TheAgitator.com
Bring on the Evolution, Part II
Tuesday, April 29th, 2003Law school pal Eric Robben writes:
I never saw a pay-for-download plan that made any sense for me. Expensive monthly fees, restrictions on transferring or burning, limited playlists, whatever. Each one was weak in one (or more ways).Leave it to Apple to figure it out. I just downloaded the new iTunes (which is an amazing program in its own right) which has an integrated “Music Store”. Just put a song title in the little window, and it pops up. Double click it and hear a 30 second preview for free. If you like it, buy it. Every one costs 99 cents. And it is yours. To zap to your iPod, to burn on a CD, to do whatever you want with it.
I will pay 99 cents for a good song instead of downloading it with a nagging feeling. It’s brilliant. They’ve already got a ton of stuff too. Lots of live stuff. Lots of small artists.
This is the first time I have honestly believed that online music may be a viable business. When they have a PC version, it is gonna take off.
I’m intrigued. More on the Apple Music Store from Nick Gillespie, and from Paul Boutin.
Finally, Big Music begins to understand that the filesharing phenomenon is more than just a crime wave — it’s a message in big bold letters letting them know that their business plan is anachronistic.
If this takes off, I wonder if it will encourage artists to write better songs, knowing they can’t power sales with just one hit and packaging it with a bunch of crap.
On the other hand, will they just release one good single without the pressure and cost of coming up with 10 other songs. That would be a shame, some of my favorite songs were never released as singles.
One cool thing about Music Store so far is that they have some nifty “exclusive” tracks. One is a vocals/piano/tuba(?) version of “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (part 1),” which is really good.
Here’s hoping that 99 cents is a good enough deal to bring people over from Kaaza and that alternate, live, and acoustic versions of songs are added to the catalog soon.
What’s right about this approach is that it isn’t a “take it or leave it” offer from the music companies (which, when people opted to “leave it,” only screwed the record companies because they can just get the songs for free anyway). You don’t have to pay $10 a month for a limited catalog and download like mad to feel you are getting your money’s worth. You don’t have to pay *anything* if you don’t want to. It’s just there, waiting patiently for you to hear a catchy song and want a legal copy of it. If you use it once in a month, both you and the record company win. You get what you want - cheaply and instantly -and the record company makes a little cash and (hopefully) whines a little less.
Playing with Music Store last night, I felt the same excitement I did the first time I used Napster.
Check out Rhapsody, the plan is better than Apple and the selection is fantastic and always growing. My boss and I have both used it for about 6 months now and it is quite impressive.
p.s. Radley, they have a good mix of both big named artists and some small label and indy artists.
“…the filesharing phenomenon is more than just a crime wave”
At least you are finally admitting that a component of the “filesharing phenomenon” is indeed crime.
An alternative such as iTunes is a great idea, but unless people can no longer download for free, the service will never be widespread.
I believe that most “filesharing” is done by people that are more concerned with getting free stuff than they are with sending a business-plan message to the recording industry. If this proves true, pay services will not thrive until free “filesharing” is dead.
roger -
I think that the two can at least co-exist. Maybe I am naive, but it seems that alot of people have gone to Kaaza when they wanted a single but weren’t willing to go to a record store and pay $15 for an album or pay $120/year for membership at a legal downloading site that may not have the next single that they want.
Now (for Mac users, at least, and soon for the rest of the country), those people have an easy option. When it’s so simple, hopefully more people will use it, and less will use Kazaa.
As Music Store’s catalog grows, people will go there at least for some of the harder-to-find tracks as well. With Music Store, you know it is there (that is, you don’t have to hope that the user on the other side has a fast connection and stays on the whole time) and can have it in about 25 seconds or so.
The continued existence of illegal file sharing will act as a constant competitive motivator for the music industry, and a hedge against monopoly pricing conspiracies, something, if I recall correctly, the record labels were recently convicted of. Audio fidelity, availability and reliability will generally be lower for illegally traded music (plus the fact that it IS illegal), so the record companies can easily beat this, once they get their act together. You should thank those pirates!
Roger–
1) Remember that just because something is a crime does not make it immoral.
2) Filesharing is not a crime.
3) Giving someone a copy of a copywritten work is a crime.
The “filesharing” you are talking about will never die (since copying and sharing files are an inherent part of a network like the Internet), yet there are a number of people out there that don’t mind paying for music. Otherwise, why would people still buy expensive cd’s?
Boo -
You are absolutely correct. Filesharing in itself is not a crime. I was referring to the on-line sharing of music, specifically.
You are also correct in that a lot of people are still out there buying expensive CDs. I can’t speak for others, but until I have something other than dial-up internet service, the price of CDs doesn’t look too bad. Besides, I buy used most of the time, so at $5 I’ll buy the CD before I waste a lot of time downloading it.
Although the methods clearly differ, there is nothing fundamentally different between downloading an album for free and making a copy of one of your CDs. Either way, I get the album for virtually nothing, and the artist/band gets nothing for their effort.
The only real difference is that swapping of music on-line is easier to do, done by more people, and therefore considerd morally OK by many people. The more people that are doing it, the less wrong it feels.
I agree that because something is a crime does not necessarily make it immoral, but in this case, that doesn’t hold. Taking someone’s copyrighted work without paying for it is wrong, regardless of how few people think it to be a crime. Wrong is wrong, and is only viewed in relative terms when justifying questionable behavior.
That said, I think an easy method of downloading individual songs for a reasonable price is a great idea. I sincerely hope that everyone would begin to acquire their music in that fashion, but my gut feeling says that most people will continue to get them for free if given the chance.
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