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New iPods and New Music Service?

Here's an idea: what about having three levels of music sales? For $.99, you can download a song, for $1.99, you can download an AIFF song, and for $4.99 and $9.99 (MP3 and AIFF respectively), you can download an album, with PDF's of the liner notes and the artwork (available separately for $.25), properly formatted so you print it and stick it in a blank jewel case, and stick the disc art on a burned CD-R if you have a CD label printer. Even if you didn't most of the art actually on the CD itself is crap nowadays anyway, if there is any at all. The good art is in the jewel case. This could definitely work, especially if Apple has a huge selection, and works directly with the artists, and not the record companies.

As an aside. AudioGalaxy is back, but only free until March 7. The catch - you have to have a PC. No Mac support. :mad:
 
Awesome.

This is a great idea for APPLE. Sure there are other sites that you can pay a monthly charge for, but what those site don't have is a great product, like the iPod to have synergy with. There are supposed "iPod killers" coming soon and for Apple to stay on top, they need to pave the way for something truly unique. I think APPLE can pull it off. I don't know, but is this the only OS company (Apple) that would try to create such a service?

I would only think that this would up bring the iPod to a higher status.
 
Apple is actually working on a DRM system for MPEG4 and AAC.

Originally posted by iGod
But how could they possibly control the proliferation of these songs?
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Didn't you read Apple is busy with implementing a DRM system into MPEG4? I'm sure you heard about the audio component of MPEG4, called AAC, and surely the DRM system will also be applied to it?!...
 
Paying for MP3 Music

From a Forbes article regarding AOL's proposed music service:


" AOL Says: Rock On
The Internet giant offers a music service for a price. But, dude, can't we get that now, like, for free?"


Actually, though, I wouldn't mind paying a buck/tune if it was a versatile and quality cut. I wonder if Apple and AOl are related at all in this venture.

<edit>--------------------------------------
Here's more from the Forbes.com (Dan Ackman, Feb. 26) article :

"Users will not be permitted to create permanent copies of the songs unless they pay $18 a month. At that price, users will be allowed to "burn" ten songs onto a CD. That's more than a prepackaged CD costs in a store, but on MusicNet the advantage will presumably be the ability to create a CD composed of only the songs users want to hear most. AOL also said that it would soon offer all users the ability to buy songs for copying for less than $1 each."
 
Re: Payimg for MP3 Music

Originally posted by Squire
Actually, though, I wouldn't mind paying a buck/tune if it was a versatile and quality cut.
Click to expand...

I think a buck is too expensive for a 128kbps file (which is what it'll have to be to keep dl times down). 50 cents I could see. Otherwise, the rough cost comes out to $18-20 a disc (assuming that's the amount you can fit on a audio CD) or $130-150 for a mp3 disc.

The record companies need to offer a format that is totally exclusive to them that trumps mp3 quality. Take vinyl albums. Vinyl albums sound better than CDs due to the insane amount of compression that occurs before the CD is put together by the record companies. If there was a way to take the pre-compressed file and make it sound better with a unique file format that the record companies exclusively own, and charged 50 cents per track for it, who wouldn't want to dump P2P?
 
Originally posted by hitman
So why don't you just buy the CD yourself and rip them to what ever bitrate you want?

The cost you will spend for the download for an entire album is roughly equal to the price of a new CD.
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Correct. Assuming of course both that you want to buy a full CD from that particular artist and that the CD is available in stores, buying the full CD would be cheaper.

Problem is, most people I've talked to complain about buying CDs only to discover that only the 1-2 "radio play" songs were worth their money. Right now, if a friend of yours has bought a CD and lets you know that the rest of the album is crap, the only legal way to get the 1-2 songs you like and would enjoy is to buy the whole CD yourself or hope that the artist put out a "single" and pay $7-8 for that instead.

$1 per song, in that scenario, is a steal.

Add to that the more obscure mixes that you'd need to buy a single to get if you could purchase them at all (and of course within six months those are completely unavailable), and the vast library of one-time one-hit wonders who may or may not be available on compilation CDs at some point (but compilation CDs tend to duplicate as well, and you tend to end up buying the same core set of songs multiple times just to get the more peripheral songs once).

