Paul Thurrott quotes MacNewsWorld in a recent blurb at Paul Thurrott’s Internet-Nexus, “What if you could pay a flat monthly fee to download as many songs as you want and transfer them to your music player — but they’d only be playable for a certain length of time? In effect, you’d be able to use your subscription to pack your music player as full as it can get — but with rented tunes. Before you dismiss the concept out of hand, consider this: Microsoft is exploring it.”
Thurrott writes, “Microsoft isn’t ‘exploring’ it, they’re rolling it out, as are Microsoft’s partners, such as Napster and Virgin Music. Again, this is an example of a place where Apple is falling behind. If they don’t adopt a subscription model, we’re going to see the Macification of the iTunes Music Store this year.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If any other service gets even remotely close to iTunes’ success (hasn’t happened, yet), what’s stopping Apple from adding this option if it proved popular with consumers? Songs and music are listened to repeatedly. By contrast, most movies are usually watched once. Movies are more conducive to the rental model (Blockbuster), but music-for-rent doesn’t strike us as a great idea. Do you think “renting” your music will prove more popular than “owning” your own music?
Very simple response on this one: music sellers are interested in the subscription model; music buyers aren’t and have never been.
Thurrott is a mind-numbing idiot–the other companies would love to see iTMS switch to subscription, b/c as long as iTMS offers individual track purchases it will stay the dominant site.
I’m not convinced that you can write this off so easily because it has been tried before and has proven to be unsuccessful. It’s not true. This service allows you to play your rented music on your music player instead of your PC. That’s a whole different ball game.
“…adding this option if it proved popular with consumers”
If it’s such a wildly popular idea, why is Apples iTMS beating the pants off the subsciption-based services?
V,
Do not forget that a user is able to burn their Fairplay-protected AAC file to cd as audio, then convert them to mp3, aif, wav, etc. if they want to.
If the person in question left the U.S. but still maintained a credit card with a U.S. billing address, they’re still able to purchase music from iTMS. It’s only if they’re not able to maintain a credit card with a U.S. billing address would they not be able to buy music after that point.
The iTMS songs purchased remains your own to listen to, regardless of your location after the purchase.
I like that MDN is no longer refering to Paul as an Analyst, using Tech reporter instead. This is, in my opinion, still too legitimate sounding given the track record we are dealing with. Can we come up with something better: think Paul Thurrott, ‘Windoze pundit’. I am trying to come up with something more accurate though, maybe ‘OS opiner’.
Any other suggestions?
About that someone that lost the songs (not the files)…all he did was he kept an American address on his credit card and everything was fine if I remember correctly. Something about iTunes region permissions (similar to DVD region encryption) based on the address of the credit card billing address.
The point that V is making is valid. Some people want to explore more through the rental model. but it is not going to be a huge hit. MS thinks that the only reason for this is people cant travel with their rented music. It may be for some, but agin, not for most. My questions are thus:
How much rented music can fit on these new devices? Do you have to download 1 song or ablum at a time or can you download all RHCP ablums at once and weed out what you dont like? Will you have to connect from the same PC everytime?
I personnally tend to listen to a certain playlist or alblum for weeks at a time, I wouldnt get my moneys worth. you obviously wont be able to burn CDs, or add to a home movie.
Thurrott tells us to “consider this: Microsoft is exploring it.”
Thanks Paul, and I’d like to remind you that Microsoft is also exploring the business model of renting it’s OS and apps to lemmings like you. And you’re dumb enough to go along with that.
1281:
Good luck with that e-mail to Thurrott.
Hope you get a less contemptuous response than is usual.
OJ: Actually, I’m not certain that music sellers are any more convinced than buyers – if you download 50 songs a month and pay $20, they get around $12.00 split 50 ways which is 24 cents. So far so good.
But the next month, they get $12.00 split 100 ways or 12 cents/song, and the third month is 6 cents/song. So you’re three months in, and songs purchased in the first month have received $0.42, but songs purchased in the second month have only earned $0.18.
Put it another way: if you’re a rights holder and your material is in a personal library of more than 150 songs, you’ll lose against the purchasing model.
If the customers library is larger than 150 songs, and your material doesn’t join until six months in, you only get 39 cents in the next 18 months which means the artist will pick up around 2 cents, which actually means nothing after the rights societies have stuck their noses in the trough.
The only way ‘subscription’ makes sense to music company and rights holders is in the highly disposable tweenie (8-14) market where a tune is forgotten as soon as its out of the charts. And the only way it makes sense to consumers is to download 20 songs a month, every month.
However, when you get to my age (a massive 41), the number of tracks you find of any interest declines to the point that you are actually just paying $20 to keep your library alive rather than add anything substantive, and after five years you will have paid $1200 which would have bought you 120 albums/1200 songs for keeps.
Buffy — My understanding is that you need to reconnect your music player to the Internet once in a while (towards the end of your subscription I guess) to re-authorize its use. You don’t need to transfer them again.
mike k. �
Let’s call Paul Thurrott a microsoft whore. When anybody attacks Apple as extremely as he does, you know he’s bought and paid for my microsucks.
DakRoland: In his case, it would clearly be “DIMMs”
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“by” microsucks
The only reason I could ever think of why anyone would want to rent music knowing it was gonna go away is so they could listen to unlimited volumes of music and then decide which was their favorite songs and then purchase those favorites from the ITMS. But the purposely chorused 30 second preview seems to work fine for most. Or it might make sense if they burned it on CD before it expired, but surely the record companies would balk at that.
The SUBSCRIPTION MODEL has NOT been TRIED yetl!!!
