iTunes Sells 1.5 Million Songs Last Week

[MacRumors]

Apple announced (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031106/sfth077_1.html) that music fans purchased and downloaded 1.5 million songs from Apple's iTunes Music Store over the past week, which is 5 times more than Napster's 300,000 downloads during their debut week.

Apple's initial sales numbers from iTunes for Windows showed 1 million songs (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/10/20031020110824.shtml) sold in the initial 3.5 days after the introduction of iTunes for Windows. The 1.5 million last week represents an increase from the 600,000/week Apple reported seling to Mac-users alone prior to the Windows release.

[jcshas]

ITMS Rules! Way to go Apple!

[gwuMACaddict]

awesome- i have to admit, this is catching on alot better than i expected. way to go steve-o

:D

[meta-ghost]

300,000 is more than i would have expected for one week of napster.

[Kid Red]

According to C/Net-299,923 of those songs were download by the RIAA to help initiate the concept.

[tgrundke]

Actually, if Apple normally sells 600,000 songs per week to Macintosh users and the number increased to 1.5 million during the first week of Windows use, that means Apple did a little better than doubling its volume.

That is, unless I am reading this wrong and Apple has been tracking Windows music sales separately from Macintosh music sales. But I doubt that is the case.

While that number seems impressive, it also means that the penetration into the Windows market has been relatively soft thus far. The plus: lots of side for upward movement. The negative: Apple didn't make as big a splash (sales wise) as I thought.

[jxyama]

300k for napster, eh? i might be mistaken, but this is the first time i've ever heard a "solid" sales number from vendors other than iTMS.

anyone know about buymusic.com? others?

iTMS has set the standard... we shall see how napster will do when samsung portable player is released.

[alia]

This is great news, though it shouldn't be a surprise. iTunes is by far the best solution out there, and all the Windows users with ipods are probably going nuts over it.

I, myself, must have purchased at least $70 worth of music on iTunes since the Windows version came out, and most of that was on my old Windows machine.

Alia

[mrsebastian]

go apple!!! i wonder what the actual profit apple makes off of each song?

[gwuMACaddict]

Originally posted by tgrundke

That is, unless I am reading this wrong and Apple has been tracking Windows music sales separately from Macintosh music sales. But I doubt that is the case.


can they even do this? i figured that apple was tracking sales from pc and from mac differently- so they would know where to advertise, etc...

i would be interested to see the different numbers from each platform and to see where the increases were the largest

[jamesatzones]

Awesome job Apple... I am going to have to add to my collection tonight. Napster has that new deal with Penn State, seems rather foolish to me.

http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5103292.html

[dethl]

I'd love to buy a few songs off of iTMS, but sadly, my cash flow has dwindled after going up and seeing The Maxrix Revoultions two times in a row. Stupid theatre food, cost soo friggen much.:mad:

[howard]

1.5 million last week? what was there total in the first week?

[ITR 81]

Remember there are more Windows users then Mac users and Napster is only pull 300,000 DL's. But iTunes with only Mac users pulled 500,000 in the first week if I'm not mistaken.

1.5 million will just keep going up as time goes on.

[greenstork]

Originally posted by gwuMACaddict
awesome- i have to admit, this is catching on alot better than i expected. way to go steve-o

:D

When you sink the kind of money into advertising that Apple has, I should certainly hope it catches on.

[phantommaul]

Originally posted by mrsebastian
go apple!!! i wonder what the actual profit apple makes off of each song?

if i am not mistaken apple gives the production copmanies something like 60 cent for each song. so apple earns 30 cent for each song.

[Dros]

I'm curious how the Windows sales breaks down for the people with iPods vs those with just a computer or other music player. If most of the Windows sales are to people with iPods, that would give a hint as to what the real upper limit is for sales, until they figure out how to induce others to buy. I'm sure both groups do buy, but if it is 80% iPodders, then we shouldn't be expecting a 10-fold increase over the Mac sales.

[Booga]

Originally posted by tgrundke
While that number seems impressive, it also means that the penetration into the Windows market has been relatively soft thus far. The plus: lots of side for upward movement. The negative: Apple didn't make as big a splash (sales wise) as I thought.