Personally, I tend to buy CDs of artists I like, and enjoy exploring their less radio-friendly experiments ... often tending to put those "B-sides" on my mix tapes (sorry, still use that term even though I've not made an actual "tape" in three or four years ...) long after the "A-sides" get relegated to the archives of my music library. I do hope that the "album" option remains out there. However, I also have quite a few "dud" CDs that I bought knowing that the rest of the disk would be unlistenable, only for a single song, so I can sympathize with my friends who more overwhelmingly prefer single songs to albums.

$0.99 for a DRM-free MP3? I'd buy that for a dollar. I'd hope that eventually "album deals" would also be offered, including all the songs on the album plus maybe some related artwork/lyrics sheets.
 
Re: Ummm irc

Originally posted by damax452
Uhh,

Am I the only person reading this forum that uses IRC?
There are literally hundreds of thousands of mp3s from obscure stuff to the newest albums at your fingertips on IRC. This is the reason why pay-per-song sites fail. The selection on a site like this could NEVER match whats on IRC. Get with the times guys. But don't steal music. Only download songs you have a legal copy of. :D
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i think ppl want to get "their stuff" as easy as possible. i do not use irc.

i would not even know where to start :)
 
Re: Ummm irc

Originally posted by damax452
Uhh,

Am I the only person reading this forum that uses IRC?
There are literally hundreds of thousands of mp3s from obscure stuff to the newest albums at your fingertips on IRC. This is the reason why pay-per-song sites fail. The selection on a site like this could NEVER match whats on IRC. Get with the times guys. But don't steal music. Only download songs you have a legal copy of. :D
Click to expand...

How exactly does one go about learning/using IRC on a Mac?? I've always stayed away from it for fear it was too complicated to utliize.
 
I agree strongly with those that think that an easy-to-use (we're talking about Apple, right?), high-quality (with how easy it is to vary quality in iTunes I think there will be at least one or two quality options), and a good selection (plenty of room to worry here), a per-mp3 buying service could do well.

I think there are people out there who are like myself: we try to fool ourselves by saying "I'll only rip cds that I know I'll never buy" or "I won't copy cds off the internet" but inevitably we break our own morals anyway. why? Because it is fast easy and free. fast and easy could be easily replaced by an mp3-downloading service as long as the price was not reasonable. I would feel better about my music collection if I could say that half of it was legally obtained...

As for price, I get discouraged when I see ".99/song" - what about albums? if I'm downloading an album by godspeed you black emperor then that'll cost all of $3.96 (almost all of their albums are just a few very long songs) but ween would be twenty bucks - only because of the # of tracks. I'm more worried about this situation then anything else.


Also, I wish that there was some digitized version of CD art. Something that could show up in iTunes' visualizer... but that is probably a silly idea.
 
Disclaimer: I do like this idea but I'm trying to think about all the different options...

Just to put another wrinkle in this...

What if they were to offer price levels where $0.99 was the 'average cost' and also offer 'bulk plans' (a whole album for say $9.99). Single songs could range from 'free' (for bands that want to become known) to $0.25 for 'b side' songs to $1.99 for 'the hits' and up to $9.99 for a full album.

I'm just throwing this out and have no idea if these rumors are even real but somehow I think the rates listed above could be more 'sellable' to those in the recording biz.

Dave
 
Originally posted by stefman
I would pay $0.99 to download a good quality song.

Click to expand...

The problem is that you can do this now, for FREE. So there's some junk out there ... ... you can find quality MP3's for free no problem. I guess the proof is in this thread -- many of you are saying you'd pay even though there's a free alternative. I just don't think I would.
 
I have not yet signed up for .mac, but this 99 cents offer per song would get me onto .mac and make me a very happy user.
If I spend 15-18 dollars for a CD of which I really want only 2-3 titles, then this offer would equal the purchase of 5 CDs. I have a huge list of songs I would like to have but, they are typically of performers that only ever had that one noteworthy song. And if I could have a 40MB i-pod, then that would equal about 8000 songs (probably a life's worth of songs) - woooheee - sign me up.
 
