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iTunes Match: $24.99/Year, Matches Ripped Tunes, Offers Them In The Cloud
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You have some music you downloaded a couple of years ago, it was encoded with a bad codec or at a really lousy bitrate. Now you Apple lets you convert it into better files with a higher bitrate. And you only have to pay $24.99 for as much as you want. Thanks Apple!
There's no reason for them not to offer streaming at a later date. This is all big news for now. Services are upgraded and improved over time.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Are you guessing the poster's source or do you know? I acknowledge that there's lots of free content available on the Internet... like this public domain stuff apparently available at that link (though what looked like Russian writing on the home page gave me immediate pause). In my own case, I have a fair amount of "free" songs I got via Pepsi & 7/11 "free music" promotions, and I've been given a whole lot of CD's as Christmas gifts over the years. But I have the CD's and the receipts (even $0 receipts) for all that.
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Why? You still have to buy the songs; you just wouldn't have to keep local copies (on every device at least).
God only knows how Apple managed to persuade record labels to do this.
$150 -$200million
I'm just pointing out sources for free audiobooks and software.
And as I posted earlier, people with 20,000 digital songs are most likely pirates. Not all. But a crushing majority. Most people don't own 2000 albums that they have ripped, nor have they bought 2000 albums on iTunes.
No, you just need to get crappy illegal versions and have Apple upgrade them for you. No need to pay for anything else than $25.
Match only provides you with an AAC DRM Free 256-Kbps iTunes Plus (lossy) quality copy of your song. If you have lesser quality recording of the song, then this could be a good thing; however, if you rip CDs to a lossless version, then you would be getting copy that is of lesser quality. I record all my CDs using the Apple Lossless (ALAC), so the Match feature is of lesser value to me, and the same may be true for other lossless recordings (FLAC, WAV, Etc.).
Looking at the bigger market, I am sure the Match will be of greater value.
Looking at the bigger market, I am sure the Match will be of greater value.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
So Aaron, do you believe iTunes Match is a music upgrade service for $24.99 or a streaming service? Do you believe that music from any source is going to be able to be permanently replaced on local hard drives for as little as a one-time cost of $24.99 or that as soon as you stop paying, access to the non-Itunes-purchased content is going to cease?
I think it's a cheap subscription service that won't replace non-iTunes-purchased songs in any permanent way but let you listen to 256K masters while you are a "subscriber" at $24.99/yr. Others seem to believe that they are going to be able to both upgrade < 256K AAC music as well as "buy" permanent replacements for even pirated music for as little as $24.99. Where are you on this?
Edit: never mind: I see in post #259.
I think it's a cheap subscription service that won't replace non-iTunes-purchased songs in any permanent way but let you listen to 256K masters while you are a "subscriber" at $24.99/yr. Others seem to believe that they are going to be able to both upgrade < 256K AAC music as well as "buy" permanent replacements for even pirated music for as little as $24.99. Where are you on this?
Edit: never mind: I see in post #259.
I still don't know why Apple had to pay them anything. This is just a service that makes syncing easier for those who already bought the music.
It's legal to copy your own music onto several devices. In fact, here in Norway Apple was forced to remove the DRM because it was considered illegal.
First person to accurately explain how the matching service works wins a prize of immeasurable value.
It seems pretty simple to me.
1. iTunes creates a virtual library in iCloud for your Apple ID.
2. Your iTunes purchases are automatically placed in your library.
3. You subscribe to iTunes Match service and pay your $25.
4. iTunes scans a portion of every audio file in your existing library, skipping purchased music that is already in the cloud.
5. Songs where the audio matches what's already on iTunes servers are copied into your library.
6. Songs that couldn't be matched (could be any number of reasons) will be copied from your computer into your iCloud library.
7. You can now access your iCloud library from your iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, Mac or PC running iTunes.
Here's where my logical speculation comes in:
8. Your iCloud library shows up like an iTunes home sharing library would. Technically, you'd be streaming the music, but you wouldn't have to go to some external web portal to get to it.
9. iTunes home sharing already gives users the option to copy files from a shared library to another computer. This is currently not available for iOS devices. It seems likely that a "download from the cloud" option will be available for those devices in the future. It is only logical to assume that Apple will employ the same system for the user's iCloud library.
10. While it probably won't be spelled right out for you, the term DRM free was used for a reason. Once you copy those songs into your library from the cloud, they're yours. There's no way around that. There's nothing necessarily stopping someone from manually replacing the original files with the new ones if they are inclined to do so, but it will probably require you to jump through a few hoops.
Perhaps my understanding of this is too simplistic, but any other way wouldn't be likely to "Just Work". That's what Apple is going for here, ease of use and overall simplicity. The instant downloads to multiple devices feature alone blows away every other online music service. Anyone who would buy anywhere else must simply enjoy suffering.
As for the piracy issue, Steve Jobs has said it many times--you can't stop it. Trying to do so is a losing game. All you can do is develop a service that provides a better product and a better experience for the end user. That's what they're doing here. We can all get water for free if we're willing to do the work, but we usually pay for it don't we? It's the same idea.
