Online Music Stores
According to Forbes.com, Apple may launch iTMS for Australia next month without support from SonyBMG and Warner Music, just like iTMS Japan. It's something that a lot of people have suspected since the failed launch earlier this year except back then, people were speculating that SonyBMG was the reason for the hold up, not Warner as well.
The heart of the issue seems to be an insistence from the two labels that a flat rate model is not the way to go. They want a two-tiered approach where some songs are more expensive than others for whatever reason. Universal Music Group and EMI are ready for launch however.
They just don't get it do they? They argue CD sales are dropping because people are downloading songs from services like BitTorrent, LimeWire, and eDonkey. In comes Apple with iTunes Music Sore. Huge success. Major victory for Apple and the music business. Copycats spawned and disappeared or made irrelevant almost as quickly. Why?
Most of those stores use Microsoft's WMA format which is incompatible with the planet's best selling portable digital music player, the iPod. They also use either a multi-tiered pricing model or an unworkable subscription service, and they use different copy protection mechanisms for different songs. In Sony's case, apart from the different pricing and different copy protections, their online store, Connect, use ATRAC, an obscure and proprietary file format incompatible with anything but Sony's own products.
Not supporting iPods is enough reason to submit themselves to a snowball's chance in hell of being popular. The multi-tiered pricing model promotes subjective favoritism from the labels' and will discourage buyers. Labels think some of their songs are worth more than $0.99. We don't necessarily share their feelings.
Napster's subscription service is doomed to fail from the beginning because of how they manage it. If you don't keep paying the fees every month, you'll lose every single one of your downloaded music even those you have backed up somewhere else. How so? Their songs need to be verified every month to check their validity. If you fail to pay, verification will fail and your songs get deleted off the hard drive. When you stop subscription to a magazine, your old magazines aren't gonna suddenly burst into flames leaving you with a pile of dust to clean up. They're not gonna disappear all by themselves either. That is why Napster is irrelevant.
The part state-owned local telco, Telstra, is one of the largest companies in this country and they can afford to keep pouring money to their store even if no one's buying. Destra, a separate, non related private e-commerce outfit, is a largely obscure company who has 17 vendors propping up their music store under their own names though none seriously care about how it runs. Almost zero promotion except maybe from Sanity, the CD store, and even then I doubt people notice them.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is another name for copy protection. For a lot of people, this is evil. You get this on DVD's, some CD's, and all legally downloaded music. We're used being able to do whatever we want with the songs we buy. Not anymore. Companies now say consumers don't buy music/movies, consumers only buy the right to play just as with software. We're not legally allowed to install software on more than one computer at a time unless it's a multi-unit license and that's what they want for the entertainment industry.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as we're allowed to have a copy in our computers, able to backup the music, and can listen to it on my iPod, I'm not too fussed.
I fail to understand Sony's insistence on multi-tiered pricing system. They launched Connect in May 2004 with their own software, file format, pricing system and DRM. They failed miserably mainly because of an extremely buggy software. Sony's contract with Apple runs out end of next year (as do other labels') and they're preparing for a relaunch of Connect. If they think they can strong-arm Apple to bump up prices on iTMS with the threat of leaving iTMS for their own store, they're in for a rough ride.
iPod is an icon just as Walkman used to be and looking at Sony's newest Walkman units, they are a very long way from reclaiming that status. No one's gonna give up an iPod for something like that. Of all the iPod killers touted by various companies since 2002, the only ones to successfully bury an entire lineup of iPods are these. That line killed the iPod mini.
Music labels are at the feet of consumers more than ever. If we don't like what they're offering for whatever reason, we're not buying. Too expensive? We have our ways of getting them. Doesn't suit our taste? We don't buy 'em. Simple, no?
Apple seems to be the only company that understands that at the moment and their DRM placement seems fair enough unless you're out to become a pirate. The music sharing feature in iTunes is perfect for those who have multiple computers. Apple have sold over 500 million songs through iTunes worldwide, captured 80% of the UK market, and the circumsized iTMS Japan even sold 1 million songs in the first 4 days. Those companies would be out of their minds to undermine Apple and the iTMS.
Here's a shout out for my cousin who's working for Universal Music. As long as they're in, he's still on my good book. If they pull out or start making ridiculous demands, he'll never hear the end of it from me, right cuz? ^_^
P.S. It's probably a good idea Motorola didn't name their iTunes phone the ROXXOR becuse if it doesn't work as advertised or is not as intuitive as the iPod, it'd be known as the SUXX0RRR.
