“Microsoft is expected to unveil copy-protection software this summer that will for the first time give portable digital music players access to tunes rented via all-you-can-eat subscription services–a development that some industry executives believe will shake up the online music business,” John Borland reports for CNET News. “This summer may see the beginnings of a shake-up in the online-music industry–sources say new Microsoft copy-protection technology will finally arrive, bringing the all-you-can-eat subscription model to portable players.”
Borland reports, “Bottom line: If fans of iPod-like devices can be convinced to drop the idea of owning song files, they could shift to paying a subscription fee for ongoing access to hundreds of thousands of tunes–something that would cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars under the current dollar-per-download paradigm.”
Borland reports, “Sources say the technology–code-named Janus and originally expected more than a year ago–was recently released in a test version to developers and that a final release is now expected as soon as July. Janus would add a hacker-resistant clock to portable music players for files encoded in Microsoft’s proprietary Windows Media Audio format. That in turn would help let subscription services such as Napster put rented tracks on portable devices–something that’s not currently allowed. Fans of portable players could then pay as little as $10 a month for ongoing access to hundreds of thousands of songs, instead of buying song downloads one at a time for about a dollar apiece.” Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Awww, forget it – read the rest yourself if you want. Using “Microsoft” and “hacker-resistant” in the same sentence killed all credibility for us. But, thanks for the laughs, John. Some people just don’t get it. We like to own, not rent. Music, that is. But, have fun wasting millions trying to go against human nature. The government is also very good at this, but we digress. MS should’ve named it “Failure” instead of “Janus” because that’s what it’ll be in the end. (And, please, CNET, the ‘iPod Killer’ phrase is old and tired already, you can give it up and stop recycling it into every headline to do with digitial music.)
This is getting like the Death Knell Counter. How many iPod killers have there been now?
If they could come up with a portable device that wirelessly accesses the subscription database so you could update your rented songs on the go, that may be an iPod killer. But until then, the first iPod killer will come from Apple. Who knows what Steve is working on?
Dude
this has to got to be the dumbest idea on earth.
Dave H: I couldn’t agree with you more! We really ought to have an iPod death knell counter somewhere, and what better place than right here at MDN!
Come on guys, the brainless rah-rahing around here makes me sick. This might be the twin of Paul Thurrot’s SuperSite. Learn to think critically once in a while.
While such a system probably will be hackable, look at this from a marketing angle – right now the big advantage for Apple (besides the iPod itself) is that you can then carry all of these songs with you. What happens when Roxio et al come out and say you can do the same with theirs, but with thousands of songs a month for $10?
Most of my friends refuse to purchase music online because they want to own the physical CD – the liner notes and such.
Until they have a player that will hold these ‘hundreds of thousands of songs’ it just won’t fly. I can’t see myself paying $120/yr to rent songs. However, I can see myself paying $120/yr for satallite radio.
At least with those Rent to own furniture & appliance places you eventually own that $400 refrigerator – granted, you paid $1,500.
Services such as Napster will pay M$ millions for this new software as will the manufacturers of the players. Rob Glaser will then beg Apple to permit Janus subscription on the iPod so he can rent more music. The only one to gain from this will be M$ which may or may not recoup their development costs.
Dude, where’s my music?????? I asked the support rep. Well sir, she replied (using the accent she learned watching Sex in the City in her US culture, technical training class), your check was delayed by last weeks snow storm so your account has been disabled. I will be glad to reinstate your ability to play OUR music after you have paid the 50 dollar reinstatement fee and you are paid up for this month. But, but, but I stammered, anxiety building as I realized that my teenage daughter will never believe that I didn’t do it on purpose to ruin her party which starts in a hour. I wondered if 35 preteen girls would understand DRM and licensing as I proceeded to plead for some way to bypass the 3 day waiting period before my “deliquent” account would be reactivated.
