“Personally I’ve never bought an iTune and I don’t own an iPod. I think Apple’s DRM is awful and represents a major step back for us all. I think those that are investing in iTune digital libraries are suckers. You are basically betting that Apple’s proprietary DRM laced format will be the standard for the rest of your life. You are paying too much for your music and tying yourself to only Apple products going forward. More innovative ways to play your music may indeed come in the future but unless they are marketed by Apple you will not likely be able to use these devices with your iTunes files due to Apple’s tight proprietary control,” Thomas Hawk writes for eHomeUpgrade. “Personally I want nothing to do with it.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s iTunes lets you burn as many custom CDs as you like without DRM. You can play these music CDs anywhere. iTunes also lets you make MP3 CDs. Audio CDs play in CD players like the one in your car or home stereo. MP3 CDs play on Mac and Windows computers and in MP3-compatible car stereos and CD players. Data DVDs are great for archiving and backup, but they only work in your DVD-equipped Mac or Windows PC. If your optical drive includes a DVD burner, you can use iTunes to archive your entire music library on DVDs for safekeeping, storing the equivalent of up to 150 CDs on each DVD-R disc. More info here.
Hawk struggles onward, “So who owns the music anyway? You or them? They do. You bought nothing. You bought the right to play their song on their product. It might work today. But I’m not about to bet that this will be the format du jour 10 years from now.”
MacDailyNews Note: See our note above.
Hawk tries this one, “And if you think Apple will be opening up their proprietary format anytime soon, think again. Apple makes virtually nothing on their iTunes downloads, after paying the labels, marketing costs, bandwidth costs, etc. they make peanuts. They make a *ton* of money on the other hand on selling iPods. This was the genius deal between Steve Jobs and the hacks over at the record labels who are just as big of suckers as you are and basically have done nothing but cannibalize existing more lucrative CD sales. They were short sighted and never thought to try to get a piece of the hardware sale and now they are yammering on about raising iTunes prices on you because they are bitter dogs over the screwing that Jobs gave them.”
MacDailyNews Take: Do TV show producers get a cut of every TV sold? Do radio producers get a cut of every radio sold? Do software companies get a cut of every computer sold? So much for the idiotic argument that record labels should get a cut of every iPod sold.
For some reason, Hawk insists on continuing, “And what if you are just dying to get the latest CD from that hot new band. Again, theoretically, would it be possible to go down to Amoeba records, buy it for $14, take it home and rip it, then return it within 7 days to get 75% credit back? What’s that like $3.50 for the new CD? And with 12 songs that’s like what 29 cents a track? Hmmm… would I rather have a crystal clear high bit rate mp3 track for 29 cents or a sure to be antiquated DRM bloated track from iTunes for 99 cents? Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating piracy here, per se. But the way I see it, if Apple is going to go to war with me the consumer to lock up my music and keep it off my innovative new devices of the future, then this doesn’t really represent a valid step forward away from piracy at all.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hawk’s not advocating piracy per se, just ripping off brick and mortar CD stores by stealing their product and driving them out of business even faster. The reason DRM exists is because of people like Hawk. Is it just us or does it seem like the biggest DRM complainers tend to be the biggest thieves? What a ridiculous article penned by someone with a total lack of understanding about iTunes, iPod, Apple’s FairPlay DRM, and how each of them works. What makes someone think that, if they’ve never bought a song from Apple’s iTunes Music Store and they don’t own an iPod, they’re qualified to critique them? Shut up, go buy your CDs, and play them on your CD player (without stealing the music and then returning the CDs). You want a legal online music service without DRM? Stop stealing, keep dreaming, then tell it to the music labels, not Apple.
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Related article:
Apple’s vs. Microsoft’s music DRM: whose solution supports more users? – August 17, 2005
The de facto standard for legal digital online music files: Apple’s protected MPEG-4 Audio (.m4p) – December 15, 2004
Yes one dumbo in a billon.
Don’t even bother contacting this guy.. he’s just looking for hits. Plainly obvious from his sign-off sentence:
“And…. let the Appleheaded fan boys flame comments begin…. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… now.”
Attention seeker. Ignore him and he’ll go away.
between Apple and Microsoft serving their proprietary DRM schemes, I’d rather have Apple dominating the circuit because it was left up to Microsoft, we’d all be shackled to Windows-only forever! Microsoft is the anti-choice faction of the world my friends!!
Come on people — send me your jabs and insults! It will help me fuel my message and make my site even more popular! Come on, don’t hold back!!
