“Gambling on the residual affection for the Napster brand, software company Roxio bought the name as well as PressPlay, the doomed downloading service launched by Sony and Universal. Chris Gorog, a former executive at Walt Disney and now Napster chief executive, was brought in to help Roxio break into the entertainment business. ‘Now we’re in the process of writing the record industry cheques for millions of dollars, we have their attention,’ he says,” The Guardian reports.
“In the US, the download service launched by Apple last year to boost sales of its iPod music player has sold some 30m tracks at 99 cents each. It is credited by many with breaking the deadlock with record labels and making a consumer-friendly, easy-to-use download service a reality. It, too, is planning a summer European launch and the battle lines with Napster are being drawn. Apple uses its own download format: iPod owners can download songs only from iTunes. This leaves Napster in the odd position of being unable to sell music to owners of the world’s most popular digital music player,” The Guardian reports.
“‘Napster is a Windows Media Audio house designed around that digital rights management,’ Gorog says. ‘We are a believer in the technology and we believe it’s going to be, and basically is, the ubiquitous platform. Companies pushing a propriety agenda are consumer-unfriendly experiences because they’re cloistering them in an experience that they can’t leave and eliminating choice,'” The Guardian reports.
“Gorog believes pressure from iPod owners will force Apple to reconsider its stance: ‘The iPod is great if you’re happy to only shop at one record store. It’s like buying a car and finding you can only drive down one road. I think consumers, when they understand that, will be kind of pissed off,’ he says,” The Guardian reports. “Gorog points to how the brand retains enormous affection. He claims 92% of those polled in the US recognised the Napster brand and equated it with online music, compared with 27% for iTunes. ‘People still love the brand. We’ve been able to take Napster into a paid model but they still use the same adjectives to describe it – innovative, independent, cool, irreverent, renegade.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We would be remiss, after Gorog’s desperate bleatings for relevancy, if we did not point out that Napster 2.0, on February 23rd, announced they had hit the 5 million mark in online song sales. Or less than 1/10th of Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Inside Digital Media analyst Phil Leigh estimates that Apple is now selling 1.2 million songs a week, which he says would bring them to slightly more than 52 million total songs sold through the end of April. Adding Pepsi promo redemptions, Apple should be somewhere between 75 million – 100 million songs sold by April’s end. HP is due to soon begin selling all consumer PCs with iTunes, including the iTunes Music Store, preinstalled. (BTW: This means QuickTime will be installed as well on all of those HPs, as it is required for iTunes to function). Market-dominating iPod players work with the market-dominating iTunes Music Store. Not Napster.
“Napster is losing money, and top executives have left the company, including its president, chief financial officer, vice president of programming and head of corporate communications as well a key board member. On Wednesday, Roxio began laying off people at its Napster division. A Roxio spokeswoman said the company was ‘eliminating redundancies in the organization’ but declined to say how many people lost their jobs,” Dawn C. Chmielewski reported February 19th for The Mercury News. “Alex Luke, the long-time vice president of music programming, who left shortly after the service’s launch to join the rival Apple service.”
To sum up, what you are hearing emanating from Gorog’s pie hole are the sounds of Napster in its death throes.
[UPDATED, 9:55am: Used more current iTunes Music Store sales figures as per Atomic Bomb’s request.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
The Guardian: iTunes Music Store should quake in fear of Napster – March 05, 2004
Forbes: Apple’s iTunes vs. Roxio’s Napster – March 01, 2004
Microsoft tries to push WMA by propping up beleaguered Napster – February 25, 2004
Napster 2.0 announces 5 million songs sold; pales in comparison to Apple’s iTunes Music Store – February 24, 2004
Apple iTunes Music Store dominates beleaguered distant number 2 Napster – February 19, 2004
HP considered Napster deal before Apple’s iTunes; Napster ‘is losing money, top executives’ – February 19, 2004
Napster 2.0 posts US$15 million relaunch loss – February 08, 2004
Napster Exec: warns ‘stay-off the Apple platform’ to MIDEM international music market delegates – January 26, 2004
“We would be remiss, after Gorog’s desperate bleatings for relevancy, if we did not point out that Napster 2.0, on February 23rd, announced they had hit the 5 million mark in online song sales. Or less than 1/6th of Apple’s iTunes Music Store.” – MDN
1/6th? So you are using Jobs’ 30 mil figure, eh? But by February 23, iTMS had sold nearly 50 million. Don’t quote sales figures announced nearly 2 months earlier.
