 will realize that an Apple-style, looser DRM is required to actually sell music online. People may still pirate, but it will be much easier to obtain music legally, and having a few people buying music is better than none.


No that's Ozzy..

[G4scott]

OK, guys, while these insulting e-mails to buymusic.com may be fun, it only makes the mac community look like a bunch of dumb, flaming trolls (although some do exist here...)

If you're going to send an e-mail, do it professionally, calmly explaining why their music service inhales profusely, and why it is inevitably doomed to failure. Use long drawn out examples that make them have to think about what you're saying.

When you send a stupid message saying "YOUR MUSIC SERVICE SUXORS AND YOU WILL DIE AND APPLE WILL RULE THE WORLD W00T!", you look just as dumb as them.

Come on guys, have some class. We are Mac users, after all...

[e-coli]

OMFG!!!!!!!!

The "commercials" are absolutely IDENTICAL to Apple's iTMS spots.

That is so so so so so so so LAME!!!!!!!!

I bet they get sued.

And it even uses a bit of steve-o language. "Music downloads for the rest of us".

LAME LAME LAME :mad:

[Java]

Bought a Jimmy Buffett Album. Yep, I'm a total parrot head. But at least I'm a parrot head supporting iTMS.

Everyone, buy a single today, and show buymusic.com they have nothing over the Mac community.

Time to raise the Apple pirate flag again. Arrrgh.

[Killswitch]

Nice Bait and Switch tactics. .

If one were to use Tommy Lee to advertise the product , one would feature his music on the METAL page...that you did correctly.

Where you failed is in PRICING IT higher than your promotional pricing.

d'oh.

If i was drawn to your site by the thought of getting Mr. Lee's latest monstrosity of crap metal, attracted by the price of .79 cents per song...and then was presented with the pricing of .99 cents per song...I'd think... they were trying to rip me off.

Guess what... you are.

It's bad form and poor business practice. In common tongue, a stupid move.

and while i'm at it.

Do me the favor to PLEASE get the names of the songs correct in your listings,
I spotted several errors in your metal section. I'm sure I will find others.

For a fee of $50,000 I will point them out. For $50,000 more I will ensure they never happen again.

oh, and one last thing.
Your company and product are only as good as your public image.

By bashing Apple, by ignoring iPod users and by boasting about how many songs you'll sell... you position yourself as a blowhard.

next you'll be running around a stage all sweaty screaming like an idiot.

Good luck recovering from this doomed business venture,

Love and Kisses,
Killswitch

[Frozone]

Originally posted by MattG
Hello Matt,

Thank you for contacting buy.com.

We apologize for any problems you have encountered with BuyMusic.com.
We appreciate your comments and suggestions and will use them to help
improve our products and services when making future decisions. Thanks
again for your feedback.

We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

BuyMusic.com
www.BuyMusic.com

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
Order Number:
Too bad Apple's service blows yours out of the water. Too many
restrictions. Once the iTunes Music Store is ported for Windows, your
service will be doomed. Like usual, Apple innovates and you guys
imitate--nice commercials!

They don't seem to answer anyone's questions or comment on Apple. I'm fixin to e-mail them saying this:

So far I have read many e-mail's that people have sent Buy.com regarding their new Music Service, but in all of them you all seem to be avoiding most questions and repeating the things that we already know and in the end you don't answer our questions. So if you reply to this email please don't give me the crap about being sorry for problems encountered because i'm not using your service nor do I plan to use it. And I would like to know what is up with the commericals. They are clearly copied from the iTMS commericals that Apple did and you and everyone at Buy.com know it. I have also read on the web that your service will be Dubbed iMusic. If so then Buy.com is yet again copying Apple, who ya'll have went out of your way to insult with the smashing of the guitar that Apple uses and by things said about Steve Jobs. I personally think that once iTMS is out for Windows your service is going to be quickly swept under the rug and your "from" $.79 and the "from"7.95 are very misleading since it's pretty hard to actually find albums and songs that cost that much. And when you find one they are full of DRM. Once people figure out your scheme and get fed up with having to deal with many different style of DRM depending on how much you pay your service is going to go down under fast.

[jessefoxperry]

Hey guys, im gonna use Scott's (the man behind Buymusic) visionary ideas to start my new music service called iMusic Tunes Store, our logo is gonna be a Orange with two bites out of it. I expect to get at least 5 million downloads per day, which accounts to about 200,000 downloads a year! (read the USA Today article for Scott's great math) The price for a track is gonna start at 5 cents (for Barney's theme song) but most song prices will range anywhere from the cheap price of $5-$25.95. our theme, which i spent the most time thinking up will be "Think Differently"........Steve is a visionary but he just doesn't know how to sell songs

[Rower_CPU]

Copying the iTMS commercials is a new low in this whole mess.

Here's to hoping they go down in flames...

[acj]

Buy.com: Can we sell Apple computers?

Apple: No

Buy.com: You'll be sorry.


And then came the bashing apple commercials. It's great advertising, if you know about that sort of thing. It makes the other 95% laugh and want the product for more reasons than just the product.

[Kid Red]

Taken from their music page on the side-

What is SACD? It looks just like a normal CD, but that’s where the similarity ends. The difference in sound quality is so great that you have to hear it to believe it! SACD represents the highest quality sound source available today.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the assumption that DVD-Audio was the highest quality source available today? (other then DAT of course)

[ZildjianKX]

I see sooo many posts complaining about other online music stores... jeez, don't you guys want to see some competition? Brings prices down... the fact that Apple has pretty much ignored competition on their computer lines is why their prices can be so high.

[bretm]

Originally posted by Lord Bodak
From the BuyMusic site:



So here are the questions. What if I get a new computer and get rid of my old one? My primary license is now gone? Even if I had full rights from both computers, what if I am out of "download" credit for a track but I get a new machine?

And since you have to use the site to get the secondary license, what if they go under? My music is now trapped on my PC forever?

I don't know much about SDMI, but how do they limit the number of burns? It seems they would also have to use the website for that (or can the music actually store how many burns are remaining? If so, I imagine someone would find a way to hack the file to increase the count). So if they went under, you couldn't even burn to CD...

My opinion: doomed from the start.

Once it's burned to an audio CD, it's an audio CD. Load it back in at 44.1, 16 bit, Stereo aif or wav and you'll never have to worry about it again. You won't lose any quality loading it back in from the disc (unless you convert it to mp3, aac, wma or some other compressed format) and you won't occur any degredation going back to CD.

Apple can play the actual files off a CD. Just copy the audio cd files off the disc to your computer and play them.

[crees!]

Originally posted by kaltsasa
I tend to agree, I was an emusic subscriber. While it was great for a couple months, I quickly ran out of decent music to get from them.

I'm going to have to disagree. I found eMusic to be an awesome source of music when it comes to indie bands. My collection grew from a few hundred to a few thousand.. thanks to eMusic.

[synergy]

In a way this is good.
Let people eat buy.com's crap.
Once Apple comes along with their better food, guess what?
Buy.com folds faster than Ben Folds 5. :-)

[crees!]

Originally posted by a_kim
I'm buying an album today. Who's with me? :)

I'll buy when I get my 1st Mac in Sept! Come on powerbooks!

[Frozone]

Originally posted by ZildjianKX
I see sooo many posts complaining about other online music stores... jeez, don't you guys want to see some competition? Brings prices down... the fact that Apple has pretty much ignored competition on their computer lines is why their prices can be so high.

A little competition is good, but when your competition copies you in the ways that BuyMusic.com has it ticks people off. Which is the case here.

[crees!]

Sorry for all the separate posts...

But what about "The World's Largest Download Store" ?????

Sort of like "The World's Fastest Personal Computer" eh?

Buycrap.com is going to burn for eternity.