PS — I’m going out to my mailbox to see if my check from Microsoft has arrived yet. Be back after I take it to the bank.
What a dork.
What a dufus.
Moving right along, I wasn’t aware the iTunes would allow you to burn an mp3 CD from iTunes purchased music. Can someone please confirm this? If it is true, I’d say that’s a hell of a lot easier than burning audio CDs then re-ripping them back to iTunes.
I don’t mean any offense, so don’t take this the wrong way, but why bothering linking and responding to trolls? This idiot clearly did it to get attention. He has no valid arguments that everyone hasn’t debunked a million times already, so why bother wasting your time?
The best way to destroy a troll is to ignore it because then it cuts off the one thing they so desperately crave: attention.
I mean, has anyone heard of this site before now? Nothing but a big attention whore.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
YAB: Yet Another Bozo.
Don’t feed the trolls.
Obviously this guy hasn’t seen the new ePod case or else he would have just chilled out…
You know, he says he is not advocating piracy “per se”, but it sure sounds like he is.
He belongs in the USSR, circa, 1960. Some kinda of commie he is, share it all, with nothing for the artist.
What a meaningless rant. Offers no solution.
well…he has one valid point. what happens if apple isn’t the leader anymore and you want to have the newest and coolest device and your itunes songs don’t work with them?
i’m sure you can convert them. somebody will develop a conversion program. it probably won’t be an issue.
but he’s an idiot. still buys CD’s and rips to mp3s. i did that in 1998.
itunes is the leader and it rocks. we’ll see what happens if that changes and i want to move my songs to something else…
Ben Dyer,
Here, here! We don’t negotiate with terrorists! Um, oops, wrong web site…
LOL! My MDN magic word is “freedom”!
What a f*%#ing idiot !
He must use windoze.
Why do you give these whining babies that cry, “I want everyting for free or I’ll steal it” any attention? Let them cry in their little corner of cyberspace, ALONE!
We have better things to do!
WTF? eHomeUpgrade? What the hell? Never heard of it. Or him. I personally have not purchased much off the iTunes store, but I do buy used CDs and rip them to AAC mainly cause it’s smaller, and sounds better (160) than MP3 (192K) to me.
So, does FORD still own the car I bought then? Can I take it back and get it fixed for free then? Or can they repo it whenever they want?
What an ass-clown.
daveo,
As MDN explained, you would burn the songs to external media, thereby stripping the DRM.
WANKER, JERK, WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL HIM !!!!!! Spent enough time on him, move on !!!!
H
Please don’t contact this guy – you all know better than to waste keystrokes on him. He’ll just use your words in justifying his next rant.
That really does have to be on of the most ignorant angry rants I have seen in a while.
Even if you don’t like your ipod for some reason, why so angry that other people do? It’s just weird.
Daveo,
You can already convert them as MDN stated in the article, plus there is a program called jHymn, that will strip the DRM from iTunes music you legally own.
There are probably others, and there are always the analog solution. WireTap Pro and Audio Hijack are two programs that do digital to analog to digital conversion.
So there’s really nothing to be worried about.
When parity does occur, the store will become the focal point, not the player, and at that point, the music will more likely become more standard, and hopefully more playable on any device.
Then again maybe not, and we will be screwed. But think that the transition to any device will be possible, no matter what it is. Apple or any other manufacturer, would likely make certain of that. It would just be bad business to not allow that to happen.
Hey! Look! John Dvorak has got a new pen name!
Peace.
“Personally I’ve never bought an iTune and I don’t own an iPod.”
Wow, that will show ’em tough guy! You go! Before you know it your stand against iTunes and the iPod will run Apple out of business.
This dork is probably a Microsoft Windows Butt Monkey Lemming™, so this “tough guy” stance really holds no substance.
My 2¢
What a hack.
Flashxl,
The transition of iTunes Music Store purchases to any device is already possible, as MDN has explained.
Can people read and comprehend anymore?
Someone should forward his article, which cynically advocates CD piracy (by way of plausible denial) to the RIAA, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Virgin.
Then maybe he’ll get a clue as to why DRM exists at all, and it has nothing to do with Apple.
How can he write anything at all when he admits in the first sentence that he hasn’t even tried it. Yet another Doofus PC weenie!!
I wonder how long this turd took to move from cassette tapes to CDs? I suppose he’s going to wait for the “next thing” in 20 years time to move on. So he’ll be sucking sour grapes for 20 years while the rest of the world enjoys technology. Idiot!