If this happens, I hope there's a two-tier pricing structure, so that you'd get a discount if you buy the whole album. E.g., maybe $1 per song, or $.75 per song for the whole thing.

Maybe I'm a purist, but I believe in albums as cohesive works, and I don't like the idea of splitting them into pieces and only buying small parts. But I'd be unlikely to buy full MP3 albums at a price that is no better than buying a CD, which I could rip at any rate I choose and play in any car or stereo.
 
Those of you who pay for your mp3s in the future, please stay connected to Limewire so I can download them for free. I wont pay for music but I will pay for video. If they had a video source for $2 per movie at 640x480... I would dive in. A CD costs about $15 and usually has 15 tracks or more, why pay $1 per song when you can just buy the CD?

Dont forget to leave your system open after you get all this stuff. :D

There goes my honesty.
 
I still think we are missing something here.

What happens if you are required to purchase an iPod in order to download the music.

As was previously mentioned, the post says nothing about being able to download it to your computer, only an iPod.

Would anyone still be willing to use the service if this was a requirement?
 
Seriously, why would anyone pay to download music?

mp3's are inferior to the cd. Think about it. You would be willing to pay $1 to download a song in mp3 format. Thats about what you would pay per song on a cd. So you are paying the same amount for inferior quality.

What would be better is have the music service burn you a cd from the songs you choose and then mail it to you. Then you can make mp3's yourself.
 
A great idea, but there are some losers

I think it's a great idea, but there will be some powerful people who WILL lose mucho dinero.

As others have noted, it's doubtful that you'd ever want to hear more than 3 songs on one album produced today.

So total sales would fall dramatically ($3-$5 spent on individual songs instead of $12-$18 on an album)

I'm not sure of the cut, but I would expect revenue to the coke-snorting middlemen (record company minions, etc.) would drop through the floor under this scheme.

Which I think is a good thing, but they do have the clout to oppose the deal.

Also, I appreciate all the audiophiles on this thread. I had a college professor who at one time supported his family building custom systems.

BUT, few people will be able to perceive the difference between a 192K MP3 and the original CD.

If that level of quality or better is available for a buck, sign me up!

I find Limewire and other peer to peer systems much harder to use, and much less convenient than the old Napster
 
Originally posted by hitman
So why don't you just buy the CD yourself and rip them to what ever bitrate you want?

The cost you will spend for the download for an entire album is roughly equal to the price of a new CD.
Click to expand...

Honestly, the CDs I've bought, I really only listen to about half the tracks. So, maybe the cost will be the same for people who listen to the entire CD, but MOST really don't.

Honestly, for example, you go out and buy the newest and greatest rap CD....do you really listen to like those 5-6 tracks that are like skits? Those are just crap. Nowadays those take up like a third of the CD.

99 cents isn't that bad, but not saying that it's cheap enough for me, but maybe.
 
Some quick points...

I think this is a definite plan for Apple. Under the iTunes menu, there has always been that "Shop for iTunes Products" link that is just waiting to be used. This is a natural extension of iTunes.

The villification of the music industry as a means to justify the stealing of music is laughable. For those who are familiar with the industry, it is not so easy to make the simplistic distinctions that are being made. Ultimately, stealing music and forcing the idea that all music should be free actually hurts the small, independent artists much more than it will hurt the large corporate interests.

There is a large contingent of humanity that wants to be moral, and well-crafted services will appear that allow us to do so and to support artists at the same time. I'd use this service extensively, and can't wait for Apple to implement it.
 
Re: Piracy is the red herring.

Originally posted by kfury
I've seen a lot of comments on this thread about people being arbitrarily pass along purchased mp3s to others willy-nilly.

Duh folks, if you buy a real CD and pop it into your mac, it's going to encode them into mp3s that you could pass along just as easily.

