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Apple Reportedly Working on iTunes Music Subscription Service

I'm getting sick of the people saying they want to own their music. I understand your reasoning but when it comes down to subscription music, I find it far better for many more reasons than owning music. Lets put down a list.

-Unlimited amount of songs to add and remove

-More potential of discovering music by adding it, listening to the full music, and choosing to keep it.

-No storage on your device

-Access to all the music

I purchased $450 worth of music from iTunes so that comes out to 450 songs that I have in my library. I have 1000 more in my wishlist but I can't bare paying $1000 all at once. Even paying 1 by 1 would take awhile. I just want it all now!

With the subscription music I can have all 1450 of the music from my taste and add it so I can finally listen to more variety of music on my iPhone and all I have to do is pay $15-30 a month.

This seems reasonable as for paying a monthly price you get access to all music, and no storage on the device that way I can store more apps on my iPhone.
 
LouieSamman said:
I'm getting sick of the people saying they want to own their music. I understand your reasoning but when it comes down to subscription music, I find it far better for many more reasons than owning music. Lets put down a list...

With the subscription music I can have all 1450 of the music from my taste and add it so I can finally listen to more variety of music on my iPhone and all I have to do is pay $15-30 a month.

This seems reasonable as for paying a monthly price you get access to all music, and no storage on the device that way I can store more apps on my iPhone.
Click to expand...
But what do you do when they turn it off someday? Let's say you enjoy this service for two years at $15. At the end of two years, you've paid $360 to rent music.

And then, for whatever unexpected reason, Apple closes this model. You're out $360 and have no music to show for it. All gone. Evaporated into a poof of DRM. That's my concern with renting music. Nothing to show at the end of the contract/service. At least with the ZunePass (God help me), you have accumulated 240 purchased songs that you can walk away with. Something like that.
 
I've never been a fan of subsriptions service. I like to 'own' the music. I could subscription service working for people interested in listening to a wide variety of music and want to discover new stuff. I, for the most part, am content with my music taste and don't go outside that range often.
 
I read this story and it only reminds me of how much I miss lala.com.

I really enjoyed that service before Apple bought it and shut it down. Hopefully whatever Apple eventually comes up with will make me think, "Wow, this blows lala.com away!"
 
Anybody who pays for music is stupid. Anybody who rents music is even worse
 
I have not bought a single song from iTunes. But with reasonable subscription fee i would ranter rent a large library of music than own my a tiny one as i do now. :) So bring it on!
 
I better be understanding this BS correctly. Does this mean I can not buy an album or a single tracks anymore? I have no choice to pay monthly subscription now on? **** THAT! If I understood this correctly, this crap is going to drive people back to illegal downloading. I want to purchase my MP3s not subscribe so I can listen to my music.:mad::confused:
 
TsMkLg068426 said:
I better be understanding this BS correctly. Does this mean I can not buy an album or a single tracks anymore? I have no choice to pay monthly subscription now on? **** THAT! If I understood this correctly, this crap is going to drive people back to illegal downloading. I want to purchase my MP3s not subscribe so I can listen to my music.:mad::confused:
Click to expand...

You are not understanding correctly.
 
GeekLawyer said:
But what do you do when they turn it off someday? Let's say you enjoy this service for two years at $15. At the end of two years, you've paid $360 to rent music.

And then, for whatever unexpected reason, Apple closes this model. You're out $360 and have no music to show for it. All gone. Evaporated into a poof of DRM. That's my concern with renting music. Nothing to show at the end of the contract/service. At least with the ZunePass (God help me), you have accumulated 240 purchased songs that you can walk away with. Something like that.
Click to expand...

well to say first. 2 years for $360 for unlimited music seems like a good deal. By 2 years I'd have over $2,000 worth of song if it were from iTunes non-subscrition.

As for Apple closing it, I don't think that would happen at all, don't be so scared. But if it did in the near future then just look at it the same way as paying a monthly price of internet. You pay monthly and then you switch to a new internet provider but all the monthly bills you paid from your previous internet provider hasn't gone to waste because you used there service and the internet came into good use when paying.

Just switch to another streaming music service add all your music and start the monthly bills up again.

