Spot on! Some folks really don't understand the concept of a license. And it's not really too hard to grasp ;-)
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Apple/EMI Press Conference Coverage
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Spot on! Some folks really don't understand the concept of a license. And it's not really too hard to grasp ;-)
I thought if you buy an iTunes song it will only play on YOUR ipod and up to 5 different computers.
Pardon my ignorance, but I've actually never tried a friend's song on my iPod. I assumed it would not work because when I play it from my Library it asks for their password.
Can someone explain this?
But what I'm saying is that $1.29 isn't more...it's "normal." The $0.99 tracks are being held artificially low.
The labels have wanted to raise iTunes prices for some time now but Steve has strong-armed them into sticking with the 99 cent plan. If it weren't for him they would have raised the prices to this at least a year ago.
So this is not a price premium...it's just the label saying "ok, we'll try out this DRM-free idea of yours IF you let us put the price where we think it should be."
So it's not "normal" 99 cent music and "premium" DRM-free music. It's reallly "normal" DRM-free music and "discounted" DRM music.
You only THINK it's the first way because Steve has been so good to you the last few years. In reality, it's the second way.
And should music with DRM have a discount? I think so!
Yeah, sorry, I got you wrong the first time.
It always depends on 2 things, the person and the equipment. I just hate people that claim that it is impossible to hear based on some physics book and because they cannot hear it. Anyway, sorry for the harsh post.
Back in college, for a paper I wrote, I cited a test that one of the hi-fi mags had done in the 50's (I think) about people's perception of "what sounds right" from a sound system. I haven't been able to find the source on this "test" since... anyone recall it?
They rounded up a group of people, brought them into a room and told them they'd be listening to a new state-of-the-art sound system (hidden behind a curtain), and that there job would be to adjust the sound to the point of where it sounded "most realistic" by moving three tone control knobs, for bass, mid and treble.
The results were that most people boosted the bass a good bit, cut the mid a little and cut the highs quite a bit. But the kicker to the whole thing was that a real ensemble was playing behind a curtain and that the "tone controls" were actually a mechanism connected to a system of baffles that muffled sound at certain frequencies.
This test seems to show that most people didn't have a good grasp on what "real" sound sounded like, and that they adjusted the (real) sound to a level they were used to, e.g., they were used to listening to sound via a sound system that couldn't reproduce music accurately and had little experience with hearing live music, etc.
EXACTLY! I've done that experiment and someone said it was all in my head, i'm glad someone else recognizes that fact.
There is also a sound
It's a general requirement of a digital encoding system for sound reproduction that a low-pass filter be applied at the Nyquist frequency (half the sampling frequency). In doing so, this both eliminates potential for aliased frequencies and other reconstruction errors. Assuming the A/D converters use proper sample and hold intervals to accurately calculate and record amplitude values at each quantization interval, a low-pass filtered input signal encoded digitally will reproduce higher frequencies faithfully.
Cymbals and hi-hats are very commonly referenced as examples of instruments that sound worse on AAC than CD audio, but these instruments do not actually possess a coherent phase. This does make them considerably more difficult to break down, e.g. Fourier transform, but the sampling frequency, for reasons stated above, is not as much the problem as is the dynamic range at every quantization interval. That is, the word length of each sample determines the potential amplitude values. Cymbals and hi-hats, if viewed as soundwaves, have extremely erratic amplitude values and there is some degree of quantization error possible here even in a 16-bit PCM (CD Audio) signal.
However, I don't suspect this is a real problem for AAC which is the nephew of AC-3. AC-3's stated dynamic range at 192Kbps stereo is 105dB, which is actually greater than the dynamic range of CD audio (96dB). There may be some question as to whether or not the noise floor is substantially higher with AAC, but it's interesting that these technical issues NEVER come into the conversation when I'm confronted by audiophiles who insist that anecdotes from their own ears qualify as any kind of substantial argument against the fidelity of perceptual coding schema.