Forget albums, and think mp3-centric for a second: If you use iTunes as your primary music repository and you want a specific new song or album, you have a few options:

* Leave your computer and go to the record store to buy it
* Buy it from amazon or other online vendor and wait for several days
* Use a p2p tool to pirate it and get it fastest
* Use a one-click service to get it legally and instantly.

No matter which route you go you have an mp3 that could be passed on to others, but right now the only way to get instant gratification is to break the law. That would change with one-click downloads of mp3s.

One-click is easier than pirating because you're sure of what you're getting. It also happens to be legal. And those who pay for mp3s are probably not those who will turn around and propogate them to the web at large. Morality begets morality.

The point is that piracy is work, going to the record store is work, and ordering from amazon and waiting is work. An instant download and micropayment system is not work, and if there's one thing that people like less than paying money, it's working.

This will succeed.
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THANK YOU
 
I was going to read the whole thread before responding, but...

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
If Ms. Love wants her songs to be traded that's great. If she's the copyright holder she can do what she wants w/them. But what about the artists that don't want their songs to be traded? It's their music and, by law, they dicate how and when their songs can be distributed and used.
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This is a MAJOR fallacy, one cooked up & continually propped up by the industry; it's based on pure bull****.

"It's their music", and that may earn them a nickel a CD in songwriter's royalties, but it gives them NO CONTROL WHATEVER - not over the recording of "their music". THE RECORDING belongs to the label, lock, stock, & barrel, and THE LABEL has total control. Virtually every cent brought in by CD sales goes directly to the label, in the form of free money. The artists (remember them?) may get a pittance, but only AFTER all production & marketing costs are charged against their "share" (this includes the 100's of 1000's of promo disks given away EACH MONTH - paid for out of the ARTIST's pocket).

The whole point of the music industry (recording variety) is to screw artists out of their creative product & turn it into free money, just like the plantation owners in the old days let the sharecroppers do all the work, while they took the product & lived high off the resulting profits; the sharcroppers on the other hand, found themselves in a never-ending spiral of poverty & debt - a legally-binding trap from which there was virtually no escape.

It really is just this straight-forward & simple: the labels are the plantations: the artists are the sharecroppers. You CAN'T screw the artists as bad as the labels do, even if you never buy another CD/tape/whatever. The reason why Love, McGuinn, etc like downloading is because THEY WANT THEIR MUSIC BACK - and the only way to get it is to eliminate music as a source of free money for the plantation-owners.
IMO it's about respect and general principle.
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I totally agree. That's why we didn't allow the plantation-owners to have the only say about whether or not it was okay for them to parasitically feed off the sweat & labor of others. That's why the label fat-cats can't be allowed to define terms like 'copyright' and 'piracy' in ways that perpetuate their ability to prey upon both artists & the listening public.

It is ABSOLUTELY about respect, and about principle; and IMO, your position demonstrates neither.

I'd gladly pay $20 per CD, if I KNEW that the artist was getting $10 of it. I WANT the artists to make money off their music - I love music all the way down into my bones, and I want the people who make the music to make LOTS of it. I want the labels to turn a profit, too (believe it or not), but I ALSO believe in the idea of honest profit from honest work.

I do NOT believe in slavery, or anything like it; I do not believe in corporate predators feeding off the brightest and most creative; I do not believe that artists are cattle, to be used for the profit & pleasure of the cattle barons.

The whole notion that 'freely-available music hurts the artists' is pure poison, and self-serving corporate propaganda of the worst sort. By that same logic, slaves are happier on the plantation - and the jews were better off in the ovens.

Lethal, this isn't about YOU, ok? So don't take it personally, please.

And this is not a justification for breaking the law; however, there IS such a thing as bad law. Bad laws unfairly hurt some, and allow others to unfairly profit, and such laws should be changed, not sanctimoniously justified!
 
Re: A great idea, but there are some losers

Try Acquisition, as it's much better than Limewire.

Originally posted by ncbill






I find Limewire and other peer to peer systems much harder to use, and much less convenient than the old Napster
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