[jaykk]

From La Times (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-buymusic22jul22.story) article :

"Blum's new venture won't be able to duplicate the simplicity that some analysts say has been crucial to Apple's success, in part because BuyMusic.com doesn't have the technology or the licenses Apple does. Every song sold by the iTunes music store carries the same price and limits on copying, but tracks offered by BuyMusic.com will come with a range of prices and restrictions."

"If it's a failure," he (Blum) said, "it would be deathly for myself because I'm betting so big on it."

"But if BuyMusic.com is a success, he plans to take the same approach to downloadable movies, he said."


he wants to sell movies next.

[Xnet]

A terrible music service with deceptive advertising and restrictive fair use policies.

Interesting to note:
(from BuyMusic.com's best seller list)

Audioslave CD on iTunes Music Store:
$11.99
Audioslave CD on Buy.com:
$12.69

Ataris CD on iTunes (by song only):
$14.99
Ataris CD on Buy.com (by song only):
Full Album not available

Beyonce CD on iTunes:
$11.99
Beyonce CD on Buy.com (by song only):
Incomplete album
$14.99
and they charge you 99 cents for a 19 sec track!!

Not to mention WMP files....

[DGFan]

Originally posted by freundt
Sorry,

not to troll, but Steve was not a visionary when it comes to iTMS. He was just able to do what emusic and alot of other services were not - Convinve the big 5 to give him less restricitve DRM.

Emusic service has no DRM (At least when I used it TWO YEARS AGO) uses mp3 as the format and you are free to do whatever with all the files. So what was the downfall of Emusic? The big 5 refused to participate.

PressPlay, MP3.com, etc.. There are tons of services that came out before iTMS with the only caveat being more DRM.

So.
Once again.
Not to troll, but iTMS is visionary only in that it got the big 5 to participlate with less DRM. (and I think that is because it uses such a little used audio format on a platform with < 5% user base. - no to disparage the audio format - it's just not supported as widely as mp3 or wma)

Felt like that needed to be said considering all the "the Window's world copied Apple again and does it poorly again" comments.

The vision wasn't with respect to the idea "lets have an online music store" but with the execution. The design of the iTMS is simply brilliant. It's economic in use of space but still easy to navigate. And Jobs was able to figure out what set of DRM requirements would make most consumers happy but still provide protections.

So, no, the "vision" had nothing to do with getting the big-5 on board.

[Flowbee]

Originally posted by synergy

Once Apple comes along with their better food, guess what?
Buy.com folds faster than Ben Folds 5. :-)

Or... Buy.com folds faster than Superman on laundry day.

:D

[zim]

Originally posted by ZildjianKX
I see sooo many posts complaining about other online music stores... jeez, don't you guys want to see some competition? Brings prices down... the fact that Apple has pretty much ignored competition on their computer lines is why their prices can be so high.

I don't think that the prices would come down. If buy.com sells as many as they say they will, it will not benefit apple in anyway because apple uses a different format, requiring that the music be supplied to them in a different format. So the only way that prices would ever drop is if people were loyal to one supplier or suppliers that offer the same format and DRM.

I am also starting to fear that in the future, assuming that more variations of online music store will appear, we will have to remember where we purchased each song and what player plays it.... although I doubt that anyone would ever try to compete with apple on the mac platform due to iTMS success... I am even surprised that MS still makes WMP for the mac.

[Lord Bodak]

Originally posted by bretm
Once it's burned to an audio CD, it's an audio CD. Load it back in at 44.1, 16 bit, Stereo aif or wav and you'll never have to worry about it again. You won't lose any quality loading it back in from the disc (unless you convert it to mp3, aac, wma or some other compressed format) and you won't occur any degredation going back to CD.

Apple can play the actual files off a CD. Just copy the audio cd files off the disc to your computer and play them.

That's true. If I had any intention of using the service (which I don't b/c I run Linux and soon OS X, neither of which are supported anyway), I would buy a track, burn it to a CD-RW, rip it back, and blank the CD-RW. Poof, no more DRM.

It doesn't take much creativity to figure that out-- so what is the point of all this DRM customized for each track and such?

[alia]

Originally posted by Lord Bodak
That's true. If I had any intention of using the service (which I don't b/c I run Linux and soon OS X, neither of which are supported anyway), I would buy a track, burn it to a CD-RW, rip it back, and blank the CD-RW. Poof, no more DRM.

It doesn't take much creativity to figure that out-- so what is the point of all this DRM customized for each track and such?


I don't know if this is the same, but I've ripped mix CDs that friends have burned for me, and the quality once it was back in MP3 was awful! Static and noise galore. Has anyone tried this with itunes music or another service?

Alia

[appleofmyeye]

I've just purchased Nick Drake's "Way to Blue" album from iTMS. note that I was in a record store yesterday but decided against buying Idlewild's CD (not available on iTMS) to save money... well, today I felt like making a statement, however small, mainly as a reaction to buymusic's appalling claims & dubious marketing strategies. if you have a couple of bucks to spare (say, no frappuccinos or lattes today), buy some songs from iTMS!!!

[holy MAC!]

what apple should do:

release ITMS for windows with iTunes for music.

make it better than MusicMatch.

stop packaging MusicMatch with Ipods.

once it's in place: offer a new promotion:
Buy Ipod, get like $20 credit to ITMS.

force other companies to make AAC compatible music devices.


i swear:
record companies should pay hackers to spread viruses through Kazaa (im saying this with ITMS in mind... so don't bash me)

curious:
since buymusic.com works off a browser: what's stopping international customers?

[DGFan]

Originally posted by jessefoxperry
Is this guy on crack? He's trying to be too much like Steve. USA Today Article (http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2003-07-21-download_x.htm)

Never, ever make predictions

"I expect to do 200 million to 300 million downloads in the first year."

Boy that's just bad news. I think 1 million a month is a reach for them.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[DGFan]

Originally posted by Iceman06

Hahaha...yea right...There service may do alright at first but once people start finding out and understanding that most songs are not $.79 and that some are over $1 then they will start to back away and stop downloading. If iTunes Music Store was released right now for Windows exaclty like it is for the Macintosh then Buy.com's Music Service would be swept under the rug.

Maybe iTMS needs to include one song for $0.49 so they can advertise "Songs starting at just 49 cents!" like buymusic is doing.

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by arn
obviously.... but did you read the rumors link (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/05/20030512103510.shtml) in the article from the main page? That's the concern.

anyhow... I wonder if the international readers noticed that the rocket has "USA" on it. Not that it really matters I guess cause I doubt Mac users can use the service.

arn

I read it, still didn't like the news.

I mean besides a larger platform what is the difference in service?

There should be no difference.

Originally posted by MattG
I sent Buy.com a comment on how unprofessional their web site is. As soon as I did, I got an auto reply of:



Then, 20 minutes later, I got:



I wonder if someone's actually going to respond...

haha, they will bump you to a higher line again.


There reply was probably automated, and your question was ignored.

Even without seeing the commericals (they want me to download Windows media player 9 [WTF?!?!]) they look like total ripoffs.

Originally posted by NoVi
Just to get an idea of what was going on there.. i did a little search on "Beatles" and it showed around 8 songs. As I listened to the 2 available previews I could hear these were definitely not the Beatles, but copycats!

FYI, the Beatles are on no online service, for some reason they think it is evil and not worth putting their stuff up on. :(

No one from buymusic, ITMS, or anyplaces else has the real songs.

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Copying the iTMS commercials is a new low in this whole mess.

Here's to hoping they go down in flames...
For the reson said above can anyone link me to the direct clip maybe through win media player it would work.

Originally posted by DGFan
Never, ever make predictions

"I expect to do 200 million to 300 million downloads in the first year."

Boy that's just bad news. I think 1 million a month is a reach for them.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Yeah he is expecting waaayyy too much, he expects to whipe out P2P and then get people who don't use their computer to download songs to download it from him, BS.

[Chealion]

WHAT A POS. Those ads are horrible, but everyone else has the bashing of the site covered.

