People will torrent music regardless! I know its not right but at least Apple have found a way of making some money out of it! not sure how much of that will get back to the artist/label but before Apple announced Music Match Labels/Artist where making nothing out of Torrent music!
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Little and Big Music Disagree On 'iTunes Match'
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I don't understand why iTunes Match isn't free, and why it is a YEARLY charge. I mean all it does is automatically legally purchase what you have pirated, from iTunes. That should be a ONE OFF fee, as you buy a song once on iTunes and then own it forever.
Say I have 3 songs that I pirated, then iTunes Match should say "Hey, we have these 3 songs on iTunes. Do you want to buy them? That would cost $2." And boom, from then on, I don't need iTunes match ever again, as I now don't have pirated music anymore. So why a yearly fee? Is that for people who constantly pirate music? But then what's the point of that, if you're going to buy them anyway later?
Or is the iTunes Match yearly fee small enough to compensate for the cost of all the pirated music, were someone to pay for it? Maybe this way people can just pirate music, and pay much less for it as it's a fixed fee, regardless of the quantity? But isn't that promoting piracy then?
Someone please explain!
Say I have 3 songs that I pirated, then iTunes Match should say "Hey, we have these 3 songs on iTunes. Do you want to buy them? That would cost $2." And boom, from then on, I don't need iTunes match ever again, as I now don't have pirated music anymore. So why a yearly fee? Is that for people who constantly pirate music? But then what's the point of that, if you're going to buy them anyway later?
Or is the iTunes Match yearly fee small enough to compensate for the cost of all the pirated music, were someone to pay for it? Maybe this way people can just pirate music, and pay much less for it as it's a fixed fee, regardless of the quantity? But isn't that promoting piracy then?
Someone please explain!
Apple's all about making it easy for people to buy, not hunting down pirates. This is how they're going to monetise piracy. Once you upload a pirated track on match they'll...
Allow you to promote it on Ping, advertising it as if you'd bought it to your friends and followers.
Give your friends and followers a quick option to buy that track.
(Suddenly Ping seems a really clever idea!)
Present to you more of that artist's music with quick options to buy it.
Present similar music with quick options to buy.
For people who actually have money, they may find it easier just making an impulse buy, than quitting itunes to start googling, torrenting, importing & matching. I wouldn't be surprised if the matching process wasn't a tiny bit niggly for small batches, just to make it a little easier to go the legit route.
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And if it is some sort of magical streaming method... why even mention DRM-free? You can't save streaming files anyway...
Even if you could "rip" the streams.... these are songs you already have on your computer in the first place. There's not much to gain there.
Exactly, this is the proof that it is NOT a streaming service, but a download service with unrestricted, DRM-free playback. It's right there in the keynote. I don't understand how people still think it's based off streaming...
They don't charge a one off fee, because they don't want you to think of it as 'buying' your pirated tracks. 1, because you're a pirate
and you don't like buying stuff because it's immoral or something or 2, because you're not a pirate, you already own the track on CD so 'why the hell am I paying again!'You pay yearly not for the tracks - because you could quit and still keep the files - but for the modest storage, data processing and bandwidth that you will likely use over the year. But Apple likely gives most of the money to the record companies to keep them happy.
Its not free, because legitimising stolen tracks for free devalues the product too severely. A figure of $25 puts people in mind of thinking music's worth a few bucks, which doesn't do any harm. A token fee also deters those people who just refuse to pay for anything, since they're no use to anybody.
It's very cheap because once you're in the system, Apple thinks you'll buy, or promote others to buy, much more music.
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Exactly!!! In the long run people will see that piracy actually helped music as a whole. Recording and producing music has never been easier and cheaper, so the record companies are just middle men who arent really even needed anymore. Few people know how little artists actually make off the sale of a cd when they are with a major lable. Its somewhere in the range of 8-10 cents per album. Bands like Pearl Jam and Radiohead have eliminated the need of a label and just released the music directly through Itunes and Amazon.
If you are correct, then I don't understand the point of the service at all. My iPod classic can't sync to the cloud. My iPhone is pretty much full (and that is with songs downgraded to 128 AAC) so downloading new songs on the go will never happen. My computer already has my music on it, so the cloud doesn't really help me there. The only way I would use this is if it can stream my music to my portable devices. If it can't do that, then Apple won't get my money.