I would think that with that idea….you are not allowed to use the music to add into your iMovie home made movies. The person watching the movie may have to be a subscriber, other wise it will be….uh….silent during that time the song is “supposed” to play.
Ewwww!
“access to hundreds of thousands of tunes–something that would cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars under the current dollar-per-download paradigm.”
Who has the time to listen to hundreds of thousands of tunes. I don’t know about you, but I usually buy a few albums, listen to them until I know almost every word…and then move on.
This is very flawed…no surprise though.
Janus? Should be Anus. Easier to remember and closer proximity to the eventual destintation of the service.
If this is the best they can come up with they might as well quit trying. What a retarded idea. I don’t want hundreds of thousands of songs and I certainly don’t want to rent my music. I just want my preferred tunes easily available. Apple got it right.
Steve, let’s bury everyone early by giving us XM on our iPods!! That’s what we really need! Satellite on a portable music player!! That can’t be beat!
If this is a poll, then I, too, prefer to pay for the songs I like once and for all and own them. It makes me feel good to own them. They are mine forever. Me and my Music. My Music and Me. I listen to songs still now that I listened too and liked 30 years ago and will probably still be listening to them 30 years hence. I guess I could rent them for the next 30 years but really I would rather just pay the buck now and have done with it.
Remember that Janus is the god of two faces.
I don’t understand how the artists get paid in the subscription model. Wouldn’t the artist that are popular have a disincentive to produce better work? Do the artists still get paid by download? Why would the best music artists want this? Isn’t subscription like communism, sharing all the revenue?
If anyone could screw up a subscription service it will be Microsoft. With the most retarted restrictions and security already in windows, I’m sure the music restrictions will be over the top and poorly executed.
Perhaps no one else appreciates the naming of this new service.
Janus – NOUN, Roman Mythology: The god of gates and doorways, depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions [and where we get the name of the month of January]
How Microsoft! A two-faced god of Gates.
Renting music seems a bad idea. Suppose I am reasonably well off and subscribe to such a service. After 10 years I would have spent shed loads of money for listening to music, but would own nothing. If I am then made redundent, or through ill health I am unable to work, my earning could collapse. I may not be able to afford my subscription and therefore lose access to all the music that I had been paying for over the last 10 years. If I bought the music, at least I could enjoy what I had during the bad times.
It never ceases to amaze me at what M$ thinks is innovation. Yeah right, I want to rent songs. If I want that I can listen to XM or Sirrus or for that matter, good ol’radio. Sure I don’t get to specify the order, but give the option of paying a subscription fee or not, most people will choose, not. No matter what the quality. Besides, since when was M$ about quality? IMHO, they’ve always been about the minimum quality that the market will bear.
Presumably you’d need to sync your Janus-enabled player with your computer at least once per month to verify that you are paid up? But what happens when you are traveling on that renewal date? Your credit card is automatically charged and your account is paid in full but how does the player know and not lock you out? How do you distinquish between songs you own vs. songs you rent? Can you mix the two in playlists or must you scroll through all 10,000 songs on your player to find the one you want to hear? Does anyone think M$/Napster is smart enough to answer these questions and make it easy for the consumer? Not me!
They should have named it Icarus (after the guy in Greek mythology that made wings of wax and flew too close to the sun, so he fell into the ocean and died).
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One weak point in Apple’s ITMS is the brevity of auditioning music (30 sec.). For some songs it works well, for others, it is impossible to get a feel what the song or instrumental piece is going to evolve into, in order to decide whether you want to purchase it or not.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could download a full song for 10 to 20 cents a crack that would disable after one play? Then you could decide whether it would be a song that belongs in your permanent library. If you decide to purchase it, the amount you payed from the listening fee could be dicounted from the purchasing fee? It would already be downloaded to your hard drive; it would just have to be unlocked as a purchase. Just an idea. I wrote Apple with this suggestion. I think it would improve the ITMS, making it more appealing to consumers.
