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

[ten-oak-druid]

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?

Handbrake is free. So is mac the ripper. I use it all the time for my own collection. I bought those movies. I move those movies from my DVDs to my itunes library. I watch one copy at a time. There is no theft. It is perfectly legal.

 

[charlituna]

IMHO, if Apple keeps playing hardball with everyone, eventually this will be their downfall. Everyone will eventually get sick and tired of it and pull the plug on them.

Nothing has stopped any of them from pulling out and doing their own thing, going with Amazon etc. Nothing but greed that is. They might not like Apple's rules all that much but they want that 70%

im damned sure Apple wont let an APP on the store that allows access to it, .

Why not. They allow netflix which competes with their movie rentals, kindle etc apps that compete with iBooks.

Of course they will allow the Music Unlimited app, so long as Sony includes the option to pay via iTunes accounts which will earn Apple their 70% for those signups.

I think that Apple fans (I include myself in this demographic) are largely looking at this wrong. If competitors don't continue to press Apple then we won't see as many awesome improvements in their products (like DRM free music). Competition benefits us as consumers. Let's hope Sony brings it!

Or not. Part of the reason for a lot of these changes is the pressure Apple can put on the labels because setting up their own game is too costly etc. If the labels have options then there is no pressure and consumers lose

 

[BTW]

Sony's move would be anti-competitive. Good luck with that in the courts when Apple sues you Sony.

 

[davidgrimm]

If I win the lottery I might quit my job.

I think I have about as much chance of winning the lottery as Sony has of making a music subscription service that brings them the amount of revenue that iTunes does.

Yeah, a streaming music service is not likely to be a hit anytime soon. With cellular companies wanting to limit your data usage, I don't see many people wanting to do this.

Also, no connection, no music - this won't work well in the mountains, out in the countryside, etc.

If it does take off, expect the $10 a month price to be moving higher - record companies are notorious for having stupid levels of greed. Their problem with iTunes is that Apple keeps the cap on music prices. If they had their way, you would now be paying $1.99 a song with DMRs. Apple can only do this by being a volume leader in music sales.

 

[davidgrimm]

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.

The record labels (and some of the artists) don't give a rats ass about the consumers. They're only interested in squeezing as much cash from their business as possible. Your (as a consumer) satisfaction is not anything they're concerned with. They charged more for CDs simply because they could. If Apple would let them, they would be charging $20 or more per album and $1.99 a song. This is one of the reasons they don't like Apple. Apple is a large enough share of the business that they can force labels to conform to Apple's pricing model.

I applaud Apple for this. I like music and really feel that its already overpriced. It takes these artists only 3 days and maybe $100,000 or so to record a album worth of music and they expect to sell it for $10 a copy. We're talking 45 minutes of entertainment. Conversely a movie takes months to make and costs tens of millions, yet it sells digitally for $15 a copy and is 90 minutes long. There is so much more cash in music these days.

 

[entropys]

The "viable alternative" was Lala.com.

That gaping hole that it left when Apple bought them still isn't even remotely filled, over a year later. I have honestly only made 2 music purchases since Lala.com was shuttered, and one of those was direct-to-consumer deluxe package-type CDs from artists I actually KNOW in the real world.

The other was an AmazonMP3 album I never re-bought on CD that was on sale a couple months ago for $5.

Lala.com could have been tweaked slightly and been massively profitable. They spent 2 years doing constant updates to the interface and back-end, and by the time it was sold to Apple, things were really slick and amazing. The developers were responsive and thoughtful, and the catalog was huge enough that I never rarely found something I wanted to listen to that wasn't available. Apple has done more to impact my day-to-day life in a negative way by shutting down Lala.com than any other company has in my recent memory, and I will not forgive them. I may sound like a hypocrite to be typing this on a mac with two more at home, but I will NOT spend a single penny of my money on iTunes music or movies/tv ever again, and the only reason is Lala.com and how that buy-out was treated.

I guess everything is for sale.

I think you will find that Apple bought Lala for the very reasons you liked it. And no doubt the plan was for it to form the guts of Apple's own subscription service. The flaw, as it turned out, was the agreements that Lala had with the music companies become void once it was bought out. Apple may have thought that the music companies would agree to an itunes subscription on the same terms as Lala, but we don't know.

It may come to pass one day that Apple does offer a revamped Lala (the fabled data centre is for something no?), but I believe the Sony Music and Time-Warner's of the world refused to enter a subscription agreement that they do not get to dictate the terms to, in a way that benefits the publishers and not consumers, or at the very least intolerable to Apple.

As an example, they might have demanded a cut of ipod/iphone revenue.

I doubt I would sign up to a subscription anyway.

 

[Tonepoet]

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?

You're forgetting that the U.S. Copyright Office can issue DMCA anticircumvention exemptions. The first one currently allows you to break the Content Scrambling System DRM the DVD format uses for educational purposes, documentary creation and noncommercial videos. Keep in mind that the only exceptions are the ones issued by the copyright office and if the exemption isn't renewed every three years, it expires. Until that point in time though, you're not planning on marketing or redistributing your backup copies, are you?