MW: “changes” – very appropriate.
I agree with him, but not 4 his reasons. 128 bit files, in my mind, are not worth paying for. When i can buy them lossless, I’m in.
but i love my iPod
We are indeed suckers.
Every last one of us.
You se all you have to do is get a cheap PC with a large hard dive and subscribe to Yahoo! Music.
For $5 a month you can download up to a million songs.
Using certain software you can then strip the music of M$ DRM and burn cds.
Once you loaded up your iPod with MP3’s, and all your friends, burned DVD-R full of tens of thousands of songs.
You quit the subscribtion service, because now you have so much material you can easily trade cd’s for any new music that arrives.
So yes we are suckers, if your a cheap thieving ba$tard
Whatever?
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exactly WHERE can you buy a CD and return (opened) for 75% of the price? i’ve only seen returns on unopened discs.
If the saying “write what you know” still stands then Thomas Hawk’s page should be blank.
Dumb argument– there are opportunity costs for all choices– when you get one thing, what is it you can’t have?
The real question is whther you’re satisfied. Seems like that has been aswered loudly with a resounding YES!
MDN: “opened” as in MacDude opened mouth and inserted hoof.
Personally I’ve never heard of Thomas Hawk and I’ve never visited eHomeUpgrade. I think Hawk’s article is awful and represents a major step back for us all. I think those that are investing in reading articles on eHomeUpgrade are suckers. You are basically betting that reading Hawk’s opinions are worth wasting 5 valuable minutes out of the rest of your life. You are paying too much for your time and tying yourself to only Hawk’s opinions going forward. More unbiased ways to get your technology news may indeed come in the future but unless they are written by Hawk you will not likely be able to reconcile your opinions with his drivel due to Hawk’s tight sphincter control. Personally I want nothing to do with it.
I can’t believe the replies. OK, so he’s picking on iTunes to troll for hits on his website ( BTW, it is working ). Overall his real gripe is with DRM. Although Apple’s Fairplay is better than most DRMs, it is still DRM.
What happens when you want to play or stream your fairplay songs to some other non-Apple device? You can’t. Unless Apple starts licensing fairplay, you never will.
Brick and Mortar stores won’t go out of buisness because most people use cd’s and don’t want/care/have money/stupid to use a computer.
So there. The poor, technically challenged get RIPPED, like always.
Actually, you can’t burn MP3 CD’s without DRM using iTunes Music Store music.
A lot of stores don’t accept returns on opened media anymore.
Gosh the days of re-shrink wrapping the cd’s are long gone.
http://www.officezone.com/shrink1.htm
Or are they? Hahahahha! weeehooo!
We CAN thank him for coining a new term, he has never bought an “iTune” not that he has never bought from the iTunes Music Store.
Has anyone call a track from iTMS an “iTune” before, I’ve never heard it, but I like it.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
JoeKnows…NOT!
“What happens when you want to play or stream your fairplay songs to some other non-Apple device? You can’t. Unless Apple starts licensing fairplay, you never will.”
Did you read any of the previous post BEFORE you wrote this BS? You can burn from iTunes to a CD and the DRM is removed, then put the MP3’s on any damn device you want, moron!
I don’t know about the rest of the posters here, but I sure did NOT give him a hit.
MW: “single” – not a single hit!
To understand a man like Hawk all you have to do is remember the line in Top Gun, “he was abused as a child.”
I’m with Ben,
“I don’t mean any offense, so don’t take this the wrong way, but why bothering linking and responding to trolls? This idiot clearly did it to get attention. He has no valid arguments that everyone hasn’t debunked a million times already, so why bother wasting your time?
The best way to destroy a troll is to ignore it because then it cuts off the one thing they so desperately crave: attention.
I mean, has anyone heard of this site before now? Nothing but a big attention whore.
Move along. Nothing to see here.”
x2
Last time I checked, I CAN’T buy a CD from a music store, rip it to iTunes and then RETURN it – FOR ANYTHING! Not 75% (as he said), not 50%, NOTHING! Every music store I’ve been in has signs posted at the counter stating that refunds are given on unopened CD’s only. Once its open, you can only exchange it. Besides, where is he finding $14 CD’s? The bargain bin at Wal-Mart? The last CD I bought cost me almost $22 after tax.
is really stupid enough to think the DRM is Apple’s idea. Try the RIAA.
They think Apple could have said no DRM and the iTunes store would exist? Not. All the other stores have DRM too.
