“I love the iTunes Music Store. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the shop in the spring of 2003, I called it revolutionary, and who can argue that it’s been anything but?” Farhad Manjoo writes for Salon.
Manjoo writes, “Still, iTunes has always seemed like a stopgap measure, something to tolerate until the music industry got its act together. I think of it, now, as a place to buy music that I like, but not a place to get music I love. If you love something you want a permanent copy, and music from iTunes is fundamentally ephemeral: Nearly everything you purchase from the store will never work on any device not made by Apple.”
MacDailyNews Take: iTunes Store-purchased content work on Mac or Windows PC desktops and notebooks, can be burned onto music CDs and played on any CD player and – by ripping said CD – played on any MP3 player on Earth. It’s quite simple. Known to just about anyone who’s ever used iTunes. Yet, it’s amazing how many people get this wrong either by lazily repeating ignorance or intentionally spreading disinformation, isn’t it?
[And, as MacDailyNews reader “kenpet” notes below: You can also use iTunes to convert your non DRM music files to mp3 which is playable anywhere. Just set your iTunes Preferences: Advanced: Import Using to “MP3 Encoder” and you can then convert any track to MP3 under iTunes’ “Advanced” menu.]
Manjoo continues, “This week, Amazon launched a beta version of a music store that breaks this lock-in.”
MacDailyNews Take: You know, the “lock-in” that doesn’t exist. iPods do not require iTunes Store purchases. The iTunes Store does not require iPods. Is that simple enough for you, Farhad?
Manjoo continues, “All of Amazon’s tracks are sold as unrestricted MP3s, free of Digital Rights Management, or DRM — they will work on just about any music player in the world, including an iPod. The store marks iTunes’ first real competition. In fact, I think it kicks iTunes’ buttons.”
MacDailyNews Take: And we’re supposed to care about what you think because so far you’ve gotten extremely simple facts completely wrong? M’kay, Farhad.
Manjoo continues, “Here’s the main way Amazon runs circles around iTunes: I kid you not, shopping for digital music at Amazon simply feels better than shopping on iTunes. That’s because everything is unrestricted. You don’t have to consider where you’re going to play the songs or if you plan to keep them for the long run… Most of the tracks on iTunes, meanwhile, are gummed up by Apple’s copy-protection scheme, called FairPlay. Under these restrictions, you can put your songs on just five computers at a time; make only seven CD copies of a particular playlist; and, if you want to go mobile, the iPod and iPhone are your only option.”
MacDailyNews Take: Quick, alert the manufacturers! Mac and Windows PC notebooks are not “mobile.” Although, for some reason, we see people – on planes, for example – listening to something with white earbuds plugged into their notebooks. Must not be music. Oh, “only” seven CDs (until you change the order of a song and can burn seven more). Regardless, all you need is one CD and – Boom! – unrestricted Psychic well-being out the yin-yang.
Manjoo continues, “As wonderful as it has been to see Apple change the music business — and make no mistake, that’s what it did; Amazon’s store is only possible because Apple paved the way — nobody benefits from a digital-music monopoly.”
MacDailyNews Take: Farhad really screwed up here; he got something right.
Manjoo continues, “From now on when I look for music, I’m going to go to Amazon first. Only if I don’t find something there will I think about buying from iTunes. If you value your freedom, I recommend you do the same.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Kevin” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: You go to Amazon first if you’re interested in saving some money, not because of some ignorant dope scribbling about the value of “freedom.” People who are looking at Amazon forget that prices are not static. These could be introductory prices for all we know. If the labels are giving better pricing to Amazon, and artificially manipulating the market, then Apple – and perhaps Apple’s lawyers – are going to have something serious to say about it.
