Apple Negotiating for Unlimited Music Redownloads Ahead of MobileMe Revamp

[Vanarak19]

No offense, but the small minority that speaks up over the outrage of 2 and 5GB caps is just that. The reality is there are a larger number of non-power users out there and in order to get those caps pushed upward, more people need to be pushing the barrier, not just the top 5%. And on top of that, you also need to consider the top 5% margin gets pushed even further into minority when you consider the vast majority of cell phone owners that don't have data plans either.

As for the market leaders overcharging customers, it's not going to be a regulatory issue either until the majority of people are complaining to agencies like the FCC over unfair costs and portable data access is deemed critical for all citizens.

In other words, we need more reasons for everyone to have access to wireless data.

I absolutely agree. The more people that push the 2-5gb limits, the more pressure is put on the providers to offer higher limits.

I am still unsure why I am being misunderstood by a few members in this thread. I read the article, and my comments stick to the topic. Others agree.

 

[pmz]

Rating (15 Positives; 1 Negatives)

Who votes negative to this? lol

Are people just trolling?

Everyone must get in line with the same opinion!!!!!


move on

 

[andys53]

So...

Will there be a limit to the "free" storage space?

 

[pmz]

Record Companies. In there mind downloading a song == buying a cd. If you loose the cd you can't call them up (even if you had a receipt), say you lost it and expect another.

They are at this very moment, if this report is to be believed, arguing that you can have unlimited downloads or drm free music, the choice is yours. In their minds this will help enable piracy, regardless of if it is true or not.

Karl P

All true. What's amazing to me is that Apple even needs their permission anymore. Apple should use it's bank to perform a hostile take over of the music industry

If Apple wants to offer unlimited redownloading as a means of cloud storage, they should just do it and see what the pansy no-name executives can actually do about it.

I really hate the record industry. Music is one of the most precious and wonderful things anywhere on this planet, and it's tightly controlled by greedy, horrible people. Apple should bully them out the backdoor until they have no control over the product they have no right to control in the first place.

Music Belongs To Everyone! Not A Handful Of Suits!

 

[Cinnabar]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)Also, after watching the iPad 2 announcement tells me they had something to show in the second half, but did not include and added filler (iMovie , GB) at the end.

I actually though the Garageband bit was exciting. It showed what dedicated iPad apps could be capable of, and made me want to get one so that I could plug my guitar in and make the kind of rubbish music I made when I was 15, but in a more intuitively high tech way

Oh, and on topic. This is great news. Will only be for music purchased through iTunes though surely.

 

[iamkarlp]

I absolutely agree. The more people that push the 2-5gb limits, the more pressure is put on the providers to offer higher limits.

It's also fair to note that the current 4GB limit is actually approaching quite fair. Industry analysts and experts agree that it currently costs ATT/Verizon 4 to 5$ to delivery a GB of data to your device. Which means that at 4GB, they are making a 5~9$ over cost income (not profit....).

The 10$/GB overage rate, while seemingly high, is actually no where near the profit margin markup of text messages, or even what voice minutes were a mere 3 or 4 years ago.

As more people use more data, and they bring faster connections and better radios, the cost of that GB of data will drop. As it drops you can expect to get more data for your same price.

Right now, at 25$ for 4GB and 10$/GB overage, the price is reasonably competitive considering what it costs and that the companies in question need to make a profit at the end of the day.

Karl P

 

[pmz]

It's also fair to note that the current 4GB limit is actually approaching quite fair. Industry analysts and experts agree that it currently costs ATT/Verizon 4 to 5$ to delivery a GB of data to your device. Which means that at 4GB, they are making a 5~9$ over cost income (not profit....).

The 10$/GB overage rate, while seemingly high, is actually no where near the profit margin markup of text messages, or even what voice minutes were a mere 3 or 4 years ago.

As more people use more data, and they bring faster connections and better radios, the cost of that GB of data will drop. As it drops you can expect to get more data for your same price.

Right now, at 25$ for 4GB and 10$/GB overage, the price is reasonably competitive considering what it costs and that the companies in question need to make a profit at the end of the day.

