iTunes Store: More Songs, International Licensing and More

[MacRumors]

Wired.com (http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58706,00.html) discusses more numbers ranging from 200-275,000 in the first day on Apple's new iTunes Music Store.

The industry seems abuzz about the potential success of the new iTunes Music Store. Of particular interest to users, however, is the additional of new tracks very shortly. The article quotes a representative from Maverick records -- home to Alanis Morissette, the Deftons and Michelle Branch -- and notes that their ommision from the iTunes Music Store was a technical glitch and that 90% of Maverick's catalog should be available within a week.

As suspected, it seems that licensing issues may be preventing immediate release for international users:

The labels' Byzantine licensing process is preventing Apple from offering more songs from more artists, and from bringing the store to international users. Most tracks have to be cleared by a different licensing authority for each country.


... but the good news is that according to the article, international licensing authorities are contacting Apple to get on board.

Competition is heating up though, with MusicMatch expecting to debut a similar system later this year.

[joker2]

More songs, International Licensing and More... sounds good to me. The independent labels will be a good addition, and others than in the US will be happy to get the service ...

Unless I'm misunderstanding the box and the headline that has no story in it ;)
(edit)It's showing up now...(/edit)

I hope some of the "imports" will make it into the selection... there are quite a few things that I haven't been able to find or have been cost-prohibitive to order through the stores.

All in all this should be a positive move so that Apple's service will flourish.

[richard5mith]

Going by the design of MusicMatch's existing software I think it's quite clear that they've yet to hire anybody with a clue. They're not the people to worry about.

As an aside, the quicker we get international support, the better.

[nagromme]

Ironically, I stopped reading the Wired article halfway through because of the Absolut banner ad (Flash) making raucous smashing sounds over and over while I was trying to listen to my iTunes music! Obnoxious! Not even a mute button in the ad. Bad move, Wired, that will drive traffic away.

[Snowy_River]

This seems like more good news to me. I hope that the international licensing authorities get signed up quickly... It would be great to hear that iTMS was available in most countries around the world by the time the Windows version came out.

As to competition, isn't there an old saying something like 'the threat you know you can prepare for, but the threat you don't know is the one to worry about.' I think that services like MusicMatch, while they may provide some competition, aren't going to be the biggest concern. It's the unknown competition from someone like MS that we should worry about...

[MOFS]

Anyway, being in the UK, its great to hear that the Music Store will be available. At the moment, the average CD cost £12.99 (approximately $20 i reckon), so even if the price of an album goes to £10 as oppoesed to $10 - a difference of about $6 - it'll still be cheaper by £3! Great! :D

Glad to see it wasn't Apple's fault about these liscencing issues, but maybe they should have made sure it was internationally available and not endure this tirade now from us non-USA living citizens fed up with the US bias at Apple. Yes, its an American company, yes, this would have taken longer, but they're poor excuses - if approximately half of the world's Mac users are non-USA based, Apple should make sure they release any new feature simultaneously. iPhoto's ability to send orders for books of your photos printed for you is still not available outside USA, and Appleworks 6.2.7 upgrade was out later for users of "International English" (whatever that means).:mad:

You don't need any liscencing for those now, do ya?

[nagromme]

The iTunes Music Store sold more songs in the first day than all download services combined sold in the last six months. And they sold to PC users, which should have been a massively bigger market. I'd say Apple pulled off something pretty impressive! And sales will go up as the library grows.

Then add in the Windows iTunes...

[alset]

Is the international thing working both ways? I have been looking for a lot of UK electronic artists and not finding any. I'd like to see this resolved.

Dan

[greenfruit]

£12.99 for a CD!! thats quite cheap. Theyre usualy £15-£17.

As for the smaller labels, I guess those like Skint (Fatboy Slim and Mr Scruff amongst others) will be quite low down that waiting list and would probably have to contact Apple themselves, im sure its just a matter of time though.