I seem to recall rough statistics that said something like the iPod market is roughly split 50/50 in terms of Mac/PC, and also that the iPod is the best-selling mp3 player (on any platform) by a wide margin. That seems to imply a disproportionately high percentage of Mac users are music listeners, and that the penetration into the Windows market seems slightly ahead of iPod penetration (ie. 3/5 vs 1/2 Windows,) which is probably a good thing (assuming iTunes is a loss-leader into more iPod sales.)

It would be nice to get more iTunes'ers. I'm trying to get more friends at work to switch (my company is like 95% Windows, 4.5% linux (servers), and I think there are 2 Macs at the company.) Most of them still use WinAmp and probably won't switch unless it stops working for some reason and they have to deal with it, but I'm sure it will happen gradually over time.

I personally would like to see Apple offer 1-2 free AAC downloads with new accounts to get people hooked on the format and the ease of use.

[Frisco]

300,000 for Napster the first week. Now the number per week will go down and down.

Hey I don't blame you for trying to copy, but your not Apple and you're certainly not the original Napster.

Oh if only I had a PC I would try you out-- not!

Good bye Napster 2!

PS: Roxio--because you have no idea how to innovate you stand no chance. Just look at this way--you had to steal someone elses's name--maybe I will name my child Napster too :rolleyes:

Now let me make some Toast :p

[mrsebastian]

Originally posted by phantommaul
if i am not mistaken apple gives the production copmanies something like 60 cent for each song. so apple earns 30 cent for each song.

thanks phantom :D with the kind of numbers they're pulling so far, that's gonna add up to alot of clams!

[mechamac]

Huh? Napster 2.0 launched? Wow - I'm actually kinda surprised I didn't know that. I knew they were planning to and all...shrug....

Go iTMS.

[yellow]

So why does my Apple stock still suck? :(

[Frisco]

Originally posted by yellow
So why does my Apple stock still suck? :(

Apple stock will always suck because Wall Street and everything it stands for is the antithesis of Apple. It's not about innovation, it's not about thinking different--it is about pure greed plain and simple!

If you care about stock quotes you are definetly on the wrong OS!

[Vector]

Beyond the fact that Pressplay 2.0 (oops i mean napster 2.0) lacks any innovation, i think they have a bad business plan. They are trying to target college aged people with their ads and their deal with penn state. College aged people (for the most part) are not going to pay for songs that they can easily get for free. Everyone that i know still downloads their music off of kazaa or another p2p network. They do not see the point in paying a dollar for a song when they can get it for free with very little risk. Napster is targeting a demographic with limited funds and who are entrenched in their sharing ways.

[Vector]

Originally posted by Frisco

If you care about stock quotes you are definetly on the wrong OS!

Why is that. I am a daytrader and must really care about stock quotes.

[astern]

my friend, if apple is not about the markets (wall street in general),

THEN WHY DID THEY NAME A POWERBOOK "WALL STREET"???

:D

Andrew

[Frisco]

Originally posted by Vector
Why is that. I am a daytrader and must really care about stock quotes.

Do you have stock in Apple computer? Do you recommend purchasing Apple stock to your clients? I doubt you do either.

Sorry to answer a question with a question!

ps: Don't answer my questions--answer yellows, "Why then does Apple stock suck?"

[superfula]

Originally posted by Kid Red
According to C/Net-299,923 of those songs were download by the RIAA to help initiate the concept.

Do you have a link for that story?

[Vector]

Originally posted by Frisco
Do you have stock in Apple computer? Do you recommend purchasing Apple stock to your clients?

Sorry to answer I question with a question!

I have about a $5,000 stake in my long-term holdings portfolio. I would recommend that anyone buy apple if it is below 20 and has not had some news that would greatly inhibit future revenues or continuing operations.

[yellow]

This is the last time I will drag this thread so far askew..

I am quite pleased with what the stock has done for me, perhaps I should be more clear in my complaints. With the advent of iTunes for Windows, significant sales of songs, hardware, Panther, etc.. I would expect Apple to at least be making some larger gains on their stock. How selling 1.5 million songs in a week translates to a few cents loss is beyond me. But I'm not a trader, which is probably a good thing.

[Frisco]

Originally posted by Vector
I have about a $5,000 stake in my long-term holdings portfolio. I would recommend that anyone buy apple if it is below 20 and has not had some news that would greatly inhibit future revenues or continuing operations.

I am glad to hear that :)

If I had the money to invest I would put it in Apple stock too. " I will go down with this ship." quoted from Dido-"White Flag" at the ITMS--where else?