Gorog should be THANKING Apple for not supporting WMA in the iPod or the iTMS! If they did, Napster would have been dead weeks ago.
His comments in the interview show me that most of Napster’s customers are obviously iPod users who’re pissed that they can’t use their downloaded music on their iPods. If he were smart, he’d be negotiating with Apple to use AAC / Fairplay in Napster, instead of alienating his iPod using customers. What do you think?
“1/6th? So you are using Jobs’ 30 mil figure, eh? But by February 23, iTMS had sold nearly 50 million. Don’t quote sales figures announced nearly 2 months earlier.”
I would think that a large portion of the additional 20M was from the Pepsi iTunes giveaway. Whether you want to count those as “sold” by Apple it up to interpretation. I’m sure Apple is betting that evetually people will buy more songs than the one they get with the bottle cap. Out of curiosity, where did you get the 50M figure?
The ubiquitous nature of WMA is exactly why Napster will keep losing money. Is there anything to keep customers buying there, rather than any of the other WMA services? In the meantime, although sales of other MP3/WMA brands are picking up, the real money is flying with Apple and the iPod. If Chris Gorog thinks he has the record companies attention with his sales figures, they must be lining up like dogs to get bitch-slapped by Jobs.
My mini is just sooooo sweet.
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Updated article with more current iTMS songs sold figure. The Pepsi promo songs count as songs sold, just like “regualr” sales, since Pepsi is paying Apple per song. That’s how the promotion works.
On the Mac, we’re limited to UPLOADING to the iPod using iTunes. Windows users can also use musicmatch.
For downloading music which will work with iTunes and the iPod, we are currently limited to iTMS. That is beacuse other music stores offer music in only WMA format. If they used MP3 or AAC, iTunes would quite happily allow those songs to be uploaded to the iPod.
So although Apple aren’t and have no obligation to help the competition, they haven’t eliminated the possibility of competition.
People also have a choice to buy the CD instead, and ripping it (which I think is the sensible choice for music you plan to keep, purely for backup, artwork and sleeve notes.)
Also not the iTMS isn’t available in the UK, so all the UK iPod owners have bought them without any real expectations of legal downloads being use to populate the hard drives. If iTMS tuens up, it’s just a bonus, and if Napster don’t sell compatible songs, then the only Napster are the losers.
If Wippit get a Mac client sorted out, it will be perfectly compatible with the iPod as it uses MP3s. And Napster’s argument will be utterly blown away.
The Pepsi/iTunes songs may count as sold since they “sold” to Pepsi by Apple. However, unlike exnihilo said, a large portion of the 20 million songs songs probably won’t come from the Pepsi promotion since the bottles have been slow to get to the market place. It took three weeks to get them in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and have been reported recently as just now showing up in the LA and NY metro areas. Those songs will definitely be over and above the 1.2 million a week figures.
“He claims 92% of those polled in the US recognised the Napster brand and equated it with online music, compared with 27% for iTunes”
He must have polled from a list of names on the RIAA watch list.
Maybe instead of enabling a WMA feature on the iPod, there should be inculded within iTunes a “Convert and Import WMA as AAC”. That way, people who must use WMA will slowly be converting all those tunes to AAC, which they can put in their iTunes and iPod, thus still selling more iPods. I know there are many issues involved, so forgive me, I haven’t had my coffee yet.
I live in D/FW and started seeing the Pepsi bottles and 7-11 cups everywhere within a week after the Super Bowl. However, I do know that most other areas of the country didn’t get them in bulk until the last week or two. Either way, the bulk of the Pepsi redemptions will occur from late March thru the end of April when the promo expires. You know how people tend to wait till the last minute. Napster has already been left in the dust and by the end of April, Apple will “only” be about 70-75 million downloads ahead of them by then. Gorog is just spewing nonsense and FUD in a desperate last ditch effort to save his own ass…
“Maybe instead of enabling a WMA feature on the iPod, there should be inculded within iTunes a “Convert and Import WMA as AAC”.”