Its a shame theres no wish list in iTunes 4 for the Music Stores as theres a load of tracks I want to get but hope I dont forget.

I cant wait for the chance to try it out properly and actually buy stuff.

[lmalave]

Originally posted by Macrumors
The article quotes a representative from Maverick records -- home to Alanis Morissette, the Deftons and Michelle Branch -- and notes that their ommision from the iTunes Music Store was a technical glitch and that 90% of Maverick's catalog should be available within a week.


Ma-do-nna!
Ma-do-nna!
Ma-do-nna!

[SilentPanda]

Isn't MusicMatch what the Windows iPod currently uses? I wonder if they're ill that Apple is making a Windows version of iTunes...

[marcsiry]

I browsed extensively on the first day, and when I went back to browse last night, I noticed dozens of new artist and albums added since my first visit.

There should be some mechanism to indicate "new albums since your last visit..." heck, I'm going to go on right now and suggest that! :-)

[adamberti]

If and when this service rolls out in Canada, it better not be the equivilant of $1US a song, cause thats about $1.50 CDN (although the Canadian dollar hit a 5 year high yesterday). We're looking at $15.00 an album, I can pay less than that and get the CD and the artwork and no physical restrictions (I know it still doesnt give me the right to do whatever I want with it). It better be more like $1 CDN because our CD prices are similar number values here, despite the exchange difference. Now will Apple be willing to take less profit in Canada along with the Labels? I'm interested to see what happens.

[davy the bunny]

I was wondering where maverick was. . . I've been wanting to download deftones. . .

[greenfruit]

Would I be right that even with the embeded security info in the AAC files from the music store, if you burnt them to an audio CD then ripped that - all the security info would be gone?

Apologies if im talking bollocks.

[gwangung]

Would I be right that even with the embeded security info in the AAC files from the music store, if you burnt them to an audio CD then ripped that - all the security info would be gone?

Yes...but ripping from the CD is recompressing a tune that was already compressed. Depending on the song and depending on your taste, that may or may not be acceptable.

[maxterpiece]

Originally posted by greenfruit
Would I be right that even with the embeded security info in the AAC files from the music store, if you burnt them to an audio CD then ripped that - all the security info would be gone?

Apologies if im talking bollocks.
yes, you're right, but one of the articles I read on fortune said something like, "the sound quality would be terrible." There was no explananation for why.
max

[Dephex Twin]

Originally posted by greenfruit
Its a shame theres no wish list in iTunes 4 for the Music Stores as theres a load of tracks I want to get but hope I dont forget.
Yes there sort of is. In the "Store" preferences, set it to "Buy using a shopping cart". A new sublist of the Store menu comes up on your playlist called "Shopping Cart". Then for any song you might want, click "add to cart", and it stays there until you delete or buy it.

[gbojim]

Originally posted by adamberti
If and when this service rolls out in Canada, it better not be the equivilant of $1US a song, cause thats about $1.50 CDN (although the Canadian dollar hit a 5 year high yesterday). We're looking at $15.00 an album, I can pay less than that and get the CD and the artwork and no physical restrictions (I know it still doesnt give me the right to do whatever I want with it). It better be more like $1 CDN because our CD prices are similar number values here, despite the exchange difference. Now will Apple be willing to take less profit in Canada along with the Labels? I'm interested to see what happens.

I agree this will be interesting. My guess is that Apple will have to negotiate a deal with the Canadian divisions of the labels - same as a store selling CDs. Under those cirsumstances, price should be up for negotiation as well.

[greenfruit]

the shopping cart doesnt work if youre outside the US, you have to register your card to use the shopping cart, ive tried it.

I dont see why a song burnt to cd then ripped would be worse than any other song ripped in the same way. I guess Ill give it a go when I can buy music and see (or hear).

I doubt itll be an issue for me though as I dont tend to share Mp3s anyway.

theres a Canadian type music person here - http://www.benhammersley.com/archives/004603.html - for any of you canadian types.