But I'm pretty positive apple won't close it down. I think I see where apple is heading. Rather than make bigger storage on the iPhone/iPod touch/iPads, they will take away music being stored on your device so that you can have more room for apps.

Also it's a way to never have to worry about backing up your music. Saving it on a external hard drive, or online drive because your music will be on the cloud. Always synced.
 
Music already bought

I like the music I have already bought on iTunes. What would happen to the music I already own? I am not sold on this idea. I explore for good rock acts and I am pretty good at finding them including supergroups. I usually look through release dates of rock albums, check out their myspace page and youtube clips if they have any. I do those things to do determine if they are worth listening to more often.
 
LouieSamman said:
I'm getting sick of the people saying they want to own their music. I understand your reasoning but when it comes down to subscription music, I find it far better for many more reasons than owning music. Lets put down a list.

-Unlimited amount of songs to add and remove

-More potential of discovering music by adding it, listening to the full music, and choosing to keep it.

-No storage on your device

-Access to all the music

I purchased $450 worth of music from iTunes so that comes out to 450 songs that I have in my library. I have 1000 more in my wishlist but I can't bare paying $1000 all at once. Even paying 1 by 1 would take awhile. I just want it all now!

With the subscription music I can have all 1450 of the music from my taste and add it so I can finally listen to more variety of music on my iPhone and all I have to do is pay $15-30 a month.

This seems reasonable as for paying a monthly price you get access to all music, and no storage on the device that way I can store more apps on my iPhone.
Click to expand...

Alright, fair enough. You like it. I honestly don't care if they offer it long as they don't get rid of selling music instead.

Why?

First of all, I'm on a tight budget, there is no way I can justify adding another monthly bill onto my monthly bills. And I don't want to be stuck not being able to listen a song just cause I don't want to pay the bill that month.

I buy maybe 2 songs a month. There is no way I can really justify paying a subscription. Sure, I might discover more songs if I am free to try around, but once again, I can't really justify that on my budget so I just slowly increase my music collection at a budget I can afford.

Plus, it's not even like I use a service that I can get for free like Pandora much (which I could discover new music that way). Why would I pay for something similar (except I have to find the music myself rather than be suggested it. I'm more likely anyways to discover new music when it's randomly foisted on me)?

Also, sorry, but yeah I do like having access to my songs no matter if I have internet coverage. Like when walking my dog or when traveling by plane or in my car or on my motorcycle. Having to rely on being able to get internet to listen to my music (which also means being stuck with having to have a device that can connect to the internet)? no thanks.

So, there are reasons people don't want a subscription service.

That being said, if they did do something like unlimited access to songs if you paid monthly with a certain amount you could download and keep, it may be something I would be interested in when I find a better job. But they'd have to have that carrot of being able to at least download a few to own every month before I'd consider it.
 
tigress666 said:
Alright, fair enough. You like it. I honestly don't care if they offer it long as they don't get rid of selling music instead.

Why?

First of all, I'm on a tight budget, there is no way I can justify adding another monthly bill onto my monthly bills. And I don't want to be stuck not being able to listen a song just cause I don't want to pay the bill that month.

I buy maybe 2 songs a month. There is no way I can really justify paying a subscription. Sure, I might discover more songs if I am free to try around, but once again, I can't really justify that on my budget so I just slowly increase my music collection at a budget I can afford.

Plus, it's not even like I use a service that I can get for free like Pandora much (which I could discover new music that way). Why would I pay for something similar (except I have to find the music myself rather than be suggested it. I'm more likely anyways to discover new music when it's randomly foisted on me)?

Also, sorry, but yeah I do like having access to my songs no matter if I have internet coverage. Like when walking my dog or when traveling by plane or in my car or on my motorcycle. Having to rely on being able to get internet to listen to my music (which also means being stuck with having to have a device that can connect to the internet)? no thanks.

So, there are reasons people don't want a subscription service.

That being said, if they did do something like unlimited access to songs if you paid monthly with a certain amount you could download and keep, it may be something I would be interested in when I find a better job. But they'd have to have that carrot of being able to at least download a few to own every month before I'd consider it.
Click to expand...