The reason I think it is annual is because, when you first set up iTunes Match, it will match everything and you upload the rest, a one off like you described, but in the subsequent year you're likely to purchase or aquire some more music from somewhere other than iTunes.
It's at this point that by having already signed up to iTunes Match that you sync your new music to the cloud too.
It's quite clever of Apple though, this way would encourage you to purchase through iTunes instead.
At the moment I've got the majority of my library from non iTunes methods. The iTunes Match will be great to get them onto the cloud for me to download (or stream whichever side of the argument you're on). At this point its great value for money for me.
If this stays there after the year, then the only reason to remain paying $25 per year is to upload new purchases from outside of iTunes.
Lets say I buy 6 cds a year that cost me $10, for the ability to upload these to the cloud I have a further outlay of $25 - Total $85. However, if I pay the dearer iTunes price for the six albums, say $12 each, I don't have to pay for iTunes Match too, but they're in the cloud for me at just $72. Thus making me think that it's better to buy through iTunes as it's cheaper for me in the long run.
If you pirated those 3 songs in the first place, why would you buy them now at $2 (which seems very expensive for a track nowadays anyway, given how amazon offers them for .69).
This is obviously the biggest concern regarding iTunes Match. Everyone knew this would just make pirated versions legit and of higher quality, I doubt the music companies with which Apple has signed contracts did not know this would happen.
Also, I'm not too informed on the usefulness of this service-- it means that you can potentially download all the music you have on X to Y through iCloud. But after the year passes, can you just download that track from the iTunes store as if you had purchased it from there?
Yeah. The iPod Classic won't work because it doesn't run iOS.
I'm wondering if once all your music is in the cloud... if there is a way to remove songs from your iPhone and replace them with new songs from the cloud. That's the only way this download-only service would make sense.
You're right... people probably have more music than even a 32GB iPhone can hold.
But it's always been a balancing act. If you've got 70GB of music and only a 16GB iPhone.... you were stuck. You could only put so much music on your iPhone. Before... you had to un-sync tracks in iTunes over USB.
With iCloud, I'm hoping you can replace songs wirelessly. Hey... it's better than nothing.
I'm with you... iCloud doesn't really help you if you have more music that your device can hold at any given time.
But I just don't think Apple spent all that time at WWDC talking about iCloud music... and announced a price for it... if they secretly had a streaming service in the works too.
Who knows... maybe the Fall iPhone event will introduce iCloud Streaming. But I think that's unlikely...
Apple likes local storage... they want all your stuff synced on your devices. One benefit is you don't need a data connection to play your music.
Google and Amazon will let you put every bit of music in the cloud... but you gotta use data to hear them.
It's definitely 2 different ways to think about it...
I don't get this line of thinking at all. There seem to be four options:
1. Person buys Artist X's CD, rips it. Company NOT in iTunes Match gets that amount of money. Ripped songs uploaded to iCloud.
2. Person buys Artist X's CD, rips it. Company IN iTunes Match gets that money PLUS whatever Apple are paying them. Ripped songs matched in iCloud.
3. Person torrents Artist X's CD. Company NOT in iTunes Match gets NO money. Ripped songs uploaded to iCloud.
4. Person torrents Artist X's CD. Company IN iTunes Match gets their cut of the money Apple pays them. Ripped songs matched in iCloud.
The result of ALL options are the person has their songs available in iCloud. By opting OUT of iTunes Match, Artist X's record company ONLY makes money from the CD. If people torrent the file they get NOTHING.
Surely making SOME money from the pirates is better than making NO money from the pirates?
1. Person buys Artist X's CD, rips it. Company NOT in iTunes Match gets that amount of money. Ripped songs uploaded to iCloud.
2. Person buys Artist X's CD, rips it. Company IN iTunes Match gets that money PLUS whatever Apple are paying them. Ripped songs matched in iCloud.
3. Person torrents Artist X's CD. Company NOT in iTunes Match gets NO money. Ripped songs uploaded to iCloud.
4. Person torrents Artist X's CD. Company IN iTunes Match gets their cut of the money Apple pays them. Ripped songs matched in iCloud.