That’s the best idea I’ve heard yet. I hope Apple is listening. Put an option to convert all these different files into AAC. Problem solved.
Hywel: two things:
1) if another online music seller used AAC, iTunes would NOT happily download those songs to iPod unless they used FairPlay. To my knowledge, FairPlay is the only DRM that iTunes understands.
2) It’s like people in the UK are buying a car when they have zero roads to drive on. Tsk, tsk, tsk
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has no one ever heard of wiretap? i download music or audio articles via WMA all the time, and convert them in realtime to .aif via wiretap – just rip ’em to .mp3 – it take 8 calories of effort to make it work.
Pepsi is reporting less than 15% return on caps to date, with only 30% distribution (from [url=http://www.supplierprograms.com]http://www.supplierprograms.com)[/url] – thats only 4.5 million songs redeemed so far, and thats providing distribution isn’t stepped. probably more like 1.5 million.
“He claims 92% of those polled in the US recognised the Napster brand and equated it with online music, compared with 27% for iTunes”
No, he just quoted it out of context… the poll shows 92% equate Napster with *FREE* online music. Ask the same people if they’ve purchased music w/ Napster; bet it drops to 3%!!
WMA is as proprietary if not more than any other format, so that’s a lame statement. Just because MS licenses it to Roxio doesn’t make it an “open standard”. So old MS FUD!! And as I’ve said a hundred times, all of this is vastly dwarfed by MP3.
After buying a $400 iPod, you think I’m going to give a sh*t about which format it uses?! Get a grip, Napster-Roxio?
Napster may have more roads to drive on, but they’re all out in the middle of nowhere!!
“1) if another online music seller used AAC, iTunes would NOT happily download those songs to iPod unless they used FairPlay. To my knowledge, FairPlay is the only DRM that iTunes understands.”
That could be confusingly read. One can convert existing tunes that are MP3s or other non-protected formats to AAC for playing on iPods, and they have no DRM restrictions. I know because I share these types of songs w/ my wife’s iPod mini and it plays them w/ no problem. While online sellers will have some sort of DRM, it should be noted it is not an AAC restriction, but a DRM restriction.
This will probably be the case w/ RealNetworks, but I’d be surprised if they and Apple don’t work out an agreement. The format is the real impediment; the DRMs can easily be coded to be compatible. SO NO WMA, WORLD!!
Kenneth
1) iTunes / iPod would also work if the AAC had no DRM at all. Which is what I meant. It’s highly nlikely, I’ll admit, but it’s a possibility.
2)
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Though this thing about cars and roads isn’t a very good analogy because you can still buy CDs and rip them. The iPod is a perfectly useable device without any download music stores.
Speaking of Gorog’s metaphor, it really sucked. You buy a car to drive on roads, so having only one road would be like buying an iPod and having only one song to play (because you bought it to play songs, not shop at many different online stores).
A better metaphor: it’s like buying a computer and having only one internet. It’s like buying a car and filling it at only one gas station. It’s like buying a Big Gulp and sucking it through only one straw.
“The iPod is great if you’re happy to only shop at one record store. It’s like buying a car and finding you can only drive down one road.” – Gorog
But it’s a road with 500,000 million stops (i.e., tracks) and the journey is a heck of a lot easier than anything I have tried on Windows IMHO.
sorry that was half a million, 500,000 thousand – mea culpa.
It’s like buying a bucket and having only one water faucet.
Windows is the equivalent of capital punishment for some…
You’re still focused on downloads. There are plenty of real stores and plenty of online stores where I can (and will continue) to buy CDs. The iPod DOES NOT NEED iTMS.
“Gorog points to how the brand retains enormous affection. He claims 92% of those polled in the US recognised the Napster brand and equated it with online music, compared with 27% for iTunes. ‘People still love the brand. We’ve been able to take Napster into a paid model but they still use the same adjectives to describe it – innovative, independent, cool, irreverent, renegade.'”