[mrdrumbum]

i need my dave matthews band!

you think itunes will be popular for windows users? most pc users i know don't even like using quicktime. apple programs on windows don't seem to work as fluidly as on a mac. maybe wmp will soon have a music store.

[andrewh]

Regarding MusicMatch entering the market, I find that to be a monumental challenge for them. It took Jobs a year of negotiating those deals. To run a music service like Apple's took a lot of R&D money and expertise to pull it off. Plus, the record labels are very cautious about this online distribution of their music. I'm skeptical that they would open the floodgates to other companies yet. It will take some time for that to happen. I don't think a Microsoft has any interest in this arena, but I'm sure they're a little jealous right now.

Let's hope the record companies like Apple's way of doing this and let them lead the way. I'd like to think they hold Apple in a higher regard than the gluttons like Microsoft.

iTune for Windows will be very successful for Apple. There is no way MusciMatch's version (even if they could pull off the licensing deals) will be even close.

[arn]

Originally posted by greenfruit
I dont see why a song burnt to cd then ripped would be worse than any other song ripped in the same way. I guess Ill give it a go when I can buy music and see (or hear).


because you are starting with less information.

CD -> AAC (lose some info)
AAC -> CD still haven't regained that info
CD -> MP3/AAC (lose more info)

whether that's noticable or not... depends on the song or the listener.

arn

[EponymousCow]

Originally posted by maxterpiece
yes, you're right, but one of the articles I read on fortune said something like, "the sound quality would be terrible." There was no explananation for why.
max

MP3 and AAC are both lossy compression schemes. They work by trying to throw out data that is inaudible to the human ear. The flip side is that if the compression rate is high (low bitrate), there will be audible artifacts in the music. With a well chosen bitrate and encoding scheme, most people will never notice.

However, if you convert from AAC to MP3, you are going to retain the artifacts from AAC encoding and add the artifacts from MP3 encoding. Thus the sound quality can only get worse.

OTOH, iTunes 4 allows you to encode CDs as unrestricted AAC (.m4a instead off .m4p), so you probably wouldn't introduce any new artifacts if you did that.

I'm sure that Apple left that in there deliberately. People will find ways around the restrictions provided by Apple. So Apple just put in speed bumps instead of trying to blockade the road. They are a reminder that you are doing something that might be illegal, but deciding for sure is up to you.

[JesseJames]

Man, sometimes it gets so irritating to see the industry follow Apple's lead. Again and again, over and over. And Apple is still looked on as the "weird" computers to own. It just freaking irritates me.

[jholzner]

Originally posted by maxterpiece
yes, you're right, but one of the articles I read on fortune said something like, "the sound quality would be terrible." There was no explananation for why.
max

That statement is untrue...I've read several posts in other forums that say they sound fine.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by jholzner
That statement is untrue...I've read several posts in other forums that say they sound fine.

As Arn mentioned it depends on the song/type of music, the user and their definetion of good and bad quality. But going from
ACC-->standard CD-->ACC will degrade the quality. How much and if it's a "big deal" or not can only be told on a case-by-case basis.


Lethal

[SilentPanda]

Originally posted by jholzner
That statement is untrue...I've read several posts in other forums that say they sound fine.

It all depends on your speakers etc but for a good 95% of people it's untrue... for most of us that will work just fine... you could (most likely although I haven't tried it) make an audio CD image with toast, mount the image, then rip the tracks from the image... the benefit of this is you haven't burned a CD and you could probably do some AppleScript to rig it up... you still loose little bits of quality here and there but... eh... it doesn't bother me... btw even if you make a disc image in toast you still lost the same amount of quality as if you had burned a disc.