When will Apple get the iTMS out to other countries? Like Canada, Austrailia, New Zealand, and all of Europe?

BuyMusic.com only works in the United States also, so thats a good sign in that they have nothing but the "hey we got a Windows version out first", one-up on Apple.

Here's to the project rotting in hell.

[Abstract]

@Holy Mac: your iPod + iTMS credit idea is great. :cool:

I wouldn't buy songs from Buy.com because I don't like WMA, plain and simple. I don't know any Windows users who use the format, either. I'd rather have mp3s.

[Frozone]

Originally posted by DGFan
Maybe iTMS needs to include one song for $0.49 so they can advertise "Songs starting at just 49 cents!" like buymusic is doing.

Hehe...Maybe So...Man I can't wait until iTMS for Windows is out, so Apple can take the Offensive side against Buy.com for all there crap.

[PaisanoMan]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Are there any personal music players that even support WMF? Isn't that choice of format going to automatically restrict the possibility of listening to them on, say, your Windows iPod?


Actually ... yes, and yes. If you look, there are many players that support the WMA format, and of course, the iPod isn't one of them.

[weev]

Originally posted by DGFan
Maybe iTMS needs to include one song for $0.49 so they can advertise "Songs starting at just 49 cents!" like buymusic is doing.

I'm sure I saw a Monty Python track that went for a couple of seconds - make that a .01c track!

Bingo! :p

[Rustus Maximus]

Originally posted by acj
Buy.com: Can we sell Apple computers?

Apple: No

Buy.com: You'll be sorry.


And then came the bashing apple commercials. It's great advertising, if you know about that sort of thing. It makes the other 95% laugh and want the product for more reasons than just the product.

Welll, laugh they may...try the product, they might...but crap, they will soon realize it is...

Why typing like Yoda am I?

[Frozone]

How many downloads do you all think they will have after the service is open for 1 week?

My guess is 2 million songs or less.

[holy MAC!]

hehe, i just want to post these promotional ideas that i have:

1) (i posted this before) buy iPod, get ITMS credit. "your favorite player, playing your favorite music"

2) ITMS Gift Cards ("send the gift that will be music to their ears")... you can send it directly to that person's .mac account.

3) ITMS lotterys! "every song you buy may buy you 500 more!" have like weekly drawings where the winner gets store credits!.....


i would love to get an Ipod and get free music!

think about it.... NO more gettting bad gifts!

what do you guys think about these?

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by pretentious
How did they get more songs than Apple???

By accepting whatever DRM scheme each individual label/artist pulled out of his/her *ss.

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by MrMacman
Even without seeing the commericals (they want me to download Windows media player 9 [WTF?!?!]) they look like total ripoffs.

d00d, what happened to the L337 5k1ll5? :p

Tommy Lee (http://ak.buy.com/buy_assets/v6/buymusic/commercials/tommylee300k.wmv)
Rapper's Delight (http://ak.buy.com/buy_assets/v6/buymusic/commercials/rappersdelight300k.wmv)
Superfreak (http://ak.buy.com/buy_assets/v6/buymusic/commercials/superfreak300k.wmv)

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by MattG
Today would be a great day for Apple to announce the ITMS for Windows...

No, better to let this attempt completely flop of its own accord. Puts Apple in a significantly better bargaining position WRT the record companies. Of course, if Buy's service actually succeeds (at which point I think we have to start looking for triple-6 tatoos on their CEO 'cause there ain't no way that POS service will succeed of its own right!) then iTMS/Win is in trouble.

IMHO, Apple's got a strong upper hand here, and there is no need to rush iTMS/Win out.

[crees!]

Originally posted by pretentious
How did they get more songs than Apple???

By accepting whatever DRM scheme each individual label/artist pulled out of his/her *ss.


Here's a quote from someone on ThinkSecret's forum about this issue.

"Hmmmm, I just noticed something about the BuyMusic.com store that is rather interesting.

Many of the songs in their system are "Not Available for Sale" at all! You do some searches and these songs come up in the results; when you click on them, you get the 30-second preview and album info, but you can not buy them. Do those songs count in their alledged 300,000+ songs?

It is hard to say how many of the songs are not available for sale, but it seems like a fair percentage based upon what I have seen so far. "

They will go down faster than if Tyson swung and hit them square in the jaw :D

[crees!]

I did a search on Jimmy Eat World and these were my results.

We could not find an exact match for "jimmy eat world". Here is our best estimate for your search. (17978 matching titles )

Let Go
Artist: Avril Lavigne

Greatest
Artist: Duran Duran

Chocolate Factory
Artist: R. Kelly featuring Ja Rule

Platinum and Gold Collection
Artist: Aretha Franklin



LMAO.. If I were them I wouldn't have launched because they are definitely not ready for the big time. They said 300,000 songs but I bet that's what they have lined up.. based on what I see I'd guess about 1/2 that is available.

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by alia
As a current Windows user, here are three reasons why I won't be purchasing ANY music from buymusic.com...

1. It requires the download of Windows Media Player 9. I refuse to download this app and I refuse to install Microsoft Passport. I like my privacy, thanks....

2. It doesn't work with my ipod. I don't burn CDs. I use my ipod. If it doesn't work with that, oh well for them.

3. Non-transferable rights! I have to download from my primary pc?! I can't transfer the music to another machine?! That's so lame... the songs that even allow more than one download won't let you burn from those machines or transfer to digital devices from those machines. The amount of downloads they are going to lose just from people who would download from work, but won't because they can't transfer them will be staggering.

No thanks!

Also, from what I've seen so far... their selection isn't all that... I think maybe that 300k songs is an exaggeration.

Alia

All excellent reasons. I guess I'm just a bit more shallow, though. I absolutely refuse to take part in a service with the slogan "Get Loaded".

Tasteless.

[mustang_dvs]

http://a1984.g.akamai.net/7/1984/51/93656d4a14905e/www.apple.com/music/images/indextop04282003.jpg

FYI, for anyone curious, I believe that the guitar on Apple's music site is an Epiphone Elitist Archtop Sheraton (http://www.epiphone.com/elitist/sheraton.htm), (though the fretboard doesn't look quite right on the Apple site).

Just purchased:
Ben Folds "Speed Graphic" (EP)
Alanis Morisette "Under a Rug Swept"
Matchbox Twenty "Unwell (live, acoustic)"

I really wish Apple had:
Beastie Boys
The Beatles
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Led Zeppelin
White Stripes
(more) Jimi Hendrix Experience

[jenkij]

What does he mean "steve's on the wrong platform"? when did apple stop working with mp3's? They didn't, and I don't think MS is going to get away with a digital hub strategy on a proprietary format. What next, digital photo services that don't work with jpg's and tiff's?

[mustang_dvs]

Here's the reason the search won't work in anything but the standards-ignorant IE 6 for Windows:

line 226 of index.html:
<form action="http://www.buymusic.com\searchResults.aspx" method="get">

Notice anything \ funny \ ?

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by mustang_dvs
Here's the reason the search won't work in anything but the standards-ignorant IE 6 for Windows:

line 226 of index.html:
<form action="http://www.buymusic.com\searchResults.aspx" method="get">

Notice anything \ funny \ ?

Dear lord, backslashes in URLs??? What kind of web monkeys are running that site? :rolleyes:

[crees!]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Dear lord, backslashes in URLs??? What kind of web monkeys are running that site? :rolleyes:

You answered your own question.... Monkeys are.

[Waluigi]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Dear lord, backslashes in URLs??? What kind of web monkeys are running that site? :rolleyes:

Wow, I've gotten so used to cheating, I mean using Dreamweaver, I missed that :rolleyes: ....I need to do some straight coding once in a while, it is very rejuvenating....

--Waluigi

[Chealion]

Originally posted by crees!
You answered your own question.... Monkeys are.


Don't insult monkeys, these are far worse!

