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Apple Negotiating for Unlimited Music Redownloads Ahead of MobileMe Revamp

MP3.com

Now, if they could just turn on the feature that MP3.com had 10 years ago (yes, really), where if you took your actual physical music CD and inserted it into the computer it would unlock the digital download of the music online. No re-buying your music if you already owned the CD.
 
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Management said:
DrJohnnyN said:
Wait. There are people who don't pay for music? :D
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Wait. There are people who do pay for music? :)
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I hope you all r kidding about NOT buying music. if you pirate music u r the reason it has been difficult for apple to work with the music industry. give an artist a break, they might not all be starving but they deserve to be paid for what they created.
 
I wonder if I'll be able to redownload music that I deleted on my MacBook. If I go to repurchase, it says that I had previously downloaded it...at least it used to.
 
DrJohnnyN said:
Wait. There are people who don't pay for music? :D
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If you do not pay for your music (unless it is legally being offered for free, such as emusic's various promotions, etc.), then you are stealing....it is the same as shoplifting and you deserve to go to jail. Again, if it is through the various legal free channels, that is a different story, but please do not steal, it is not right and hurts all of us with more restrictions and higher prices.
 
tbrinkma said:
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.
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You believe McDonald's doesn't account for overhead (building, maintenance, payroll, distribution) costs when they price a menu-item? Of course they do. How they choose to document it is unrelated, but they certainly do account for it.

I feel like we are discussing two separate things here.

If you want me to say that GB of data costs some arbitrary number, say .30$ GB, I can say that, sure. However there is also "other" costs of (currently) 3.70 to 4.70$ a GB so it isn't possible to actually sell the service anywhere close to .30$ a GB

I think you are getting caught up in the cost of the underlying data in transit, which is, as you assert, very low. However that data by itself, in this context, does no one any good. It needs to be brought to a location where it is useable, maintained, routed, turned into RF, compressed, managed, billed and supported.

The cost of the data itself is meaningless in the realm of cellco data services. It's "All The Rest" where the real cost is, and in this particular case representing the raw transit cost is, to me, "disingenuous at best, and a pack of lies at worst." It simply isn't that simple in this case.

Karl P

Edit: I also agree that the number is quite (maybe even ridiculously) high, however in this time of high-buildout and all the technology changing so quickly (Edge to 3G to LTE, etc) the cost is simply very high. As I said up front, as backhaul and radios get upgraded and time goes on (and thus things get paid for....) then we will see that number starting to drop and "real" price competition in CellCo Data.
 
tbrinkma said:
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.
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Dude, you don't seriously think that McDonald's prices are based on only the cost of the ingredients which went into the burger? Pricing models for everything companies sell have to take into account of all the overheads involved producing that specific product (and all the genral overheads of the organisation). I think iamkarlp is making some sound points. It's actually refreshing to hear someone post who obviously has a solid background of knowledge to draw from.
 
Good news for the few who buy all of their music off of iTunes.

Less exciting for the rest of us.
 
zorinlynx said:
That's idiotic. Don't they figure that if we already bought it, getting another copy isn't going to hurt them financially?
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In a way it does "hurt" them. It's the same reason MPAA and RIAA don't want you to have the legal right to copy CDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray. They openly state that "prices are cheap enough that if you lose or damage your disk, you 'can' buy a new one. No need to copy thanks to our benevolence." They want those repeat sales.

I say "BS" that that, but that's their attitude.
 
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Vegasman said:
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.
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iTunes has been selling DRM-free music since 2007. Since mid-2009, all songs on the iTMS have been DRM-free. They have had "that kind of arrangement" for a long time now.

Any song you buy from the iTunes Store right now is simply an AAC file with a record of the account it was purchased on. You can do anything with the file, it's like any other AAC file.
 
iamkarlp said:
You believe McDonald's doesn't account for overhead (building, maintenance, payroll, distribution) costs when they price a menu-item? Of course they do. How they choose to document it is unrelated, but they certainly do account for it.

I feel like we are discussing two separate things here.

If you want me to say that GB of data costs some arbitrary number, say .30$ GB, I can say that, sure. However there is also "other" costs of (currently) 3.70 to 4.70$ a GB so it isn't possible to actually sell the service anywhere close to .30$ a GB

I think you are getting caught up in the cost of the underlying data in transit, which is, as you assert, very low. However that data by itself, in this context, does no one any good. It needs to be brought to a location where it is useable, maintained, routed, turned into RF, compressed, managed, billed and supported.