I am not saying that Apple will fail--all I am saying is that I will be with Apple until then end--the end of Apple or the end of me.

[ebow]

Originally posted by jxyama
300k for napster, eh? i might be mistaken, but this is the first time i've ever heard a "solid" sales number from vendors other than iTMS.

anyone know about buymusic.com? others?


I would imagine that BuyMusic must be up to some stunning number like 50 or even 60 downloads per week. Watch out--they're on fire! Oh wait, they're probably just torching their servers for the insurance money...

(what the hell am I talking about... back to work!)

[Vector]

Originally posted by yellow
This is the last time I will drag this thread so far askew..

I am quite pleased with what the stock has done for me, perhaps I should be more clear in my complaints. With the advent of iTunes for Windows, significant sales of songs, hardware, Panther, etc.. I would expect Apple to at least be making some larger gains on their stock. How selling 1.5 million songs in a week translates to a few cents loss is beyond me. But I'm not a trader, which is probably a good thing.

The fact that apple has sold that many songs in a week does not really figure into the stock price very much. It is nearly impossible to determine why exactly the market reacts the way it does to news. Many times a falling price after good news is due to profit taking by short term investors, but prices basically follow the general theory of "Oh look what those investors are doing, we had better do the same". If people see increased selling over buying then more and more people start to sell causing the price to decrease. If people see that buying is increasing then more people jump on the wagon and buy the stock.

You shouldn't read anything into a few cents change. This is just the result of the fluidity of trading, and the sellers could outnumber the buyers for any number of reasons beyond the idea that they think it is bad news.

[Tim Flynn]

Since the music store is a loss leader for selling iPods.
The question is, how are iPod sales?

[tychay]

Originally posted by jxyama
300k for napster, eh? i might be mistaken, but this is the first time i've ever heard a "solid" sales number from vendors other than iTMS.

anyone know about buymusic.com? others?

According to Nielsen SoundScan (http://www.soundscan.com/), that 1.5 million downloads accounted for 80% of the total download market share that week. Yeah, this means Apple is still at 80% same as before the launch of iTunes for Windows. A lot of people forget that Apple is posting 2.5x the numbers they were posting before the launch of iTunes for Windows so even though Napster took a good chunk, they were eating into a growing market that Apple keeps taking the largest slice.

Another thing to consider is that (I believe) the 5 free downloads given to every early adopter of Napster's service counts toward the 300k downloads that week. This means the numbers should drop off to about 150k next week and Apple's marketshare toys dangerously with market dominance--perhaps the dreaded "M" world (no, not Microsoft--Monopoly) if the music download business wasn't such a nascent and volatile one in addition to the obvious fact that there are substitutable products like CDs, radio, and music subscription services which would count against what would be called the "market".*

IMO, 300k is a respectable number for the debut of Napster 2.0 née Pressplay. It would have been labeled a hit if Apple's iTMS hadn't raised the bar (twice) since then (600k in first week of release, 1 million in first half week of Windows release).

A ~150k/week posting by Napster which steadily increases (+ a spike when the Samsung player debuts) probably spells death for BuyMusic and does more to eat into MusicMatch's potential market than it does Apple's. That's typical of new entries in the tech market they eat the weak fish first. Example: Linux eating into UNIX marketshare before even touching Windows.

If I were a betting man, I would be more worried about Microsoft's offering mid-2004 since it also has a media player which will probably be sold at a lost or at cost and MS will strong arm OEMs into bundling the enabling software--yes, the anti-trust settlement fails in the face of history.

* This is why Apples dominance of the Macintosh doesn't satisfy the revisionist criteria of a monopoly in the legal or economic sense. Taking the looser economic sense ("exclusive control of a product or service"): say Apple were to own 100% of the download market (impossible, but lets say) raise the price of downloads to $3 (something a monopolist can freely do), most people would simply buy CDs and rip their own or purchase Rhapsody or Napster's subscription plan. Apple's revenues and profits go down and market forces keep them from doing so.

Take care,

[itsbetteronamac]

WOOT! Go Apple!

I wish napster would just leave, and all the other late players. Why try to get a small piece of the pie? In 1-2 years only the big orginal players will be around aka APPLE!

[GregA]

I know this is slightly off topic - but I just got an email from a work friend (he's a system administrator for multiple Windows sites) who I'd told to try iTunes - had to share it.

iTunes v Media Player
Greg,
I have compared these two products, and as a result I am now only using iTunes and could almost be tempted to buy an iMac!!!

