“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
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