You want it gone? Re-rip to Apple Lossless. Storage is cheap.
It’s not Apple’s fault there’s DRM. It’s the music industry who made them do it.
i agree with Tommo_UK.
i didn’t click on the link. pls don’t
Do you think he really cares about what he says? Or is he just looking for a reaction?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
I woudl never have thought of the retrun the CD thingo until he mentioned it… so I guess he is promoting piracy – where are the men in black when you need them?
I do know that I was the real 1,000,000,000th download but it was a day ahead of the guy who won – so it didn’t count…
Ho Hum!
The reason I don’t buy anything from the iTMS is because of the slim selection of classical music, but mainly because the sampling rates are so low. 128 just does NOT cut it sonically.
I guess 128 is probably fine if all you’ve ever heard is your car radio and you’ve never heard unamplified instruments played in a real concert hall. Most club and pop music concert sound systems are loud, but sound awful. It’s a shame.
Anyway, I’ll continue to buy CDs and SACDs and rip my own.
“Anonymous, yes there are things that I don’t know about iTunes because I’ve admitedly never tried it. ”
A little quote from this doofus on his blog.
Maybe there should be regulation on publishing something as true even though there is no evidence. Guys like this are giving the net police more reasons to regulate.
I know, I’m gonna call myself a Medical Advisor and write blogs and articles on Cancer treatment. … just so long as it doesn’t effect my real job as a physicist.
Man, is it possible for grapes to get any more sour than this…Is it just me or does anyone else pick up a hint of donuts about this one.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
Even the title is wrong, since one billion songs does not equal one billion customers. It just gets worse, culminating in the stealing from the music store buy returning the CD for refund after ripping the tunes bit.
This guy obviously does not “buy” his music, period. Why does he care about the legal methods used by Apple? Since he steals the music, DRM is irrelevant.
You can’t “steal” music. You can steal something that the music is attached to, but you can’t steal the music itself, only copy it.
Right now everybody who levels the “it’s just like walking into a store and walking out with a CD you didn’t pay for” argument bases it around the fact that when you download an mp3, you now have something on your hard drive that you didn’t have before, something you didn’t pay for, so you must have STOLEN that mp3.
But let me ask you this: If advances in bandwidth and software make it so that you don’t actually have to download a file to your hard drive to hear any song you want to hear whenever you want it, would that still be “stealing music” since you don’t have anything left over after you listened to it? There’s no reason that somebody couldn’t create a P2P application like Limewire that instead of downloading a music file to your hard drive for you to listen later, streams the song instead, leaving nothing left over when the song is done playing. Someone will create such an app, if one doesn’t exist already. There’s no reason not to, because it already takes longer to listen to a song than it does to download one. At that point, the RIAA is going to have to convince people that they “listened to that song illegally”, since it would be hard to draw the shoplifting analogy if you don’t have any mp3s in your posession.
How do you “don’t steal music!” guys feel about that? Would you consider listening to a song without paying for it “stealing”? Is it even possible to listen to a song “illegally”? If you don’t have anything left over but the memory of hearing that song after you’ve heard it, what did you “steal”? DID you steal?
I’m really curious to know what you think about that, because that’s the direction the technology is going.
And the alternative is…what? WMA? If you are going to rant, then rant with a purpose.
I have a bunch of cassette tapes of music that I bought in the 70’s and early 80’s. I bought some of them as albums before then, and I repurchased many as CD’s afterwards. I recently found that about two-dozen of the CD’s have oxidation pits that result in popping or worse. So I’ll have to buy them again.
What the labels fear is that once I get my music in digital form, I won’t need to ever buy it again (as long as I back it up). Since iTunes came out I buy CD’s, rip them to iTunes in Apple Lossless and then store the CD. That’s the legal way to get your high-quality iTunes content without DRM.
If you don’t want to buy from iTunes, then don’t. But please shut up about it.
Apple had that in their iTunes software for sharing/streaming songs over the internet!
Morons, similar to Hawk, created software that could actually copy the songs to your location even after streaming. So, in effect, we are left with sharing only within a subnetwork!
OK, let’s see how this works.
Boss: Hey, you know we keep paying you a salary and frankly nobody seems to read anything you ever write. You better start getting some people paying attention to you quick or you can go and write reviews for the local pennysaver.