Yes, I will be letting him play with my iMac next.

Unfortunately we can't buy online music in Australia - he'd spend a chunk on iTMS. He could easily become an iPod convert though (I'd guarantee it if a car-dock comes out).

[edit] I'd also like to thank Dell computer (and Microsoft) for 2 computers which had an Audio problem with WMP9 - they recommended a full reinstall of Windows (yuck) - yet iTunes works flawlessly. :-)

[TomSmithMacEd]

I'm sorry to get technical, but Apple only makes 27 cents a song not 30. Sorry!

[The Ancients]

...life always dishes up the good with the bad...

[Vector]

Originally posted by Tim Flynn
Since the music store is a loss leader for selling iPods.
The question is, how are iPod sales?

It is a loss leader (which is unexpectedly producing minor profits), and last quarter ipod sales were about 300,000. This is up from 78,000 units from, i believe, the same quarter of the previous year.

[Mason]

Correct me if my math is wrong, but since iTunes sold 1.5 million songs at 80% market share and Napster sold 300,000 songs, doesn't that mean the rest of the online downloading services sold a combined total of about 75,000 songs?

If that is the case, and the trend continues, I imagine it's only a matter of time before the other competitors start going under.

[billyboy]

iTMS needs competitors though. Its like if you go buy a house, in the UK at least, you find estate agents in one street, banks and building societies congregate in another. Each part of town becomes like a net for everyone in a particular market. As people gravitate towards this freaky new idea of buying music on the internet, they will try out the various offerings, find the service they like, and that then means businesses are obliged to maintain an edge because the market will be calling for people to look around at this new offering, that new idea, so there is a constant healthy threat of customers looking around and maybe moving on. Innovate or die.

The days of a MS type inertia, when people stick with what they first try, are numbered from day one in the music game, because Apple have made such a huge splash, and immitators are frothing at the mouth trying to make an impression. Hopefully Apple being more universal now, wont stop reminding people just how brainless it is to go the iTMS (and iPod) route. And likewise other companies will shout and scream about how amazing they think they are as ITunes killers. It costs nothing to try iTunes, so immediately that is a barrier less for people who maybe are faced with $9.99 a month to try out a new subscription service. And remember, as MS like to tell everyone, Windows users like choice and they like free and they like quality. iTunes just fits the MS bill of excellence a bit better than the rest - at the moment.

[woodsey]

In my opinion, this is what apple must do if they are truely going to dominate the online music market.

1. Work like hell to get the music store available to those outside the US, thus increasing revenue from song sales, and especially iPod sales.

2. Make music previews work on dialup connections. It's impossible to get a feel for a track when i have to wait thirty secconds just to listen to five secconds of the song, before it lags again!

[Vector]

Originally posted by woodsey

2. Make music previews work on dialup connections. It's impossible to get a feel for a track when i have to wait thirty secconds just to listen to five secconds of the song, before it lags again!

Are you on dialup?

Apple is probably not very concerned with having its service work well with dialup connections. Sure Apple would like to sell to dialup users, but dialup users are not a market that Apple will actively court. Dialup connections are going to take a while to download previews and songs, and most dialup users are not willing to spend the time to download a song. It isn't as if Apple can just all of a suddenly say "i think we should make itunes work with dialup". The problem you cite is one of connnection not apple's service. Apple could make the previews lower quality, but this would still not address complete downloads.

[greenstork]

Originally posted by Vector
I have about a $5,000 stake in my long-term holdings portfolio. I would recommend that anyone buy apple if it is below 20 and has not had some news that would greatly inhibit future revenues or continuing operations.

Just of curiosity, and I'm not saying this to be antagonistic, but what upside does Apple have right now. They've just "blown the wad" so to speak with all their new product releases in the last year (read iTMS, iTunes for Windows, G5, Panther, etc.) Maybe I'm just being naive but I'm not sure what's in the pipeline right now. the stock market is all about what have you done for me lately.

Before everyone on this thread flames me, I know Apple could come out with some new must have gadget, they always do. However, people were expecting and rumor-mongering over the past years releases for a long time now and I don't see any rumors on the horizon that are as earth shattering as iTMS, the G5, and Panther were this year. I'm curious what others think.

[Target]

Originally posted by woodsey
In my opinion, this is what apple must do if they are truely going to dominate the online music market.