One thing that I'm wondering is how an unlimited amount of iPods can play the music... has anybody tried to deauthenticate their computer then sync the iPod up... would the iPod be authenticated even though the computer wasn't? Either way is that iPod authenticated with my account also? If not then can't you take the m4p files from the iPod and do something or other with them? I've not tried any of this and I'd say there's a good chance it won't work but it's always good to toss ideas out there because sometimes the more knowledgeable can overlook obvious things... anyhow I doubt it'd work but... whatever...

[jMc]

Originally posted by arn
because you are starting with less information.

CD -> AAC (lose some info)
AAC -> CD still haven't regained that info
CD -> MP3/AAC (lose more info)

whether that's noticable or not... depends on the song or the listener.

arn

I'm not disagreeing with you Arn, in fact I agree if that is the process it goes through. However, I believe Steve said at the launch that many of the tracks had been ripped from the master tapes - not from CD (which is itself a lossy format being a digital rendering of an anaologue source). Could a tune ripped from a master to AAC then burnt to CD and then ripped to MP3/AAC be of slightly better quality than an origianl AAC ripped from a commercial CD? I don't know. Am I even making sense. It was just a thought...

jx

[kiwi]

Originally posted by marcsiry


There should be some mechanism to indicate "new albums since your last visit..." heck, I'm going to go on right now and suggest that! :-)


There is now a "Just Added" link in the Home page. It works for each genre just like the other links like Staff Favorites etc

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by jMc
I'm not disagreeing with you Arn, in fact I agree if that is the process it goes through. However, I believe Steve said at the launch that many of the tracks had been ripped from the master tapes - not from CD (which is itself a lossy format being a digital rendering of an anaologue source). Could a tune ripped from a master to AAC then burnt to CD and then ripped to MP3/AAC be of slightly better quality than an origianl AAC ripped from a commercial CD? I don't know. Am I even making sense. It was just a thought...

jx

No, a Master->AAC->CD disk should not be of higher quality (and will likely be of lessor quality) than a Master->CD disk.

Master->CD will be as "perfect" of a sampling as possible (assuming accurate and reliable equipment is being used in the CD mastering process). Master->AAC may end up with a better representation of the music than Master->CD, but still the AAC representation is not quite 100% the same as the original Master. Thus, taking that AAC and putting it on CD will likely be of lesser fidelity than the original Mater->CD pressing.

Add to that the vagueries of CD-R ersus pressed disks (CD-R are more likely to induce read errors, which causes approximations in the D/A circuitry of the player) and there's really no way you'll be getting a better disk from the iTunes Music Store than from Best Buy or Tower (or Strawberries for my East Coast friends :) ).

On the other hand, it is quite likely that the AAC's you buy from Apple will be of higher quality than those you would rip yourself (although ripping yourself you have your choice of bit rates and formats ...)

[Wombatronic]

Originally posted by arn
because you are starting with less information.

CD -> AAC (lose some info)
AAC -> CD still haven't regained that info
CD -> MP3/AAC (lose more info)

whether that's noticable or not... depends on the song or the listener.

arn

Just to be a dork, a better way to say this is:

CD -> AAC (filter out some info)
AAC -> CD (essentially faithful)
CD -> AAC (try to filter stuff out again)

The only difference between the two AAC files will be because the AAC -> CD translation is not entirely faithful. While AAC is lossy, the point is that it "loses" the right stuff. The second time around, it will see that the stuff it would have dumped is already gone (unless the AAC .> CD tranlsation introduces artifacts).

[JoeCanadian]

The licensing issues around a service like Apple's iTunes Music Store are more complex than what a room full of lawyers and accountants could imagine. Apple not only has to deal with the record companies for the rights to the song masters ( i.e. the recordings ) but they also have to deal with the music publishers for the rights to use the songs ( i.e. the song lyrics and musical arrangements ). The best example I can think of is Britney Spears; she does not write her own songs. So, to use a Britney song ( which are not available in the music store btw ) you need to talk to the song writer and the record producer/company. It is likely that such complex issues are why a) the store is US only, and b) there are only 200,000 songs in it. But Apple had to start some where and the apparent success so far will get the ball rolling!

