Sony Hoping to Pull Music From iTunes Store If 'Music Unlimited' Service Succeeds

[JAT]

* my iTunes library contains my entire CD collection ripped to it too. I am not clear (in the age of DMCA and international equivalents) whether this is technically legal or not.

It is, you're ok. CD uses vastly different DRM than DVD. You are even allowed to make a digital CD copy, as long as it is personal use. (well, I'm talking USA)

What Sony is planning sounds like it would violate both US and EU antitrust laws. Decades ago, movie studios were prohibited from owning the exhibitors...how is this different? Plus, why would ANY non-Sony producer sign with Sony as a retail distributor? It would be like Apple counting on Dell to sell its products. Not a good management decision in my opinion: "Let's just sell all iMacs for cost and hand the revenue back to the shareholders."

Maybe. But they won't have a large share. There are so many IFs, it's hilarious.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

It is, you're ok. CD uses vastly different DRM than DVD. You are even allowed to make a digital CD copy, as long as it is personal use. (well, I'm talking USA)

Maybe. But they won't have a large share. There are so many IFs, it's hilarious.

Technically its legal to copy your DVD for backup. I'm not sure why Apple caters to the industry and doesn't bypass that and allow people to rip their own movies. You can buy mac the ripper or handbrake to rip your own movies for your own use.

 

[FaustsHausUK]

The average consumer out there does not realise that they can put music from sources other than iTunes on their iOS device. I have friends and family who, until I set them straight, bought music they owned on CD. They didn't get it.

So as well as setting up a service with the same range of content as iTunes, Sony will have to give these millions of iOS device owners a reason to switch and the necessary education on how to do that.

This is not something they should be worrying about right now. They should just get their content into as many legal channels as possible and hope to hell it sells.

 

[Ries]

I'm amazed how many companies are just oblivious to Apple's strategy.

iTunes doesn't make Apple money by selling 99¢ songs. It makes money by selling portable media players and iPhones. No company out there is going to successfully compete with Apple - or even make a measurable profit - simply by opening a music store.

I currently pay 16dollars/month for unlimited streaming of over 6 million songs
and there is a ipad/iphone/ipod/android application that allows offline mode of all songs you can fit on it. Legally.

 

[Kaibelf]

I know that, but the sheer volume of artists that Sony is behind, Apple should be nervous of losing them.

If Sony did this, any major artist signed with them would absolutely BURY them in a lawsuit for playing roulette with their career. Beyonce alone would bring them to their knees.

 

[0815]

"Music Unlimited" ... didn't appear on my radar yet. Oh well, if Sony thinks this is a good idea, go ahead Sony. Guess that means no more Sony music for me since I'm too lazy to shop around at different stores, I like the iTunes one stop shop.

 

[camelsnot]

Since iTunes is the largest distributor of music in any form, I'd wager that this never happens.

wanna bet? Look how many distributors pulled their vids off youtube, the world's largest distributor of video content.

I welcome the shift away from the bloated iTunes. Apple doesn't need to be that greedy. All it takes is a few large companies to pull out and we're back to negotiating. Competition is good.

 

[satcomer]

Wow Sony wants to pull their music off the most popular music store? How stupid can these music execs be?

 

[X38]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

If worst comes to worst, Apple has the cash and market value to just buy Sony and do what they want.

 

[joeldadrummer]

Records Came and went

CD's came and went.

Apple controlling the entire music business cannot last forever

Nothing lasts forever.....

 

[Rajani Isa]

Most likely, Sony wants to tie some new DRM format to Sony hardware to prop it up. Else, why bother?

Maybe this one won't incite riots nor be defeated by a sharpie.

Hey, if the music is cheaper or costs the same, and I can play it on my iDevice, what do I care. I say go for it Sony.

Well, as this guy said :

Oh God, almost forgot about that.

Does the word "rootkit" mean anything to you Mac users? *shudders*

Not only did they install a root-kit, but it was very unsecured (very easy for hackers to use it to their advantage), and the guy who found out about it first had it kill his CD-ROM drive on removal.

Technically its legal to copy your DVD for backup. I'm not sure why Apple caters to the industry and doesn't bypass that and allow people to rip their own movies. You can buy mac the ripper or handbrake to rip your own movies for your own use.

For the most part, the trick with DVDs is it's legal to possess a backup - the illegalities come when you try to MAKE the backup X.X

 

[Rajani Isa]

Someone explain to me how Sony could offer their music on their service, Amazon and other places and then to deny Apple. Seems that shouldn't be allowed. I can see how Apple could have their hands tied a bit and have to give in more, but to lose them altogether? Is that legal?

I think Apple should kick them to the curb for a few months and see how they like it.

Because there is no law that forces one to do business with another for consumer goods.

 

[Apple OC]

Sony is blowing smoke ... IMO just setting them up to blackmail more cash.

 

[batchtaster]

If Music Unlimited becomes popular it will provide a credible alternative to iTunes for music publishers, including Sony Music Entertainment, which includes Bob Dylan, Beyonce, Guy Sebastian and Delta Goodrem in its stable of artists.

''If we do [get mass take up] then does Sony Music need to provide content to iTunes?'' Mr Ephraim asked. ''Currently we do. We have to provide it to iTunes as that's the format right now.

''Publishers are being held to ransom by Apple and they are looking for other delivery systems, and we are waiting to see what the next three to five years will hold.''