Darth Gorog states that Napster is recognized by 92% of those polled. I want to see this poll, especially the number of respondents who had a favorable impression of Napster, and how many equated Napster with illegal downloads. He’s the kind of huckster who would say “99.98% of those polled have heard of Osama bin Laden; he’s in the public eye and therefore they have enormous affection for him! He’s an irreverent renegade and his brand is strong!” His brand might be strong, that doesn’t mean it’s liked. What a shill.
“He claims 92% of those polled in the US recognised the Napster brand and equated it with online music, compared with 27% for iTunes”
But 45% of that 92% only used Napster until they figured out it wasn’t free anymore. Another 35% think it’s still illegal and don’t use it at all.
Okay, I’m making those figures up. But really, sometimes name recognition isn’t a good thing.
What is going on at The Guardian? They had a couple articles attacking iTMS and cheerleading for Napster now. They even did them without any comment from Apple to balance it.
Dave H,
So, finally you get your hands on a mini? Did your friend pick it up for you?
Hywel-
AMEN! The iPod has been around a lot longer than iTMS! Have people forgotten that?
Remember when the iPod was first announced? Remember how the iTMS was introduced along with the iPod…what…no? That’s right, the iPod was introduced far before the iTMS store exsisted. I got the first gen 5GB iPod a year or so before the iTMS came out. But I already had nearly 1000 songs then. The iTMS is AN ASSET to, not a nessesity of, the iPod. The iTMS makes it more fun to have an iPod, and having an iPod makes it more fun to use the iTMS. Brilliant concept Apple! All these Napster-like services are like pancakes…exciting for the first minute, then…you’re freakin’ sick of them. They are missing the key ingredient THE iPOD! When will they get a clue? Hopefully never! Apple will continue to raise the bar higher than the rest can even imagine touching. Apple is holding candy above the head of a fat kid…when the kid jumps, Apple raises it higher.
Other considerations…
1) As reported elsewhere, the iPod operating system is capable of playing WMA files, Apple just has this turned off. If at some point Apple deams they have to turn this on to sell even more iPods, they can in a nano-second (probably have to pay Microsoft a fee though).
2) Napster and Real play up their subscription services as an advantage. Consider that Apple has been streaming stuff for years, they have all the technology they need to provide a subscription service. If at some point Apple deams that subscription services are growing, becoming popular, they can easily turn their own service on.
———-
Apple is ideally situated no matter what happens. Napster and Real are sucking air.
WMA is just as “proprietary” as AAC with FairPlay is. If the “standard” has to be one or the other, I’d argue that it’s AAC with FairPlay. The vast majority of audio files on computers today, regardless of platform, is MP3, both from those that have obtained music using KaZaa and others, and those that have simply burned their existing CD collections. If you only want to count legal downloads then it would be, hands down, AAC with Fairplay as Apple has outsold all other online stores combined. The mere fact that the majority of computers in the world (Windows boxes) can play WMA files does not mean that people are choosing to encode their music with that format. What’s more, Windows users have a choice when it comes to digital music players and online music stores. In both cases, they have clearly chosen Apple’s solutions. How, then, does one come to the conclusion that WMA is the “standard”?
I read these mac daily news forums all the time and never comment. I just wanted to say I have an old 20gb iPOD that I really like. And I have never used an online music service. I just play mp3’s on it that I rip from cd’s or have aquired illegally. And I also use it as a portable usb hard drive. I just think all the debate about the online music stuff is rediculous. AAC – WMA, they both make things difficult, so I just stay away from it all…
” 1) As reported elsewhere, the iPod operating system is capable of playing WMA files, Apple just has this turned off. If at some point Apple deams they have to turn this on to sell even more iPods, they can in a nano-second (probably have to pay Microsoft a fee though).” – George
I believe WMA is supported by the Portal Player chip, not the OS (too lazy to Google). But you are right, Apple disabled WMA when designing iPod.