Also, the weakness of ITMS missing liner notes is starting to be addressed by the with links to artist’s or record label websites on some selections. It would be nice to use the internet link to expand on bios of featured artists and all the musicians and producers behind the scenes.
Maybe third party websites will become available in the future to expand on this idea that Apple with ITMS could provide links to. Just another thought. There are so many liner notes on many physical CD purchases that are void of information.
OMG why does CNET enjoy giving Microsoft such frequent blowjobs? It’s like M$ is the pimp and CNET is the whore …
“Subscription based” music means you never, ever own the music — you pay for it again and again and again, forever — this is the wet dream of those who think digital distribution of content will rewrite the rules of ownership and property. It’s actually quite radical if you really think about it — kind of like Soviet Russia where nobody actually owned anything but the State. In this case the “State” will be the big media monopolies and Microsoft.
Right now i’m imagining my iPod under this system — it’s filled with gigabytes of my favorite music — but it’s like a little ticking digital time bomb waiting to erase all my music and force me back to the M$ trough — where they’ll probably be pushing the latest “music” from the stellar talents of Brittany Spears.
The only joy I see in this whole scenario is that it will waste lots of M$ resources and time — and give Apple further time to consolidate it’s lead in the fair distribution of digital content that consumers can actually own, use and enjoy.
I think load some songs on to my crappy 10 gig janus player for the day’s commute. OK, which songs should choose. Too many to choose from, I’ll just pick the same ones from yesterday, besides I haven’t finished listening to them anyway. Oh, wait I still have to download them again, they’ve probably expired . . . wouldn’t want a song to stop playing in the middle. Sh”t!! Now I have to choose again. This is such a pain in the a$$. Let’s see. About 40 minutes to pick the songs again, 40 minutes of download time, 40 minutes to transfer over the sh”tty usb. I’ll be about 2 hours late for work. Hope I don’t get fired. Ah, damn!! I need the money from the 2 hours of work to pay frick’n Napster.
This is all about recurring revenue, not about a users listening experience or hundreds of thousands of tunes at your fingertips. Micro$oft has nothing new to offer until longhorn and that is years away.
” Wouldn’t it be nice if you could download a full song for 10 to 20 cents a crack that would disable after one play? Then you could decide whether it would be a song that belongs in your permanent library.”
That would make it too easy to use a hack to capture your one play of the song to a permanent file. Better would be to have the current 30-second, full-quality preview, and also a lower-quality, streaming preview of the whole track.
I think charging any amount for a preview would end up being blown out of proportion in any comparative reviews of music download services.
It is impressive and disapointing that C|Net enjoy putting cheap apple news in top headlines. They’re using the popularity of Apple words (iPod, G5, Mac,…) to get hits. Cheap cheap, doing it that way. They should offer a quicktime version of their media if they are the reference in computer news. Cheap is the way of their walk.
Well the responses in todays post are very pro buy and anti subscription. But before you discount it, if Microsoft can come up with a low cost entry scheme where you pay for the subscription and can clean up the usability issues, I believe they will find that there are many out there who will be willing to have access to a very large library and not have to maintain their own. Todays entry fee = $5. 20mill people sign up and get used to it. 10 years from now the entry fee is $25. Just like what happened with ATM machines. But the users will be used to it. Subscriptions will make a lot of money for the record companies so you can be sure that they will be encouraging M$ all along the way. I love iTunes and iTMS as it is but the competition is coming and Apple had better have some new ideas up their sleeves.
I buy (to keep) my songs on iTunes along the way. A year from now, I’ll still own them. If I were to rent, do those songs stay on my player forever until I erase? Do they stay on my computer until I erase?
So, initially some folks may get more songs for their buck, jumping on thousands of songs in the first week. But after awhile, they are still paying per month forever, and probably not getting thousands more songs every month. Meantime, my song cost that original buck.
Anyway, how long will it take to download those 10,000 songs? How long will it take to pick out 10,000 songs you want? It’s not like you’re going to pay $10 this month and instantly have all of those songs you want on your player.