What's more bizarre is that they don't poo poo on 16-bit, given that the amplitude sensitivity of such a low resolution PCM format has to be assisted by dithering... unlike 24-bit PCM which possesses over two million more possible amplitude values per quantization interval.
But such debates require, IMO, a better understanding of the fundamentals of digital recording, encoding and decoding... which I find is lacking among the vast majority of so-called audiophiles and even self-professed "sound engineers" who do understand digital recording... but often only in the sense that a car mechanic understands the physics of internal combustion.
More strawmen. Nowhere am I saying that Apple is the only vendor I can buy music from or that they somehow hold a monopoly. Nowhere am I saying that I can't buy music from anywhere besides Apple. Nowhere am I "complaining to every company and store that charges for music." I mean seriously, do you think it isn't obvious?
If you're going to reply, then at least reply to what I'm saying instead of trying to make me look like an idiot by saying obvious things that I didn't state and then tearing them down.
I don't think it's half as ridiculous as you apparently want it to be to say "Why should anyone pay more for the 'privilege' to not have their music be crippled?"
Apple is the undisputed leader in selling online media, wouldn't you say? As such, I would've LOVED to see them strip the DRM without charging more for it, or do it in the near future. My fear is that Steve is setting the trend here that no-DRM = you pay more.
I hear what you're saying with the rest of your post, and that makes perfect sense. Personally, I wouldn't pay more than a buck for a song but that's just me.
... but this I don't get. You're saying that EMI is NOT charging a price premium for removing DRM but then in the same sentence say that the labels are cool with removing DRM as long as they can set the price on the songs, which are higher. How is that not the same thing?
... but this I don't get. You're saying that EMI is NOT charging a price premium for removing DRM but then in the same sentence say that the labels are cool with removing DRM as long as they can set the price on the songs, which are higher. How is that not the same thing?
You know, everyone saying that they are "pretending like they are doing us a favor for removing DRM" is full of crap because guess what they are!
What have most of you done to stop DRM? Let me guess nothing? What do you download music for free to stick it to the man?
You can say I am drinking the kool-aid or whatever, but my guess is if Jobs didn't publicing criticize DRM, this wouldn't be happening.
And my guess is that Steve didn't set the price, more he took the price to save your lazy @$$es from having to take DRM.
This is still business and Apple more or less has to take the agreement. We do still have $9.99 albums regardless of the version you pick. This is a step in the right direction. Over time if people buy these tracks, the cost will come down and the DRM will fade.If only CNN could have such...accurate coverage. Reading their article on this makes me appreciate the quality of MR.
I hear what you're saying with the rest of your post, and that makes perfect sense. Personally, I wouldn't pay more than a buck for a song but that's just me.
... but this I don't get. You're saying that EMI is NOT charging a price premium for removing DRM but then in the same sentence say that the labels are cool with removing DRM as long as they can set the price on the songs, which are higher. How is that not the same thing?
I'm mixing up two concepts:
1) The general concept of DRM vs. non-DRM. The only relevent ideas here are "less" and "more." Any price is hypothetical.
2) The reality of song prices which are 99 cents and $1.29 and why they are priced the way they are.
I'm talking about two different ideas at once and they're getting a little crossed. Had I been typing slower I might have taken the time to seperate them rather than much them all together. You're right, it is a little confusing to mix reality with hypotheticals and expect it to all make sense. My mistake.
MP3 is crap. AAC is a very wide standard and has been around since 97. It is not an Apple thing, educate yourself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding
That's correct. Now concering a 128 file, how much do you think that bandwidth costs to move it? Do you really believe it's fifteen cents, or even approaching five cents?
How much do you pay for cable - anything approaching that rate?
All I'm getting is that you can NOT attribute the entire (or even an appreciable amount) increase in cost due to more bandwidth.
This does bring up a good point. Ignoring your respective beliefs of what you can or cannot detect a difference in the sound and ignoring the fact that your music is no longer DRM'd with the new "premium" offering, the new files are larger and therefore your iPod's will hold less music. More is Less.
