Apple's online music store

[river-wind]

so what does everyone think of this:

http://www.apple.com/music/store/



$.99 a song, $10 a CD is great, 128 AAC CBR is not, IMO.


any thoughts?

[spookz]

free thoughts?

[valentino]

As long as I can still get my music free elsewhere, I'm going to do that. But the day that it is impossible to continue doing that, I'd use the apple store.

[sargentlard]

A music CD - $18.99

Gas used to drive to the music store - $.89

Tax on music cd - (insert your state tax) of $18.99

The fact that you can get free songs for ...um..free...at good quality and also that software to convert them to .wav files at your local Kazaa destination - Priceless


There are somethings money can't buy but for every other music and software need there's Kazaa

[valentino]

Someone told me Kazaa was going the way of Napster soon, is it true??

[theonlyguyever]

With all the major labels losing money from file sharing, my initial impression is that Apple is making a smart move here. However, CD sales will no doubt drop, especially if other companies follow in Apple's footsteps.

I bet if this shit continues in the long run, pop artists are going to suffer. Instead of selling a $15 cd, they only profit minimally from their 99ç hit single. YEAH! Pop music gets it up the ass!

[river-wind]

Originally posted by valentino
Someone told me Kazaa was going the way of Napster soon, is it true??

Kazaa has been under attack for years now, and they have most recently moved servers and the company over sea in an attempt to avoid legal battles in the US.

They won their last court battle, though, so they'll be around for a while yet.


not to mention that P2P won a pretty big victory lst month:
http://rss.com.com/2100-1027-998363....feed&subj=news

however, Kazaa has a history of imbedding spyware, so I refuse to use it.

god is irrelevant but the artist makes a very small amount off of CD sales- that's part of the problem with the current system. they get something like less than $1 for every $20 CD sold.

The main reason why CD sales dropped last year was because *fewer albums were released last year*. The RIAA is one of the worst propaganda groups in the counrty right now, IMO. Hopefully their requests for FBI-like powers and more will be their own downfall.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml...toryID=2625749
http://www.arstechnica.com/archive/news/1043262441.html

[wet1]

I believe that I read somewhere that the average artist gets around 30¢ per song. The current contracts make mockery of the fee. Artists must sign a contract to record with a major label. Among the things that they agree to by signing the contract is "extra fees". Those fees cover promotion expenses and a whole list of of other costs. What it amounts to is that after the first distribution the costs are deducted from any profits the artist might make till the expenses are recovered. Mostly that is two or three albums down the line that they start seeing profits coming back to them.

Amoung the fees is the support for the RIAA. The RIAA is not interested in the consumer, other than that is the source of income. The more the better (read that as the consumer gets the shaft). The RIAA is concerned with keeping status quo going. Seeing that the middle man gets his cut. It is not about making a better product but about controlling access to the music and other controlled products, such as album art.

While I understand that the artist must see income from his product to continue doing music on a professional level, most artists don't see this income. They are literally the starved ones from the very contracts that are required to sign and agree to the conditions of. So this is not about the income the artist would make being lost to internet downloading, is it? It is about the greed of major labels that make profit off the backs of the artists and consumers.

Why is it that old songs never go down in price? How many times have you purchased the same songs over and over again? Did you ever get a break in the price because you purchased the right to play that song for your own already? Maybe you see where I am coming from.

The prices stay artifically high. Controlled by what the market will bear. If you are willing to pay more, they are willing to charge more. $18 for a cd? Who got the money? The record company got a small part of it. Middle men got most of it. Why should you have to pay so much for what is a well oiled machine? Multiply up what the total income is for say a million cd's sold at $18 a piece. That is hefty money there. No wonder the RIAA is so interested in doing the record companies bidding...

Apple's start at charging for d/ling from the internet is an attempt to bring the music industry into the current age of digital. As such, I applaude their efforts. Will the rest of the music industry do the same? That I question.