The heart of the issue seems to be an insistence from the two labels that a flat rate model is not the way to go. They want a two-tiered approach where some songs are more expensive than others for whatever reason. Universal Music Group and EMI are ready for launch however.
They just don't get it do they? They argue CD sales are dropping because people are downloading songs from services like BitTorrent, LimeWire, and eDonkey. In comes Apple with iTunes Music Sore. Huge success. Major victory for Apple and the music business. Copycats spawned and disappeared or made irrelevant almost as quickly. Why?
Most of those stores use Microsoft's WMA format which is incompatible with the planet's best selling portable digital music player, the iPod. They also use either a multi-tiered pricing model or an unworkable subscription service, and they use different copy protection mechanisms for different songs. In Sony's case, apart from the different pricing and different copy protections, their online store, Connect, use ATRAC, an obscure and proprietary file format incompatible with anything but Sony's own products.
Not supporting iPods is enough reason to submit themselves to a snowball's chance in hell of being popular. The multi-tiered pricing model promotes subjective favoritism from the labels' and will discourage buyers. Labels think some of their songs are worth more than $0.99. We don't necessarily share their feelings.
Napster's subscription service is doomed to fail from the beginning because of how they manage it. If you don't keep paying the fees every month, you'll lose every single one of your downloaded music even those you have backed up somewhere else. How so? Their songs need to be verified every month to check their validity. If you fail to pay, verification will fail and your songs get deleted off the hard drive. When you stop subscription to a magazine, your old magazines aren't gonna suddenly burst into flames leaving you with a pile of dust to clean up. They're not gonna disappear all by themselves either. That is why Napster is irrelevant.
The part state-owned local telco, Telstra, is one of the largest companies in this country and they can afford to keep pouring money to their store even if no one's buying. Destra, a separate, non related private e-commerce outfit, is a largely obscure company who has 17 vendors propping up their music store under their own names though none seriously care about how it runs. Almost zero promotion except maybe from Sanity, the CD store, and even then I doubt people notice them.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is another name for copy protection. For a lot of people, this is evil. You get this on DVD's, some CD's, and all legally downloaded music. We're used being able to do whatever we want with the songs we buy. Not anymore. Companies now say consumers don't buy music/movies, consumers only buy the right to play just as with software. We're not legally allowed to install software on more than one computer at a time unless it's a multi-unit license and that's what they want for the entertainment industry.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as we're allowed to have a copy in our computers, able to backup the music, and can listen to it on my iPod, I'm not too fussed.
I fail to understand Sony's insistence on multi-tiered pricing system. They launched Connect in May 2004 with their own software, file format, pricing system and DRM. They failed miserably mainly because of an extremely buggy software. Sony's contract with Apple runs out end of next year (as do other labels') and they're preparing for a relaunch of Connect. If they think they can strong-arm Apple to bump up prices on iTMS with the threat of leaving iTMS for their own store, they're in for a rough ride.
iPod is an icon just as Walkman used to be and looking at Sony's newest Walkman units, they are a very long way from reclaiming that status. No one's gonna give up an iPod for something like that. Of all the iPod killers touted by various companies since 2002, the only ones to successfully bury an entire lineup of iPods are these. That line killed the iPod mini.
Music labels are at the feet of consumers more than ever. If we don't like what they're offering for whatever reason, we're not buying. Too expensive? We have our ways of getting them. Doesn't suit our taste? We don't buy 'em. Simple, no?
Apple seems to be the only company that understands that at the moment and their DRM placement seems fair enough unless you're out to become a pirate. The music sharing feature in iTunes is perfect for those who have multiple computers. Apple have sold over 500 million songs through iTunes worldwide, captured 80% of the UK market, and the circumsized iTMS Japan even sold 1 million songs in the first 4 days. Those companies would be out of their minds to undermine Apple and the iTMS.
Here's a shout out for my cousin who's working for Universal Music. As long as they're in, he's still on my good book. If they pull out or start making ridiculous demands, he'll never hear the end of it from me, right cuz? ^_^
P.S. It's probably a good idea Motorola didn't name their iTunes phone the ROXXOR becuse if it doesn't work as advertised or is not as intuitive as the iPod, it'd be known as the SUXX0RRR.
This entry was posted
on Friday, September 09, 2005 at 10:23 AM.
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On Friday, September 09, 2005 8:42:00 PM,SonyBMG....evil corporate music company.
On Sunday, September 11, 2005 9:05:00 AM,
Such a catch 22 situation, the music companies can't sell their music without apple and the iPod and apple can't sell music without erm...music to sell.
I hope the holdouts realise that they will lose out bigtime if their acts aren't on the iTMS when it launches (obviously because we'll be buying their competitors' tracks).
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