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by Iceman06
Why are they going to call it iMusic? Everyone knows that the "i" is used by Apple so that's just one more thing that there service is copying Apple on. If I didn't know that it was already made by Buy.com then I would have thought it was something by Apple if I would have just stumbled across it someday.

So far they have copied Apple's service on:
Commericals
"i" Name

Hmm...Wonder what else

Sounds like "iMusic", but it's "BuyMusic".

[MattG]

What does he mean "steve's on the wrong platform"? when did apple stop working with mp3's? They didn't, and I don't think MS is going to get away with a digital hub strategy on a proprietary format. What next, digital photo services that don't work with jpg's and tiff's?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the "wrong platform" he's referring to is the Apple computing platform...

[iJon]

well i was reading slashdot and it is only available to people in the US. the check your IP number.

iJon

[bennetsaysargh]

not the apple guitar! no!!!
anyway, why are we caring so much about this when it's not even good. we already know
1-they took the ads and ruined them
2-that they have almost no songs at $0.75
3-took the iName and put it to shame
4-got to the windows market before apple
5-doesn't have beatles like every music service
6-will die and rot in hel for killing the AppleMusic guitar:mad:

also, if you're a beatles fan and want thier songs, you should either have them, or have the common sense to go on P2P and download them.

[Wash!!]

Crok of Sh** he said that becuase iTMS is the one to beat so by attacking it he get free publisity for his crapy site
:o

[G4scott]

If they don't have figures on how many songs they've sold within 1 week, we will know that they have flopped...

Only Apple can create the effect of having a new product come out with a bang in the computer world. Everyone just rolls out their products, but Apple has a press conference, or a special event, or something that gets the media, and users all riled up.

This service just kinda appeared, without any real fanfare. I'd be surprised if many people actually know about it. I mean, if I got an e-mail advertising it, I would think it's a promotional gimmick, and promptly delete it. Unless I read the press release, I wouldn't have guessed that this store is anything like the iTunes Music Store.

The only reason why people know what the Apple one is, is that Apple doesn't send out spam, and have the advertising mess that is associated with sites like buy.com. People will actually take time to see what Apple's doing new, even if they don't use a mac.

[MasterX (OSiX)]

Originally posted by G4scott
This service just kinda appeared, without any real fanfare. I'd be surprised if many people actually know about it. I mean, if I got an e-mail advertising it, I would think it's a promotional gimmick, and promptly delete it. Unless I read the press release, I wouldn't have guessed that this store is anything like the iTunes Music Store.

Funny though. Has everyone else noticed that people all know about the ITMS? Granted about 2/3 of them see my iPod or hear me talking about iTunes and say "Why do you pay $1 for every song you have?" And I have to explain that the iTMS is just a source for songs, and you can still rip and pirate (windows users like to know you can still use pirated audio on an iPod). Even so, misinformed people which are aware of the service is better than nothing.

[Trimix]

Blum and Tommy Lee just were interviewed on CNBC -
Gawd, what a bunch of lurkers, unintelligible gibbersih out of Tommy Lee and Blum with a smile on his face as if he had just escaped from a mental asylum.
If SJ really has a secret deal with them as some rumor mongers wanted to see it, then even SJ is a brick short of a wall (and he definitely is not)- these two lurkers came across like some used car sales men - now let me correct this - these two guys would be an insult to any decent used car salesman
Man, it was bad - hope you all could see it too:D :D :D

[zach]

i couldn't :(

However, I did just send a very insulting email to BuyMusic.com, which I ended by saying "Well, I'm off to buy music from the iTMS", which I promptly did, buying two new albums.

However, I hope they are smart enough to figure out what iTMS stands for...

1 more post to 100! yay!

[zach]

hey, sorry to post twice in a row, but this really cracks me up.

So Long, Astoria by the Ataris is listed as one of the top full album downloads on BuyMusic.com, yet the full album is not available.

yay, one hundred posts.

[smashedapart]

I just sent the following to BuyMusic.com's customer support. I hope to hear something back...

Dear BuyMusic.com,
I, along with many other computer users, have seen the press releases regarding your service. I decided to give things a look, and I'm fairly unimpressed. Your website is poorly designed, and the use of Windows Media Player 9 is distressing. Many of us are concerned about privacy, and having to use an application which utilizes Microsoft's flawed Passport system is not something we feel comfortable doing.

Your advertising boasts $0.79 per song. Of all the browsing I've done (about a half an hour now), possibly 15 to 20% of the tracks I've looked at carried the advertised $0.79 price tag. Pricing for your albums is also greatly skewed. Almost all of the albums I've viewed were priced at $11 and up. This is much more expensive than the advertised $7.95.

I find it interesting that your commercials borrow so heavily from Apple's iTunes Music Store campaign (headphone-wearing individuals singing their favorite song over a white background). The commercial showing Tommy Lee smashing a guitar that looks disturbingly similar to the one featured at Apple's website (see it at: http://www.apple.com/music/) and on their banners is not a subtle hint to Apple's users, and many of us have taken note. By taking a swing at Apple's users, you are only doing a disservice to the Windows platform. Wouldn't it be more productive to try to sway Apple's users to make the switch to the Windows platform by offering them a quality alternative rather than making childish pokes and prods at the company they're currently giving their money to? Because, after all, this is about money, right? If I were the head of Buy.com, I'd be more interested in making money instead of alienating potential customers. But, then again, I'm not Scott Blum.

Speaking of which, Mr. Blums' comments about Steve Jobs being "a visionary, but on the wrong platform" were highly ironic to me and many others when we realized that the BuyMusic.com music files will be incompatible with Apple's iPod. The iPod currently holds 50% of the portable mp3-player market. Who's on the wrong platform?

In closing, I hope this letter does not fall on deaf ears. Your service is subpar, your advertising is a sham, and your founder needs a lesson in originality. I see problems for your service in the not-so-distant future. Apple's iTunes for Windows is on track to be released by the end of the year. Here's hoping you didn't sink too much money into this venture.

Sincerely,
(my real name)

[bennetsaysargh]

i just wanna say something, this is not the time to acknowledge that we hate them. by sending them countless emails, not only are you acknowledging to them that you think they are a competitor, but you are also making them seem like a big threat when in actuality they aren't.

[kenohki]

Originally posted by Kid Red
Taken from their music page on the side-



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the assumption that DVD-Audio was the highest quality source available today? (other then DAT of course)

DVD-Audio and SACD are both much higher quality than is currently available on standard CD. However, DVD-Audio is a higher resolution version of the PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) audio that comes on standard CDs whereas SACD uses a AD conversion process called DSD (Direct Stream Digital) which is 1 bit at a much higher sampling rate. It also bypasses a few of the filtering phases in traditional Analog to PCM back to Analog, and therefore is supposed to be a closer approximation of the original analog source. Although both formats have their proponents, SACD is generally considered superior quality by high end audiophiles and sound engineers. Hope this helps.

[MasterX (OSiX)]

Originally posted by kenohki
DVD-Audio and SACD are both much higher quality than is currently available on standard CD. However, DVD-Audio is a higher resolution version of the PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) audio that comes on standard CDs whereas SACD uses a AD conversion process called DSD (Direct Stream Digital) which is 1 bit at a much higher sampling rate. It also bypasses a few of the filtering phases in traditional Analog to PCM back to Analog, and therefore is supposed to be a closer approximation of the original analog source. Although both formats have their proponents, SACD is generally considered superior quality by high end audiophiles and sound engineers. Hope this helps.