The cost of the data itself is meaningless in the realm of cellco data services. It's "All The Rest" where the real cost is, and in this particular case representing the raw transit cost is, to me, "disingenuous at best, and a pack of lies at worst." It simply isn't that simple in this case.

Karl P

Edit: I also agree that the number is quite (maybe even ridiculously) high, however in this time of high-buildout and all the technology changing so quickly (Edge to 3G to LTE, etc) the cost is simply very high. As I said up front, as backhaul and radios get upgraded and time goes on (and thus things get paid for....) then we will see that number starting to drop and "real" price competition in CellCo Data.
Click to expand...

I think the objection might be that a lot of the costs aren't exclusive to pushing data -- mobile phone companies also charge you for calls and texts, and have been doing so for a very long time. So things like initial cell-tower cost, legal fees, etc. can also be included in bills for non-data customers.

So, how is the figure of $4-per-GB arrived at? Without knowing more details, it feels rather arbitrary, and I'd personally be suspicious that people were pushing more costs onto data usage because it's the latest 'cool' thing.

To put it another way, couldn't you equally argue that data 'costs' the mobile phone companies $2-per-GB, phone calls 'cost' the mobile industry $10-per-100-minutes (or whatever), and texts 'cost' the mobile industry $5-per-100 (again, whatever value would make the sums add up)? How do you work out what the partition is between those values?
 
Various other online music stores have had this feature for years, it's ridiculous that it has not been an option for iTunes. If Apple wanted it all along I guess the music companies were to blame as part of a strategy to drive people to other music stores (certainly worked in my case...).

Assuming this is true, they just ned to up the quality to 320kbps or Lossless and I might buy actually use iTunes for music more often.
 
CommodityFetish said:
How convenient for apple that only the music you buy at the itunes store will be easily sync-able to multiple devices. :rolleyes:
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Uhm... yea. It's already on their servers along with all of your past order information which is tied to your account.

I'm not sure it would be technically possible any other way...

Unless of course you're thinking of uploading your 200GB of music to their servers and pay to have it hosted there. But even then, how would Apple (more importantly, copyright holders) know that you legitimately own it?
 
zorinlynx said:
So the labels are the reason we can't redownload? I always figured it was stupid Apple policy.
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nope. The labels. They don't want multiple downloads out of fear that it will bring back pirating.

And frankly I don't see them conceding on this. The best we will likely get is streaming iTunes purchased songs from the stores web interface. Which for many will be good enough. With perhaps the return of the LaLa ten cent streaming only option


mrrory said:
What has Lala brought to applethat it didn't already have with QuickTime? Was it a case of buying it up to stop the competition?
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Potentially a lot including:
Substructure for Ping, user playlists, uploading an iTunes library tagging entries not a central library, one time full play. All things Apple would have had to license from LaLa.

Vegasman said:
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.
Click to expand...

It is the same thing with iTunes.

And not the thing being talked about. The thread is about how if you lose the file right now you have to pay again
 
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Great… except that just means the only way to access those media would be to buy them from Apple.
 
Wow, I'd always assumed this was already in place, like apps.

This one time I rebought a song from my iPhone that I'd bought from my computer earlier that day, because I'd forgotten to sync and wanted to listen to it.

When I got charged twice for it, I emailed Apple and they apologised "for our mistake" and refunded me a song credit.
 
Popeye206 said:
Sounds like an awesome value add for iDevice users...

This is where Apple is going to really compete with other solutions... it's the whole eco system that makes it almost impossible for others to catch up. Can't imagine how Samsung could offer such a wide range of services. Of course, Google will be trying to copy, but it's going to take time.
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I'm sorry..Windows Live already offers what MobileMe offers for free. Add on 25GB of space. Impossible for others to catch up? They're already there, Apple is behind.

Great for Itunes to offer to fetch a back up for your downloads, of which you could already have up on a cloud, such as SkyDrive or Drop Box anyway.

Apple kool aid everyone.
 
Porco said:
Various other online music stores have had this feature for years, it's ridiculous that it has not been an option for iTunes. If Apple wanted it all along I guess the music companies were to blame as part of a strategy to drive people to other music stores (certainly worked in my case...).

Assuming this is true, they just ned to up the quality to 320kbps or Lossless and I might buy actually use iTunes for music more often.
Click to expand...

Which involves coming to a new agreement with the labels as well...
 
Wow you mean to tell me all these years ppl were only allowed to download songs they PAID FOR once? Lucky I never got into that.
 
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