“When Apple Computer began selling a new iPod that plays video last month, the mainstream content available from Apple was pretty thin. The company hawked a collection of music videos, some short films from Pixar and episodes of five Disney-owned TV shows, all available through iTunes Music Store,” Nick Wingfield writes for The Wall Street Journal. “It didn’t take long after Apple introduced its new product for crafty Netizens to start sharing movies and TV shows formatted for the device (do a Google search with the words ‘torrent,’ ‘video’ and ‘iPod,’ if you don’t believe me, or visit Podtropolis.com). The Internet teems with pirated TV shows and movies downloaded through file-sharing technologies like BitTorrent over broadband connections. And users have access to any number of programs that crack the copy protection on DVDs meant to deter duping movies onto computers.”
Wingfield writes, “The iPod, of course, has licit and illicit uses, just as other technologies. It’s hard to say how much consumers pack their devices with pirated copies of ‘The Chappelle Show’ or ‘CSI,’ but there are some clues. Apple says it has sold more than 600 million songs over the Internet, from zero just two-and-a-half years ago when the iTunes Music Store opened for business. But week-over-week growth of online song sales this year, including from the iTunes Music Store, has significantly slowed as iPod sales soared. In a research report last month, Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners, estimated the average annual song purchases per iPod online fell to 15 songs per iPod in the third quarter from 25 in the same quarter last year.”
“Tensions with the recording industry, however, don’t seem to have hurt Apple’s talks with Hollywood. NBC Universal has said it’s close to making its own deal with Apple for TV shows, just as Disney did. And TiVo recently said it will let its users transfer recorded shows to iPods. Still, it isn’t clear whether Apple can duplicate its position in the digital-music market in the online-video world, with competition there getting more serious,” Wingfield writes. “For any TV producer tempted not to return phone calls from Steve Jobs, they have to ponder: Help Apple help consumers buy content, or have the consumers help themselves to freebies.”
Full article here.
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Related article:
TVMyPod introduces Apple iPods with pre-loaded movies, TV shows, and videos – November 21, 2005
TiVo adds Apple iPod support to TiVoToGo – November 20, 2005
Free DVD to Apple iPod video ripper HandBrake 0.7.0 released – November 05, 2005
How to fill your Apple iPod with video content – November 02, 2005
Rip your DVDs for playing on Apple’s new video-capable 5G iPod – October 31, 2005
Free AppleScript converts Quicktime Player’s frontmost movie into iPod-readable video – October 28, 2005
Podner will reformat your movie collection for Apple iPod and iTunes – October 27, 2005
Using QuickTime Pro to create videos for playback in new Apple iPods – October 13, 2005
This is EXACTLY the point. Get on board with the best available solution . . .
or get SCREWED!
Gosh, I love AAPL.
This guy forgot a minor player in the ipod-filling sweepstakes: music that has been (legally) ripped from CDs that one owns. 90% of what is on mine comes from that source. By his evaluation, it’s likely that because I have only purchases 10% of my songs, the rest MUST be pirated. dumb
Besides, ipods don’t steal music, people steal music.
purchased … not purchases
[I]Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners, estimated the average annual song purchases per iPod online fell to 15 songs per iPod in the third quarter from 25 in the same quarter last year.[/I]
Well it’s a statistic – but one that fails to recognise that Apple sold three times as many iPods in the quarter in question when compared to the same quarter twelve months previously.
Or that there are now 150% more iPods.
Good God! Apple jacked the content jackers!
Maybe, just maybe a lot of the iPods purchased this quarter are hidden in a closet or under a bed waiting for Christmas. Maybe that’s why no one is buying tunes on line for them.
Besides it takes a while to get all of your CD’s ripped and on your new iPod first. In addition, repeat buyers getting replacement units already have music.
Just a thought.
“Help Apple help consumers buy content, or have the consumers help themselves to freebies.”
Somone who gets it.
Those stinkin’ bastards at Podtropolis.com are even offering a convenient torrent of freeware OSX DVD to iPod conversion tools, complete with PDF instructions from iLounge!
http://podtropolis.com/torrents-details.php?id=629
Proof, proof and more proof!