I was under the impression DVD-A and HDCD were both multichannel high def audio formats on DVD discs while SACD was a new form of audio created by Sony and was on regular CDs (not sure about that part). Of note, DVD-A is designed for anti-piracy, nothing except DVD-A players are allowed to decode the format, thus the sound can ONLY enter a receiver (or amp) via analog channels (thus the popularity of 6-channal analog input on new receivers)

[Zamis]

I've been navigating through this site for about a half hour and here are some observations:

-lack of band content
-extremely tight licensing of the tracks
-similar to Pressplay in that not all tracks may be available for listening or download
-preview quality is extremely poor (appear to be 16kpbs WMA?)
-ruthless copy cat ads
-ruthless self promotion of Tommy Lee's album as a 'top download'
-minority of the tracks are actually 79 cents
-burning is to be accomplished through WMP 9 (which I believe has only a limited recording speed version of the Roxio burn engine)

I think the idea behind this service is a good one but the implementation is poor and catered to the music industry. Pressplay followed this business model and didn't have much success.

Don't take my word for it, examine the Help pages (which amongst other things has Shipping information! What?)

http://www.buymusic.com/support/help.aspx#License_Downloading

"Make sure you mean to buy your music from your primary computer so that it contains your primary license. The licenses are non-transferable. You cannot buy your music on your work machine and then transfer your primary license to your home machine. The computer you buy from becomes the primary computer with the primary license for that song. "

Yeah, thanks for treating me like a child. I'll take my business elsewhere.

Now if only I could download my half hour of wasted life spent on their site....

zamis

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by MasterX (OSiX)
I was under the impression DVD-A and HDCD were both multichannel high def audio formats on DVD discs while SACD was a new form of audio created by Sony and was on regular CDs (not sure about that part). Of note, DVD-A is designed for anti-piracy, nothing except DVD-A players are allowed to decode the format, thus the sound can ONLY enter a receiver (or amp) via analog channels (thus the popularity of 6-channal analog input on new receivers)

Really? I find it highly suspect that people would be prevented from going out via Toslink to an amp/receiver for DVD-A output.

[MasterX (OSiX)]

Of note, iTMS carries equal quantaty of Tommy Lee's music (unless you count the clean version as seperate). He didn't even give up any custom tracks? What a tool.

Anyone know about quality of WM9 audio? We all know it sucks for other reasons, but how is it vs MPEG-4?

[chewbaccapits]

I seriously doubt apple has any reason to sue, just as intel didn't with the BURNT bunny parody ads...Still, I say the the buymusic store is crap.

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by chewbaccapits
I seriously doubt apple has any reason to sue, just as intel didn't with the BURNT bunny parody ads...Still, I say the the buymusic store is crap.

But these ads aren't parodies, they're ripoffs - big difference.

[arn]

Originally posted by bennetsaysargh
i just wanna say something, this is not the time to acknowledge that we hate them. by sending them countless emails, not only are you acknowledging to them that you think they are a competitor, but you are also making them seem like a big threat when in actuality they aren't.

heh... yeah - go buy some itunes music instead... :)

arn

[Lord Bodak]

As much as the web interface may suck compared to iTunes, there is one nice thing about it.

Right now I don't have a Mac (still saving up). So far, I haven't found a way to look at what is available in iTMS, but with BuyMusic I can look on their website even though I have no intention of buying.

[vniow]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Really? I find it highly suspect that people would be prevented from going out via Toslink to an amp/receiver for DVD-A output.

Its true unfortunately, unless your reciever has a builr in SACD or DVD-A player, the only way to hook it up is through seperate connectors for each channel, they don't allow optical or coaxial connectors as far as I know for copyright reasons...http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=251202

Although Creative labs is supposed to come out (or has already come out with) a card + software that will play DVD-As.

[MasterX (OSiX)]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Really? I find it highly suspect that people would be prevented from going out via Toslink to an amp/receiver for DVD-A output.

I was pretty sure, but just for you I checked again ;-)

TOSLINK or Coax (the two popular digital audio interconnects for non audiophiles out there) actually don't specify a format for their use, not unlike FireWire (which can be used for any kind of data.

It's up to the receiver or decoder to process the data. On your DVD player you specify bitstream output and it will simply output a DVD-Video's audio tracks thru the cable, in either DTS or Dolby Digital Format (AC3 is memory serves me).

DVD-A doesn't use either of these audio formats, and to prevent rippers from comming out and pissing off the RIAA al over again the chips (?) are only found in DVD players, like some in the excellent line of Denon DVD players. The high end models play back DVD-Video, DVD-A, SACD, HDCD, PhotoCD, CD-RWs, etc. Good stuff. Of interest the format you would want to use to rip DVD-A (if such a thing is ever allowed) would be MPEG-4 since it supports both high def and multichannel. I hope in the future we will be able to use our G5's optical cable to output 5.1 music we get off the iTMS. I'd be willing to pay good money for that kind of quality audio.

[kenohki]

Originally posted by MasterX (OSiX)
I was under the impression DVD-A and HDCD were both multichannel high def audio formats on DVD discs while SACD was a new form of audio created by Sony and was on regular CDs (not sure about that part). Of note, DVD-A is designed for anti-piracy, nothing except DVD-A players are allowed to decode the format, thus the sound can ONLY enter a receiver (or amp) via analog channels (thus the popularity of 6-channal analog input on new receivers)

I think that's actually backwards. HDCD is on regular CDs (I have a Denon dual deck CD player/recorder that does HDCD). SACD is on a DVD-type optical disc but does not follow the DVD specification (just the physical track layout). There are also Hybrid SACDs that contain two layers. One is a standard CD layer that is picked up by standard CD laser pickups (for backward compatibility), the other is the SACD layer that is picked up by the SACD pickup. I believe the SACD format also specifies an inaudible watermark for DRM/copy protection purposes but it has been a long time since I actually looked at the SACD security spec. SACD and DVD-Audio both have stereo and multi channel capability.

[Rower_CPU]

Wow, weird. Thanks for the info vniow and MasterX.

I've been looking into upgrading my home theater DVD player and have of course been looking at DVD-A and SACD capable players. Somehow I missed anyone mentioning this aspect of the technology.

[MasterX (OSiX)]

Yeah that's right, now I remember. Personally I hate the idea of all these formats. Music always works like this. New quality level is requested, then divergence, then convergence. I expect that SACD will win in the end, only because of the Sony pushing it, although DVD-A sounds cooler (not that I can play back any of them, I have a simple Denon CD changer)

About hybrd audio. I do have one DVD-A disc. Since the capacity is so great they wrote both DVD-A and DVD-Video onto the disc. Why you might ask? Well simple, although a DVD-Video's Dolby Digital tracks can't go much higher in resolution than a CD, they're still capable of 5.1, and it's a lot nicer than a stereo CD.

[G4scott]

Originally posted by chewbaccapits
I seriously doubt apple has any reason to sue, just as intel didn't with the BURNT bunny parody ads...Still, I say the the buymusic store is crap.

Apple's product was better than Intel's. Apple actually had the advantage there.

With these buymusic ads, they are basically taking Apple's commercials, and putting their slogan on the end of them. The Tommy Lee one is understandable, yet still pointless. It's the other two that could bring possible litigation. And everybody knows not to ***** with Apple Legal...

[nagromme]

Well, some may be .70. And some are up to $1.29. But most seem to be .99... including ALL of their current top 100 downloads!

http://www.buymusic.com/store.aspx?loc=18905

Meanwhile CNN is reporting that songs cost .70. They used the AP article nearly word for word, but edited the price range out to mention the low end only. Why would they intentionally do that? (Even so, the article doesn't make BM.com look too good.)

P.S. Would you rather be known as iMS or BM?

[SeaFox]

I've been lurking here for awhile. I just thought I'd post my email response from buymusic.com


Hello,

We are responding to your request for information about how to search
for songs.

We apologize for any confusion. To search for a song on BuyMusic.com,
please use one of the following two methods:

From the BuyMusic.com Home Page, select one of the tabs in the
navigation bar near the top of the screen (Examples: Top Sellers, New
Releases) and your choice displays related music for you. Scroll up or
down and select other tabs to browse our selections
OR
Use the search field in the navigation bar to search our site for song
titles, artist names, album names, or other related keywords.