Idiot: Geez! I might be fired! I need attention and I need it fast! What can I write about to get some attention? Hmmmm….I need something intelligent and insightful and bound to get me noticed! Who am I kidding! I can’t write! I can’t believe these fools haven’t caught on to me yet! So how do I get a bunch of hits to my article quick? Ah! I know! Flame Apple! All those fanboys will be falling all over themselves to write me angry notes questioning my intelligence and sexual preferences! And I know just the thing to write about!
Five minutes later….
Boss: I see you are getting a lot of attention, way to go Johnson!
Idiot: Uh, it’s Hawk sir, like the bird.
Boss: Eh, whatever. Keep up the work Myers.
Idiot: It’s Haw…thank you sir.
Next week’s espisode: See Brown, er, Hawk write an article about the flood of Viruses infecting the Mac platform and advises people to be safe and use Windows!
” the hacks over at the record labels who are just as big of suckers as you are “
I believe Apple has a vanishingly small margin on the songs because the labels actually get a nice deal, considering their overhead on the downloads.
I still buy CDs, not because of DRM, but because of the bit rate of encoding. However, I’d rather keep the physical media than trade it in, even if I primarily use iTunes to play the encoded material.
a shameless Google bomb, please ignore
http://www.bkpfd.org
Trusted Computing is going to screw us.
MacTels users are going to find out.
http://www.lafkon.net/tc/
This guy is a troll but he’s actually right. I got suckered in for two years before I finally said enough of this crap. The recording industry insisted on DRM and now they have given up control to Apple because of it. The only way out of this mess is to drop DRM, period. If they drop their demand for DRM, Apple’s one true strength is wiped out. Now all of a sudden, other online stores are now capable of selling music to iPod owners and users of other players could then purchase from iTunes Music Store provided Apple dropped their DRM. In my opinion, people buy the iPod to use the iTunes Music store just like they buy Macs to use OS X. They write great software to get you to buy their hardware.
But why would Apple drop DRM? Don’t believe the hype that Apple did not want it. Fairplay is the lock and iTunes is the key. Apple will never drop DRM until the industry does and even then Apple would hold on to DRM as long as possible.
Think I’m wrong? Then start your own band and try to get your music on iTunes and insist that your music not have any DRM. See if Apple allows that.
Truthfully, I see a very good parallel to what happened in the PC world. Apple had a proprietary system and didn’t want to share it. The PC world was open and it eventually dominated.
Right now, Apple dominates music downloads and mp3 players. And this dominance will continue until the recording industry stops being stupid. Of course, this could mean Apple will dominate for the next 50 years.
Same crap story over and over. As stupid as my dumb ass supervisor
I hate shakespeare and I hate broadway and I hate France
Personally
I have never read shakespeare
I have never been to a show on Broadway
and
I have never been to France
but that doesn’t make my arguement any less compelling
yeah right
mdn word “like”
as in
im like an expert on these things
FUDsucker Proxy,
Thanks for proving my point. I have an issue with DRM in general, any DRM. If you are going to remove the DRM by burning and re-ripping then you are left with a lower quality recording. You might as well buy a used CD and rip it to a higher quality.
BTW,
What’s the point of buying a song with DRM if you are going to remove it anyway. In the end you wind up spending so much time on it that its not worth it.
Of course, this changes if you use jHymn to remove the fairplay DRM.
Jeff said this:
Think I’m wrong? Then start your own band and try to get your music on iTunes and insist that your music not have any DRM. See if Apple allows that.
Do you actually know this, or is this simply rhetoric on your part? If true, it makes for interesting fodder. But if simply rhetoric, make it clear next time.
If you are going to remove the DRM by burning and re-ripping then you are left with a lower quality recording
How does converting from one digital format (AAC) to another digital format (CDA) and then to another digital format (MP3) reduce the quality? It’s not like copying analog tape here, digital files can be copied endlessly without degrading their quality. As long as you’re never converting into a format with a lower sampling rate than the one you were using before, you won’t lose any quality in this process.
Written by someone who obviously doesn’t understand ANYTHING about iTunes.
D.R.M.
Dumbass
Resisting
Mechanism
My 5 year old sister has better sentence structure. Come on: “Tjhe screwing Stever gave them”??? How are people supposed to take you seriously if you type like that? (IMO, how are they supposed to take you seriously about this whole article anyway?)
~5:06pm, NewType wrote:
> Someone should fwd his article, which cynically advocates CD piracy
> (by way of plausible denial) to the RIAA, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, & Virgin.