1. Work like hell to get the music store available to those outside the US, thus increasing revenue from song sales, and especially iPod sales.

2. Make music previews work on dialup connections. It's impossible to get a feel for a track when i have to wait thirty secconds just to listen to five secconds of the song, before it lags again!

1. They probably are. They are actively working on Canada so I would expect they are doing what they can in Europe (or individual countries) as well.

2. Check iTunes Preferences.... Store, check "Load complete preview before playing."

Domination may just be the word.

[yellow]

Originally posted by woodsey
1. Work like hell to get the music store available to those outside the US, thus increasing revenue from song sales, and especially iPod sales. This may be a logistical nightmare with foreign currency -> USD exchange rates.

[Wash!!]

Originally posted by tychay
According to Nielsen SoundScan (http://www.soundscan.com/), that 1.5 million downloads accounted for 80% of the total download market share that week. Yeah, this means Apple is still at 80% same as before the launch of iTunes for Windows. A lot of people forget that Apple is posting 2.5x the numbers they were posting before the launch of iTunes for Windows so even though Napster took a good chunk, they were eating into a growing market that Apple keeps taking the largest slice.

Another thing to consider is that (I believe) the 5 free downloads given to every early adopter of Napster's service counts toward the 300k downloads that week. This means the numbers should drop off to about 150k next week and Apple's marketshare toys dangerously with market dominance--perhaps the dreaded "M" world (no, not Microsoft--Monopoly) if the music download business wasn't such a nascent and volatile one in addition to the obvious fact that there are substitutable products like CDs, radio, and music subscription services which would count against what would be called the "market".*

IMO, 300k is a respectable number for the debut of Napster 2.0 née Pressplay. It would have been labeled a hit if Apple's iTMS hadn't raised the bar (twice) since then (600k in first week of release, 1 million in first half week of Windows release).

A ~150k/week posting by Napster which steadily increases (+ a spike when the Samsung player debuts) probably spells death for BuyMusic and does more to eat into MusicMatch's potential market than it does Apple's. That's typical of new entries in the tech market they eat the weak fish first. Example: Linux eating into UNIX marketshare before even touching Windows.

If I were a betting man, I would be more worried about Microsoft's offering mid-2004 since it also has a media player which will probably be sold at a lost or at cost and MS will strong arm OEMs into bundling the enabling software--yes, the anti-trust settlement fails in the face of history.

* This is why Apples dominance of the Macintosh doesn't satisfy the revisionist criteria of a monopoly in the legal or economic sense. Taking the looser economic sense ("exclusive control of a product or service"): say Apple were to own 100% of the download market (impossible, but lets say) raise the price of downloads to $3 (something a monopolist can freely do), most people would simply buy CDs and rip their own or purchase Rhapsody or Napster's subscription plan. Apple's revenues and profits go down and market forces keep them from doing so.

Take care,

Talk about the glass is almost enty according to you apple should be out of business by now omg the sky is falling!!!

[Vector]

Originally posted by greenstork
Just of curiosity, and I'm not saying this to be antagonistic, but what upside does Apple have right now. They've just "blown the wad" so to speak with all their new product releases in the last year (read iTMS, iTunes for Windows, G5, Panther, etc.) Maybe I'm just being naive but I'm not sure what's in the pipeline right now. the stock market is all about what have you done for me lately.


As far as stock price goes, apple does not have much of an upside if one were to invest right now. Investors react to Apple differently than they do most stocks. As long as apple only has a 3% market share (please do not correct me here because i just chose this number to demonstrate my point), investors, for the most part, will see apple as a niche player who could be out of the game in the near future if they do not continue to innnovate.

It does not matter that apple has nearly $12 per share in cash or cash equivalents, or that they have an extremely loyal customer base. The only times that apple's stock is going to do well is when the market thinks that the company is doing a good job of reaching out beyond its traditional customers in order to gain new market shares or to increase already existing ones. When the iMac was such a success in terms of sales to new users and in financial terms the stock price rose greatly, then the increase in new users slowed and the price of apple's stock fell 25 points in one day (due to an unexpected sales slump). When apple released the music store, the price went from around 14 to 24 on the news of apple's success through innovation in a field were others had failed. The price then went down on profit taking and the realization that there were as of yet no financial statistics to support the new valuation. The price has gone back up some since this as a result of apples's release of itms for windows and continued strong sales of music and ipods.