If you have further questions, please contact us at
support@customerservice.buymusic.com.

We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

Team buy.com
www.buy.com

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
I have been leafing around your site for some time, and all the tracks
seem to be 99 cents, Could you suggest any artists that are available as
79 cent tracks perchance?

[Frozone]

Originally posted by SeaFox
I've been lurking here for awhile. I just thought I'd post my email response from buymusic.com


Hello,

We are responding to your request for information about how to search
for songs.

We apologize for any confusion. To search for a song on BuyMusic.com,
please use one of the following two methods:

From the BuyMusic.com Home Page, select one of the tabs in the
navigation bar near the top of the screen (Examples: Top Sellers, New
Releases) and your choice displays related music for you. Scroll up or
down and select other tabs to browse our selections
OR
Use the search field in the navigation bar to search our site for song
titles, artist names, album names, or other related keywords.

If you have further questions, please contact us at
support@customerservice.buymusic.com.

We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

Team buy.com
www.buy.com

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
I have been leafing around your site for some time, and all the tracks
seem to be 99 cents, Could you suggest any artists that are available as
79 cent tracks perchance?



They seem to beat around the bush on every email they are sent. So i sent them one and told them to give me a straight forward answer and not to give me some answer that doesn't answer what I asked. And they said it was sent to an "expert" on the subject. And i haven't gotten a reply from this email yet answering what i asked and i sent it hours ago. So either they don't want to answer my question or they have gotten lost of mail.

[kdavis]

Interesting price structure...
Just looked up David Bowie's album "Let's Dance" out of curiosity. The full album is available. Each track is .99 EXCEPT for the title track, which they sell for $1.99.
I think this venture will go away quickly.

[MattG]

I can't wait to see some figures. Bet they don't even come close to the million songs they said would sell the first day.

[jethro421]

Originally posted by a_kim
I'm buying an album today. Who's with me? :)

YEAH!!! I'm with you. One for me, and one for my girl.

My first purchase couldn't have come at a better time. :D

[Flowbee]

Originally posted by nagromme
Meanwhile CNN is reporting that songs cost .70. They used the AP article nearly word for word, but edited the price range out to mention the low end only. Why would they intentionally do that? (Even so, the article doesn't make BM.com look too good.)


The more that the media reports songs on BuyMusic are 70 cents, the angrier people will be when they go to the site and realize that they can't find any songs for 70 cents. This "as low as" pricing will hurt Buy.

[jessefoxperry]

you guys, doing all this BS.....whoops i mean BM bashing miss the good things from it....:D

* These ads, acually give more publicity to Apple if anything.
* The acual service shows how noone is gonna get anywhere near Apple's great DMA and cheap prices (for every track)
* And best of all, free album art for your iPod and iTunes library!;)

Really, what did Apple ever do for BuyMusic to bash them so much. BM just stole their idea then tried (and still is trying) to make Apple the one at fault. Geez, you've gotta give up your credit card just to register an account!

[MasterX (OSiX)]

Originally posted by kdavis
Interesting price structure...
Just looked up David Bowie's album "Let's Dance" out of curiosity. The full album is available. Each track is .99 EXCEPT for the title track, which they sell for $1.99.
I think this venture will go away quickly.

Well buy.com went with a higher cost for some songs, but don't play iTMS to be perfect (Big 5's fault not Apple's I bet)

Look up echoes on the CD Meddle by Pink Floyd. 6 songs on the CD, Echoes is 23 minues and is available by album only. With 6 tracks the CD is $11.99. I know these are raraties, but they exist. Usually the CD is the cost of tracks combined under 10 (8 tracks is $7.92 or whatever) or $9.99 but somties 14 tracks is $13.86 that kind of thing. But I hate to see iTMS charge $11.99 for 6 tracks.

[mclosers]

I'd like to start with saying Tommy Lee is a long time diehard mac user. Kinda Ironic don't you think.



Everyone that can but 1 song from the iTunes Music store today and tomorrow, It's only $1 besides a 20 mins phone call on 10-10-321 you can't get anything for a dollar.

If we each buy 1 song we could easyly show that the iTMS out sells this brand new store in itunes' 3rd month.

[jenkij]

Originally posted by MattG
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the "wrong platform" he's referring to is the Apple computing platform...

Of course he is, my point is that the computing platform is irrelevant, it's the media format that matters.

[bennetsaysargh]

Originally posted by mclosers
I'd like to start with saying Tommy Lee is a long time diehard mac user. Kinda Ironic don't you think.

i think i have an idea.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
people will do almost
whatever they can do
for money weather the
person is a mac user,
or a PC person.

[MattG]

Originally posted by mclosers
I'd like to start with saying Tommy Lee is a long time diehard mac user. Kinda Ironic don't you think.



Everyone that can but 1 song from the iTunes Music store today and tomorrow, It's only $1 besides a 20 mins phone call on 10-10-321 you can't get anything for a dollar.

If we each buy 1 song we could easyly show that the iTMS out sells this brand new store in itunes' 3rd month.

Is he really?? I didn't know that. Man what a sellout. Guess now that he doesn't have Pam he has to do something to stay in the public eye..

[jessefoxperry]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the "wrong platform" he's referring to is the Apple computing platform... [/QUOTE]

Maybe I'm wrong, but at BuyMusic.com can you buy music?

[mclosers]

The CNBC shows Tommy Has no brain left.

The interviewer asked the same questions to steve jobs about his music store.

Why should people Buy their music at Buy music rather than download it illegally?

Tommy: You get paid , he gets paid (refering to the buy.com ceo) I should get paid. Also It's stealing and that isn't legal. It's illegal.


The above is a paraphrase

[Frozone]

Originally posted by mclosers
The CNBC shows Tommy Has no brain left.

The interviewer asked the same questions to steve jobs about his music store.

Why should people Buy their music at Buy music rather than download it illegally?

Tommy: You get paid , he gets paid (refering to the buy.com ceo) I should get paid. Also It's stealing and that isn't legal. It's illegal.


The above is a paraphrase

That just goes to show they know deep down inside they don't come close to topping iTMS.

[mclosers]

If enough of us request gift cards or somethign simmilar maybe apple will comply
There is no reason they wouldn't and they'd make great christmas and other presents.
Also my parents don't know hwat kind of music I like and that way if they gave me one I'd be able to pick my present basically.

GO to the itunes music store type in a fake search to get the form to send in a request. If we all request gift certificates maybe we'll have another reason to brag about the itunes music store

[zim]

Originally posted by Lord Bodak
As much as the web interface may suck compared to iTunes, there is one nice thing about it.

Right now I don't have a Mac (still saving up). So far, I haven't found a way to look at what is available in iTMS, but with BuyMusic I can look on their website even though I have no intention of buying.

You can easily browse iTMS without committing to a purchase. I am always searching around, listening to samples, looking at the album art (I wish that there was more album info). In fact, I will often go to iTMS to see if they have a sample of a song before I go to say amazon.

[zim]

Originally posted by mclosers
GO to the itunes music store type in a fake search to get the form to send in a request. If we all request gift certificates maybe we'll have another reason to brag about the itunes music store

There is a Requests & Feedback button right on the front page. I can't even count the number or request that I have actually sent, I want them to know that I use the service and what I am looking for.

[mclosers]

The CNBC shows Tommy Has no brain left.

The interviewer asked the same questions to steve jobs about his music store.

Why should people Buy their music at Buy music rather than download it illegally?

Tommy: You get paid , he gets paid (refering to the buy.com ceo) I should get paid. Also It's stealing and that isn't legal. It's illegal.