Yeah I guess it depends on the person and their income. But I believe were heading to hard drive being obsolete and cloud computing leading the way.

I love how with using the cloud you don't have to back things up. It's all saved for you on the cloud and if anything happens to your computer or iPhone you can just get another one and all your music is waiting for you in the cloud.
 
I like to have it with me. Don't care it's Apple service or not. Also it's not like there are wifi spots every 50 meters where i live.
 
As a Sppotify subscriber in the UK, I think this would be great. If I hear about a new album or artist, I can have it plauing in seconds. The only downside of Spotify is the iPhone app stability, and the selection of artists, while very good, is still missing a few big names. I hope Apple could address these issues, with it's better relationship with the industry.

They MUST have the offline playlists like Spotify though, as soon as 3G drops the streaming feature goes out of the window.


Currently, I have about ten spotify offline playlists, the app removes these songs by itself periodically, but the playlist entry remains, and they automatically re-download when I open the app, very quickie over WiFi.
 
Streethawk said:
As a Sppotify subscriber in the UK, I think this would be great. If I hear about a new album or artist, I can have it plauing in seconds. The only downside of Spotify is the iPhone app stability, and the selection of artists, while very good, is still missing a few big names. I hope Apple could address these issues, with it's better relationship with the industry.

They MUST have the offline playlists like Spotify though, as soon as 3G drops the streaming feature goes out of the window.


Currently, I have about ten spotify offline playlists, the app removes these songs by itself periodically, but the playlist entry remains, and they automatically re-download when I open the app, very quickie over WiFi.
Click to expand...

Agree - the playlists in Spotify are awesome. I doubt if Apple will be so flexible though. Knowing them they'll probably add a surcharge for downloadable playlists. If they can nickel and dime you then they will...

Renewed my Spotify subscription today. Love it!

Oh - and for those who can't get it due to country restrictions, there is a client framework called despotify that apparently allows people anywhere in the world to use the premium service.
 
I haven't read the whole thread, but what most of the "renting music is stupid"-people don't seem to understand is that - at least for me - renting music IN COMBINATION with buying music can save you a lot of money. Let's say for 15 dollars subcription fee you can listen to the whole iTunes Store catalogue on your iPod/iPhone/iPad/AppleTV. You will NEVER have to buy a CD again from which you discover immediately, after a week, a month or even a year that it was not worthy the money for you. When something new is released or you discover a new band, listen to the CD as long as you like as you have no rush at all to press the "buy" button. Only when you are ABSOLUTELY sure: "I wanna own this!", buy it. But you can take all of the time in the world to make this decision. If this saves you 1 or 2 bad CD purchased per month, you have your renting money back. (And you will have the chance to discover a lot more good artists and music as a "bonus".)

I like this.
 
OllyW said:
That's what I do now with Spotify. :)
Click to expand...

That's a good point, but unfortunately not every country has the privilege of being able to use Spotify (or a similar service). If you have access to it, I agree - this serves the same thing I described almost perfectly.
 
My Music

I am a musician and producer and I would like to chime in on this.

I am surprised that no-one has looked at it from a musicians perspective here. How, if at all, are musicians payed when you listen to their music for free?

My electronic duo, Brite Lite Brite, is not signed to a label, but my music is all over the internet for free. People listen to my songs on average about 300 times per day. While I do release free tracks occasionally, most of my music was not intended to be free. Yet you will find it on grooveshark, skreemr, hypemachine, and countless torrent and download sites. I have accepted that my art is enjoyed by many and I am not payed for it. You can find my music on iTunes but most people will just go grab the free download from one of the many sites.

I would like to be payed for what I do, without a label as the middleman. And there is a way that will work for all of us. These days, it is not all about major label artists. Many unsigned artist are making incredible music, but there is no profit in it, so no incentive to take it beyond a hobby level. It is not easy, it is incredibly time consuming, but we love it. If it were a sustainable job, believe that the overall quality of all music would go way way up. We have all accepted that music is free these days, just because we have no choice.

Consider this: if you go to grooveshark right now to listen to my song "I Just Want U 2 Myself", you will also get a Blackberry ad popup on the side. So while I am not payed for that play, Blackberry is profiting from it.

