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Apple Pushing Record Labels for More Exclusive Beyonce-Like iTunes Albums

Nevaborn said:
I will always buy over streaming. If Apple get 7 day exclusives then good for them. About time Apple joined the exclusivity game, it sucks but as every other company does it Apple and it's customers have been losing out
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I don't mind a 7 day delay for public release of an Album, but I think total exclusivity would suck.
 
Modernize

Apple should be focused on fixing the UI, Modernizing iTunes, killing bugs and for god's sake make it more compatible with your own damn AppleTV.

Does iTunes LP even work on the iPhone? I know they have the digital booklets for years, but for the life of me I've never been able to figure out how to actually use it - other than opening it up in Acrobat.

I'm too the point where I'm ready to switch to Google Music. iTunes constantly freezes, I can rarely sync my damn phone/iPad and it just randomly decides to delete my music and refuses to re-sync it unless I delete the playlist and force it to - even though I have it set to NEVER free up space.


iTunes 11 is just a massive fail. Just really disappointed in Apple lately. Even though I don't like Win 8, I'm Ready to switch back to Windows.
 
sshambles said:
I don't speak for many, a huge music lover and I own a lot of vinyl. I love the fact I can OWN music. Subscription based music only interests me in the way of finding new music, but I won't subscribe to it, so iTunes Radio has helped keep up with others.

Exclusivity is fine by me. People will acquire it however they want anyways. :apple:
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As much as I prefer having MP3's instead of streaming, we OWN our vinyls a lot more than we OWN anything from iTunes.
 
Apple trying to keep iTunes remaining relevant in a world of on-demand streaming.

For a service like the iTMS, it's so important not to turn into a relic of the music industry like those before them.
 
redfirebird08 said:
I don't like the idea of one company having so much control over anything. Monopolies hurt the consumer.
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I do. If they're done for the right reason.

Apple is definitely the best (by far) in the market of what they do. Personally I believe we're all different with different abilities and talents. If we all compete with each other we'll keep fighting each other and run in circles instead of supporting each other in every aspect we possibly can. This would catapult us to the future, technologically and interpersonally. And Apple is the first company to completely focus on what the consumer really desires.

I promise you this will be the next global development, its inevitable ;) :apple:
 
petsounds said:
"We"? Who is we? People who don't want to pay for music? Because most music artists are suffering under this Spotify era. You think Beyonce did her iTunes exclusive just to be different? I just talked to the singer of a mid-level indie band today who is planning to do exactly what Apple wants with their next album. Not because of pressure from Apple, but because since they started releasing their albums on Spotify the same day as digital stores their album revenue has dropped tenfold. Their next album will have a period of exclusivity on digital stores before going to Spotify.
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I love my Spotify and would be willing to pay more than $10/mo if necessary to keep it alive and the most current music on it. That said, the Beyoncé exclusive on iTunes was a huge success so I won't be surprised to see other artists do it.
 
yes and no

SeaFox said:
It would help a lot if Apple would drop the iTunes-required storefront and allow people to buy/download tracks through any web browser like Amazon. With iTunes Plus being DRM-free and AppleID's now universal across all Apple service/websites there is zero reason to require people use Apple's iTunes software to access the store. This would also open up the store to potential customers who use Linux-based OSes.
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I agree that the store ought to be open now that there's no DRM.

But that's not the same as having iTunes go away. Although I do dislike parts of it (unrelated to this point), the buying experience is a lot better than I get from Amazon.
 
Maybe it is because they think Beyonce's hypersexualized image makes her is such a good role model for young girls that they think we should have more like her. :mad:
 
Every time I see Apple doing things like this is always reminds me of their BIG advert:

http://youtu.be/OYecfV3ubP8

And how they are doing all the can to become the very thing they themselves fought against. The only difference being now the shoe is on the other foot and they are the ones trying to control things.

It's funny how a company can so desperatly be trying to become the very thing they hated
 
You don't need it use itunes program at all.
The iTunes store, sure...which is better than all the alternatives by far...so not sure what your problem is unless you pirate evrything.

Also, streaming is useless. Pay $15 a month and you get nothing, even if you don't use. Unless you're buying albums every month(considering how horrible music is these days, can't be possible), I don see how streaming is even close to being better. Be like Netflix? Pay a monthly fee for b movies and year old tv shows? Wow, great. I have to cancel Netflix continually since most of their content is awful.

Basically the people complaining about iTunes are just people who want everything cheap an don't want to pay for anything because they are greedy and just want to suck companies dry for another dollar in their pocket.

wikiverse said:
'Like no other' is a trademark of the Sony corporation.

Anyway, iTunes is horrible. I have deleted it off every mac I own and avoided purchasing an iPhone until it could be used independently of iTunes.

Also, if I were a label exec, I would give them exclusives but I would expect a higher percentage of profits and an upfront exclusivity fee and a minimum amount of marketing penetration from apple. Exclusivity deals lock a label into only one revenue stream for their content, so the deal must be more financially rewarding than selling the music to every other platform.
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This is rubbish.

Apple should be embracing streaming rather than making backroom deals which undermine the format that the consumer prefers. Expand iTunes Radio!