I thought that was a great idea, so I tried to get some e-mail addresses.
http://www.riaa.com SUCKS! I can’t find any address, e-mail or real
(except webmaster); surely they must have an office somewhere! See
http://digg.com/links/RIAA_PHONE_NUMBER_202-775-0101; also
Google found “Jack Egas” <jegas@riaa.com> & <jkaraganis@riaa.com>
http://www.walmartfacts.com/talkwithus SUCKS! They only provide
a form to fill-out, which leaves you w/ no copy of what you sent.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=cat12104&type=page
at least offers one e-mail address, <NewsCenter@bestbuy.com>
http://virgin.com/aboutvirgin/gettingintouch/contactacompany also
offers at least one e-mail address, <manager@virginmega.com>
So I sent these addresses the following short note:
—
To: <jegas@riaa.com>, <jkaraganis@riaa.com>, <NewsCenter@bestbuy.com>, <manager@virginmega.com>
Subj: eHomeUpgrade.com advocates stealing
Dear Sir or Madam,
You may want to check out the following article which advocates buying audio CDs, ripping the music off of them, and then returning the CDs to your store.
<http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/2168/itunes_one_billion>
Your legal department may want to notify the author/magazine/website about the liability and ramifications of this position (making them an accessory).
Sincerely,
A Concerned Netizen
—
There may be other CD-selling companies who should drop Mr. Hawk a note, but I wasted way too much time just trying to find these…
ds.
Los Angeles, CA
ps. Thanks MDN for posting about Fortune’s “Admired” article and crediting me! I really appreciate that! =)
Why won’t Thomas Hawk kill himself?
Too lazy I guess. This ‘article’ proves that.
Why does MDN give these people an audience?
MDN, Have some discretion.
please .
Reading all of this makes one wonder why certain people like Mister Hawk thinks that there is such a thing as a free lunch. Talk about socialism at work. I guess he will never understand the concept of private property. In his world it must be all about what he can get for himself, no matter what others paid to create it. You shouldn’t profit from it seems to be his mantra. Goose to Maverick, “he was abused as a child.”
boyweho, I heard there’s a family of Jews living in the attic of Otto Frank’s office building. You might want to let the germans know about it, being the good concerned citizen you are.
A few points:
1. Hawk: Apple “makes peanuts” after overhead on every iTMS song.
Right-O, but 1 Billion Served is a lot of peanuts. If my math is correct, even if Apple made only 1 penny per song, then they just netted $10 million. In about, huh, 2 years?
Heck, Hawk, I’d be happy with $5 million such “peanuts” a year for 2 years.
2. Jeff:
“I see a very good parallel to what happened in the PC world. Apple had a proprietary system and didn’t want to share it. The PC world was open and it eventually dominated.”
Comparing apples and oranges again? MS’s OS and applications were and continue to be far from open. MS sells proprietary software for open hardware. MS wasn’t so smart. In that situation, it was IBM that was very dumb.
That territory’s been covered before: See the Daring Fireball article Why 2004/”>”Why 2004 Won’t Be Like 1984″.
3. I’ve Googled Amoeba Records (actually, it’s Amoeba Music, but who’s quabbling?)
Amoeba buys and sells new and used music. So Tommyboy Hawk is not returning his opened CDs to the store. He’s selling them back to the store, and don’t think Amoeba’s not aware of the reason for his business.
I can not vouch for Hawk’s math.
We have similar businesses in our neighborhood. The selection of new CDs they have is extremely limited, and the new CDs are all priced at MSRP, not $14 like down the street at Best Buy. Secondly, they sell the used CDs for anywhere from 4.99 on up. So they do not pay anywhere near $10 for a used CD, or they’d be losing money and their lease.
Besides, Hawk’s not factoring in his own overhead (electricity, depreciation of hardware, gas to and from the store, etc). So whittle that $3.50 he “spent” on the CD down to … er… peanuts.
At one time, I thought Thomas Hawk was a reasonable commentator on various digital doings, such as his belief that TiVo might actually survive, although he is a Windows fanboy. But here he’s proven to be full of crap; he’s gone off the deep end, further astray than Dvorak; there’s no credibility left whatsoever. Wonder if he sold his credibility for a few of Ballmer’s dollars.
I don’t think I’ll ever be visiting ehomeupgrade or Hawk’s own blog ever again. Wonder what Scoble thinks of this.
eHomeUpgrade may be getting a lot of hits, but they sold their soul to get them.
Their desire to troll for hits at the expense of informing/educating their readers shows they LACK ANY JOURNALISTIC CREDIBILITY WHATSOEVER!
Whoa. I just wrote and essay on Thomas’ site.