Anyway it doesn't matter for music C.D.s, since DRM isn't part of the Red Book standard. That's part of what made Sony's rootkit so controversial, nobody was expecting them to break their own standard. It's also half of why I'll continue to buy all my music on CD. I dislike buying media unless I have full power over the use of my personal copy for my personal purposes.

Also for the moment, I prefer iTunes per song purchase method better than subscription services, since I'm not always listening to music. There are substantial periods of time where I don't listen to any phonorecords at all and when I do, I often listen to repeat tracks. Paying for an infinitely large library of music, 99.99% of which I won't even listen to, during an off month where I'm not really in the mood to listen to much music seems like a huge waste. I know that there are others who would benefit from such a service but that's why you need to have multiple services: to cater to multiple customer's needs.

However it probably doesn't matter much, Sony's extremely abusive mistrust of their customers makes me weary of to buying anything from them. I'm not ready to quit them cold turkey quite yet since I do like their work with consumer electronics but I might if they continue this unfortunate trend.

 

[Geckotek]

I love to point out that many people will think "yeah Sony, take down greedy Apple. All they ever want is their greedy 30% take on someone else's product/art." What those many and most people never seem to realize is that Apple's 30% take in all iTunes Music/Movie/etc. and App Store sales does is allow that part of their business to break even or slightly better. Of Apple's profits each year, not gross sales, but net profits, their profits in the iTS, ie. 30% take, is less than 3% of the company's overall profits. In other words, it is barely more than a break even. They simply operate for one goal and one goal only: to move hardware. That is what generates profit at Apple.

I don't completely disagree, but that's some fuzzy math you've done there. How can you determine the profit margin from the percentage of overall corporate profit. You're missing some key numbers...such as the overall cost of operating iTS. Without that number you're statement is completely imaginary.

And what would be in this Sony store? Just Sony artists? Why the he## would I want to mess with that? That's like going to a toilet paper store just for TP instead of going to Wal Mart where I can also get some ham. Makes no sense. But perhaps I don't fully understand all the details.

Amazon MP3 FTW!

 

[inkswamp]

IMHO, if Apple keeps playing hardball with everyone, eventually this will be their downfall. Everyone will eventually get sick and tired of it and pull the plug on them.

Apple tried playing softball with the rest of the industry. You might remember it. Some of us call it the 90s.

 

[gulliver]

Apple is starting to behave like Microsoft did 10 years ago. There won't be many friends left in the industry and the rest will switch as soon as an alternative shows up. Sad, especially since Apple always fought against Microsoft's quasi-monopoly .... and now they make the same mistakes.

 

[surferfromuk]

Apple is starting to behave like Microsoft did 10 years ago. There won't be many friends left in the industry and the rest will switch as soon as an alternative shows up. Sad, especially since Apple always fought against Microsoft's quasi-monopoly .... and now they make the same mistakes.

Apple offers a service. Sony is not forced or obligated to use it - they do because it makes Sony lots of money they wouldn't otherwise have.

No ransom demands and hostage taking is involved.

 

[crashfellow]

This isn't the best move i've ever heard of!

The benefit to iTunes is you can get music from all labels in one place. Do we really want to be in a position of 'ohh if you want this music, go to iTunes, if you want something done by sony (and let's face it, nobody really knows who releases what) go to their site.

It's annoying, and very un-user friendly.

My guess here is sony wants to charge more for singles as they want people spending their money on albums. Music companies love albums. you like one song off it? fine, pay $20 (approx).

Here's hoping one day things become simpler... my image of the future was not 5 different services all offering different things...

 

[NSXRebel]

On a side note I am very surprised that record labels actually have any big name artists or any artists for that matter, with the distribution methods such as itunes I would be cutting out the middle man all together a big artist could easily market and deliver their own content 30% for apple and 70% for yourself, invest some of that 70% into production of some CD's (if that market still exists I haven't purchased an album on CD in close to 10 years)

I don't know why more artist don't go independent, specially if you're already well known. Maybe some of these artists are just as greedy as the record companies.

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.

That's one of the biggest complaints I hear from some people that hate iTunes and/or iPods/iPhones, because they don't know any better. They think that if they an iDevice, that they HAVE to get their music from iTunes.

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.

I would never pay for a subscription to any company, even Apple. There are plenty of free streaming sources out there to chose from. AOL Radio, Pandora, iHeart Radio, etc.. No internet connection, no music. Besides, like someone else mentioned, I'm not gonna pay 99% of music I don't like/listen to. I get most of my music free from iTunes anyways, yes I said FREE. There are so many free podcasts/music available thru iTunes. A lot of electronic music podcasts, so I'm happy.

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.

From what I read, the "uninstaller" they released didn't really uninstall anything, just un/masked the files. Then another uninstaller added more files. They were sued, and had to release another uninstaller, that actually removed the unwanted files.

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.

People bad mouth and talk down Apple just to hate, without knowing all the facts.

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.

+1

 

[mfulton]

Uhmmm....

Hasn't anybody noticed that the Sony guy they're quoting in this story is Michael Ephraim, the boss of the Sony Computer Entertainment office in Australia?

Sony Computer Entertainment is basically the PlayStation division, and the Australian office is mainly responsible for local marketing and distribution.

In other words, Michael Ephraim is somebody who has absolutely no control and no influence over how SONY MUSIC does ANYTHING.