Hywel is also right. Many people forget that iPod existed before iTMS and AAC. Many people still have their music library in MP3 and don’t need AAC/WMA capabilities or iTMS. iPod competed well then and there is no reason why they can’t continue competing on that field. However, the next battlefield is the next generation format and that is the reason why Apple does not support WMA, IMHO.
It’s like buying a car and finding you can only drive down one road.
Huh? Piss-poor analogy, bubba. I think it is more accurate to say that you bought a Lexus and expect the Hyundai dealership to fix it for you. Which raises the question– why do you want your Lexus to even be serviceable by a lesser brand? Why should iTunes integrate WMP?
The only conceivable benefit would be rebranding it WiMP so we could all have a good laugh.
A Roxio spokeswoman said the company was “eliminating redundancies in the organization”
What!?! You’re not supposed to hire redundancies in the first place… unless your lame.
Napster needs to stop fooling itself and look in the mirror and ask, “Are we really going to make it?”
“Huh? Piss-poor analogy, bubba. I think it is more accurate to say that you bought a Lexus and expect the Hyundai dealership to fix it for you. Which raises the question– why do you want your Lexus to even be serviceable by a lesser brand?”
Um yeah, I didn’t like the first guys analogy about one road. But it’s much more accurate then your analogy.
ndelc: Fairplay can’t be a standard. It isn’t available to anyone but Apple. Microsoft will sell WMA to anyone with the cash. It can be a standard, even if unpopular, because it’s really the only player in the field right now (as far as DRM’s go). Perhaps Helix is available too, I don’t know.
The proper metaphor format:
Its like buying a [container], and only having one [narrowly defined source to fill container].
I especially like the bucket/water metaphor. You may only have one faucet from which to draw from the community water source, but you can always go to the pond to fill the bucket. Or to your neighbor’s house. Or you can buy bottled water and pour it into your bucket.
“Companies pushing a propriety agenda are consumer-unfriendly experiences because they’re cloistering them in an experience that they can’t leave and eliminating choice”
So, offer choice then. Let customers choose to download either AAC or WMA format from your site. What? You’re only going to offer WMA… So, what you’re saying is that, by using your site, customers don’t have a choice… Um-hmm.
The road analogy is more like this…. all digital music sites and players are all talking about the same roads (music), it’s just that they all give them different names. You don’t get any more roads with Napster than with iTMS. If you like, its more like the navigation system you use to access the road, that’s all. iTMS is more of a satellite system than Napster’s folded map. Happy trippin’
Kenneth wrote: “Fairplay can’t be a standard. It isn’t available to anyone but Apple. Microsoft will sell WMA to anyone with the cash. It can be a standard, even if unpopular, because it’s really the only player in the field right now (as far as DRM’s go). Perhaps Helix is available too, I don’t know.”
We don’t know that it’s not available to anyone else. We just know that no one else is using it (unless you know something I don’t, but I’ve been searching the net for months on this and haven’t been able to come up with any info on the arrangement between VeriDisc and Apple).
I realize that any particular format has, basically, two ways of becoming a standard. One is for some type of governing body to declare it a standard, and the other is for a commonly used format to become ubiquitous, and a standard by default (like .doc). My point was, all these folks who have been so anti-iTMS in the press lately have been arguing that AAC Fairplay is bad because it’s not the “standard”, but WMA is not the standard either. Their definition of “standard” seems to be the format that the majority of the people are using. If that is their logic, I’d argue that MP3 is that “standard” format for digital audio because most digital music in existance today is encoded in that format. If you’re talking strictly legal downloads then, by their logic, AAC FairPlay should be considered the “standard” because iTMS has sold more AAC FairPlay files then all it’s competition combined has sold WMA files. It doesn’t matter how many different companies are offering AAC, or how many products incorporate it, but how many people use it. Again, this is using their logic. I understand the difference, and the fact that there isn’t an actual official standard yet. I’m just pointing out the fact that their logic is faulty and that they are all hypocrites.
RealPlayer 10 can play songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store. Any application that taps into Quicktime can since Quicktime manages the DRM – not iTunes.
To me the iPod/ AAC-Fairplay experience is more like the game console experience. You don’t cry because your PS/2 games don’t play in your XBOX do you?