While they're at it, they could negotiate lower movie prices. I could buy a month of Netflix and have change for the price of one movie from iTunes (or 2 rentals). This is why movie piracy is so rampant; lots of the films can be bought on physical media for like half the price of iTunes' version.

iTunes:
Sound of Music (HD): £8.99 / Cannot rent
To Catch a Thief (HD): £9.99 / £3.49 rental
Fantasia 2000 (HD): £13.99 / £3.49 rental

Netflix:
1 month subscription: £5.29
 
tevion5 said:
As much as I prefer having MP3's instead of streaming, we OWN our vinyls a lot more than we OWN anything from iTunes.
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But the music on iTunes doesn't have any DRM. You can make as many copies as you want, give it to as many people as you want, listen on any device (that can play AAC) that you want... even convert it to another format and play it on any device at all. How is that not the same as owning a vinyl? (the music on iTunes is a lot easier to take with you and listen anywhere you want without having to re-record it in another format)
 
swingerofbirch said:
iTunes feels like more of a dinosaur than AOL did by the early 2000s. AOL at least tried to keep up with the times for a while.

Apple's problem with services is rooted in the way they approach products in general. It takes Apple an enormous amount of time and resources to come out with a product. When they finally come out with it, it's well-polished. But it never really changes after that. Apple lets the product waste away, and eventually it's supplanted by something else. With iTunes you can see that Apple has tried to make updates, but those updates have turned iTunes into a mess, and the core iTunes Store experience hasn't changed. I would say it's gotten worse. Searching is incredibly unwieldy across apps, books, and music, and can't compete with the convenience of streaming unlimited content. Apple has never gotten Internet services. They've shuttered all the online services they've ever created except for iTunes. They didn't improve .Mac; they shut it down. They didn't improve MobileMe; they shut it down. They had to send out OS update discs just to get people to migrate their e-mail to iCloud. Who else has an e-mail service that is reliant on a particular OS?

It seems like iTunes is a chore to them and has been barely kept alive in order to remain compatible with all the devices they sell. If Windows is Microsoft's legacy product it has to maintain for past compatibility, Apple's equivalent is iTunes. But the original iTunes and original iTunes Store were both amazing. It just seems that Apple can't do things well until they scrap something and start over.
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Apple's products haven't changed much over time? The Mac has changed tremendously since 1984 and so has the iPod, even if the the classic is still available. The iPod touch was sure a heck of a change from the classic. iPhones and iPads are relatively new, but I would expect them to change significantly over time as well.

The Mac OS has also changed significantly. Remember System 7.5, the disastrous (in my opinion) Systems 8 & 9, and then then the brilliant move of launching Mac OS X with its UNIX roots? Lots of changes there!

I agree that Apple's online services haven't been stellar, but they have evolved as well. .Mac, MobileMe, and iCloud are all part of the same evolution. One you didn't mention... eWorld! LOL

All that said, Apple has been wildly successful with iTunes. It is a cash cow, pushes hardware sales, and I don't see why they would want to change much at this point. Maybe search and discovery could be a bit better, but I think it works as advertised just fine.
 
I personally think Apple is dangling the prospect of album exclusives released in the Apple Lossless audio compression format.

Before you dismiss this idea, don't forget that Apple made the Apple Lossless format an open format using the Apache license model at the end of October 2011, so anyone with a portable music player could incorporate Apple Lossless support. Besides, with the gigantic number of Apple portable devices out there (iPhone, iPad and new model iPods) that directly decode the Apple Lossless format, that means there is a huge market out there for music albums in this format.
 
I approve of this. I'd love for people to have to buy whole albums again, as they tell a story and form a cohesive whole. And you get the artwork and other goodies too (granted not with digital releases, aside from PDFs and perhaps some exclusive 'making-of' video footage that'll only get uploaded to YouTube by someone anyway).

I am of the opinion that streaming services essentially pay you (little) to advertise all your work in order to get more people to come and see your gigs. We've been covering this in my music course at uni just last Thursday, actually.
 
Why not start selling better quality HD music to differentiate iTunes downloads from the streaming services. We've been asking for it for long enough and it might just encourage those of us who still buy music to buy more from iTunes.

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swingerofbirch said:
Searching is incredibly unwieldy across apps, books, and music, and can't compete with the convenience of streaming unlimited content.
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The iTunes search facility seems to get worse with every new version. It's just about impossible to find anything now unless you know exactly what you're looking for. iTunes has more holes than a swiss cheese. It's time they ditched it and started again with a new application.
 
Apple would be better served figuring out how to give us better access to music through their subscription. Exclusive access to music is only a short term solution.
 
SeaFox said:
It would help a lot if Apple would drop the iTunes-required storefront and allow people to buy/download tracks through any web browser like Amazon. With iTunes Plus being DRM-free and AppleID's now universal across all Apple service/websites there is zero reason to require people use Apple's iTunes software to access the store. This would also open up the store to potential customers who use Linux-based OSes.
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You don't have to use iTunes Store for content. I use Amazon a lot on my computer to purchase digital music because often times I'm able to find it cheaper there. The Amazon Downloader tool then imports the music directly into my iTunes media folder on my desktop so I can then sync it to my iPhone when I plug it in. It's been like this for a long time.
 
Apple would rekindle my interest in the iTunes Music Store if they changed it to work more like Bandcamp, including full-length track previews and the availability of lossless downloads at no additional cost.
 
Beyoncé is one of the few who could generate that many sales through iTunes for being exclusive for only a few days.

Most artists would most likely not see much good come of being exclusive in this way...
 
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