Featuring black text on a white background, BuyMusic.com’s TV ads read, “Music Downloads For the Rest of Us” (click to see the significance of their use of this particular phrase) and feature “regular” people singing songs on a white background while listening to cheap iPod wannabe players. If not for the direct copies of the original iMac a few years ago (and Windows GUI itself), this would qualify as the most blatant direct copy of an Apple concept. Certainly, BuyMusic.com’s TV spots are almost perfect copies of Apple’s iTunes Music Store’s ads.
Sadly, if history is any guide, these ads will work perfectly; making Windows users believe they have access to the exact same thing Apple users have with the iTunes Music Store.
Windows Media Player 9 Series is required to view the BuyMusic.com ads, as it is required to buy the songs. See the ads “Rapper’s Delight” and “Superfreak.”
For reference, the original Apple iTunes Music Store ads are here. You can make the call for yourself.
Additionally, BuyMusic.com has an ad featuring Tommy Lee destroying a guitar (that looks just like the one prominently featured on AppleMusic.com); supposedly this extols the virtues of this “wannabe iTunes Music Store” knock-off music download service while taking a backhanded stab at Apple’s iTMS in the process.
Related articles from MacDailyNews:
“BuyMusic.com launches; founder says Steve Jobs ‘a visionary, but he’s on the wrong platform'”
“BuyMusic.com not compatible with Apple iPod; founder expects to sell 1 million songs per day”
I had no idea that competition is forbidden..
competitions allowed…but when it makes people mistake one product for another then its not allowed.
I hope apple legal takes care of this nonsense jeez.
We’re looking into this, rest assured.
Nobody has any problem with competition…but when you blatantly copy every aspect of someone else’s product, all the way down to the TV ads, that’s pretty pathetic. I guess though that imitation (total imitation in this case) is the most sincere form of flattery. If so, then BuyMusic is flattering Apple quite a bit today. But c’mon now…does anyone in the Wintel world have one solitary ounce of originality and innovation at all? Anyone???
To quote SteveJack:
“Apple leads. Wintel follows. As usual.”
Wow…there’s competition and then there’s direct theft and copyright violations. You can almost smell the smoke from the cease and desist orders flying out at hyperspeed.
I sure hope they sue! This is the most ridiculous and obvious rip-off I’ve ever seen!
Heh, Buy.com seems to be taking the Gateway route: knock Apple, then blatanlty copy them, hoping they don’t sue. I doubt it will work any better for Buy.com than it has for Gateway…
Three differences ‘twixt iTMS and buymusic.com that I noted in a quicky look over the new contender’s site:
1. bm.com advertises things that are only indirectly related to purchasing music (Tommy Lee t-shirts!) at you on the side of its main page. Thanks, Apple, for not doing this to us. There’s something to be said for not grubbing for every penny you can get your hands on, and in this case it’s nice to have the cleaner, more to-the-point interface.
2. When I clicked on the album cover for ‘Hold Me Down’ (I just *love* Tommy Lee!) to go to the information page about that song, the site couldn’t seem to find the image to put on the page, so there’s a little question mark instead. When I click on the ‘larger image’ link I got a window with nothing at all. Happened with every other one I clicked on, too. Jeez…you’d think they could at least get the links to work….wouldn’t you?
3. Ease of use: I didn’t use this thing-I’m not fond of installing MS software on my machine, so I wouldn’t be able to play the music-but I did note there’s a video you can download that explains how to download music to your computer; another for ‘Transferring to your Media Player.’ Doesn’t seem to bode well for folks being able to use this thing easily.
So…I’ve come up with their defense against Apple’s presumed lawsuit: the crucial difference between iTMS and this one is, that iTMS *works*.
I have purchased a variety of products from Buy.com in the past. Never again. Under no circumstances will Buy.com receive even one penny from me in the future.
Those commercials are embarrassing rip-offs.
I wouldn’t worry about this service. It’s simply not as good or well thought out as Apple’s solution. Feel lucky, if you must feel anything about these types of things, that you’re on a Mac and if you have an iPod that you’ll be having a better experience than others using this service. And, just because the songs are cheaper just means that BM is willing to take less profit which is reflected by their initial product’s offerring.
Let’s see how long it takes Apple Legal to get a temporary restraining order for trademark and trade dress infringement. (It’s trademark, not copyright, that will do these suckers in.) Buy.com, from the sounds of it, is deliberately attempting to create confusion in the marketplace, and parody is not a defense to trademark infringement. I’d bet within a week those ads will be pulled by court order.