Right now Apple is making a nice profit on the iPods. In the future, competition will heat up with more iPod knock-offs which will decrease Apple’s profit margins. If there is a negative trend in player market share, Apple then may decide to license FairPlay and hopefully make a nice pile of money. Apple certainly doesn’t need marketting advice from the likes of Napster.
What a looooooser. That’s what happens when you suck up to Microsuck and WMA.
Again, the Guardian publishing irrelevant information and interviewing dead companies.
The average costomer doesn’t care about choice or freedom of format, how do you think windows got where it is today?
“”He claims 92% of those polled in the US recognised the Napster brand and equated it with online music, compared with 27% for iTunes””
Now if he can only get more than 2% of those people to use his service, he might have a point. ;o)
I want BuyMusic.com!
I want less selection, a more painful experience, and Microsoft control over my music format!
Why, Apple, why? Why must I use iTunes?
Atomic Bomb, re: RealPlayer 10 using QuickTime
It may also be necessary to have iTunes installed, at least for authorizing the system to play DRM AAC files.
Dude you screwed it up again…500,000 thousand is 500 million..
try again
Nobody, yeah, it’s all the way from the Orlando Apple Store. I got it one day early and spent most of my free time since re-ripping all my CDs to 192kbps AAC (possibly overkill) and loading it up. How cool is it? Extremely.
And it’s just so tiny. It makes my mobile phone look decidedly un-mobile
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What color is it? Is it too small to be easily used or just right? What was the reaction of your friends, family or strangers when they saw it?
I can’t comment on the bitrate, though since I don’t have those golden ears. For me, 160kbps AAC is enough. Besides, I don’t have great quality sound system hooked up to my iMac (I use Apple’s spherical speakers). But, I guess if you want to future proof your music collection so that you don’t have to re-rip them, 192kbps sound just right.
It’s a silver one, to match my PowerBook. It was that or green to match my iMac
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> I find the scroll wheel is perfect for one-thumb operation. The little click you feel when you tilt the wheel is one of those things you just know they’ve put effort it to get just right.
As for the people I’ve shown it to. Colleagues love it, except one guy who started to show me the mp3 software on his iPaq (yeah, funny eh!). I’ve only shown it to two friends so far, both Mac users who knew about the minis already. One of them started making funny noises in his throat and calling it his “preciou”s, at which point I freaked out and took it back.
Oh, and from my partner who understands nothing about technology, I got the following reaction:- “�140!! You could have bought three CD players for that. Anyway, it’s your turn to take the dog out”.
ndelc: You’re right, we don’t know why FairPlay is only being used by Apple. I made an assumption when I shouldn’t have. Thanks for pointing that out.
Your musings on standards seem reasonable. I guess both formats have a claim to that title, though AAC’s claim carries more weight. WMA is used on 90% of the world’s computers, a far greater number of devices than AAC can claim. Still, saying AAC is not a standard is just lying. There are two standard music formats, right now. That’s not unheard of. I believe there are two TV video formats: one used in the US and one in Europe (perhaps I’ve grossly simplified that). Likewise, there’s a music format for Mac/iPod users, and one for the ugly, terminally dissatisfied, stinkin’ Billy-boobs.
The question is, must there be only one?
Kenny, that’s a good question. Music has always been sold in a variety of formats, whether it’s vinyl, 8 track, cassette, CD, and now digital. In fact, all of these except 8-track are still available today, even though the CD has been dominant since the early 90’s. People who listen to music on a cassette player don’t buy music on a CD because they know they won’t be able to use it. Likewise, people who listen to music on an iPod wouldn’t buy WMA formatted music. I don’t think there needs to be only one, but it seems like all the iTMS competitors would like us to believe that.
they must’ve completely forgotten that iPods can still play mp3s. duh.
“Atomic Bomb, re: RealPlayer 10 using QuickTime
It may also be necessary to have iTunes installed, at least for authorizing the system to play DRM AAC files.” – sjk
No. iTunes need not be installed. As I stated, the DRM is controlled by Quicktime. Period.