As for the issue of the Music Store going international, I draw your attention to this discussion on a blog site (http://www.benhammersley.com/archives/004603.html#004603) where about half way down the page the CEO of a Canadian licensing agency, CMRRA, stated he has called Apple to start the discussion of licensing the Music Store in Canada.

Sooner or later, the store will go international ( Canada seems like an easy first step for Apple ). I just wonder what the first priority of Apple will be; iTunes/Music Store for Windows or International Music Stores. I suspect they may work on both and get as much done as possible for the Christmas 2003 season.

jc

[GeneR]

I think they should treat the promotions and advertising for the iTunes Music Store the same way that people treat movies:

Announce sales after 1 week.
Announce sales after 2nd week.
Announce sales after 4th week.
Announce sales after 1 quarter.
Announce sales after 1 year.

:D

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by jMc
However, I believe Steve said at the launch that many of the tracks had been ripped from the master tapes - not from CD (which is itself a lossy format being a digital rendering of an anaologue source).

jx

A lot of masters and mixes are digital. The only analog conversion comes from the microphone. Remember the labeling of CDs DDD, ADD, and AAD?

AIFF files on an audeo CD are not a "lossy" format as there is no compression involved, though that's not to say that the masters don't have more information and some is discarded in the transfer. I guess it could be considered "reductive" in that it can't capture everything the master contains.

I would guess that there is room for a compressed, lossy format that actually sounds better than CD quality provided the source is up to it, but I'm guessing that mp3s and AAC files are based on the source being CDs.

- j

[jMc]

Originally posted by jettredmont
On the other hand, it is quite likely that the AAC's you buy from Apple will be of higher quality than those you would rip yourself (although ripping yourself you have your choice of bit rates and formats ...)

It was this bit I was trying to get at (excuse the vagueries of my post)... That the quality of AAC from the apple store is likely to be higher than from an AAC you ripped from a CD yourself... Therefore
Master >> AAC >> CD >> MP3/AAC will be higher quality tham CD >> AAC >> CD >> MP3/AAC...

jx

[JtheLemur]

Wooooo! Deftones are the bestest. =D

Back on topic: since AAC and MP3 both have their own methods of filtering out sounds... to solve the lossy issue at hand:

Download AAC file (128k)
--> Burn CD (no change in quality)
--> rerip as AAC file (but at 256k)

In this case, since the initial file was encoded as AAC, shouldn't reripping it AS a higher bitrate AAC yiels a pretty decent quality, as both bitrates of AAC use the same basic waveform for filtering? (versus using MP3's waveform on TOP of an AAC)

Just a thought...

[SilentPanda]

Originally posted by JtheLemur
Wooooo! Deftones are the bestest. =D

Back on topic: since AAC and MP3 both have their own methods of filtering out sounds... to solve the lossy issue at hand:

Download AAC file (128k)
--> Burn CD (no change in quality)
--> rerip as AAC file (but at 256k)

In this case, since the initial file was encoded as AAC, shouldn't reripping it AS a higher bitrate AAC yiels a pretty decent quality, as both bitrates of AAC use the same basic waveform for filtering? (versus using MP3's waveform on TOP of an AAC)

Just a thought...

At the cost of a larger file size... probably twice as large...

[Bengt77]

Originally posted by JesseJames
Man, sometimes it gets so irritating to see the industry follow Apple's lead. Again and again, over and over. And Apple is still looked on as the "weird" computers to own. It just freaking irritates me.

Yes, that's every Mac user's feeling (at least everyone that takes the time to post here and on other Mac fora). I don't know why it is like that (that Apple's being looked down upon by the rest of the computer industry), but it's their problem more than ours. Even the PC using crowd is beginning to see that now. Once the PPC970 is here we will have the best platform again.

(Of course, we have it already, just not the processor... :-)

People will come in hordes, I hope. (Or is that dreaming?!)