Apple's stock will not see another large jump (and probably will not break 27 until they do something that shows that they are concerned and have the ability to reach into new markets and convert more people to apple products. The market doesn't really care that apple released a G5, or that they had speedbumps on other models because for the most part this is not going to greatly affect apple's cash flows. The people who were buying G4s will now buy G5s the money is just shifting places rather than coming in more (although the G5 could lead to marginal gains in sales in certain segments). The market does not bet on what it does not understand, thus it only reacts to news that is almost certainly going to help or hurt apple and will not react much to expected minor advancements in current product lines. The market does; however, seem to react to news of decreased pricing on apple's products as it clearly sees that this is a needed and helpful step for apple to gain sales and the losses from a lower price are easily offset by the increase in sales.

I just realized that you also mentioned Panther. For the most part, the market is not interested in apple's software operations as they are mainly tools that serve to sell apple's hardware (save multiplatform software and of course itunes).

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by Mason
Correct me if my math is wrong, but since iTunes sold 1.5 million songs at 80% market share and Napster sold 300,000 songs, doesn't that mean the rest of the online downloading services sold a combined total of about 75,000 songs?

If that is the case, and the trend continues, I imagine it's only a matter of time before the other competitors start going under. '
iLike iTMS a lot but looking at reviews, player compatibility, etc. MusicMatch is better then Napster. It must continue! I had high hopes for MusicMatch to be a good competitor to iTunes (giving companies reasons to improve their products.) I hope it still will work. Also, if Dell's stuff really is a rebranded MusicMatch or better yet it just works with MusicMatch, then things bode well for MusicMatch, since Dell's player appears better then Samsung's (but I'd rather use and iPod, of course)

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by woodsey
In my opinion, this is what apple must do if they are truely going to dominate the online music market.

1. Work like hell to get the music store available to those outside the US, thus increasing revenue from song sales, and especially iPod sales.

2. Make music previews work on dialup connections. It's impossible to get a feel for a track when i have to wait thirty secconds just to listen to five secconds of the song, before it lags again! To 2, you know you can iTunes preferences to Store preferences and check download full music previews

[Dippo]

I guess BuyMusic.com is going to go belly up very soon.

I wonder what happens to the music that was downloaded. Will it still play, it would suck if it didn't play anymore.

[GregA]

Originally posted by greenstork
Just of curiosity, and I'm not saying this to be antagonistic, but what upside does Apple have right now. They've just "blown the wad" so to speak with all their new product releases in the last year (read iTMS, iTunes for Windows, G5, Panther, etc.) Maybe I'm just being naive but I'm not sure what's in the pipeline right now. the stock market is all about what have you done for me lately.

<snip> I don't see any rumors on the horizon that are as earth shattering as iTMS, the G5, and Panther were this year. I'm curious what others think. I don't think the G5 and Panther were earth shattering (great things, but expected really). iTMS and iTunes for windows is a small jump into some new areas (though the iPod itself was more the real surprise).

Apple has many technology pieces that could make some amazing things. Even something as simple as a cheap, snazzy looking unit to connect iTunes (Mac or Windows) to your stereo (imagine other things Apple could get this device to do and it quickly gets expensive!).

Not many companies have music stores, streaming video server software, presentation software, video players, music hardware, plus their development with firewire and rendezvous, PDA background, and experience with wireless (not to mention the Mac or MacOS at ALL)

So the upside is what Apple might do with all it's got. But who knows if they will.

[QFace]

Info about the iTunes music store:

http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/

Now you'll feel wrong when you download from iTunes too... so just use Kazaa, it's cheaper

[Edot]

Originally posted by QFace
Info about the iTunes music store:

http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/

Now you'll feel wrong when you download from iTunes too... so just use Kazaa, it's cheaper

I really hope this was a sarcastic statement.:confused: Yes the site has valid points about artists getting very low percentages of the sales, but iTMS store is helping nonetheless and Kazaa definitely hurts the artists.

[tychay]

Originally posted by Wash!!
Talk about the glass is almost enty according to you apple should be out of business by now omg the sky is falling!!!

Is this sarcasm?

Originally posted by Edot
Yes the site has valid points about artists getting very low percentages of the sales, but iTMS store is helping nonetheless and Kazaa definitely hurts the artists.

Hmm, I think you are being too generous.