The labels at this point had no expectation of making money from the music that was pirated over the last 15 years. It was a loss that has long been written off. This model gives them a way to recoup a little bit of revenue that they never would have seen otherwise. Additionally, it helps create a vibrant and user friendly digital music buying experience that will serve to reduce piracy in the future. Simply put, they would have been stupid to turn it down.
As for future piracy? Think about it, if you want a song and have four different devices you want to play it on are you going to:
1. Go online and find a place to steal it
2. Change the metadata and add artwork so it doesn't look like crap in your library
3. Copy/sync it to each of your other three devices one at a time
Or...
Pay Apple $1.29 and have it all done in seconds.
This is going to be a very innovative service that will surely grow and adapt as time progresses. There is nothing else out there that competes with it in a meaningful way. Apple will use this to their advantage and will continue to grow in a big way as a result of iCloud and some of the other features they're offering with both of their new OS's.
So is the iTunes match running in beta right now? What do the TOS say. Does apple have the right to supply info when the software suspects (using wave form analyzing) pirated downloaded music.
If there will be no sharing info other than artists album song info I would pay double for what they are offering. Getting rid of my crappy mp3, I for one am in. What about all my alac songs either from ripped cd's or converted from flac? Hopefully it will recognize that the bitrate is higher than 256 and leave it alone.
If there will be no sharing info other than artists album song info I would pay double for what they are offering. Getting rid of my crappy mp3, I for one am in. What about all my alac songs either from ripped cd's or converted from flac? Hopefully it will recognize that the bitrate is higher than 256 and leave it alone.
I was really skeptical about this but iTunes Match is awesome. The price is really reasonable as well. I never thought Apple would make it free.
thank you for clarifying the service as i and many others were a bit confused what we exactly get for $25
that said. i already have a play list of songs i share across my ipod, ipad, and iphone. it involves - GET THIS GUYS - a few clicks to sync that play list on each device.
Now you are telling me it's easier to pay $25 a year for something that already can be done on the fly?
i can see if i'm not around my computer on my wifi connection traveling ( I DO TRAVEL OFTEN) but it's not a compelling service. it's neat and offers some convenience but not enough for lots of people to sign up.
now if you said the entire music library was open to streaming then you have my interest.
that said. i already have a play list of songs i share across my ipod, ipad, and iphone. it involves - GET THIS GUYS - a few clicks to sync that play list on each device.
Now you are telling me it's easier to pay $25 a year for something that already can be done on the fly?
i can see if i'm not around my computer on my wifi connection traveling ( I DO TRAVEL OFTEN) but it's not a compelling service. it's neat and offers some convenience but not enough for lots of people to sign up.
now if you said the entire music library was open to streaming then you have my interest.
What do you mean, "allow people to convert pirated songs into legal songs"? Pirated music can already be copied for free onto iPads and iPhones via the usual synching. This method just makes the iDevices ready on the go, without the need to plug them into your Mac/PC.
If anything, I'm surprised Apple had to pay record companies anything. This is really just a form of wireless could-syncing to access personal music that you already paid for. Did record companies expect people to buy the same songs multiple times for each device? I mean, how much money would they really lose out on from this? Why do people think this deal is so unlikely?
Yes, if there's files you don't own legally, you get access to them too -- but you already had that, remember? And revenue from people who choose to pirate all their music is already zero, so even if this service is used by pirates -- well, now they at least pay something.
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Is that really what cloud services are for? Why did you use bad codec in a first place? You should have used Windows - plenty of god codecs. And if the codec was bad (or bitrate) will Apple be able (or want to) match your songs? We'll see.
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Originally posted by RafaelT:
This is an awesome deal for those with ripped music. I guess those rumors about Apple paying the record companies a lot of money were true.
I still don't know why Apple had to pay them anything. This is just a service that makes syncing easier for those who already bought the music.
It's legal to copy your own music onto several devices. In fact, here in Norway Apple was forced to remove the DRM because it was considered illegal.
That's Apple's way of taking out the competition, after this the labels will go after google and amazon asking for money
Originally posted by RafaelT:
This is an awesome deal for those with ripped music. I guess those rumors about Apple paying the record companies a lot of money were true.
I still don't know why Apple had to pay them anything. This is just a service that makes syncing easier for those who already bought the music.
It's legal to copy your own music onto several devices. In fact, here in Norway Apple was forced to remove the DRM because it was considered illegal.
That's Apple's way of taking out the competition, after this the labels will go after google and amazon asking for money
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)
Originally posted by twoodcc:
this will make a lot of people very happy.
Yeap. Those people at Google and Microsoft must be very happy today
I don't know why, but I knew somebody will drag microsoft into the discussion
Originally posted by twoodcc:
this will make a lot of people very happy.
Yeap. Those people at Google and Microsoft must be very happy today
I don't know why, but I knew somebody will drag microsoft into the discussion
Maybe I missed the point, but I don't see what that has to do with whether songs are streamed or downloaded.
On another subject, I'm wondering how Apple intends to deal with the metadata for the songs. For example, the online database of song/album titles makes a lot of errors in song titles, lists some double albums as two single albums, etc., and Apple is often unable to supply the correct album art. I've spent many hours cleaning up all these little issues. Would Apple sync all of my metadata, or would it just grab some generic info for the matched songs? There are still a number of unknowns about this service.