Man that felt good to get that off my chest.
He is obviously retarded.
No matter who you buy from you are locked into them. May as well be locked into the king of music sellers (Apple at the moment). Besides, Apples DRM is easy to strip out even if it is a bit cumbersome. Ever tried to convert WMA into another format ?
Funny isn’t it? Apple is the little guy here, with only 3 or 4% market share. But no matter what Apple does there will be someone slaggng them. Apple is obviously seen as a threat to some. And that’s a good thing.
Hi guys!
Some prefer: compact-cassettes others the iPod/iTunes or even a X-mas tree !
Damnit!!! I clicked the link. Crap! I just gave the wanker a hit.
Why do you have to defend apple no matter what? Why not just admit that DRMs f_ck the consumers up the a$$?
As long as they continue to apply DRMs I see nothing wrong with getting music from direct connect instead!
just a thought though: is it possible to stream bought songs over the daap protocol? if so it should be pretty easy to save the stream and thereby bypassing the drm? seems too easy though :/
I’m very happy to be bound into Apple products for life.
And I’m just deliriously happy NOT being bound into products from MS, Dell, HP, Sony etc.
IT’S A LITTLE THING CALLED TRUST.
The pure fact that it is digital means that it will be around for a lot longer than say my 300+ cassette tape or 100+ record collection. We never know what the future will bring, but we can all rest assured that even if Apple was going to go out of business tomorrow, you are still given the right to EASILY back up your music with miniscule loss of sound quality before the DRM won’t unlock anymore. Try that with a cassette tape. Even if Apple went out of business in the future, the fairplay DRM technology would have long been licensed to others far before that would have ever happened. Why is this guy on the internet if he thinks the internet it’s such a fad…he should be backing HIS music up to cassette tape and listening to them on his Sony Walkman…and keeping his money under his matteress, and building a fallout shelter in his basement.
History of lock-in (that I can think of)
-gramaphon cylinders (we still have some of those 100 year old antiques)
-45 Singles
-LPS
-reel to reel tape
-cassette tape
-8-track tape
-CDs
-VHS
-Betamax
-DVDs
-Digital Music (WMA or Fairplay)
Why do things become obsolete? Why did I buy that 8-track and got locked into that hardware dependent system?
Why is Hawk a trolling fool?
to Mork not Mindy,
I know it is possible to play it on any device, but the transition is far less than desirable. You really got to want to buy from iTunes to take the time to burn, and then re-rip and then transfer.
I never thought that that concept of music management was an easy or sellable one.
In some perverse way, I could just pee in my pants and wash them later, but I would rather use the urinal, and take my chances with a little dribble.
sorry about the late response.
Yet more FUD from someone who has never owned a mac – let alone bought a song off itunes.
Here’s a unique idea:
Install itunes and start using it before you make ignorant and factually incorrect statements for the world to see.
Who knows, IF you actually tried something before writing about it – someone, somewhere may JUST take one of your ‘writings’ as a constructive and educated opinion based on experience.
Try it – it will be a new experience for you.
Emil – DRMs are there for a reason!
To stop piracy, and therefor the studios actually make money so that they can signup more artists, who can write more songs, who can then make enough money to continue being a musican.
Take 5 minutes to sit down and think of the bigger picture – let’s face it, in the modern world, if there was no drm there would be NO entertainment business.
My last name is Hawk and I disavow and relationship with this lunatic. I sincerely hope there is not one iota of DNA connection between him and I. Ugh.
It is clear that most of the reader GET IT! This guy is trying to excite Mac users he is clearly a ill informed writer whom does not do his research don’t click the link he will die on the vine like other hacks that have tried this tactic..ignore him not worth your time…
“Stupid is as stupid does”…Forest Gump
PS : Do you think Forest knew this guy? Hmmm…just wondering
that is the most poorest, most blatent, obvious attempt at getting hits i’ve ever seen!! i didn’t read the article and i aint gonna.
one BILLION suckers?! that statement is so very, very unbelieveably stupid that if he were to make it to me in person i’d just laugh in his face and walk away. i mean, why bother?
It’s the dopes like that guy that make you sorry blogs were invented.
You should see the ditto head responses he has….sheesh
I think he misses the point………..1 billion votes For, and one Against! Our family has 4 iPods, 300 downloads from iTunes, 400 Cd’s ripped and the convenience of music on the go. Not a perfect world but a damn sight better than pre-iPod.
Obviously another TURD RANCHER.