Competition is good. Don’t forget that it was Apple’s Steve Jobs who called for the end of music DRM, prompting just such competition. So, use the store that offers what you want, whether it be cross-platform support, file formats, bit-rates, selection, and/or prices. We plan to check out both Amazon and iTunes Store when buying music – because they both support Macs and iPods. We’ll probably buy from whichever store has the best price (even though we prefer AAC over the old dino MP3 format). Competition is good. Let it work its magic.
People who look at this as “Amazon takes on iTunes Store” completely miss the real story. Jobs’ call for the removal of DRM was designed to totally marginalize Microsoft, once and for all. It’s the final nail in MS’s coffin. Redmond will not control digital music formats. Apple won. Meanwhile, iPod sales continue unabated as iTunes Store does not and never did drive iPod purchases (which we know because 97% of music on the average iPod is not from the iTunes Store). And, believe it or not, despite recent hyperbole, Apple’s iTunes Store will be just fine.
Is this guy a writer for a hair stylist magazine? We have to put up with paid shills from M$, and apparently now shills for the record companies.
I tried the service and downloaded the free song just to see how it worked. It worked fine…but did anyone notice the band name? The Apples in Stereo? Was this a stab at Apple?
Who is this Fartah Manjuice? BRING HIM TO ME AND I WILL SHIT ON HIS HEAD!
the sad part is that until he started his little blog, salon was generally a high quality place. he is dragging it down….
I use to be into downloading music. I really don’t care about the whole drm issue on iTunes its the sound quality issue which has stopped me from downloading music from iTunes or Amazon. Even at 256kps AAC it doesn’t compare to the original CD. Recently I bought a CD(yes a real CD) of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, and I compared one of the tracks on the CD to a track that I bought off of iTunes of the same exact album. The difference was like the difference between a RAW image and a compressed jpeg. So until Apple starts using the Apple Lossless(with or without drm) scheme I’m not going to download music thats sounds like FM radio.
It is not a rational strategy for consumers to divide their business between Amazon and Apple. There will be never be “free competition” in music downloads as long as the major record companies have the oligopolistic power of getting to choose which producers’ music is heard and which distributors can distribute music. We have already seen the signs of collusion between the companies in their negotiations with Apple.
This Amazon ploy is a way of dividing the market so that the companies can threaten to shift their contracts to Amazon or Apple according to how they cooperate. If you buy from Amazon, you are helping to bring back album bundling and higher single prices. Apple is the only player whose profits don’t depend significantly on a higher price for the music.
Interesting that Manjoo has little to say about watermarking. That’s an effort to end the real constraint on music pricing — file sharing.
You may use iTunes to convert your non DRM music files to mp3 which is playable anywhere. Just set your preferences:advanced:import coder to mp3 and you can convert any track to mp3 under the “Advanced” menu.
“iTunes Store-purchased content work on Mac or Windows PC desktops and notebooks, can be burned onto music CDs and played on any CD player and – by ripping said CD – played on any MP3 player on Earth.”
Yah… and by twice re-encoding the file, you degrade it. You may technically be correct in your criticism, but seriously… that is just dopey considering the alternative: high-bitrate, DRM-free music files.
Aside from all the FUD that is floating about, the fact of the matter is that the general public DOES see iTunes and DRM’d services as limitations. Face the truth, the only reason that the iTunes store is as successful as it is, is because the iPod is bigger then the Walkman! That is it.
Get over the stuff about RIP’ing iTunes tracks to break the DRM, the average music user is NOT going to do that.
I am sure that Steve is VERY happy with the Amazon store and releasing DRM free MP3’s. The deal that Apple stuck with EMI was a huge hurdle to overcome with the RIAA and the next powerhouse in music sales is hitching on for the ride.
Get real people, iTunes or not, DRM sucks and I for one am VERY excited that other major online distributers are on the ball as breaking the chain to the RIAA and DRM!
It could be worse, we could all be shackled to a M$ DRM and at any time M$ could decide to change the licensing rules and we would have to pay more to keep tracks we already purchased.