Karl P

Your industry analysts have no idea what they're talking about. It does not cost either AT&T or Verizon $4 to send a gig of data. That's the biggest flat out B.S. lie I've ever heard.

 

[dethmaShine]

I absolutely agree. The more people that push the 2-5gb limits, the more pressure is put on the providers to offer higher limits.

I am still unsure why I am being misunderstood by a few members in this thread. I read the article, and my comments stick to the topic. Others agree.

Well, fair enough. I misunderstood you. I could understand that this would be a big move in terms of stream-able content off of the iTunes store but wasn't sure, where you were getting at.

Apologies.

 

[saxon48]

Buying music. Lol.

 

[Management]

Wait. There are people who don't pay for music?

Wait. There are people who do pay for music?

 

[shartypants]

This is the future of asset ownership, buy it then have access to it from the cloud from anywhere. Of course, having it (or a portion of it) also stored locally is important in case you are not connected, but yeah, its only a matter of time when this will become the way things are done. Leave it to Apple to pave the way!!

 

[aperry]

Wow, I didn't even know this limitation existed. I haven't purchased music on iTunes, and with games like this I probably never will!

The music labels make it really easy to have no sympathy for them in this whole "illegal sharing" debate.

 

[iamkarlp]

Your industry analysts have no idea what they're talking about. It does not cost either AT&T or Verizon $4 to send a gig of data. That's the biggest flat out B.S. lie I've ever heard.

Do you / have you worked in large aka bureaucratic companies doing end to end data network / design / delivery? I have. The cost of data, particularly delivered over a cell phone network is extraordinarily high. While the raw cost of the data to the backbone (which is low, under .30$/GB) is actually fairly cheap, by the time we bring that to the core routers, then use dedicated SONET/ATM/DS*/T* then the local switching/routing, radios, property, easement and lease payments on all of the above then add management and overhead to hit that 4~5$/GB number.

People can't lose site of how expensive backhaul can be. Dropping a T1 or two at a site is no big deal, but offers really (painfully so) low bandwidth. Dropping Fiber is obviously the correct answer now, but for every area where you have a 50'000~100'000$ install, you have just as many which are many times that amount. Good bad or indifferent the costs are spread out over many tens of thousands of cell sites, and while some cell sites may only cost 2~3$/GB there are some which cost 8~10$/GB.

If you have other thoughts you are obviously welcome to share.

Karl P

Edit: Also remember the legal bills: every time their is an easement issue, a property dispute issue, a property acquisition issue, a zoning issue, a "cell tower signals have damaged me" issue, a stubborn city console, a contractor issue, a contract dispute, or even a patent dispute - the lawyers get called. And the cost of all of that also factors into the cost of a GB of data.

 

[notjustjay]

Will there be a limit to the "free" storage space?

If this service is basically just keeping your purchased iTunes library in the cloud, then it doesn't actually need any storage space at all, it just needs to keep track of which items you've purchased and therefore have access to.

They'd probably give you space for uploading your own tracks from non-iTunes sources, but at least the major space hogs (iTunes downloaded movies, for example) would not require more physical space.

 

[jclardy]

If I paid for downloaded music from iTunes and my hard drive crashes I am not going to go to the iTunes store and buy all my music again.

Are you listening record companies? If people buy a song once, they are not going to buy it again. Let Apple let us re-download it, its not like it costs the record label money since Apple is the one paying for the bandwidth.

 

[ftaok]

I'll start off by saying that I'm all in favor of allowing unlimited redownloads of songs bought on iTunes. However, I wonder what would happen with the handful of songs that get removed from iTunes for whatever reason.

Would Apple keep those songs on the servers for the folks that have already bought them, but prevent any future buyers? Or would those folks be SOL if they experience a library crash and didn't have a back-up?

How does Apple handle this situation with iOS Apps?

 

[notjustjay]

If I paid for downloaded music from iTunes and my hard drive crashes I am not going to go to the iTunes store and buy all my music again.

Are you listening record companies? If people buy a song once, they are not going to buy it again. Let Apple let us re-download it, its not like it costs the record label money since Apple is the one paying for the bandwidth.