Expensive? relative to CDs purchased used, I agree (where the artist get a penny to "recoup" from this second sale is beyond me). The fact a user can substitute a CD or second-sale CD for iTMS purchase shows that the price at iTMS is dictated by market forces, which explains why sales were bad until Apple got the record industry relax DRM restrictions and came up with the pay per download model. Almost no songs from the Big 5 can be had cheaper than 99c and a few are more expensive (like in Europe).

AAC is lossy (true) but so are CDs because they are downsampled to 16-bit from the 24-bit masters.

You covered the logical fallacy of claiming to support the artist on on hand and advocating peer-sharing on the other.

Apple's cut has yet to turn a profit so I'd hardly consider it "a huge amount considering how little they have to do" especially since they've beaten even their own projections 3 times so far. Perhaps thing would be more relevant had Apple not put up so many small record labels on iTMS. The amount that goes to artists is a generic issue with the Big 5--guess this person wants Apple to walk around with blinders on.

Then it digressed into an attack on the 60's. I wasn't living then so I stopped reading at that point.

A real pity because it has a great link to the RIAA Radar (http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/) which I use when purchasing music.

My guess is the person is a PC user who wants to justify their continued illegal use of Kazaa and got pissed when Jobs says it's bad karma (it probably is, I'm no master here) and is stealing (it isn't, it's copyright infringement or "piracy").

Nice agenda, poor execution.

[the_mole1314]

I was talking to my doctor yesterday about iTunes, and mentioned Napster 2. He knew about iTunes the first day, and he's not a huge Apple fan, but had no idea about Napster 2. Frankly, they screwed up their launch. They had no advertising except me seeing two commercials a week after the launch, you know, the really stupid metal one where the kitty uses a can of spray paint to inhance a part of his body...

Yeah, great service...

Also for the guy who thinks iTMS isn't great, lets look at it this way...

The average CD has 10 songs on it. The artist dosn't get $5 or even $3 per CD, but through iTunes, they get $1.10 per CD. Less goes to production, more goes to promotion.

[yellow]

It's not Apple's fault that musicians get such a low cut. That is the fault of 1) the record labels, 2) the musician's manager, & 3) the musician signing the contract. Perhaps the have no choice in the matter. Perhaps in the greedy rush to one-hit-wonder-MTV-stardom, the artist doesn't really care.

[Vector]

Originally posted by tychay

Apple's cut has yet to turn a profit so I'd hardly consider it "a huge amount considering how little they have to do" especially since they've beaten even their own projections 3 times so far. Perhaps thing would be more relevant had Apple not put up so many small record labels on iTMS. The amount that goes to artists is a generic issue with the Big 5--guess this person wants Apple to walk around with blinders on.

At one point recently, steve jobs said that the store was generateing a small profit although he and apple had never expected it to since it was supposed to be a loss leader. I believe he either said it in the last analyst meeting or the CFO said it in the last quarterly conference call.

[Vector]

Originally posted by yellow
It's not Apple's fault that musicians get such a low cut. That is the fault of 1) the record labels, 2) the musician's manager, & 3) the musician signing the contract. Perhaps the have no choice in the matter. Perhaps in the greedy rush to one-hit-wonder-MTV-stardom, the artist doesn't really care. \

In addition to what you have said, artists have never really made much money off of selling records. Artists make their money by having concerts, and do not expect to make much off of the records.

[Rincewind42]

Originally posted by TomSmithMacEd
I'm sorry to get technical, but Apple only makes 27 cents a song not 30. Sorry!

Apple grosses 35¢/song. They make 0¢.

[Wash!!]

itms is all about selling ipods and getting people that uses winsuck to switch to the mac!! and so far it looks like is working for them, that is making uncle bill very nervous...

[manu chao]

Originally posted by Mason
Correct me if my math is wrong, but since iTunes sold 1.5 million songs at 80% market share and Napster sold 300,000 songs, doesn't that mean the rest of the online downloading services sold a combined total of about 75,000 songs?

If that is the case, and the trend continues, I imagine it's only a matter of time before the other competitors start going under.

You are absolutely right, to be precise, the statement "over 80% market share" translates it "less than 75 000" for MusicMatch & Buymusic.

[gekko513]

Originally posted by manu chao
You are absolutely right, to be precise, the statement "over 80% market share" translates it "less than 75 000" for MusicMatch & Buymusic.

Unless 100% = confirmed sales and that MusicMatch&BuyMusic are not counted at all since they're not confirmed.