I wonder if Apple kept the original format to 128Kb for this exact reason - to fit more music on the iPods. Well, at least for the marketing to show you can fit more on them... Less is More. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the original iTMS store opened, wasn't the file format MP3's @ 160Kb?
This never applied to me as I rip my music at 320Kb MP3 with VBR on highest. Yes, I can hear a difference and I have more than a couple of new Yugo's worth of investment in my audio gear. To each his own on what sounds good to your ears.
I'm happy with the new premium offering. It's a step in the right direction. I doubt it will affect my buying habits - I like the "full bandwidth" of having the original CD, if you will.
Yeah, I see what you're saying though. You're coming at it more from the perspective of "Well, the music really costs 1.30, but they discount it because they put DRM on it." In that case, removing the DRM means removing the discount.
amen to that. I'm an electrical engineer and audio is nothing different when dealing with equations and signal/control systems.
However because I don't have a concentration on signals and systems, I am completely ignorant to do modern digital sampling/audio engineering. I'm sure everyone else is too unless they have been formally trained on such matters and have an excellent grasp of the mathematics involved, they don't truly understand what the effects are when you change one of the many variables, let alone changing several of them.
From a legal standpoint, how is that different from file sharing? The artists certainly aren't getting any compensation from you.
The fact that the non-DRMd tracks won't be available in May and the lack of any other announcement today makes me think there will be a May music event.
1. There hasn't been a music event in a while.
2. Steve was noncommittal today on The Beatles.
3. The Beatles and Radiohead are the two biggest acts not on iTS, and both are on EMI.
4.TV is almost certainly going to get HD content soon.
5. Two big summer sequels start in May (Spiderman 3, Shrek 3), so Apple and the studios would have a good promotional opportunity to bring out the earlier movies in HD.
6. iTunes will probably need tweaks for the iPhone.
7. Apple has another couple of months to get another major record label or two on board with non-DRM music. (Steve hinted that others are in the wings.)
8. If there's not going to be a widescreen iPod until three or four months after the iPhone lands, May would be a good time to bump up drive size in the iPod, nano and shuffle.
9. A May iPod/iTunes announcement would clear the deck for Leopard and hardware in June.
Well, #6 indicates to me that Leopard will probably be released
around that time (May), since that's when we'll see the new options.
I'd bet that the new iTunes bundled with Leopard will accomodate
the iPhone and the new download options announced today.
Just my two cents.
You know, everyone saying that they are "pretending like they are doing us a favor for removing DRM" is full of crap because guess what they are!
What have most of you done to stop DRM? Let me guess nothing? What do you download music for free to stick it to the man?
You can say I am drinking the kool-aid or whatever, but my guess is if Jobs didn't publicing criticize DRM, this wouldn't be happening.
And my guess is that Steve didn't set the price, more he took the price to save your lazy @$$es from having to take DRM.
What have people done to stop DRM?
Have you looked at the popularity of torrent sites lately? Of software like DVDShrink or MacTheRipper?
Have you read about why so many people are not interested in the new HD formats because of all of the security they've had (cracked only months after release)? How mad people have gotten over the HDMI debacle?
People are doing quite a bit to make their way to fight DRM.
I think it's AWESOME that Steve spoke out against DRM. It's probably one of the greatest people the industry could've heard from. But please - DRM is a failed attempt at crippling what users are paying for. Don't charge us extra to have it removed. That's all that I'm saying. The fact that iTMS users now have an OPTION to have DRM-free music? Great! I just sincerely hope the added price is not the cost of it.
Specs and frequency/spectrum analysis methods have often been proven to be completely meaningless in the real world of music and sound.
For example: You can't prove "ghost tones" actually exist by examining a digital recording of two notes played together, however many humans can hear the sum and difference of the two notes (the resulting "ghost tones"), and thus hear one or two additional notes in addition to the two original (pitches).