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by jMc
It was this bit I was trying to get at (excuse the vagueries of my post)... That the quality of AAC from the apple store is likely to be higher than from an AAC you ripped from a CD yourself... Therefore
Master >> AAC >> CD >> MP3/AAC will be higher quality tham CD >> AAC >> CD >> MP3/AAC...

jx

That depends on if the parameters for AAC files are higher than those for CDs. I'm guessing they're not. If they don't have some aspect which is superior to CDs, be it dynamic range or sampling rate, then there's nothing to be gained from taking it from the original source, unless the CD has been remastered to a higher quality since you last bought it.

- j

Just found this:

AAC supports wide range of sampling rates (8 to 96kHz), 48 audio channels, 15 auxillary low-frequency enhancement channel and up to 15 embedded data streams. The format supports bit-rates from 8kbps to 320kbps.

96kHz is more than twice CDs 44.1kHz.. but is it used that way in iTunes or Apple's music store?

[jMc]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
That depends on if the parameters for AAC files are higher than those for CDs. I'm guessing they're not. If they don't have some aspect which is superior to CDs, be it dynamic range or sampling rate, then there's nothing to be gained from taking it from the original source, unless the CD has been remastered to a higher quality since you last bought it.

- j

Just found this:

AAC supports wide range of sampling rates (8 to 96kHz), 48 audio channels, 15 auxillary low-frequency enhancement channel and up to 15 embedded data streams. The format supports bit-rates from 8kbps to 320kbps.

96kHz is more than twice CDs 44.1kHz.. but is it used that way in iTunes or Apple's music store?

jayscheuerle you seem to know your stuff - I'm just an amateur who was trying to raise a point that the (some of) the AACs Apple were offering were of a higher quality than the sort you would fing on a p2p network ripped from commercial CDs...

jx

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by jMc
jayscheuerle you seem to know your stuff -

Nah, just an excellent *************ter!

:D

[Wonder Boy]

This music store is far to easy to buy tunes from. i bought 3 tunes in under a minute! ******** SICK!

[Jeff Harrell]

Originally posted by JtheLemur
rerip as AAC file (but at 256k)

I bought an album, burned a CD, then ripped the CD as 128 Kbps M4A. In my own personal convoluted listening tests (described in another thread) I couldn't tell the difference between the M4P and the M4A.

Which is good. It means that if I ever lose the M4P's for any reason, my audio CD is my backup. I can simply re-rip it to M4A and be right back where I started from.

[macktheknife]

I really hope the recording industry in Asia takes note of iTunes' success. In order for Chinese and Japanese pop music fans to get their hands on the lastest offerings in the US, they usually have to either buy a cheap pirated copy or just download the songs from Kazaa. Online companies like YesAsia.com are pretty good, but I question whether or not they're offering legitimate copies.

Japanese pop music, moreover, is notoriously expensive to get here in the US, as typical legitimate album might cost around $20 - $25. For fans that want to get their hands on anime or game soundtracks usually resort to the net or pirated copies from SonMay and EverAnime. I think fans would respond positively if the iTunes Music Store would offer such songs for download--I know I would.

[Spew]

Originally posted by JesseJames
Man, sometimes it gets so irritating to see the industry follow Apple's lead. Again and again, over and over. And Apple is still looked on as the "weird" computers to own. It just freaking irritates me.

Isn't Apple following the other music services?

I can get any format I want (mp3. wma,ogg,aac,mpeg) through http://www.allofmp3.com/index2.shtml

Emusic uses tokens and works great with MediaJukebox, they have a decent selection with bands like Rancid & Guttermouth and an ok 80's section.

The Apple store is definately easier in a few ways, that's a big plus, but with Pressplay, those 3 built into WMP (I forget the names) there are already ample sources for legal music. mp3.com offers unlimited free downloads, no chart busters but some decent offspring & newfound glory.

If Apple could get all these libraries under one roof so to speak, that'd be cool. Tower Records is going to try something along those lines.

