Jobs signs four major labels to 99c downloads
By Ryan Block 
posted May 2nd 2006 9:57AM
posted May 2nd 2006 9:57AM
Looks like this is shaping up
to be a good week for Apple and their digital music business -- after the French government
effectively eviscerated the iPod DRM bill, it was reported that EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner Music have all
renewed their contracts to sell music on the iTunes Music Store at the standard, flat $0.99 per track rate (that was supposedly settled on before),
instead of that yucko variable pricing scheme that would have had consumers paying more for new music, and less for
older tracks. It basically sounds like Jobs himself reigns victorious over putting these music execs in their place and
bending them his will, but who knows how long he'll be able to stave off their pricing tactics. Something eventually has
to give between the irresistable force that is the record labels and the immovable object that is iTunes; who knows how
it'll all play out when this new contract is up (whenever that is).
i bet my life savings it would be more like, more for new music and the same or more as now for older music if the record companies had there way, greeeed
How much is it per album on iTunes? I've never actually used it before.
A single song is $.99; Most albums cost $9.99. So if you like most of an artist's songs, it's normally cheaper to buy the album.
Or, if you like most of an artists music, buy the CD and you get it higher quality and DRM free...
go to the store and buy a cd unless you're lazy like me :P
you cant really get CDs instantly you have to order them and wait for it to arrive in the mail.
We
Weblogs inc., you need to delimit angled brackets (greater than and less than symbols) so I can say:
I (greater than)3 you, Steve! :-)
" A single song is $.99; Most albums cost $9.99. So if you like most of an artist's songs, it's normally cheaper to buy the album."
I have not used this service either as it is not available in my country, Bangladesh (I dont have any mehtod to pay even .99$ online). ANyway, what about the quality of the music?
This was the only reason why I was against the whole French bill. Apple has the Record companies by the balls, and that's a good thing for the moment.
It's the first time for those comapnies and I'm sure they are already plotting against Apple. So enjoy 99 cents while we have it.
If they gave in to 99 cent downloads, it's because they're making enough money to satisfy them. They only want to hike rates because they want more money. A weak position in the age of still-rampant file sharing.
WHo wants music thats ripped 128kbps, it sounds like crap, until they start selling it at 320 (cd quality) or VBR I will stay far far away. Some people can't tell the difference, others can....
I think Apple will always win this price battle against the music labels as long as the ipod is dominant. People don't buy ipods because of itunes. They buy songs from itunes because they have ipods. If the lables pulled out of itunes over pricing, people would still use ipods, they'd just go elsewhere for their music (kazaa, limewire, etc) and then the labels really wouldn't be happy.
13: "cd quality is 160kps you fucktard."
"CD Quality", by popular notion, is subjective. One person may think 128 is suitable as CD Quality, someone else may demand no less than 320 as CD Quality. (160 AAC is fine for me.)
But in reality, the only thing that truly qualifies as "CD Quality" is an uncompressed or lossless file. Everything else is just varying degrees of lossy compression.
In other words: Learn the facts, and don't be an ass.
Lance: opens mouth, stupid stuff comes out.
I too download off of iTunes a lot. Its rare that I like an entire album. The quality while technically not as good as a CD, is good enough for my ears (ruined them in my teen years) and for any equipment I own to play back the music. Its convenient to buy online, and like being able to take all of my music in my car on my iPod instead of having 100s of CDs floating around in the backseat. Fact is, 128kbs is good enough for 90% of the planet, just not the 10% of music purists with the exceptional hearing.
160kb AAC does not equal 160kb MP3, it's more like 200kb MP3, which is fine.
I personally CANNOT stand MP3's lower than 192kbs because I have semi-high-end Sennheisers, with which you can cleary hear flaws in digital music at low bit rates.
I will never understand how people justify buying a compressed, DRMed (aka, you do not own it whatsoever) copy of a song when you can get the *entire album* which is a physical, loseless copy that you own and it most cases is NOT crippled for significantly cheaper ($4-8 at half.com).
I have had some DL off itunes sound like an old record album with the hissing and all. I was disappointed with it. I still prever the CD over download if I really like the band.
They could charge .99 for 128kbs and more for higher quality.
"I will never understand how people justify buying a compressed, DRMed (aka, you do not own it whatsoever) copy of a song when you can get the *entire album* which is a physical, loseless copy that you own and it most cases is NOT crippled for significantly cheaper ($4-8 at half.com)."
Why?
Because I don't want to buy an entire busta rhymes CD just to listen to "Dangerous" ONE time for some party I host. $8? or 99 cents?
Not every album is a goddamn work of art worthy of "no less than 320kbs"; a single is what it is, and when truly I want to hear it in full glory and "own" it, I'll by the dumb piece of plastic for one single song out of 10-15. Until then, I'll get one less McChicken next stop at the drive-thru and buy a song.
" I will never understand how people justify buying a compressed, DRMed (aka, you do not own it whatsoever) copy of a song when you can get the *entire album* which is a physical, loseless copy that you own and it most cases is NOT crippled for significantly cheaper ($4-8 at half.com)."
Because most only like ONE song..and won't care about that song in five years.
So
99 cents vs $4-8? They rather spend $8 for eight songs they wanted than $72 for 8 albums that will collect dust when they rip those 8 song off of the albums.
And sound quality? Well we aren't talking Coldtrain here. 128kbps "Stupid Girls" doesn't sound any different then from the MTV video version...
Well all I can say is when is Steve Jobs going to sign Radiohead or the Beatles?
Oh yeah and what's up with that pathetic Beatles lawsuit?
Apple may have won this battle, but the war is far from over. I can only guess the music industry is biding its time until someone dethrones itunes.