The above is a paraphrase
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve's answer back 3 months ago was: You are 100% sure you will get the song you want. It saves you time. I gives artists incentive to make more great music. Album Art. High quality Encoding and AAC.
Steve actually said they went back to the original DAT tapes for some records they have

This is all from memory BTW

[Farside161]

of note, under BM's Bm Store they list Toast Titanium, even though there sercvice is not compatible with macs, or is toast avalible for PCs as well (i thought that the pc version was called easy CD Creator). on the beatles, the only reason why no store has it is because Jacko (Michel Jackson, who owns the beatles catalogue, i think) has not offered it up.

[Captnroger]

Hey, I wonder if that blonde on the first page (tutorials) is worth $.99 :D

[mclosers]

THere is a Vivaldi(classical) cd (26 songs) on the itunes music store for $7.99

Not sure if this is new or not

[Lord Bodak]

Originally posted by zim
You can easily browse iTMS without committing to a purchase. I am always searching around, listening to samples, looking at the album art (I wish that there was more album info). In fact, I will often go to iTMS to see if they have a sample of a song before I go to say amazon.

Maybe so, IF you have iTunes. Like I said, I don't have a Mac yet. Even when I get it, I'll have a PC at work. What if I am at work and want to see if iTMS has a certain song?

My point was, you can't look at what's available _without_ iTunes. All this talk about iTMS having such a bigger selection than BuyMusic... the Windows users can't look and see, all they can see is what BuyMusic has.

[Rocket Rion]

The CEO was just on Fox News with Cavuto. He was lying through his teeth trying to make iTunes and Apple sound impotent. Unfortunately, there was no one else there to correct him.

[jessefoxperry]

Originally posted by Rocket Rion
The CEO was just on Fox News with Cavuto. He was lying through his teeth trying to make iTunes and Apple sound impotent. Unfortunately, there was no one else there to correct him.

Crap, i wished I would've seen it, is it gonna be on again? I love to hate this guy. :D

[avus]

Originally posted by Rocket Rion
The CEO was just on Fox News with Cavuto. He was lying through his teeth trying to make iTunes and Apple sound impotent.

So, I assume that he didn't mention that his new service was down for several hours (according to AtAT) on its first day. :rolleyes:

[zim]

Originally posted by Lord Bodak
Maybe so, IF you have iTunes. Like I said, I don't have a Mac yet. Even when I get it, I'll have a PC at work. What if I am at work and want to see if iTMS has a certain song?

My point was, you can't look at what's available _without_ iTunes. All this talk about iTMS having such a bigger selection than BuyMusic... the Windows users can't look and see, all they can see is what BuyMusic has.

Well, what would be the point? seriously, this whole debate here.. what is the point? none of us on macs can buy form buymusic.com so why even debate it? we might as well not even be able to look at what is on the site. I can understand how you must feel, having been a mac user all my life and getting treated like a second class citizen, but honestly it would be pointless to develop a way for you to see the iTMS catalog when unless there was a way to buy from it.

I went to buymusic once, and have not gone back because it does not offer anything for me, no point in wasting time when there is nothing to gain. I am sure that iTunes Music Store will be out soon for the pc and when it is, you will be able to purchase as well, buymusic.com offers no such promise.

[arqsagi]

I really feel sad some people think they will only find success copying others, not anyone can do this.

Sorry but those adds are lame.

Well I also wrote and email to BuyMusic saying what I feel about inovation and there service, I really dont have any hope for a good response.

Well sadlly I have found some 79 cents tracks and more bad info.

Well I try a search with Celia Cruz, you know a Cuban-Latin singer who died this week. Well she was a great singer and performer and iTMS has her photo featured in the main page of the iTunes Store, well in Buy you have lots of Celia songs, some of them dont offer a preview, some are for 79 some for 99, but some albums or songs show are not available not even as a preview not available for download. So now get it how they are advertising so many songs.

Well we will see how they first day come to and end, remember days before the Music event everyone was waitting for apple store thats why the first day were so great for apple and labels, now this store doesnt seem to attract a lot of users of the "rest of them".

Come on all of you and buy at least an album today from iTMS, how about those eclusive tracks or exclusive records (league of extraordinary Men, I think)

[Edot]

Albert Einstein was "a genius, but he was from Germany."

[patrick0brien]

-All

What's really getting me is the classic "We reach 97% of the market."

Slick, but Bull.

Trying to use Market Share numbers to dictate Installed Base.

BuyMusic's Market is not the computer market (97%) Windows. That market is buying computers and doing nothing else with them. BuyMusic's market is those who are using their indows Machines. And that's no more that 80% of computers worldwide.

His statement is inaccurate, but slick enough to not get accused of misrepresentation.

An accurate statement would be "We are reachable by 97% of the computer buying public."

Sorry, I work with Attorneys :D

[MattG]

I was just looking through the ITMS and noticed that they have Tommy Lee's new CD up there. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you...

[iJon]

well i just saw linkin park on there with no individual purchases, just whole albums. and to test sound i listening to the in da club preview on buymusic and in itunes. the previews on buymusic sound like s***. they sound like a crappy internet stream. itunes clip was rich with sounds and strong bass, just like it should be.

iJon

[Frozone]

I can't wait to hear what The Screen Savers and TechLive on TechTV have to say about the service. I don't think it will be too good.

[bennetsaysargh]

Originally posted by Iceman06
I can't wait to hear what The Screen Savers and TechLive on TechTV have to say about the service. I don't think it will be too good.

i love that show. i wish i had techtv though:(
does anyone know if it's available on cablevision? maybe i can convince my parents to get it if it;'s on cablevision.

[mustang_dvs]

Originally posted by mclosers
I'd like to start with saying Tommy Lee is a long time diehard mac user. Kinda Ironic don't you think.

I'm sorry, I think I read that wrong, didn't you mean to type "Tommy Lee is a long-time, die-hard drug user, which explains why he's shilling for BuyMusic."

[Docrjm]

Love to help by buyimg from iTMS but I live North of the US and it ain't available yet. Get a move on Apple.

[Frozone]

Has Apple released any statements yet concerning BuyMusic.com or there Commericals yet? Or has anyone emailed Apple asking questions and got a reply?

[yzedf]

Let's hope Apple doesn't sit on their hands for 6 months like they do with everything else...

COMPETITION IS GOOD!!!

Apple just doesn't know it yet.... :(

[tizza]

only works with IE too ... well that says it all!

[crees!]

Originally posted by doc_mac
Love to help by buyimg from iTMS but I live North of the US and it ain't available yet. Get a move on Apple.

I'd love to help by buying from iTMS too but I don't have a Mac yet. Come on 15" Al PB.

Oh, I would just like to say this. I'm a musician and I HATE to buy CDs from record shops. The only places I do buy CDs from are underground indie stores, but then those are for only the bands that I absolutely love. All the rest I get from Kazaa or more over from a friends EMusic account (shhhhh), which kicks major a** on indie bands, a la Hot Rod Circuit, At The Drive In, Appleseed Cast, Hey Mercedes, Coheed and Cambria, Interpol, No Motiv, The Promise Ring, Reggie and The Full Effect, etc ...... . I can't wait for my 1st Mac. I will definitely purchase music then.

- From a long time Windows user turning Mac :D
chow

[Frozone]

The Screen Savers didn't talk much about BM but they didn't mention what the prices start at and then talked about how some of the songs you couldn't download and that most of the major releases were 99 cents with lots of DRM. So they weren't to terribly down on the service but weren't that interested in it either. TechLive will spend more time on it and prolly compare iTMS and BM or so it seems for there commerical featuring what's on today's show.

[iJon]

well i found one good thing about the service, the hot blond and the tutorial videos. i swear there were about 8 steps on getting those songs onto the zen. good lord, he lost me very quickly. you should also hear the guy talk about the requirements in the video. he uses the words DRM and Cryptic in the same sentence and would scare off any potential customer. another good thing i found was the first girl they show in the superfreak commercial, why couldnt apple get a hot girl or something for the commericials.

iJon

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by mclosers
Everyone that can but 1 song from the iTunes Music store today and tomorrow, It's only $1 besides a 20 mins phone call on 10-10-321 you can't get anything for a dollar.