To officially end my rant, the iTunes store is great, but we all know that someday it will come to an end. Steve saw this iPod thing as a great opportunity to get apple out of the red and they did so. It was also a great opportunity to make Apple a household name again, not a joke. Again, great job.
All the apps and services that are time to iTunes, you wait and see, some day it will all just be part of the OS. iTunes today is the computer interface of tomorrow. This has already been proven, where did Steve say that they got inspiration for Spotlight? iTunes.
Journalists must be the dumbest f*cks on the planet. Or the most deceitful.
Lala.com
$1 an album can’t be beat, and it’s 100% legal.
Is it me, or do my eyes read “Farthead”?
MW – knowledge
But Manjoo is right. The cost for unencumbered MP3s is now $0.99. Who cares if “ripping said CD [is] known to just about anyone”? iTunes is about convenience and doing the CD thing is anything but.
The MDN commentary also failed to note that Amazon MP3s have a 256 kbps bitrate vs. Apple’s 128 (at the 99 cent price point).
People, don’t be too hard on this guy. He is not a journalist; he is a blogger. The difference is, he doesn’t need to do research; he’s only writing a diary, for cryin’ out loud! These are his impressions and opinions!
Basically, unless you know the back story of Apple and the Labels, you can’t know how Amazon mp3 downloads came to being. He doesn’t realise that Amazon is just a tool. Jeff Bezos is not a visionary CEO; he just figured he can get some free PR, so he went along with whatever labels suggested. He will continue to get along with whatever labels want, since music downloads will never be his core business. If Apple was barely breaking even on iTunes Store, Amazon could easily be losing money (or labels must be giving them a break with their share of the pie). According to analysts, Apple is paying around $0.70 per $0.99 song. After all expenses, Apple is left with at most $0.10 per song. Regardless of Amazon’s infrastructure, they simply cannot be making any money if they give the labels the same share of the pie.
Labels (mainly Universal) are trying to choke iTunes Store using Amazon. Will they succeed? We cannot tell. They simply hate Apple so much that they will do anything. And unfortunately, they are powerful enough that, with a compliant Amazon, they just may be able to seriously undermine iTunes. In their myopic vision, though, the aren’t realising that they will again be undermining the healthy growth of the music download business. Without Apple to curb labels’ greed, people would easily return to P2P. Amazon will never care; they’ll just do what labels want. This will be their ultimate undoing.
wow. just wow. so he is an idiot for not pointing out how fairplay works.. but then he points out how fairplay works and is an idiot for not liking it?? WHAT?
yes itunes is great. DRM blows. period. apple is starting to support non-drm, but the point is this. DRMed files are not as valuable as non-DRMed files. Amazon made a store that has file that can work on any portable device. itunes can’t say that.
remember, more freedoms, not less.
magic word, choice. and i agree.
Ya’know, if I was Jobs I would just boot Universal’s tracks off the iTMS and put up a note saying, “As Universal tracks are now available from Amazon at a lower price and with fewer restrictions than Universal allows us to extend to you, please buy from Amazon and show your support for 89 cent, DRM-free music tracks. As Universal makes us charge you 10 cents more for a DRM-restricted track we are suspending the sale of Universal tracks at the iTunes Music Store out of respect for you, the consumer and good Apple customer.”
Of course, what’s most likely going on here is that Amazon is leveraging its huge server capacity and is delivering the full 89 cents, or something very close to it, to Universal and the other participating indie labels. The idea is to build up Amazon as an established place for music downloads, stop offering tracks on iTMS, and shift new tracks from popular artists to as high a price as possible. 89 cents a track today, $5 a track next year–or even better, from Universal’s perspective, $12 for a 2 tracks and ringtone download package.
