So for those of you who aren't into downloading music legally, Apple's iTunes is the leader of the pack. According to the article linked above, iTunes makes up about 82 percent of legal music downloads. To download a song from iTunes all you have to pay 99 cents per song. And since in this day and age most albums don't have more than 2 good songs, it's the way to go.
I have to admit that I really dig iTunes. If I ever want a song or get a wild hair to download a song, iTunes is where I go.
I'll give a buck for a good song, but now it seems that the recording industry is pushing Apple CEO Steve Jobs to raise prices on songs that are downloaded from iTunes. And I'll say this about Jobs, the man hit a home run with iTunes and he also smacked the recording industry in the face over this issue.
He is quoted in the article as saying that the recording industry only wants to raise the prices because they are greedy. Jobs also said that what iTunes is combatting is piracy and he's right.
Back when Napster first began a few years ago, before anyone was sued for their blatant distribution, I only had access to a dial-up internet connection and Piccu and I probably downloaded a life sentence's worth of music.
Check that, why no we did not download any music illegally. That is wrong and against the law.
Anyway, the great thing about iTunes is that it provides the music for you at a fair price and a buck for a song is a fair price for the iTunes service. All of the songs are organized and you are able to listen to them before you buy them. And unlike the illegal downloading software programs, you know that when you download a song from iTunes it's going work and be the song you downloaded. It's worth the buck just for the ease of use.
The thing that really shows the music industries greed is that when someone downloads a song from iTunes, more money is made for that download than if the song was purchased on an artists CD from a music store.
So they are just wanting to get more money for the one single they worked hard on so they can continue to release albums of 12 songs with only 2 songs worth listening to.
I guess the music industry is seeing some writing on the wall. Imagine if you were a recording artist and you decided to only release a single on iTunes. Remember when country artist Garth Brooks declared that he would no longer release his albums on cassette? He was going to make CD's only because the quality was better and they were cheaper to make.
Well, if you only released a single or album on iTunes you would cut your production costs down to nothing when it comes to printing the CD's. No printing costs for the album cover and inside notes, no CD printing, no CD jewel cases needed. It's ingenius. You let the consumer download the song and maybe even download the cover. Have them provide the blank CD and have them print out the cover art.
That's making some straight cash homey.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
SO what about this new yahoo music business? $5 a month. I think it is for unlimited downloads.
Yes, but guess what happens when you decide you don't want to pay that $5 anymore... You can't listen to the music anymore either. And I'm not sure that you can burn the music onto a CD. Therefore you had better really like your MP3 player. Assuming that it will let you put the music onto your specific player.
Napster is the same way. You are basically renting the music with Yahoo and Napster whereas the music is yours through iTunes.
iTunes files are protected files and you can burn them onto a CD as an audio track, but not as an MP3. However, the way around that is to rip it from the CD you made and convert it to an MP3. You have to convert it with the least amount of compression so the music still sounds alright, but the music is still yours.
Post a Comment