silent running

Heard on the news last night about Apple's idea of charging 99p instead of 79p for better quality and open format music downloads. Obviously there will be a lot of debate on this, but I for one welcome it. I've no disagreement with the principle that I should pay for someone else's music. Perhaps it helps that I also make music myself.

As someone who buys odd tracks here and there from artists whose albums I wouldn't want, it makes sense to go to iTunes. The only thing that spoilt it for me was the limited quality and restrictions on use. Luckily I only ever listen to MP3's on my computer, but I'd have liked to take them out in the car or have them on my hifi. In fact the restriction of Apple downloaded music to iPods only was what has kept me from buying ANY MP3 player so far.

Anyway. I will definitely buy iTunes downloads at 99p if they are nearer CD quality and unrestricted for use. When will these new downloads be available, and will I be able to upgrade my existing 79p a time music library?

[MikeyB]

This mentions something about being able to upgrade music to the higher quality audio, but I think it may just be for music produced by EMI at the mo.

BBC NEWS | Technology | EMI takes locks off music tracks

GazTheHat

I've never noticed the difference between a 192 and 240/320 MP3.

Must be all the drone/boom from the exhaust.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I've been thinking about this one for a bit, and was going to start a post. This could be an incredibly important point in history with regards to digital rights management for us all.

I am just not clear on the motivation behind the arrangement. What they are offering could be a genuine trial to see if people are really interested in having the freedom to do what they want with the music they buy (play download files in other players for example). However, I am not sure that this is so innocent as it seems.

I think that the music as an industry as a whole are hoping this experiment fails so that they can claim that the average member of the public does not care about DRM. I think they will then use this to increase the amount of DRM that is applied to files in the future.

Why am I so sceptical?

Because most people cannot tell the difference between the higher quality tracks, verses the standard tracks they are offering. This means that you will simply be paying 20p more per track (a large increase) for no real gain. After all, the Apple DRM has been cracked for some time, this is in addition to you being able to circumvent it by burning to a CD and ripping again. This has meant that currently if you do want to buy music legally, but need to play it in something other than an iPod you are already used to breaking the Apply DRM.

In short, I don't think its going to be a success, they are simply charging more for the same stuff is how I think most will see it. The industry as a whole will then just ramp up the restrictions that we face so we can be fleeced even more. Examples include regional encoded DVDs, regional playstations, banning companies from importing regionally encoded stuff from one region into another. This happens already, and costs us dearly

unclebuck

79p per track is a complete rip off, 99p is daylight robbery. I can't believe anyone is prepared to pay those kind of prices for something as ephemeral as an mp3 track.

///\oo/\\\

So how do you aquire your music tracks Robin?

79p is better value than throwing £10 at a CD if all you want is one track.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

If it really is an mp3 track then it will not be ephemeral, as you can do what you want with it for life. That will include migrating it into another more current format.

The current system of purchasing digitally encoded locked mp3s is potentially transient. For all the is it unlikely, Apply may go bust (Encron anyone), and new software could become the standard that no longer works with Apple. That would mean that legally everyone would be stuck with music collections that don't work on the new hardware/software they own.

Plain mp3s are for life (as long as you backup)

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

This place is cheaper than Apple, some question its legality:
GoMusic.Ru

Markus

I think you are spot on there Luminous.

If my iPod can play the file, be it DRM encoded or not, then I'm happy. If I could only get a track/album in, for example, windows DRM format, that would not play on my Mac/iPod, then I'm sure I could find a way to circumvent the DRM.

When it comes to iTMS the more annoying thing for me is a non-global store, both in content and pricing. My friend and I were talking about this yesterday and he is very surprised that Apple can still get away with what ammounts to price fixing by having different prices in different stores for the same items.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Yes, I too am galled by the obvious nature of the price fixing, and the apparent inability to do anything about it.

Do we pay more for the music to send a message to the industry that we won't tolerate DRM, but get fleeced for more cash in the process?

Or do we do nothing, letting the industry think that we will tolerate DRM, but simply hope that we can keep cracking it to allow us the freedom of using whichever player we wish to use.

Markus

Not heard of that one. I have used AllOfMp3. I know the legality is certainly questionable. I think it is a very good display of how online music should be sold and the price point for it.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Yeah that one you mention is pretty good too. The price point of those places is a little low, I would be happy paying a little more. I don't expect things to be so low that nobody can make a profit. But I do object to being placed over a barrel.

I have problems using the places we talked about, as the companies that operate them may well be channelling those funds into all sorts of other unsavoury operations. Its hard to tell for sure.

unclebuck

Agreed I use them fairly often - if they have what I want it is usually for a price I'm prepared to pay.

As for the backup issues how many times to you hear of people losing data to faultly hardware, CDRoms, DVDs etc. It's never 100% safe. Certainly not as reliable as a traditional CD.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Its true people do loose data, but its normally through poor planning. I'd say the traditional CD was significantly more prone to failing (accidental damage/loss) than any semi reasonable backup schedule.

Its more the cost and the fact that they want us to pay more for non DRM. We are damned if we do, and damned if we don't. Setting a precedent of 99p per track is a nice increase in profit for them, especially since they are no longer paying for the DRM technology. Should be a price decrease really.

unclebuck

I look at it this way: My current mp3 folder contains 6,543 files.

If I downloaded them all using Itunes (not that I could because most wouldn't be available) it would have cost me over 5K @ 79p

silent running

Well it's started some debate, that's good. I agree it is most likely a scheme to 'prove' that when Joe Public was offered open format downloads they weren't bothered and we'll end up with even heavier restrictions on our downloads.

I hear a lot of people lamenting the days of free mp3 downloads and I accumulated thousands off kazaalite etc. But the fact is even though the majority were encoded at 192 they were recorded badly, skipped, glitched, started or finished in the wrong place, volume way up or dead quiet etc. The reason why they were free was because many weren't worth paying for. It was only after you'd downloaded them that you heard how bad they were!

I think 79p was a rip-off starting price, but DRM restrictions aside, I'm pretty happy with my iTunes downloads. 49p would have been more reasonable. What IS a rip-off on iTunes is when they expect you to pay £7 odd for a whole album, when you can get the CD for the same money or often less on ebay. But then that's their loss. I preview the album on itunes, buy it on ebay.