If we each buy 1 song we could easyly show that the iTMS out sells this brand new store in itunes' 3rd month.

Alright. I did it. I bought my first ever song from iTMS today. I had to dig for a little while to find a song that I wanted to buy, but I found one, and tipped my hat to Apple. And, here in this forum, I will officially say that I chose to do this specifically because of the insulting approach that BM has taken in this business. I'll support iTMS, and I hope they release the Windows version soon, and really blow these guys off the 'net!

[MattG]

Yep, I bought a whole album today, plus an extra single.

[bennetsaysargh]

nice to see sales going up for some odd reason today;)

[jaedreth]

Hey, let's not be so hard on BuyMusic.com.

I mean, sure they stole the concept from Apple.

The "for the rest of us" phrase does apply because iTMS and iTunes are not available yet for Windows.

They do have cheap prices, and I bet in some instances, they may have cheaper prices. But others, they won't.

As for music selection, there are plenty of bands I want who are not featured on iTMS, which might find their way there...

But their implimentation is different. Their motto is Get Loaded.

And I think they should. I mean, WMA is far more popular on PCs than any quicktime format.

There really *is* no competition at this point, because PC users can't do iTMS, and Mac users can't use Buymusic.

To totally separate markets.

So, their whole imitation of Apple could be construed as flattery.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

Well, perhaps not. Perhaps the people who came up with this strategy at buymusic.com need to grow up a little. However, they are providing a desired service to a market without this type of service, a market Apple invented.

If/When Apple makes iTunes for Windows and thus the iTunes Music Store for Windows, then we will see if Apple's service is better than Buymusic.com's.

Just wait and see.

Jaedreth

[Flowbee]

Bought an album today form iTMS. Chick Corea's "Where Have I Known You Before." ($7.92) I've had my eye on it for a while and figured that buying it today would be a good way to pitch in.

[neier]

Like I said in another thread, we all should buy a song from the Fleetwood Mac: Rumours album. My choice is Second Hand News

I consider my $.99 well-spent. ;)

[MattG]

Originally posted by neier
Like I said in another thread, we all should buy a song from the Fleetwood Mac: Rumours album. My choice is Second Hand News

I consider my $.99 well-spent. ;)

I already have that on CD :(

[crees!]

Techlive is on now and going to talk about this issue. EST.

EDIT Here is a poll on TechTV that asks where your next music download will come from (Buy, iTunes, Kazaa).. Let's show them what's up. http://www.techtv.com/news/shownotes/story/0,24195,3479934,00.html (It's at the bottom of the page)

[homeshire]

i'd pretty much made my purchases from the ITMS for now, and was going to slow down with it. but i bought some things today to show support and solidarity with Apple on a day when the world might notice enough people doing it. and yeah i think it would be neat for ITMS to outsell bm on their launch day.;)

[Frozone]

Everyone go to www.TechLive.com and scroll down about half way and vote for iTunes. Buy.com is losing badly.

EDIT: Opps didn't see the other post saying the same thing. My Bad

[jessefoxperry]

Originally posted by Iceman06
Everyone go to www.TechLive.com and scroll down about half way and vote for iTunes. Buy.com is losing badly.


HHAAHAHAHAH that's a good laugh.......53 percent to 3 percent. Come on guys, if u can't buy a song or an album, place your vote!

[crees!]

Originally posted by jessefoxperry
HHAAHAHAHAH that's a good laugh.......53 percent to 3 percent. Come on guys, if u can't buy a song or an album, place your vote!

I bet you Steve Blum will request a recount :eek:

[twinn233]

i just have to say BuyMusic is a piece of ***** and i hope they lose sooooooo much money on it. Also because they copied off apple :mad: then made fun of them by breaking the guitar:mad: :mad: i will no longer buy ANYTHING from buy.com again!

I did my part i bought all matchbox twenty's exclusive tracks off iTMS!!

[G4scott]

I hope this poll doesn't become another Mac vs. PC poll like the Forbes one...

It is funny, though, that the iTunes store has beat Kazaa and Buymusic...

200,000,000 - 300,000,000 songs by years end? Mr. Blum, How many millions of songs are you going to have to purchase to meet your quota?

[alia]

They showed the poll results on TV. How embarrassing for BM! They even mentioned that they asked people to vote, so either they don't get a lot of watchers and the MacRumors croud swung the votes, or people were as impressed as us. ;)

Alia

[G4scott]

I just noticed BuyMusic's catch phrase on their website.

"300,000 Songs- For your PC"

If I buy music, I want it to be for me, not my PC. And looking at the DRM, the only thing this music is good for is your PC.

It seems as if buy music has completely missed the market they were aiming for. To sell music to people, not their computers...

[bennetsaysargh]

Originally posted by alia
They showed the poll results on TV. How embarrassing for BM! They even mentioned that they asked people to vote, so either they don't get a lot of watchers and the MacRumors croud swung the votes, or people were as impressed as us. ;)

Alia

iTMS even beat Kazaa! wow! that is definatly our fault.:p:D;)

[crees!]

Originally posted by crees!
I bet you Steve Blum will request a recount :eek:

EDIT: BTW, what was Blum saying about Apple's 3% share in the market and their targeted 97%??? Honestly, Windows users are as guilty as Microsoft when it comes to illegal downloading.

Double EDIT: Gawdangit... that was supposed to be an edit, not a quote of myself.. sorry.

[TwitchOSX]

Well, im watching TechTV right now.. Pacific time.. im not seeing anything that I want to see.. or is it supposed to be at 8pm Eastern / Pacific.

[jessefoxperry]

Originally posted by TwitchOSX
Well, im watching TechTV right now.. Pacific time.. im not seeing anything that I want to see.. or is it supposed to be at 8pm Eastern / Pacific.

It's over now I think, it was probably at the beggining of the show, because I just caught like the last 30 min of the show and it wasn't on. On their website it says that you can watch the same show tomarow at 1 and 6 PM (EST)

[rdowns]

Originally posted by j33pd0g
Have you tried their nifty search feature? I keep getting "The specified server could not be found." Message. Doesn't matter what catagory I pick to search from - same lame message.

Search? Friggin' site barely works with Safari. I enter an artist, click search and nothing happens. I've purchased from buy.com in the past but their rip off of Apple has earned my boycott.

geez, first post here after readng for 3 months.

[jessefoxperry]

check out BM, the sites screwy now (at least on a PC with IE)

[iJon]

one thing i did notice is on their how to videos their web site in the video said 350,000 songs. there must have been a typo or some people backed out at the last second.

iJon

[jessefoxperry]

Originally posted by iJon
one thing i did notice is on their how to videos their web site in the video said 350,000 songs. there must have been a typo or some people backed out at the last second.

iJon

Buy.com is privately held by Scott Blum. So 300,000 songs, 350,000 songs or 1 million songs, they don't have to report the truth. Same with the gay "We're gonna sell 1 million songs a day" bit

[Frozone]

BM - 3%
iTMS - 58%
Kazaa - 39%

WooHoo...Goes to show you Mac users can do amazing things when we team up. :D

EDIT: Lets all e-mail the results to there Customer Support! Haha, I can't stop laughing.

[andyduncan]

Just a confirmation of the "Tommy Lee is a diehard mac user" thread.

here (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:cgHCP7ZSmGQJ:www.maccentral.com/news/9911/22.famous.shtml+tommy+lee+macintosh&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) is a google cache (all I could find) of an article on just how big a mac user tommy is. My favorite quote:

"I've been using Macs since 1984 and they have helped me create amazing music that can only be made through their power!"

riiiight.

[Flowbee]

Originally posted by neier
Like I said in another thread, we all should buy a song from the Fleetwood Mac: Rumours album. My choice is Second Hand News


Not bloody likely. There *are* limits to how far I'll go to support Apple. :p