Probably has a real nice Dell laptop and Dell DJ music player to go with it….nice!
Why does MDN even give stories like this any air time? Is this really Mac news worthy information?
Looks like just another putz to me
So how does this idiot know that Apple makes “nothing” or peanuts from iTunes sales?
Oh, I know, he read it in a John Dvorak article so certainly it must be true.
A person is perfectly within their rights to be against DRM – I even agree to a certain extent. Whether I choose to be faced with “restrictions” is my choice and I make it.
A person is perfectly within their rights to be against downloaded music in terms of quality – I even agree to a certain extent. I only buy single songs from iTunes as I prefer to have the physical cd in terms of both quality and the fact that I like the artwork etc that comes with it. It’s my choice and I make it.
A person is perfectly within their rights to think that a particular method of purchasing music is expensive – I agree that some are. I don’t use them. If I can buy something cheaper at a different store than I usually do, I make a decision based on the saving and how good I deem that store to be etc. It’s my choice and I make it.
However to then say that you should buy something, copy it then take it back for a refund (even only a partial one) is outrageous. It’s no more ethical than burning a cd and giving multiple copies to all your friends and whomever else you felt like – ultimately the people selling it are not getting the payment they requested from the volume of people who now possess it. You can argue that the people you give it to may go buy it themselves but they might not and some definitely won’t – some who might have otherwise taken a punt on their own. You can’t prove the effect. Even if you just felt the cd was expensive that doesn’t give you the right to rip the people you bought it from off in order to get a better deal for yourself
Music may be expensive, record companies (any any other kind) may be limiting their sales by limiting what you can do with their products but ultimately it’s their choice. They pay artists to make records, which they in turn can distribute how they want for what they want.
Format wise there is always gonna be something else in the future (better or not) I didn’t get replacement cd’s for my vinyl – I had to pay for the ones I wanted. If I want to continue to play my vinyl I have to keep my player or buy another if it breaks. If companies who make record players stop at some point because it becomes uneconomical then tough luck for me.
DRM is bad if taken too far but that doesn’t mean it’s all bad, it’s a question of what you are willing to put up with. At the same time no one can 100% guarantee that DRM free digital (computer based) music wouldn’t result in widespread copying. If eventually DRM does ever stop it almost certainly won’t be a sudden switch off – it will be a gradual loosening of the restrictions. It would be an incredibly bold business who effectively opened their doors and said: “take what you want and leave whatever you felt like paying – if you even pay anything”. If music were free I would download dozens of albums a week. I may hate most of them and not have even bothered to buy them normally – no loss to anyone then? What if I liked say 10 of them each week? I couldn’t afford to pay for that much music – would I then delete the ones I wouldn’t normally have bought? Of course I wouldn’t. Would I pay for some, but not others? How would I decide? Ultimately I probably wouldn’t bother.
If apple don’t want to share their system then it’s down to the other companies to come up with a viable alternative, the market is still young enough and in fact still globally small enough for someone else to come in with a system that works well, at a reasonable price, with wide compatibility and succeed. Apple did the same thing against the other digital providers and are still in the process of doing so the the physical providers. Of course there may come a point when apple has destroyed everyone in their wake when the authorities will force them to open up in some fashion – and they will be right to do so but at this stage the market is still fairly open.
Hawk! the sound of spitting…
1 billion suckers? More like tens of billions of “suckers” who’ve bought 78-33 1/3-45rpm vinyl records, reel-to-reel and 8 tracks tapes, audio cassettes, compact disks, etc. I’m one of them, and am now happily buying from iTunes, without regret.
Where was Hawk when all that dead media was piling up in our collective shelves and closets?
Joop,
MP3 is a lossy format. Therefore anything you rip into MP3 (even with a high bit rate) will lose something from the original. The only way around this is to use the Apple lossless format, but that results in huge files.
MDN–
For the record, you can’t make an MP3 CD with AAC files.
MW: Type. As in format. As in wrong format. :p
The record labels get 100% profit from the iTunes Music Store. They have no duplication cost, no packaging cost, no shipping cost and no distribution cost. The record labels don’t even pay for the bandwidth. Apple pays for EVERYTHING. The music labels get a 100% free ride. Every dime they rake in from iTunes is PURE PROFIT. The record labels post ONE copy of Madonna’s latest hit on the ITMS and sell it a million times. The only thing Apple profits from is the hardware. And they only sell each piece of hardware ONCE.
Should the record labels get a cut of every iPod that’s sold? No.
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