Hey Apple geeks….get lives!!!
the more music sites, the better. stop crying because the pc sales have FAR SURPASSED your lame macs. get over it and go watch the Matrix for the 50th time
Where is my freaking iPod 1.3 updater for Windows?
Main problem is that its cheper. How does Buy expect to make any money off this? Selling CDRs? Give me a break? Don’t you love competition? I really like Buy.com, and they have good prices, a nice website, easy checkout and you actually get your stuff. I think they’re great. But this BuyMusic.com is sad. Its like the people in charge of Buy have some personal feelings against Apple or something. Ah well, soon it can be Amazon, Buy and whomever else competeing on the Windows side causing mass confusion, and we’ll be sitting here with our one click high quality music downloads in happy little mac land.
First of all, congratulations to Buy.com for throwing this together so quickly. Of course, it’s easier to develop marketing when you take a strike at the competition by copying their commercials! Regardless, the buymusic.com sight is lame at best. I messed with it for a while and watched their videos. As a dual-platform user, I see no reason to even visit that site with my Windoze machine–it’s just not as elegant or user friendly as Apple’s iTunes Music Store. After watching the movies on how to transfer songs to my player, I laughed and thought I would never use this because it’s so cumbersome.
But, then again, people seem to keep banging their heads against the wall, using the most complex solution, rather than the elegant Mac solution. Go figure.
The other thing that alarms me is that Tommy Lee is a Mac user! I recently watched a VH-1 special on Tommy Lee and he carries a PowerBook Ti G4. I guess he’s gotten desperate for some media attention, now that his career is not what it once was.
All in all, Apple needs to hurry up with that Windows version of iTMS. Just inherent to the it’s design, it will always work better on a Mac anyway!
How can they offer music downloads at 70 cents? Easy… it’s subsidized.
Let’s see who could afford to lose a lot of money to push an inferior standard…Hmmm, begins with “M”…
Ummm…the music downloads on BuyMusic.com are not cheaper than iTMS! If you browse around any on their site you’ll see that their prices START at 79 cents, but that seems to be only for select Indie artists. The rest are 99 cents each (or more). Plus with the excessively strict and non uniform DRM used throughout, it’s hardly a better deal at all for anyone. Not to mention the lack of iPod support (which is #1 in market share by a mile in the portable music/mp3 player market)…
It obviously look like Buy.com can’t come up with an original ad campaign if there life depended on it. So, they have to copy Apple’s ad campaign for ITMS.
Sad……very sad.
PLEASE READ THE ARS TECHNICA.com REVIEW OF BUY.COM!! you’re not ‘buying’ anything!!!!! It’s all a sublicense TO THE COMPUTER.
iTunes, it’s not. Spread the word before hapless millions lose their souls!
Read this quote from Scott Blum. It was on the New York Times Website:
“BuyMusic.com’s infrastructure also relies heavily on Microsoft’s .Net technology, the software needed to run Web applications written with Microsoft’s development tools.
“When you get to the site, it is going to be painfully obvious that we have a partnership with Microsoft in regards to the way we built the site and run the site,” Blum said.
People trying to access the BuyMusic.com site through rival browsers to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer–including Opera, Mozilla, Netscape or Apple’s Safari–currently receive an error message.”
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I think that pretty much sums up the whole thing! This is Microsoft at it’s best…Working behind the scenes to take over an emerging market!
Even as an avid windows user, I’m so flat out ashamed of that blatant copying… Come on, Apple… bring Applemusic to windows soon… please!
Two parts – a) anybody who shows up at the site is going to be mad that all the promises are lies – that it’s the same old same old with a new name – remember that 90% of the music downloaders are also tech-savvy enough to buy downloaded music can clearly see through this – why did iTMS managed to outsell every other DL store combined in 6 months even though the others been in business for years? It’s clearly better.
This will merely just be another nail in the PC coffin – people will see that PC/MS just promises the moon but delivers a badly printed picture of the moon. This travesty will reflect badly on PC’s again.
And so what if they rip off the ads. People who actually go to the site will know they’ve been cheated, the rest of the people will just think it’s an Apple ad.
So, I think it’s a good thing – in one of the interviews, the guy claims he’s going to spend $125 million marketing tis thing so when it collapses in 3 months (when iTMS PC comes out), maybe it’ll be the last we hear of this idiot with clearly too much money.
“This will merely just be another nail in the PC coffin – people will see that PC/MS just promises the moon but delivers a badly printed picture of the moon. This travesty will reflect badly on PC’s again.”
How many nails does it take before it begins to kill it? Infinite? Windows PC users don’t know any better, that’s why they use Windows PCs. No amount of disappointment and frustration seems to be able to stop them from calling Dell every 18 months.
I don’t see any similarities.