Won’t fly for me.
They still don’t get it.
I don’t own over a 1,000 CDs b/c I wanted to rent them.
I find it interesting how a lot of “experts”/companies think there is a value gain in renting music. True, it would cost a lot to buy every song I could rent. But here’s the thing: I don’t WANT all those songs. Has no one considered that most available music is crap (or as some people call it, music I don’t personally like)? Honestly.
Access to hundreds of thousands of songs in the current system does NOT cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You only pay for the ones you WANT.
Under no system do you actually LISTEN to hundreds of thousands of songs. You can only listen to so many in a day, and by choice, you might listen to the same song more than once in your life
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So when these subscription services use that kind of math, it’s pretty absurd.
First the subscription to many songs, then the third (anonymous?) party software to rip the songs, the feigned innocence as the service takes off, the music industry outrage, the lawsuit, which M$ can keep fighting for years. It has the potential to become like Napster in some ways. Anyway… finally… the court settlement, which M$ can afford, by which point in time we’ll have a new monopoly. Sounds like a plan.
Doesn’t this so-called business model sound a lot like DivX?
My ipod will always play the music I buy. But with Janus, am I expected to take a risk on buying hardware for a service that might become just as obsolete as DivX, leaving me with an expensive paper-weight?
Sorry, no, I’ll pass, thanks.
I completely disagree. The Janus IS AN iPOD KILLER!!!
If you hit the iPod repeatily with a Janus, the iPod will die.
Subscription services do not work, plain and simple. Cable TV is one thing, but music/movies? Forget it.
“(And, please, CNET, the ‘iPod Killer’ phrase is old and tired already, you can give it up and stop recycling it into every headline to do with digitial music.)”
I’m sure they’ll do it if you can give up “macintosh unafected” pertaining to windows viruses. It’s old and tired, so please stop recycling it into every headline to do with viruses.
iPod is killer.
looks at all the dead bodies – Dell, Creative, Sony, Napster…
The magic of the iPOD design is the transparent user interface which makes the product a delight to use.
MS has never been known for designing anything remotely as easy to use as Apple products. Considering that, I seriously doubt MS will be capable of unseating Apple as the leader in portable digital music devices.
The XBOX was touted as a PS2 killer and we all know how that turned out. I own an XBOX and not a PS2, but still, this isn’t the first time the term “KILLER” has been used in regards to a new MS product going up against a market leading product from someone else.
The entertainment industry has been trying to shift people to rental models for as long as I can remember–for music, movies, whatever, and it has never, ever worked. Self-destructing VHS tapes, Divx, etc. etc. have been uniformly rejected as crappola.
BuyMusic.com is dead.
Napster is spending $5 per song it sells.
It has been reported over and over that there are *VERY* little profits in music downloads.
Apple (the market leader) and Wal-Mart (which may just have the best chance to be a respectable competitor � but not an iTMS killer) are both selling music as a loss-leader.
And cNet � and obviously M$ � think Janus is a good idea?
Umm…is it that hard to understand a market?
1) People want to own things. They want tangible goods or something as close to tangible possibe, which is to own.
2) Those who are successful will use music as a lose-leader.
Hmm…now that I think of it � M$ certainly does not get #1, we all know they want to be the digital landloards of all things IP (software, images (hello CORBIS anyone), and now music). But, M$ also gets #2, they have no problem with lose-leaders (with the exception of 3 products (Windows, Win Office, and Mac Office) everything M$ does is a lose-leader).
So if all these iPod killers don’t end up killing the iPod, does that mean the BBB will be after them for false advertizing?
For the record, the iTunes music store started out at a loss, but broke even much sooner than Apple expected and now does make a SMALL profit by itself, rather than a loss. (Plus of course Apple’s plan all along was to sell iPods, and ultimately Macs, by offering a great music store and gaining mindshare.)
Apple’s store is the ONLY music store not losing money.