If it's not going to become a Sony walled garden, and they would open it up to other music publishers (ie: their competition), then how is their ransom any different or better than Apple's? Aside from the fact that it would be them in control. You can't tell me they wouldn't have conditions on accepting their competitors' content to suit themselves.

Regardless, they flat out state that they're wanting to build a store that suits publishers rather than consumers. This from the company behind the rootkit fiasco.

wanna bet? Look how many distributors pulled their vids off youtube, the world's largest distributor of video content.

I welcome the shift away from the bloated iTunes. Apple doesn't need to be that greedy. All it takes is a few large companies to pull out and we're back to negotiating. Competition is good.

And look at how badly YouTube collapsed as a result. Competition is good, but how is Apple greedy? They haven't done anything to swallow up their competitors, except just be good at what they do. They've phased out DRM that they didn't want in the first place, they've improved song encoding quality, they've kept flexible purchase options (song or album) in the face of wailing objections of the record companies. You play make-believe that the iTunes Store is big and greedy, but they've just grown over time by DUN-Dun-dun..... being good. A company that is successful is not automatically evil/greedy. Considering the appalling history the record companies have, why wouldn't you want to side with the company that goes up against them? If the record companies are nervous, then that's good for consumers.

 

[eRondeau]

Honestly, why do they even bother? Can they do online music better & easier than Apple can? No they can't. There lies Sony's problem.

 

[cburton81]

Maybe

I think that sony can pull it off even though I never really use anything like that online.
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[Steve Mobs]

Since iTunes is the largest distributor of music in any form, I'd wager that this never happens.

This makes no sense at all. "Because iTunes is the dominant platform"? That's the same logic that said distributing music online would never be successful, and look where we are now. Furthermore, physical sales are still more than digital.

This is totally probable.

1. Major labels are control freaks, and hate being controlled by something else.
2. Major labels can gather the resources to distribute content themselves.
3. Better profit margins.

I think this is very far down the line though, because Apple's hardware (iPod) + software (iTunes) is dominating right now.

 

[JAT]

Technically its legal to copy your DVD for backup. I'm not sure why Apple caters to the industry and doesn't bypass that and allow people to rip their own movies. You can buy mac the ripper or handbrake to rip your own movies for your own use.

I believe you are incorrect. The DMCA still says you may not defeat the copy protection on any storage medium, and DVD's cp blocks copying. It was loosened up finally for schools and other fair use (as it should have been from the start), but that almost certainly doesn't include you at home. The compromise was the digital copy included with some DVDs and BDs.

I would be pretty foolish if I bought Handbrake.

But, weren't we talking about CDs?

 

[roland.g]

I'm not sure that is even close to being correct.

Actually it is just about right. The information is available in their Quarterly Earnings Reports.

Here is a common article that comes out a couple times a year about their iTS volume vs. profit.

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100225/apple-billions-of-songs-billions-of-apps-not-much-profit/

If you also examine their different revenue sources, and yearly and quarterly sales in each category, taking into consideration their revenue split on iTS an App Store, etc., many analysts have done the math. The make a killing on hardware. The more songs, movies, tv shows, apps, etc. that people buy, the more hardware they will also sell.

 

[gnasher729]

This may change soon. First, people buy fewer and fewer iPods because every phone provides a music player nowadays. Secondly, Android phones may play a "reverse" halo effect. iPhone benefited from the iPod user numbers. Now Android players may become popular because more people have Android phones than iPhones.

As usual, your desperate wish for any bad news for Apple stops you from seeing what is going on. Every iPhone is also an iPod, just under another name. The number of devices called "iPod" sold is slowly shrinking, but the number of iPods sold every number is growing and growing.

 

[dead goon]

**** iTunes (as a way of getting music)

and **** anyone who buys from it.

 

[swagi]

If Sony actually delivers a viable and lossless alternative to soso MP3s on Amazon and even more soso AACs on iTunes, they actually could have a winner there.

Hooray for competition, if we get some downloadable format, that doesn't remotely resemble the depth of a CD recording.

 

[Mapmonkey]

Sony should ask themselves do they want 100% of nothing or 70% of something.

Does show how Apple have to walk a fine line between hardware and content provison. Maybe Sony are getting some balls or just being stupid. It's an interesting study in business risk assessment

 

[SeattleMoose]

Predictable...

The "wet dream" of audio and video content owners is to stick a proboscis into your checking account and suck out a flat fee every month. That way they believe it will give them a steady cash flow, predictability, and CEOs can better plan when to purchase that new Jaguar.

In other words, a world where you and I OWN nothing and RENT everything....

Only problem is that most people want to watch/listen ONLY to their favorite stuff ANYTIME they want regardless of internet connection problems, computer HW/SW problems, cloud server problems, license problems, legal problems, etc. And I tend to revisit my favorite music, videos, and books over and over again.

I want to OWN only the stuff I like and I don't want be hit up every month for the "privilege" of having access to 99% crap and 1% worthwhile stuff. And no I don't have time or desire to listen to Indie bands like Flaming Farts, Blender Kitten, or Hemorrhoidal Babes.

 

[Howzie]

Sony Hoping to pull music from Itunes.

Instead of all the music companies fighting with each other it would be good if the general public interest was taken into consideration. Most seem to have cut their own throat without much help.