To re-iterate what a couple people said, and refute what dozens have said, the rental model has not been tried yet. The early attempts require a live internet connection, and thus are no-where near the future model. The future model is that you download a whole bunch of albums into your music player, and you listen to them where and how you like (from that authorized player). If you stop subscribing, you soon cannot listen to that music anymore.
Many of you who listen to popular music will not be interested. Some of you who get interested in a new form of music (Jazz and classical for me), would love it. Some of you don’t like being tethered to a computer to try new songs with 30 seconds limit like Itunes. iTunes preview works great if you recognize the song, but poorly if the music is truly new to you.
IMHO Apples best bet is to work a model, where you can subscribe for some time period, try out all the music you want, and use the Ipod to keep track of the songs you like. Then make it easy to buy those songs and/or albums!
This may or may not become big in subscription terms since users would often subscribe for a couple months only. But it could sell a LOT of music at the end of the subscription!
i have to agree with those who see ‘some’ value in the subscription OPTION. When a new record comes out by an artist that i have lukewarm feelings about I need to listen to it a 5 or 6 times to get a feel for songs that I like. Then I spend a lot of time on those, skipping the ones i know I don’t like. An option to download a whole album for 10 listens for some amount, like $3, would give me the opportunity to decide which songs i want to own. I then go back to iTMS to buy them.
They get my money twice and I am still happy because i have not spent $15 on a cd which only has 5 songs I like. Good idea. Take for example the newer Jane’s Addiction album. I know that their albums usually have some pretty bad stuff on them. That is holding me back. If i could find out which songs I like then i would buy them from iTMS.
Here’s a point that no one else has noted:
Music by subscription takes up a HUGE amount of bandwidth. I have a 30 GB iPod, and 20 GB of ripped songs. So, in theory, I might decide to use a potential “subscription” to download a different 10 GB of songs each week. However, Apple’s bandwidth is not free. Apple gets 34c per song to meet their bandwidth, server, electricity, etc. costs, and they’re making a small profit. What happens if they are collecting a (small) flat fee? Goodbye profits, hello loss leader!
Music by subscription: bad for the retailer, bad for the consumer.
Cat person:
And bad for the artist. And ambiguous for the other rights holders.
But good for MS, good for internet service providers, good for credit card companies.
As long as people keep buying iPods and iPod minis like they are going out of fashion, then the iTMS is going to be alive and growing for a long time yet.
Apple has just signed with another exclusive Taiwanese supplier to more than double the quarterly production of the iPod for the northern summer, so that should put the out put at about 2.5 million iPod units a quarter. Long live the iTMS!!!
From: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=8548
“Microsoft is preparing its new Janus technology, this promises a system in which content acquired using subscription services can be licensed and carried on portable devices, with that content ceasing to be accessible if a subscription ends. Janus also integrates digital-rights management technologies.
Jobs was not optimistic for the fortunes of MIcrosoft’s initiative, saying: “Content providers do not like this idea.”
He explained: “Here’s the deal. Microsoft does not own the content, and the content owners do not think it’s such a good idea. they do not want to license their content through a subscription model where it can be carried on portable players for maybe ten dollars a month. We speak to these people, and that’s what they tell us.”
To many, the essence of all Apple’s successful music initiatives has been simplicity and focus. Jobs explained why.
“To paraphrase Bill Clinton, when he ran the US he said ‘It’s the economy, stupid’; well, at Apple we say, ‘It’s the music, stupid'”.
“We have to stay focused on the fact that people buy these devices because they love music.”
Isn’t the music market big enough for BOTH models, license purchase and license rental? We’re talking about a multi-billion dollar market with hundreds of millions of potential customers, some people are going to find utility in each offering. We as Mac users should know that one model does not fit all people, because I sure as heck don’t like the MS model.
Will a successful subscription model kill iTMS? No. Thurott is definitely wrong when he says that lack of a subscription service will result in a “Macification” of iTMS. But that doesn’t mean that a certain fraction of the current and future digital music using population won’t like the other, non-dominant model.
There is enough money for several models to compete.
People still don’t realize that it is gonna be extremely difficult for anyone to make any rel money with an online music store. That is what is so brilliant about ITMS…it was not designed for major profits, it was designed to sell iPods.
Keep in mind that Apple does everything in house and still is not making much money selling songs. They write their own software, make their own iPods, serve their own website with their own X-serve and OSX server, etc, etc, etc…everything is in house. HOW is any other store gonna make more than a few bucks profit is my question until this whole downloading music thing really catches on. I believe Apple knows this and that is why they can appear arrogant by keeping the walls around ITMS/AAC/iPod.
Anyone want Thurrots email address? I will bring it to work tommorrow. I emaild him and tried to convince him that he was the biggest fool on the planet and that his constant “pooping Apple” was also making the people who hired him look ridiculous. He wrote back and shunned me for writing him using the word “poop”, which is my expression for negativity(also, I have an infant, so I’m qualified to say the word “poop”. Thats all he said in his reply. No explanation, no facts, no nothing. This guy is getting paid off, no doubt…he can’t be so stupid to not realize how foolish and biased he appears.
Paul Thurrott’s World-O-Crap.com strikes again.
I believe that Apple would sell alot more tunes if they increased the 30 second preview to something more like 45 seconds to a minute. This will give customers more confidence in buying a song. Alot of the previews of music I’ve heard on iTMS gives me no clue as to whether the song is good or not. I and many others won’t buy a song if I question whether or not I like it. Increasing preview times should benefit everyone, and make subscription models tons less attractive than they already are.