[benign]

Old news to some, boring for others... but I have
always known Apple was not thinking differently
at all when it came to it's iTunes Music Store.
A record label middleman, a con for us and the
recording artists.

http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/

[Mastrap]

There are so many errors, misconceptions and falsifications in that page I don't even know where to start. The iTunes shop has to work within the existing framework, for better or for worse. It was never meant to revolutionise the music business.

[willed]

Didn't read the article, but I can guess the gist: record labels still get all the money, artist gets none. Apple couldn't have started the store if it didn't work that way... at least at first. However, the iTMS brings up some interesting possibilities. Surely artists can now approach Apple directly to distribute their songs for them, with better royalties for the artist? Could we see Apple becoming, effectively, another record label? Perhaps this would lead to a better deal for artists.

At the moment I think the main reason not to shop at iTMS is that in ten years the DRM won't play on anything. I still buy singles on it, but won't be investing on the Complete Works of Beethoven or anything.

[Superchicken]

Time line anyone?

[PurpleGiant]

Originally posted by willed:
Could we see Apple becoming, effectively, another record label?

Oh could you imagine the lawsuit that would cause. Apple would certainly need to start a subsidiary called iTunes Music or something to make this a possibility. And keep the name 'Apple' as far away as possible.

[wataru]

Old news.

Wake me when you have a new, non-assinine point to make.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by wataru:
Old news.

Wake me when you have a new, non-assinine point to make.

It's "asinine".

[wataru]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
It's "asinine".

I was trying to point out how much of an ass he is.

Actually no, that was just a typo. Thanks.

[Spheric Harlot]

[Nodnarb]

Just to point out one of the many, many things wrong with that article, I remember reading on a MacNN article saying that Apple makes about 4 cents per song on iTunes. That page is just flat out lying saying they make about 35 cents. Stupid article.

[MilkmanDan]

Blah blah blah

[Visnaut]

It's a veiled attempt at making file sharing seem like a legitimate distribution method, and in doing so, it contradicts itself.

One of the main reasons they state at the top about why supporting the iTMS is bad is because "Tunes AAC files don't sound as good as CDs. AAC is a 'lossy' compression format". So do they advocate buying CDs instead? No sir, "stop paying for major label music and keep sharing."

Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but I find it extremely rare to find lossless copies of albums on p2p/torrent.

Sorry fellas, but ya can't have it both ways. And to my ears, the iTMS 30-second previews sound way better than the poorly ripped shit you find online. Besides, so what if the artists only get 11 out of the 99 cents? (Which isn't really known, btw, only speculated at) By perpetuating file sharing, they get zero cents. How is that any better?

Personally, I gave up on music downloading a long time ago, it's just too much of a hassle to find what you want in the quality that you want it in, especially when you're not into the song du jour. However, I'm looking forward to iTMS Canada. For full albums I'll still prefer buying physical copies, but it'll be great for sampling artists and getting the one or two songs I like from a specific artist.

[xi_hyperon]

Originally posted by benign:
Old news to some, boring for others... but I have
always known Apple was not thinking differently
at all when it came to it's iTunes Music Store.
A record label middleman, a con for us and the
recording artists.

http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/

good luck with that

[RAILhead]

[turtle777]

Amazing. People will rant about anything.

-t

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Visnaut:
Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but I find it extremely rare to find lossless copies of albums on p2p/torrent.

Actually, there's plenty of lossless stuff on BitTorrent tends to be LEGAL content (live gigs from trade-friendly artists, for example, are usually .shn or .flac files).

Masses of losslessly compressed legal audio content here, for example: http://bt.etree.org/

(enjoy!)

-s*

[mitchell_pgh]

I can appreciate people that don't want to buy AAC content (because it's not lossless or due to price).

But to dedicate an entire site to it? It's not like Apple Forces you to buy from them... Go to a store... they have plenty of music.

[turtle777]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
But to dedicate an entire site to it? It's not like Apple Forces you to buy from them... Go to a store... they have plenty of music.

Watch it. In this context, someone might take it as an open invitation to steal music from a store. Nobody is talking about buying music, right ?

-t