Songs / iPod is going to continue to drop. Like has been said before, most of it is ripped from purchased CDs. As the number of iPods soars, this figure is going to continue to go down, until the culture of purchasing music online as opposed to buying CDs reaches an equilibrium.
Be careful when reading statistics; they don’t always mean what you think they mean (or what the sleazy writer wants you to think they mean.)
As the saying goes…Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
I watched video that I copied from a DVD I bought on my iPod!
I ought to be in federal fucking prison.
See, I hurt not just stars like Tom Cruise, but working folks that toil behind the sets of his movies.
I feel so very very very very very bad.
I wonder when Apple will hit 1 billion songs sold? In January or April?
Whatever happens, it is clear that Apple have got a stranglehold on the market.
Still there is some truth that people are buying less songs per pod. I don’t anticipate buying anymore iTunes songs until the price goes down.
On the otherhand, the new iPods are amazing. Come April, I’m buying one to replace my old 3G.
The DVD to iPod transfer is pain enough that I’ve bittorrented gigabytes of TV episodes I already have on DVD (Buffy, Farscape, etc.) just because it is easier to dump a season of avis into isquint and let it convert the season to ipod format overnight rather than rip DVDs.
Hell, I bought the Aeon Flux dvd set this weekend, and last night downloaded the bittorrented collection for quick transfer to the ipod through isquint.
I stole a copy of Windows XP. I tried give it back and the person paid me to keep it.
“This guy forgot a minor player in the ipod-filling sweepstakes: music that has been (legally) ripped from CDs that one owns.”
– I totally agree… I’m finally getting around to ripping my CD/LP/and Cassette collection. I’ve got over 500 CD’s, 200 LP’s, and about 100 Cassettes. I’m just about finished with the CD’s, and then I’ll start recording the LP’s and Cassettes. All of this music was purchased legally. I’ve also bought about 10 LP’s this year on ITMS.
second, I’ve also purchased an ipod for each of my two kids, and one for my wife, and I’m getting ready to buy a 5g ipod. Most of my friends have large CD collections also…. All those that I know are ripping their music libraries onto their computers. The fact that music was purchased BEFORE the ipod came out means that now we’re listening to songs we forgot we had, and enjoying them more.
On a side note, I just paid Apple to fix my iPod mini under warranty – since it is ‘over six months old’ I had to pay $29.95 for shipping. The battery lasts about 8 hours on a full charge (instead of the reported 18), then it intermittantly reports that the battery is dead for the next few hours of spotty life.
Apple returned the defective iPod to me – not fixed – along with an admonishing note about how to charge the battery correctly, how to update the drivers (had already done that and indicated that I did in the form).
So I’ve got a defective iPod under warranty and Apple charged me $29.95 to assure me that it’s fine. What should I do?
say there are only 100 ipod owners. of them, 30 use itunes. itunes sells 1000 songs in a year, or 10 songs per ipod owner. next year, ipod has 1000 owners. 400 of them use itunes at 15 songs per year. thats 6000 songs per year or 6 songs per ipod per year. which stats give you a good idea of what is going on with music sales?
a.) 600% increase in song sales
3.) 1,000% increase in ipod owners
π.) 40% decrease in songs sold per ipod per year
.) 50% increase in songs per itunes account per year
q.) 1233% increase in itunes accounts
1.) 33% increase in ipods using itunes
&.) 17% more statistics on ipods
bonus points if you can spot which of these stats tell you anything about pirating?
my math may be suspect. i didn’t even get tells right.
buy AppleCare.
You mean “iTMS” instead of “itunes” ?
One of the obvious reasons that fewer songs might be sold per iPod user is the obvious fact that music fanatics were the early adopters, and later adopters weren’t buying as much music anyway. So it doesn’t tell us anything about piracy or the popularity of iTMS or really about anything useful at all: people who buy less music simply bought iPods later than people who buy more music.
“buy AppleCare.”
– I guess you didn’t notice that my iPod is under warranty. Apple charged me $29.95 shipping not to fix it, even though it is still well under warranty. It’s 7 months old.
If I had bought AppleCare for $59.95, I wouldn’t have had to pay $29.95 for shipping (it’s a REALLY heavy iPod mini), but they would have provided the same level of zero fixing of my iPod, so I just would have been $30 poorer.
Thanks though.