Electronics manufacturers have to stay frosty to remain relevant. Microsoft spends a whole lot of cash on ads and PR to provide the impression that Microsoft is at least trying to stay relevant. They do back up the PR with actual development, and the thing about Microsoft is that if there’s a market they believe they absolutely need to own, they have the cash to finance that effort for years and years, and when one development and management team gets tired of that work, they cycle in a new group and keep going. The problem with Microsoft has been that they’re in so many markets that they’ve spread out what real talent they have very thin, so that the eventual product doesn’t do justice to the ad copy or PR. I’m not worried about this particular rendition, but over the years Microsoft may eventually get it right. Regarding this article itself, the industry press is usually formulaic, and this is just one of the formulas: if X is on top, they print articles about how Y’s nifty new product is a possible X killer. It is a formula to get you to read that media and react. It is a Troll. The more draconian coverage Apple gets every four or six months where some genius declares that they’re going out of business is usually some business trolling for page hits. Out of the many Apple-is-going-out-of-business articles, there were a couple that had some truth to them, back when Apple lost a Billion and it was finally clear even to Apple that Apple management needed a serious smack onside the head.
How would the subscription model work with multiple MP3 players? Say I wanted lots of music for an upcoming business trip on my 40gig player but also wanted music on my tiny 4gig player for the gym? What about me and my partner both wanting to share the library? Must we each subscribe and maintain two libraries on a shared computer?
Does M$ still believe they are somehow popular? When will they learn!
Janus is M$ final solution to the iPod/AAC/iTunes embarrasment. Janus will be coded so that it can be hacked easily in some way that MS doesn’t get blamed, or the full blame. A feeding frenzy of “free-legal” downloading will begin, and sales of WMA players will skyrocket. The iPod is doomed.
Shabaz, most PC owners think that viruses are viruses, and that they affect Windows more because it’s the popular OS, rather than being specifically Windows viruses.
I was going to say waht a stupid idea this subscription business is, but considering the source, all I can say is – MOO
Whatever.
M$ are pants. As long as I’ve got an asshole I’ll never buy Micro$oft. Full Stop.
Gangsters are gangsters. Bill Gates is a Gangster. A bully. A thief. A Rip-Off.
If Apple goes bust I’ll use Linux. If Linux go bust I’ll use my Spectrum 48k+. But I’ll never, ever, ever use M$ Windoze cause it sucks.
Bill, if you reading this (but you’re probably not – more likely you’re counting all the dollars you’ve fleeced off people) I just want you to know that Janus is a BAD IDEA. Why does your software always make users do thing they don’t want to do. Rent music? Give me a break.
Get a reality check Mr. Gates, no one wants to rent music.
Apple is making its money NOT by selling .99 cent songs. Think of the overhead (servers, royalties,etc….but it does sell iPods for $250+ to support the .99 cent habit…. Very clever.
Wow; whoever is creating these name schemes in Redmond? Not only (as was gracefully mentioned before) was IANUS the god of public portals and all beginnings; the TEMPLE of Ianus in ancient Rome had a portal which was open during war times (‘war had broken out’) and closed during peace times (because war was kept in check inside). During the entire Roman Empire, the gate was closed only twice. Rome was always at war.
Gates opens the windows and declares war on the music business. Who are they fooling? Can Redmond ever come up with a non-war like naming scheme that doesn’t give you the feeling they’re trying to outsmart and rob you?
I mean, c’mon! Most people once in their life at least go through dire times on low cash. Is the MS vision that those people can no longer listen to music?
“Outta job? Outta music!”
Customer friendly, really.
That’s outrageous, silly, and downright mean. I reject this from the bottom of my heart.