I don't think iTunes will even let you buy it again. It will say "you have already purchased this". So unless you kept a backup copy, if you lose it, you're totally screwed!

I think the record company execs hear the word "download" and they have an automatic conniption. They're probably not that computer savvy, and they've been trained to think "download" = "steal".

 

[emvath]

Awesome! Now the 3 songs I've purchased off of iTunes will be mine forever!

 

[Starship77]

Anyone know why when you buy something on Zune, all the DRM is removed and you can do whatever you want with the song. It's just like copying it off of a CD.

It seems Apple should be trying for that kind of arrangement.

Apple already has this kinda arrangement. Itunes has been DRM free for a while now... Did I miss something in your post?

 

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

Thisll be great for people that have a 2GB data cap on their phones. /sarcasm

I personally would rather have local storage of content, not to mention the battery life decrease that accompanies streaming content.

it's not about streaming...it's about being able to re download music and video that you have PREVIOUSLY paid for...I welcome this...I lost a years worth of purchased content when my CPU went into recovery mode...I want my $h*T back!!!!

 

[silentnite]

a step in the right direction I'd sign up for mobile-me & buy a lot more music, if that was to ever happen.

 

[Andronicus]

I personally can't wait till free MobileMe, cloud storage, and free re-downloads. I remember I lost my entire iTunes library and I called apple and they let me download all previous purchased items from iTunes movies, music, and apps, they did say it was a one time thing though so be sure to back up everything. I will be most happy if free re-downloads does happen though.

 

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

I absolutely agree. The more people that push the 2-5gb limits, the more pressure is put on the providers to offer higher limits.

I am still unsure why I am being misunderstood by a few members in this thread. I read the article, and my comments stick to the topic. Others agree.

no...cloud based does not exclusivley mean streaming...and the article is about REDOWNLOADING PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED iTUNES CONTENT...can you hear us now?

 

[logandzwon]

Anyone know why when you buy something on Zune, all the DRM is removed and you can do whatever you want with the song. It's just like copying it off of a CD.

It seems Apple should be trying for that kind of arrangement.

what? if you buy any music on iTunes it's DRM free. Just like copying it off a CD, but higher quality. Zune has that because Apple convinced one of them to do, then showed all the other how much more profit they it was making.

 

[tbrinkma]

Do you / have you worked in large aka bureaucratic companies doing end to end data network / design / delivery? I have. The cost of data, particularly delivered over a cell phone network is extraordinarily high. While the raw cost of the data to the backbone (which is low, under .30$/GB) is actually fairly cheap, by the time we bring that to the core routers, then use dedicated SONET/ATM/DS*/T* then the local switching/routing, radios, property, easement and lease payments on all of the above then add management and overhead to hit that 4~5$/GB number.

People can't lose site of how expensive backhaul can be. Dropping a T1 or two at a site is no big deal, but offers really (painfully so) low bandwidth. Dropping Fiber is obviously the correct answer now, but for every area where you have a 50'000~100'000$ install, you have just as many which are many times that amount. Good bad or indifferent the costs are spread out over many tens of thousands of cell sites, and while some cell sites may only cost 2~3$/GB there are some which cost 8~10$/GB.

If you have other thoughts you are obviously welcome to share.

Karl P

Edit: Also remember the legal bills: every time their is an easement issue, a property dispute issue, a property acquisition issue, a zoning issue, a "cell tower signals have damaged me" issue, a stubborn city console, a contractor issue, a contract dispute, or even a patent dispute - the lawyers get called. And the cost of all of that also factors into the cost of a GB of data.

While you make a valid point about the various and sundry costs involved in deploying the service, the end numbers being discussed still aren't the same.

For example, McDonald's doesn't get to claim some fraction of the building's cost as part of the "cost to prepare a hamburger". Those costs are Infrastructure outlay. They're already sunk in order to get service to an area in the first place. When you talk about what it costs to send X GB of data to a phone, you need to look at the actual overhead involved in that data delivery. That is nowhere *near* $4-5/GB.

Yes, your sunk infrastructure costs need to be spread out across all your subscribers over a span of time, but claiming an actual *cost* of $4-5/GB is disingenuous at best, and a pack of lies at worst.