I am an Apple Fanatic and my house is full of the products. The one thing that gets me about this site is the MDN take when others are right. Laptops are not a fair add-on to mobile devices. And, MDN shouldn’t pretend through their own ignorance that they are. Itunes store purchases are limited to the ipod and Iphone. Period! Burning to a CD to then bring back to an mp3 format for use is not a correct or smart suggestion. With the elimination of DRM Itunes store purchases will be useable on all devices immediately without conversion. No one may want to with how great the Ipods are but that is not the point.
When credit is due it needs to be given. In this case it is a strong affirmation of Steve Jobs plans. MDN needs to not always tote the superiority card. That philosophy is what drives most people away from our beloved products. It doesn’t bring them into the fold. MDN… Apple isn’t the only successful company. They are certainly leading the way but when others step-up and enrich the experience they too should get the support you offer Apple for a job well done.
MDN is starting to sound like Donald Rumsfeld defending our policy in Iraq. The Amazon music store will only help Apple to remove DRM. I bought a couple of songs last night just to try it out. It actually integrates with iTunes. I was juiced on the fact that the made it work out of the box with Mac, like no one else has been willing to do (including Amazon’s movie services). And I don’t just mean that the songs were non-DRM mp3 format – they have an OS X (10.4) download client that made it work fast. MDN should give them a damn break.
“The store marks iTunes’ first real competition. In fact, I think it kicks iTunes’ buttons.”
Um, lets not get carried away. The prices are nice, the non-DRM is nice, but how’s that integration? Not so smooth is it?
MDN, I don’t get it…
You go on and on defending how Fairplay DRM is not restrictive, yet you think the labels need to abolish DRM… Why? If it isn’t “restrictive” then what’s the point of removing it?
Apple will soon sign Artists directly and hit the labels where it hurts.
While temporarily this is good for the consumer, there is a lot of issues here that I think Apple’s lawyers will be looking at.
For one, how does Universal explain the undercutting of price, DRM free files when they got more for less with Apple? Or their whole stance on being anti DRM free and then go out and do it?
As was said before, this is about marginalizing Apple and giving them other outlets to market their garbage to that they have more control over.
But the hidden truth is the watermarking of the files to track file sharers and use it to prosecute them down the road. Think of it, they don’t have to get the info from an ISP or fight some company in court for that info. They can simply get it from one of the PtP networks and have all the info they need to nail you. They are setting you up.
The problem with the labels trying to choke the iTunes store out of business is that the iPod already has too much traction. People with iPods will automatically use iTunes which will automatically pull them towards iTMS. Now I think there will be a gradual decline in iTMS marketshare but the labels should have done this 3 to 5 years ago.
Ding dong, the two witches are dead: Microsoft DRM and music subscription services.
Oh yea, the third witch of convoluted, inflated song pricing is probably also dead.
MDN is absolutely right, iTunes was the Trojan horse which has made Quicktime the de facto digital delivery medium.
“For one, how does Universal explain the undercutting of price”
———
They don’t have to. What they’ve done is exactly what the labels want them to do… Haven’t you seen the songs for $1.94? They’ve introduced variable pricing.. Some songs will be less at 89 cents, some will be more at $1.94.
Vivendi Universal and others have been pushing for Apple to do this for a long time.
Manjoo: “From now on when I look for music, I’m going to go to Amazon first. Only if I don’t find something there will I think about buying from iTunes. If you value your freedom, I recommend you do the same.”
I value my freedom, and that’s why I will not buy music from Amazon, that has a “Digital Watermark”
And poster Middilay, I don’t own an iPod (yeah, there’s a couple of us left on the planet!). So when you say “… Laptops are not a fair add-on to mobile devices. And, MDN shouldn’t pretend through their own ignorance that they are. Itunes store purchases are limited to the ipod and Iphone.”, you’re totally WRONG. My iTunes purchases go straight to my tower and laptop. My laptop is my mobile device, and it’s how I transport my music and listen to it away from home. How is that not a mobile device and how is my iTunes set-up “limited to the ipod and Iphone” that I don’t actually have?
Please, Middilay, just like Manjoo, you should think before you type.