[Spew]

Originally posted by mrdrumbum
i need my dave matthews band!

you think itunes will be popular for windows users? most pc users i know don't even like using quicktime. apple programs on windows don't seem to work as fluidly as on a mac. maybe wmp will soon have a music store.

WMP has offerd 3 services for awhile, Pressplay & MusicNow for tunes, CinemaNow for movies.

Someone asked about quality AAC vs mp3, according to Apple "..a 128-kilobit-per-second (kbit/s) AAC file should sound as good as or better than a 160 kbit/s MP3 file"

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93013

There are so many mp3 players for Windows, it's hard to say how iTunes will be recieved. Keep in mind many "typical" Windows users probably know as much about Macs as they do Linux. Apple is that company that sells those computers in the newspaper adds that cost more, a 1Ghz 1Mac is $900 more than that 2Ghz e-machine, why? It seems every weekend the huge 2 page Frys ad has a really inexpensive PC, next to a much more expensive Mac with a lower Ghz cpu.

Some People get used to using one player and unless they have a reason to switch, dont. Others, like the Winamp crowd are loyal and see no reason to change to anything else.. why give up all those skins and plug ins? or access to shoutcast?

Time will tell but I see it as being another music player.

[Jeff Harrell]

Spew, as far as whether Apple is leading the industry or following along, keep in mind that the Music Store sold something like 200,000 songs in its first 18 hours of operation. That's as many songs as were sold by all other online music distribution services combined in the past six months. (I can't remember exactly where I read that. The Journal, maybe?) And Apple has a tiny market of potential customers, due to the fact that the Music Store is only available to US users of Mac OS X Jaguar with broadband Internet access.

Yes, other services got there first. But Apple is, by all accounts, the first company that's doing it even remotely well.

[Shaul]

Can somebody explain to me this international rights business? I have no problems buying CDs from overseas. Why should I have a problem buy them electronically?
:confused:

[Grimace]

What do people think will happen in the future of AppleMusic?? Will prices go up from 99c or go down? I could see both...

[Jeff Harrell]

Originally posted by carletonmusic
Will prices go up from 99c or go down?

Why should they do either? I mean, sure, on a long enough timeline prices tend to change. But we'd have to think in terms of decades to discuss that sort of thing. The pace of technological change is outrunning our modest rate of inflation. Stuff like this typically isn't around long enough for prices to shift upward. And because we're talking about an informational product instead of a manufactured product, the idea of supply and demand doesn't really apply, and there's no benefit to be gained from an economy of scale. So there should be no short-term pressure for prices to go down by any statistically significant margin, either.

[Grimace]

I meant long term - as in, 3 years down the road. This is a speculative question - so speculate! Prices might go up with inflation, or go down with less demand. What do you predict Apple Music prices per track will be in 3 years?

[greenfruit]

i think we need to see it run for a few months atleast and also wait until those (like me) outside the US can buy tracks.

[chabig]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
96kHz is more than twice CDs 44.1kHz.. but is it used that way in iTunes or Apple's music store?

Apple's songs are sampled at 44.1KHz, the same as a CD. This info is provided in iTunes by doing a Get Info on the song.

[uhlawboi80]

im just now reading over this thread...but as far as maverick goes...

One, no one seems to point out maverick also has Madonna on the label...why is that?? CAUSE ITS HER LABEL - SHE OWNS IT. given her attitude about P2P and then her site getting hacked...she might have pulled out at the last minute, require SJ to go back and convince them that the iTMS IS a good idea.

just a thought

[NathanThurm]

This Newsweek article (http://www.msnbc.com/news/908989.asp?cp1=1) says that the Doors have agreed to join iTMS.

