“First announced last week, online music service MP3tunes has officially launched. The service offers 300,000 songs, initially, and plans to add more in the coming months. The service does not utilize digital rights management (DRM) to limit song sharing. Although this might make MP3tunes a target of future litigation, founder Michael Robertson is ready for a fight, if it comes to that,” Elizabeth Millard reports for NewsFactor Network.
“‘The courts have said file sharing is not illegal,’ he told NewsFactor. ‘So we’re simply exercising our legal right to give consumers what we think they might want.’ The main argument underpinning MP3tunes’ refusal to use DRM is that with services such as iTunes, consumers are ‘renting’ the music, rather than buying it. ‘If you buy a CD, you can do what you want,’ said Robertson. ‘You can loan it to friends, or put it on different computers. But with these current music services, you just get to borrow the music.’ That is limiting to consumers, Robertson said. ‘If you pay for something, it should be yours,’ he added,” Millard reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Huh? iTunes customers are buying their music, not renting it. Maybe Robertson meant Napster To Go or some other subscription service? Still, shouldn’t he know exactly what iTunes Music Store (iTMS) offers if he plans to compete with Apple? For the record, from Apple’s iTunes Music Store web page: “The iTunes Music Store lets you quickly find, purchase and download the music you want for just 99¢ per song. You can burn individual songs onto an unlimited number of CDs for your personal use, listen to songs on an unlimited number of iPods and play songs on up to five Macintosh computers or Windows PCs. And the iTunes software works so smoothly on both platforms that you can share music with any combination of Macs and Windows PCs on a local area network — regardless of whether you’re running iTunes on a Mac or PC.” More info about iTMS here.
DRM means apple can and HAS changed the rights you have at any time. It also means if you transfer to too many macs and forget to deactivate on previous macs, all the sudden your music collection is useless. This has already happened to people. Fact is, DRM is a total pain the ass. We are renting not buying with iTunes. Now if apple just watermarked the music with something identifying it’s yours, and didn’t restrict it otherwise, that would be something. They already watermark their music. Then if your music winds up on Kazzaa they would find you. Which means if you use it for filesharing, tsk tsk. But you would be otherwise free to use YOUR music as you see fit. Right now all apple is doing is giving you a longer leash on your rental.
rent is right. You are wrong. if you burn to cd and then re-rip, no more drm. Don’t be a sheep and learn to think for yourself. Works 4 me.
rent is right. You are wrong. if you burn to cd and then re-rip, no more drm. Don’t be a sheep and learn to think for yourself. Works 4 me.
who let chicken little in?
“It also means if you transfer to too many macs and forget to deactivate on previous macs, all the sudden your music collection is useless. This has already happened to people.”
I’m sorry, but this is absolute bullshit. Should you ever forget to deactivate a previous Mac/PC and run out of computers you can activate, you can call Apple and have them reset your account. You can then re-activate your music on any 5 computers that you want. I know, because I had to do it once. So quit spewing FUD…
DG, Good call. Me too and it was no big deal.
DG, Good call. Me too and it was no big deal.
You certainly can deauthorize any Mac or PC that you can no longer have access to but forgot to deauthorize. This is straight from Apple’s website.
To deauthorize a computer to which you no longer have access, contact iTunes Music Store Customer support using the Web form at the bottom of this page (you may need to scroll down to see the form): http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/authorization.html
rent is right, Do you think the whole DRM thing is Apple’s idea? And Apple’s clout in the player market is the only reason Fairplay DRM is as liberal as it is. Robertson may have some really grand plan, but you will NEVER see a major label offered at MP3tunes.
hilarious!
rent??? it’s only kind of like “renting” if you were planning to distribute it!
think about it: for people paying for their music, listening to their iPods, broadcasting to Airport express, and sharing music over networks, do they have any limitations on their music? do they ever run across the DRM???
it’s only when you are trying to do something potentially questionable – like copy gigabytes of free music from iTunes Music Store, that you run up against DRM. I have been using iPods and iTunes since they came out, and the only hint of DRM is when I have to authorize new computers with the same music. other than that, it’s been totally transparent to me. totally transparent because I’m not trying to steal music!!! so where is the “renting” and where is the DRM? besides, nothing keeps me from ripping to CDs for my car or buying CDs in the first place. so… big deal!
all this discussion over hypotheticals when most users will never even notice the DRM. iTunes has been successful for exactly this reason! duh! sit here and pontificate over “choice,” “rent,” “ownership,” etc., but don’t pretend you have had any problems enjoying your legitimately acquired music on your iPods and with iTunes.
Not one person on this or any site can say I don’t currently own any and all music that I have PURCHASED from iTMS and be saying that with any shred of truth. I have the paid invoices from Apple indicating my ownership of that music.
That means I have the right to do with these songs what I want, within the parameters as set forth by Apple, and agreed to by me when I made the purchase, which, by what I can tell, are some of the most liberal out there.
Apple cannot take the music I purchased back, or change the way I make use of those tracks that I’ve already purchased.
Ever.
Is there some wording that I’m missing somewhere in that agreement? If so, prove it.
“rent is right” —
You’ve been spanked more times in this thread than I ever was for all the times I diddled on the dining room floor! Way to go — LOSER! Hey, here’s a thought: Try reading something other than Marvel comics for a change. O . . . k . . . a . . . y? Or maybe graduate from your Burger King gig.
To gauge the relevance of this site (which uncannily mimics iTMS) you just need to see their Top Artists list: Emily Richards, Darla Day, Siobhan DuVall, Frank Caliendo, Josh Ritter, Craig Einhorn and Dave Rudolf. Can’t wait to see them clean up at the Grammys!