I support the idea of subscription based music service. In the future, you will be able to access the entire catalog of music, every song, any time, and play it as much as you like, for free. How is it free? Advertisers foot the bill, just like TV, and pay the artist per play. The only drawback is that there will be advertisements. If you hate the ads, pay the subscription fee. this is just like iAds in your iphone apps. You are getting some high quality apps for free because the advertisers are happy to foot the bill. As with everything, if you have to watch ads, it should be free. If you pay a subscription, there should be no ads. How much is 1 play worth? 2 cents? I have record of my songs being played at least 200,000 times online in the last 2 years, not including downloads. At 2c per play, That would amount to 40,000 dollars. Just enough to scrape by. Just enough to quit my day job, up my game, create even better music for you, which you will get to enjoy for free.

That said, my next track release will be a free download, because I'd rather give it to you than let Blackberry profit from it. And because my fans deserve it for all the support they have given.

Thanks for reading - Luke Nukem of Brite Lite Brite. http://www.britelitebrite.com/
 
lars666 said:
I haven't read the whole thread, but what most of the "renting music is stupid"-people don't seem to understand is that - at least for me - renting music IN COMBINATION with buying music can save you a lot of money. Let's say for 15 dollars subcription fee you can listen to the whole iTunes Store catalogue on your iPod/iPhone/iPad/AppleTV. You will NEVER have to buy a CD again from which you discover immediately, after a week, a month or even a year that it was not worthy the money for you. When something new is released or you discover a new band, listen to the CD as long as you like as you have no rush at all to press the "buy" button. Only when you are ABSOLUTELY sure: "I wanna own this!", buy it. But you can take all of the time in the world to make this decision. If this saves you 1 or 2 bad CD purchased per month, you have your renting money back. (And you will have the chance to discover a lot more good artists and music as a "bonus".)

I like this.
Click to expand...

It's enough for me to listen 30 sec demos on iTunes to see if music is good. Anyway i'm old fashioned mostly i like old music - Kansas, Bad Company, Foreigner, Blue Oyster Cult and such.

So of course there will be people that will like paying 15 bucks a month for the ability to listen to big library of music. I personally spend ~200 on music iTunes or if it's not on iTunes i buy CD disks.
 
Žalgiris said:
It's enough for me to listen 30 sec demos on iTunes to see if music is good.
Click to expand...

That isn't enough for me to prevent me from wrong buys - often the 30 seconds are okay for me, too, but also a lot of times, I can be disappointed or, the other way round, miss a good song because only 30 seconds didn't show me its potential.
 
macsaregoodmkay said:
I am a musician and producer and I would like to chime in on this.

I am surprised that no-one has looked at it from a musicians perspective here. How, if at all, are musicians payed when you listen to their music for free?
Click to expand...

It's not free. It's either paid for by the user or by advertisers.

macsaregoodmkay said:
Consider this: if you go to grooveshark right now to listen to my song "I Just Want U 2 Myself", you will also get a Blackberry ad popup on the side. So while I am not payed for that play, Blackberry is profiting from it.
Click to expand...

I don't know what Grooveshark has to do with this. It's a mostly illegal service that gives the legitimate services bad reputation. They don't have license to provide the large majority of content that they do, but Spotify and and an iTunes streaming option obviously will.

And obviously it's not really RIM that profits from it, but rather the scumbags behind Grooveshark.
 
Rent Boy - Rent Music

Another monthly charge. Cell Phone, Internet, Cable, Cable AND HULU?
Now music. I will gladly pay for music, but rent it?

BS, IMO
 
Streethawk said:
As a Sppotify subscriber in the UK, I think this would be great. If I hear about a new album or artist, I can have it plauing in seconds. The only downside of Spotify is the iPhone app stability, and the selection of artists, while very good, is still missing a few big names. I hope Apple could address these issues, with it's better relationship with the industry.

They MUST have the offline playlists like Spotify though, as soon as 3G drops the streaming feature goes out of the window.


Currently, I have about ten spotify offline playlists, the app removes these songs by itself periodically, but the playlist entry remains, and they automatically re-download when I open the app, very quickie over WiFi.
Click to expand...

So how much does all this COST!!!???
 
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