Why aren't more songs available? and why are some artists (Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc.) missing?
In some cases, artists have been reluctant to sell on the Net. But it will also take time to transfer the catalogs of the five major labels to digital. "We'll have more every week," Jobs promises. (This week's coup: the Doors.) He also wants to accommodate independent labels. As for the Beatles and the Stones, Jobs personally showed the store to Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney. "They both totally get it," he says, and predicts that the British invasion will eventually reach the Internet.

[greenfruit]

Originally posted by NathanThurm personally showed the store to Mick Jagger

"Ohh Maaaannn.. so thats the internet? Id been wondern' man. Yeeayayayaahh!"

;-)

[anneleonard]

Originally posted by greenfruit
£12.99 for a CD!! thats quite cheap. Theyre usualy £15-£17.

Originally posted by MOFS
Anyway, being in the UK, its great to hear that the Music Store will be available. At the moment, the average CD cost £12.99 (approximately $20 i reckon), so even if the price of an album goes to £10 as oppoesed to $10 - a difference of about $6 - it'll still be cheaper by £3! Great.

:eek: Have you people never heard of buying from the net through cdwow.com (http://www.cdwow.com) or play.com (http://www.play.com)? New chart releases are all £8.99 or even less. I haven't paid over 9 pounds for an album for years. Bringing it back on topic, I'd love to see the UK iTunes store available, but I really think we should be able to buy tracks for the UK equivalent price of 65p each or £6.50 for an album. then it would only be £2.50 difference to get the CD, and I think I would prefer the CD to be honest. I think I would only just buy single tracks through the service.

[Jeff Harrell]

Originally posted by davy the bunny
I was wondering where maverick was. . . I've been wanting to download deftones. . .

Well, here you go ( itms://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/DirectAction/viewAlbum?playlistId=1092926).

This morning's New Music Tuesday email listed music from Maverick artists like Deftones, the Prodigy, Alanis Morissette, and Michelle Branch.

Ask and you shall receive, man. ;)

(I've gotta say, though. Just this minute, all the new previews sound terrible. I mean really awful. I wonder if the Music Store uses adaptive previewing. In other words, I wonder if it stores one preview for each song and some of those previews sound terrible, or if it stores different bit rates for each song and delivers the more highly compressed ones when there's a lot of traffic on the system. The actual songs sound fine, though; it's just the previews that sound awful. If I hadn't know full well that the song would sound fine, i would have been very reluctant to download anything based on that preview.)

[mwpeters8182]

I haven't noticed poor quality of the previews... maybe it is a bandwith issue - I was up at 1 AM putting off studying for a final to search iTMS. Bought the new Jack Johnson CD this morning. I'm very impressed - Hat's off to Steve.

-MP

[svenr]

As many people said, licensing restrictions from the music industry are probably the reason for Apple not to bring the Music Store to the rest of the world. Why not go straight to the source? Nag the big five music firms directly and tell them what you want!

Sony
http://usa.sonymusic.com/sony/feedback.html

EMI
http://www.emimusicpub.com/worldwide/servlet/contactEMI
EMI is British, so if you are in the UK call 020 7355 4848 or write to:
Corporate Communications Department,
EMI Group plc,
4 Tenterden Street,
Hanover Square,
London, W1A 2AY

BMG
email to info@bmg.com
BMG is a division of the Bertelsmann Group; send requests to corporate headquarters:
http://www.bertelsmann.com/contact.cfm
Bertelsmann is a German group, if you are German call 05241-80-0 or write to:
Bertelsmann AG
Carl-Bertelsmann-Straße 270
33311 Gütersloh

Universal
email to newformats@umusic.com
This is the division responsible for new media formats incl. online distribution within Universal Music.

Warner
I couldn't find any contact info for Warner Music. Email to info@wmg.com or webmaster@wmg.com might work. If you have better info please post it here.

Post this info in other forums too!

But creating a sense of urgency with Apple may also make sense because they are in a more powerful bargaining position; then can put more pressure on the music industry. So keep sending feedback to Apple, either throuh the Requests & Feedback button in iTunes Music Store homepage or:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html