The result of ALL options are the person has their songs available in iCloud. By opting OUT of iTunes Match, Artist X's record company ONLY makes money from the CD. If people torrent the file they get NOTHING.
Surely making SOME money from the pirates is better than making NO money from the pirates?
Stream != Download
I don't fully understand how this iTunes Match thing is actually going to work and as many people here have already stated, Apple seems to be trying to misdirect us with their PR puff explanation of the iTunes in the cloud system, but maybe they aren't! The only thing they haven't told us is, what happens if you stop paying the annual fee?
The way I see it from reading the iCloud page on Apples website is that what they are going to provide is storage/backup online, definitely not a streaming service. Which kinda makes sense.
So if you have a large library of songs which you didn't buy from Apple and which wont all fit on your mobile device, then you can Match/Upload [up to 25,000] songs to iCloud and then you'd be able to download them again later from any device to which you have your iTunes account linked. I am also assuming that iOS 5 will allow you to delete songs from your device, which you can't do at the moment. Perhaps some dev will tell us if this is possible in the preview release currently in testing? Update: I've just seen that you will be able to delete songs from an iOS5 device.
So going back to what they haven't told us, I would guess that if you later decide to not pay the annual fee, then you'd find that you would no longer have access to the Matched/Uploaded songs stored in the iCloud and the failsafe backup side of iTunes in the iCloud would also be removed! However, you'd still have access to the songs you have previously downloaded from it and you'd still have access to the original songs on your local drive which you were matching/uploading from.
I don't fully understand how this iTunes Match thing is actually going to work and as many people here have already stated, Apple seems to be trying to misdirect us with their PR puff explanation of the iTunes in the cloud system, but maybe they aren't! The only thing they haven't told us is, what happens if you stop paying the annual fee?
The way I see it from reading the iCloud page on Apples website is that what they are going to provide is storage/backup online, definitely not a streaming service. Which kinda makes sense.
So if you have a large library of songs which you didn't buy from Apple and which wont all fit on your mobile device, then you can Match/Upload [up to 25,000] songs to iCloud and then you'd be able to download them again later from any device to which you have your iTunes account linked. I am also assuming that iOS 5 will allow you to delete songs from your device, which you can't do at the moment. Perhaps some dev will tell us if this is possible in the preview release currently in testing? Update: I've just seen that you will be able to delete songs from an iOS5 device.
So going back to what they haven't told us, I would guess that if you later decide to not pay the annual fee, then you'd find that you would no longer have access to the Matched/Uploaded songs stored in the iCloud and the failsafe backup side of iTunes in the iCloud would also be removed! However, you'd still have access to the songs you have previously downloaded from it and you'd still have access to the original songs on your local drive which you were matching/uploading from.
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I'm sure if the rest of the world had access to 61mbit connections they too would pirate more content... I think we're just handicapped by our speeds
Personally... this is sounding like a great service for consumers and the labels. At least they will get some revenue off of pirated and older tracks from CDs.
I don't understand why some here have such a negative attitude about the entertainment industry. You like the music... what's wrong with paying for it? You know, middle men and back office people and the artist all need to get paid. It's part of business. Just because you don't want to pay does not mean you should not pay.
For those that think everything should be free, I hope someday you work for a company that see's it's products ripped off until you get laid off because they can't afford to pay you anymore. Making revenue and profit is what being in business is all about.
I don't understand why some here have such a negative attitude about the entertainment industry. You like the music... what's wrong with paying for it? You know, middle men and back office people and the artist all need to get paid. It's part of business. Just because you don't want to pay does not mean you should not pay.
For those that think everything should be free, I hope someday you work for a company that see's it's products ripped off until you get laid off because they can't afford to pay you anymore. Making revenue and profit is what being in business is all about.
It honestly sounds like a complex version of Spotify with less features. It's cheaper, though.
With Spotify on my iPod touch I can stream or download music from their entire library regardless of whether I own the music or not. Simple to understand and more importantly: I doesn't suck.
I don't see many people using this iTunes Match. It seems more like a stepping stone towards a subscription based service similar to Spotify.
With Spotify on my iPod touch I can stream or download music from their entire library regardless of whether I own the music or not. Simple to understand and more importantly: I doesn't suck.