Bill Gates has been in love with the subscription model for quite a few years now. I believe it comes from having such a bloated company that produces so few things of real value. In order to make payroll, they need to have a more steady, predictable revenue stream. Their current licensing scheme for Windows is an attempt to get that. They didn’t anticipate that customers would reject that model to quite the degree that they have. Fortunately for them, having a monopoly allows them to get away with it since the majority of people really have nowhere else to go. They are locked in tighter than…
If MS was a grocery store, they would probably try to rent you the food. If they were a gas station, they would sell you gas on a subscription. If you didn’t need it, they’d come to your house and pour it on your lawn. They are incapable of selling products on their merits and rely very heavily on their lock-in strategy to stay in business. It’s only very recently that businesses have begun to questioin the forced upgrades that they must put up with.
As a musician, I question the model of “renting” versus “buying” – At least through the iTunes model, there is a remote chance of seeing some revenue for an independent artist. I guess that exposure as “elevator music” is possible in a use-once and throw-away culture, but most artists pour their hearts into their work.
To see their efforts being rented somehow cheapens the entire idea of what has value. We own what we choose to purchase because we perceive value.
Those that leech upon inspiration of any sort we should be wary of.
There are creative people, there are critics, but most of the time … there are thiefs –
Jimbo,
You’ve got a way with words and you are so correct.
Stuff Microsoft – I’ve got a couple of hundred cds, and I’ve been ripping them all … Sign up for only $5 a month! First 100 customers get Barry Manilow’s entire back catalogue FREE for a month … (Though if you want to keep listening to it after that, you’ll have to re-subscribe.)
sounds like Think is the only one around here that ISN’T thinking critically…
Microsoft buys ads on CNET – Apple doesn’t. Surprise, who gets the better coverage?
Like the cable networks, they should just change it to MSCNET so people can avoid any confusion of journalistic-intent.
I’m sure they’ll do it if you can give up “macintosh unafected” pertaining to windows viruses. It’s old and tired, so please stop recycling it into every headline to do with viruses.
—————————————————————————
One is a fact…the other isn’t. Can you guess which one isn’t?
I’ve been buying albums (those big black vinyl thingies you find in resale shops these days) and CDs for years. I ripped ’em to my iBook. I have synced most of ’em to my 15Gb 3G iPod. I own them. I own them all. Period. No one will ever be able to make me give them back to the store I bought them from at the end of some month in the future just so I can buy them again the next day.
Rent music… means I can’t burn a compilation CD for myself, friends, relatives, a special Valentine gift with all love songs, etc, right?
Oh wait, it also means I can’t use in on my movies right?
If I really like a tune that I really want to listen any time I should buy rather, and also for all tunes I love: it the long run it is much cheaper.
For the others radio is pretty much already giving me the same for free. Oh, can’t choose from radios? who really cares for music to be listened to without paying much attention? For the rest, better own it in one way or another.
uhmm, rent music? I rent movies but music? Anyway, some will subscribe to it: hey, some buy Gateway computers!
jbelkin : clever 😀
My bet is that people will pay for the service for a month or two, use some sort of application to rip off music from it and convert it to DRM-free mp3, and then cancel the service.
Janus is only the start of the music subscription business. What you hear is only part of the story. MS plans to release into it’s music rental service an overlapping feature that will play all those hundreds of thousands of songs at once. This will provide MS rental users with more choice all at once. So stay tuned for a CNET press release of this service code named Uranus.
I actually feel sorry for the windows folks. Because what Janus will ultimately spin off into is a system by which you rent your OS, paying a monthly subscription to use it, and never actually own it. It’s no secret that Gates has expressed interest in such an idea…
This is all about creating revenue streams for Microsoft.
They want to rent you software…why not music too.
Movies are made for renting…how many times would you ever want to watch the same movie. (Animal House being the only exception)
But music is listened to repeatedly and often. It rekindles many good memories that were linked to the song being played and makes us happy.
The thought of Bill Gates taking away my happiness because I missed a monthly deposit in his bank account…is more than I can bear.
I will buy my music…thank-you. Any I own my own copy of Animal House.
The full project name is “Hugh Janus” (named after Bill himself), although most people just call it Hugh for short.