Letters to the Editor
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not so cheap...
Amzzon's MP3 store: Better than iTunes?
Another point to get square on:
The Amazon shop is not AS cheap as the (nice) story tells. I checked in chose Jazz and found that MANY indivdual songs goes for $0.99 (same as iTunes) or for $1.35.
Their interface needs an urgent face lifting. It doesn't feature "cover flow" viweing which is an awsome way to scan through your digital music library!
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Pretend you know something about the subject for a change
"If you love something you want a permanent copy, and music from iTunes is fundamentally ephemeral: Nearly everything you purchase from the store will never work on any device not made by Apple."
1) DRM can be stripped off of any iTunes Music Store track at will. Stop spreading the FUD
2) DRM exists on iTunes Store because the LABELS, not Apple, demanded it.
3) Prices are better right now on Amazon because the labels are subsidizing it in the war against Apple. Amazon will be the first to require 'bundled' sets of songs to get you back to the good old CD days of 1 hit and 11 garbage songs.
4) Played a song purchase with Microsoft's DRM on another device lately? Didn't think so. But that's different I guess. Can't even play them on devices by MS's 'business partners (aka victims.)
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Apple DRM-free IS 256kbps
Please compare apples to apples (pun intended, I guess.)
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But not if you live outside the USA
The Amazon MP3 store may be great; it LOOKS good; but I can't purchase anything from them. I live in Australia and the Amazon MP3 store is only available to residents of the USA, it seems.
Unlike iTunes (well, most of their stuff, anyway).
Unlike Magnatune (www.magnatune.com).
Unlike Classics OnLine (www.classicsonline.com).
Unlike... well, you get the idea. Why Amazon (from whom I can happily buy books) won't let the rest of the world use their new service, I can't fathom.
I'm SO tired of silly regional copyright restrictions which in this day and age of globalisation are just absurd.
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Not always cheaper
The mp3 is not always cheaper.
I was looking at a double CD album of The Best of Bing Crosby, a BMG import. The mp3 price was $19.98, the CD was $11.98 plus shipping, and there were brand new copies in the "used" section for less than $8 plus $2.98 shipping.
I think I would rather take the CD than the mp3, even at the same price, if for no other reason than you could rip the CD to mp3 and give the CD as a gift to someone else.
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Or just go to eMusic.com and get more bang for your buck
Not as huge a catalog, but worth a look before you buy elsewhere: 30 or more tracks (of any size) per month for $9.99 plus 25 free tracks in your 2-week trial period. All DRM free.
Yesterday, I downloaded Chanticleer's album "Byrd: Music for a Hidden Chapel" (5 tracks & 52 minutes of ethereal singing) at a cost of about $1.25. (My plan gives me 40 downloads per month for $9.99). That's less than iTunes charges for one track of DRM free music. Most new subscribers would get 30 tracks so let's go with $1.67 as the price for this album. iTunes charges more than 3 times that much at $5.99. Amazon.mp3 has it for $4.45 still not as good a bargain as on eMusic.
eMusic's interface is very user friendly and provides an application that takes care of putting your music where you want it, so no complaints there.
I'll still use iTunes and Amazon, but not until I check eMusic first.
Go ahead and check it out.
Bob Rankin, North Vancouver, Canada
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Short comings at Amazon MP3
Most of your article is true to my experience. However, the Amazon music downloader would not let me pay with my Amazon credit account - that is the ONLY way I buy from Amazon. Moreover, sending an inquiry to Amazon requires more effort than it should. I had to rumage around in the my account section for 5 minutes before finding the reference number for the music download so that I could send Amazon an email.
Unless these two problems are fixed, they will not have me as a music customer.
MRMiller
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If it works, Apple can concentrate on hardware again
When the original iTunes Music Store opened up, it was reportedly because there was no other option to legally download iPod-compatible music. So Apple opened its store, with DRM to satisfy the bigwigs and prices that (according to Apple at the time) barely covered their operating costs.
But eventually, the accessory began to define the lineup. The iPod is slowly being seen as an accessory for iTunes, not the other way around. Apple got jealous of the interface, and tries to prevent competition.
The next step, with the iPhone, shows how deep Apple has fallen into the trap. The device doesn't even have a real development kit or a way for owners to add their own applications. If Apple made its money simply by selling the device, I doubt that they would have abandoned their old credo of giving the owner freedom.
Apple needs to get out of the content sales business, really. Perhaps sell off the iTunes Store to Apple Corps and return to concentrating on making great hardware that we can use to create, not just consume. Amazon's store, though buggy at the moment, seems to be the best way to bring this about.
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Competition is good ... but!
First, competition is a good thing.
However, dissemination of bad information is not.
Back in April (5 months ago), Apple went DRM-free for part of their online catalog. If this didn't include your favorite songs, go place blame properly: on the record labels.
For any song that isn't yet DRM-free on iTunes, there's multiple legal work-arounds for eliminating the DRM. The best known method is to follow iTune's procedures to burn the song onto a CD-R and then re-import it. More to follow.
As such, Amazon's service isn't particularly profound in terms of product differentiation, because there isn't really any. Sure, its sometimes a bit cheaper, but convenience is worth 50 cents to many folks.
Give Amazon a year, then revisit.
-hh
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@Farhad: DRM and reripped CD's
Farhad writes:
When I pointed out that you're ruining your songs this way you say that the distortion is only minimal.
I'm over age 30, so I can no longer hear the difference. But if you're still young and fussy in regards to quality, then I suggest that you go buy analog vinyl, because back when I was young, I could clearly hear the difference between the best digital and vinyl (on the right gear). Hope you're willing to spend the $20K for Class A tube amps.
... I still don't get why you like this idea -- you've still got to burn and then rip your music in order to break it out of FairPlay, which you don't have to do with unrestricted MP3s. Don't you see some added benefit in that?
Absolutely, positively YES.
Because...Where's your backup copy when your HD fails?
That's why burning a CD is a necessity, regardless of where you got your music from.
From this perspective, the inconvenience of re-importing to DRM-strip is relatively trivial, so why allow it to even bother you? In fact, you don't even need to re-import right away: wait until your HD fails or there's some other reason to do it.
Of course, if you believe that you're immune from hardware failures, you have bigger problems than merely DRM. :-)
-hh