I don't see many people using this iTunes Match. It seems more like a stepping stone towards a subscription based service similar to Spotify.
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Not sure who iTunes for iCloud is really for. Pirates won't pay even the $24.99. They're PIRATES!!! People with legit files don't need it either. They have their songs already. It also doesn't stream any tracks. So who is going to use this service?
Lets say you spend serveral days ripping your CDs and week later your hard drive dies. And you didn't back up let, now with iCloud, you can just download all the soungs you just ripped and don't have to rerip them....
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8J2)
It's obnoxious to assume that all songs not purchased from iTunes were stolen. The only non-iTunes songs I have are those I downloaded from Amazon and those I loaded from my own CDs... all purchased by me.
It's obnoxious to assume that all songs not purchased from iTunes were stolen. The only non-iTunes songs I have are those I downloaded from Amazon and those I loaded from my own CDs... all purchased by me.
See now, I do. I also have the bulk of my collection in Apple Lossless, but I don't need that on my phone, I'd rather have more songs fit. The 128k auto-reduce mode sounds like crap, actually altering songs, so I don't use it. I'm considering making a 2nd copy in 256k for mobile use. Match sounds like it will do this for me, saving me space on my server.
You need to get over it. Every word printed on the internet is not directed personally at you.
I am an avid music listener and this would never have happened if it wasn't for illegal downloading. I go onto buy the stuff i think is great, and in many cases now going to see live shows by such artists. Without illegal downloading i would not had the money to buy all of this, and also what is the point of buying something and then realising you don't like it. You are supporting something you don't like in this case. Without illegal downloading my music taste would be so much more sparse, not bothering to go to many/any live shows, and would probably be highly linked to the the awful mainstream where music is seen as business now where nearly it all is highly generic and made to an awfully low level.
I feel very strongly on this, and the majority who illegally download would not have bought this anyway. If the music is good enough it will spread and more people will ultimately buy it as it spreads by word of mouth or over the internet. Those who think it is only "moral" to actually buy music and not illegally download music need to pause and rethink what the word "moral" means to them, and not what they are fed by the state. What i have done is ultimately caused a lot of higher quality bands to get more revenue from myself. Plus just by playing this music in my flat, many of my friends have asked what it is and have become fans themselves. It's logical that illegal downloading is not that bad for the artists, but just the record companies. And let's be honest the big record companies deserve it, for the disgustingly low quality stuff they push for the charts. The artists get as many people going to their live shows and this is where they make their money. Artists make very little money from CD sales anyway. Oh, and by the way the music i purchase is always CD form and not iTunes or Amazon downloads. I see no value in downloading from them. What difference is it to illegally downloading for the file except for the quality suffering a bit?
This is making sure more people have access to more music and is a great idea. Which means more people will hear the quality music. Live shows, the main financial source for artists, will not suffer, and will probably improve.
That's all for now.
I feel very strongly on this, and the majority who illegally download would not have bought this anyway. If the music is good enough it will spread and more people will ultimately buy it as it spreads by word of mouth or over the internet. Those who think it is only "moral" to actually buy music and not illegally download music need to pause and rethink what the word "moral" means to them, and not what they are fed by the state. What i have done is ultimately caused a lot of higher quality bands to get more revenue from myself. Plus just by playing this music in my flat, many of my friends have asked what it is and have become fans themselves. It's logical that illegal downloading is not that bad for the artists, but just the record companies. And let's be honest the big record companies deserve it, for the disgustingly low quality stuff they push for the charts. The artists get as many people going to their live shows and this is where they make their money. Artists make very little money from CD sales anyway. Oh, and by the way the music i purchase is always CD form and not iTunes or Amazon downloads. I see no value in downloading from them. What difference is it to illegally downloading for the file except for the quality suffering a bit?
This is making sure more people have access to more music and is a great idea. Which means more people will hear the quality music. Live shows, the main financial source for artists, will not suffer, and will probably improve.
That's all for now.
several days re ripping would be quicker than downloading for many out of town/city people
and it woudnt affect broadband service by going over the fair use policy
downloading lots of data is great for people on unlimited and fast broadband, but many people dont have this luxury