You can already buy music from anyone in Mp3 format at AllofMp3.com.
It’s Russian so use Paypal, and the artists don’t get squat.
But then again the same goes for Napster and their subscription service.
If I die, can my kids get my iTunes account? Can I sell or pass on my iTMS purchases?
I know I can give my kids my CDs…
“…you can share music with any combination of Macs and Windows PCs on a local area network”
Just for my clarification;
If you completely change to a new computer say once a year, you can move your iTunes purchased music to each new computer that replaces your pervious one? There’s never a limit?
So for 99 cents I “rent” a song forever? Excuse me, but how exactly is this different from buying?
Wipeout –
Yes, there is a limit. You can have all your music (the actual music files) loaded onto 5 separate and properly authorized computers, Mac or PC, at any given moment in time. Or, you can choose to share your music over a LAN using iTunes to anyone else on the network, or any other computers you may have connected to a home LAN.
I work at a large private university and I can see other people’s iTunes lists (when their iTunes is running) and can actually play their music on my machine and vice-versa, but we can’t actually copy the other’s music files to our own libraries. Legally, that is…
See the “Content Usage Rules” section at Apple.com’s iTunes Terms of Sale page: http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/legal/policies.html
Wipeout… That’s right. When you are about to sell or otherwise decommission a computer, you can pull down the iTunes Advanced menu and choose “Deauthorize Computer.” That brings up a dialog that lets you choose whether you are deauthorizing for iTunes Music Store or Audible.com.
Wipeout –
Of course, to more directly answer your question – if you only ever authorize one computer at a time when you move your music collection from computer to computer (and deauthorize the old one at the same time), then yes, you will NEVER encounter the limit that Apple places on the number of authorized computers on which you can have your music.
There is something to be said here… that 128 AAC compression is not the best, and at some point you may want better… will Apple “upgrade” your file? I doubt it… you will have to buy it again. Not exactly “renting” but not much better either.
You certainly do OWN what you buy on iTMS, it’s just that in this case ownership is somewhat more limiting than we are used to with music. Is that bullshit? Yeah. Is that the law? Yeah. Hopefull the RIAA will allow us to get back to our usualy programing, that is, using music we have now own on as how and when we like. They’re still afraid of piracy and don’t get that they have more to gain than lose with the downloads market. Hopefully copyright law will be rewritten to take the current state of technology into account, as Lessig et al from the EFF have advocated. As they have pointed out, as IP law needs to change with technology so that everyone, the media creators, providers, and consumers all can benefit.
“Rent Is Right” et al,
We don’t ‘RENT’ music from ITMS (that’s obvious) but we don’t exactly ‘OWN’ it. The recording artist (and songwriters, and performers, and recording company, etc.) OWN the music, so that they can keep selling it.
And yes, recording artists, MANY of them, own their music for many or all usages. If you want to use “Born to be Wild” in a TV commercial or movie you have to call John Kay in Memphis (or maybe its Nashville). $50,000 buys you the song (called publishing rights I think) but you have to re-record using another recording artist. If you want the WHOLE THING (as in access to master tapes for the Steppenwolf) and have the whole song as performed by Steppenwolf, its another $50,000. These are called the PERFORMING rights, and the rest of the boys in Steppenwolf get this money. Hey, a guys gotta eat!
PERFORMING rights are how Ringo Starr doesn’t starve even though he was not a part of “Lennon-McCartney”.
What we (the consumer, the iPod owner) do is LICENSE it for a specific use. And if we agree to the terms of the license we pay for the license. The license can encompass how many copies we can make, where we can play it, etc.
The license goes on forever, so obviously we aren’t renting it.
And within those boundaries we can do as we please. But we can’t burn 1,000 copies and sell it on the internet, or authorize it on 100 of our Macintoshes (heck, I’ve got 14).
In the ‘physical’ world we can buy a Lou Reed CD, and we OWN the physical CD, but not the music on it. Lou Reed OWNS the music (or any of a lot of other people or corporations or publishing companies. It’s complicated, and there’s no reason to get into it).
I think about this stuff because I create photography that my agent sells all over the world. My buyers don’t OWN the image.
I do.
Even if they pay $10,000 for it. They license it for a specific use and no more. Like a billboard for specific advertising campaign. My buyer can’t license it for ONE use and then use it for additional things. Like wanting to use the image for a direct mail piece as well.
This drives people crazy, because “HEY, they BOUGHT IT!!” Well, they can’t use the image as much as they want, any more than your boss can justify ordering you to wash the windows of the corporate headquarters all the way to the 75th floor on weekends. (Hey!! You’re on STAFF!!).
Well he can ASK, and depending on how afraid of your boss you are, or losing your job, depends on whether you agree to do it.
Everything is about leverage. If the ITMS suddenly had terms that you could only authorize TWO computers (for arguments sake), and sales dropped 50%, chances are the terms could very well go back to the way they were.
These situations are the crux of most of the arguments involving piracy, and “sharing” etc.
“Hey, I BOUGHT IT!”
And the beat goes on.
David Vesey
Don’t you guys have anything better to do than write long boring posts that no-one reads?
You are preaching to the converted.
donco
If like me you’re old enough, you probably spent lots of money on cassettes you now own on another format, and the stuff you don’t listen to anymore just sits at the bottom of a drawer somewhere. 128k AAC will go the same way one day, as will the CD.
MW is “pay”. I’m sure MDN gets to pick which list of words to use. They are just too relevant for it to be random.