"cd quality is 160kps you fucktard. i download off itunes all the time, burn the songs to a cd and play them on my system thats in my car and i can't even tell the difference in quality because there is none. get your shit straight before running your fucking mouth."
Ahhahah, idiot, that shows how dumb you are, telling me to get my facts straight, listen here buddy, mp3s are compressed, meaning less quality right off the bat, CDs are not, the highest quality mp3 you can find is 320kbps, therefor that is the closest you will ever get to cd quality, and no some people do not mind the lower quality and can't notice it, but others like myself can note the difference. So please get your facts correct before you go running your mouth and sounding like an idiot. Thanks :-)
Um.. Andrews, lance, neither bitrate is "CD quality" and "320kbps" doesn't mean "closest to CD" simply because it's more bits. It all depends on what encoder you're using and what you're playing it back with.
YourMusic.com sells 15,000 CDs for $5.99 each with free shipping, and there's no limit! It's a service from BMG. They will send you one disc per month, but only from a "queue" of discs that you choose. At any time you can purchase an an limited number of discs and ship them to yourself or to others. Doubles are $11.98, and boxed sets are price likewise. I've been using them for more than a year.
Lance, Andrews and Dan...you'll all wrong, but I believe Dan touched on something important. Mp3 will never be of exact cd quality because it isn't in a cd format! Mp3 isn't a CD, it's a different form of audio. Remember cassettes? what about minidiscs? All different forms of audio. Now, with that having been said, mp3 IS NOT of inferior quality to a cd, despite being different. Read below;
Mp3 - The most popular form of audio compression on the face of the earth. Mp3 is supported by tons of players, both home and portable, and it's one of the most convenient methods availble. When used with a highest quality encoder (LAME), you should get these results:
128kbps-Recommended for spoken word audio, not recommened for music. The quality is pretty poor.
192kbps-The most common bit rate to compress in. Many label it as high quality, 'near' to that of the audio cd. I would recommend this setting for portable mp3 players and other devises where quality is important, but file size is it's equal. Also recommended if you have a low-quality to medium-quality car audio system.
320kbps - Dubbed 'cd quality', 320 is the highest quality mp3 available. It's a monster when it comes to file size, but it's also 99% percent transparent, which means that 99% percent of the time, you won't be able to tell the difference between the 320kbps mp3 and the original audio cd. I only recommend this setting if you burn your music to a cd-r and play it through a high quality cd player. Otherwise, you're wasting your time.
OTHER POPULAR SETTINGS INCLUDE: Alt.Preset.Settings -
(standard - 190kbpsVBR)
(extreme - 240kbpsVBR)
(insane - 320kbpsBEST)
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WMA: The second most popular form of AUDIO compression. Read below;
128kbps - Low quality, WMA claims it's the same as a 160kbps mp3, but it beg to differ.
160kbps - Medium quality, WMA claims it to be of a 192kbps mp3, again, it's a stretch, but I don't think most people will be able to tell the difference.
192kbps - The highest quality form of WMA available. Quality is very good, no doubt, but if file size isn't an issue, go with a 256VBR mp3 instead. Better quality for an additional 64 bits.
I don't recommend WMA for the following reasons; When WMA compresses from the original cd format, it raises the volume to drown out possible artifacts that may arise from using a low quality bit rate (128 is pretty low, no matter what comp method you use). WMA isn't supported as much as mp3, but with pay for download music sites like Napster and Rapsody using WMA (preset 192kbps CBR), it's going to be right up there with mp3 in no time.
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AAC - Apple's own form of audio compression. GARBAGE! This form of compression is ONLY designed for portable AAC players like IPOD, and you can so tell why.
128Kbps AAC - Sounds like what it is, a low quality audio compression made for an IPOD. Used to be the default setting for the itunes music store. Imagine, you were paying .99 for the lowest quality known to compression! it's crazy!
192kbps AAC - I wasn't the only one upset with apples 128kbps AAC crap, so apple went ahead with 192kbps. Sounds almost indentical to a 192kbps WMA, which means the quality is pretty high, and if you have an ipod, this is the setting I recommend you use. AAC is ONLY supported in IPODS, so use in a car or home stereo is out of the question. Mp3 wins again.
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OGG VORBIS - Yet another form of audio compression bulit off of mp3. It's claim is that at lower bitrates, it is of equal or better quality than mp3 of slighty higher bit rates. This is true. However, if you encode at 320kbps, there is no noticeable difference. OGG VORBIS IS NOT SUPPORTED BY ANY PORTABLE, CAR OR HOME PLAYER, which makes it strictly for computer use, and use(less) for people like me who like their music in the car.
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MUSEPACK - MUSEPACK is the audiophiles form of lossy compression. MUSEPACK sounds amazing, simply put, at lower bit rates. HOWEVER, like OGG, it isn't supported by any form of portable audio player, which makes it strictly for desktop computer listening only.
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The verdict: MP3 is, always has been, and always will be the number one choice. It offers bit rates for all kinds of people, from anti-audiophiles who chose file size over quality, to super audiophiles who are willing to eat hard drive space for a 320kbps mp3. Mp3 has gotten a bad rap in the past because of file sharing networks (ones the usually trade low quality, several times compressed mp3 files). If everyone using 'kazaa' had encoded their music with LAME 192kbps and traded it, other sits like apple and napster couldn't survive. If you forget about file sharing for a miunte though, and just take mp3 as a whole, the quality is good. Here's a tip; Don't use file sharing networks like kazaa. Pay for your mp3's and you'll get good quality, end of story. Next, if you do use free file sharing, watch out for files that have been compressed more than once. This takes away from quality in a major way. Finally, only use the lastest and greatest form of LAME for compressing your own cd collection. There's a reason why LAME is the only mp3 encoder used by the masses anymore. It truly is highest quality.