Let the (download) price wars begin?

[blue2blue]

This article is pretty interesting -- and seems to suggest we may finally start seeing some competition -- and maybe even a little market sense? -- creeping into the retail music biz:

 

http://www.thestreet.com/s/let-the-mp3-price-wars-begin/newsanalysis/technet/10381387.html?puc=_googlen?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

 

Let the MP3 Price Wars Begin By Kevin Kelleher TheStreet.com Contributor 9/26/2007 11:33 AM EDT SAN FRANCISCO -- It's over. Restrictions on copying digital music are going to be history -- and all hell could break loose in the music retail business. Amazon.com's move to sell more than 2 million songs free of digital rights management software, or DRM, could well be seen several years from now as the point of no return for this controversial technology. The days of music companies telling consumers when and how they can listen to their songs are numbered. It won't happen overnight. Amazon's move is -- to lean on that useful but overused buzz phrase -- a tipping point. DRM is a well-intentioned idea that served to drive many music consumers away. You can debate all day long whether DRM is good or bad, but all the arguments are moot. The market has spoken. DRM hurts sales. And that's bad for business. Amazon's DRM-free store is launching on the same day that Virgin Digital , Sir Richard Branson's stab at an iTunes clone, is being shuttered . ... One of the biggest beneficiaries of DRM has been Apple . As Daniel Del'Re pointed out in his coverage of the Amazon announcement, when people buy songs on iTunes, "the only portable music device on which users can play back songs is the iPod." In that way, DRM has served as a retaining wall for Apple, keeping the owners of 100 million iPods sold to date within the iTunes corral when they buy music. (Well, most of them. Our house is home to three iPods, and we have yet to buy a single song through iTunes for this very reason.) Amazon's new store may cause that retaining wall to crumble, prompting many Apple customers to buy songs that offer them better options. But what about iTunes Plus, the service Apple launched earlier this year that lets you buy DRM-free songs? Well, here's where things will really start to get interesting: ITunes Plus sells those DRM-free songs for $1.29 each. Amazon sells the same songs for either 89 cents or 99 cents. That's a discount of between 23% and 31% from iTunes' DRM-free songs. Many of Amazon's best-selling songs -- including those in the Top 100 albums -- are retailing for the lower price.

There is a lot more at: http://www.thestreet.com/s/let-the-mp3-price-wars-begin/newsanalysis/technet/10381387.html?puc=_googlen?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

 

 

 

 

ONE important thing the article doesn't mention -- the quality of the DRM-free Mp3's at Amazon is a fair amount higher than the 128 AAC's at iTunes -- 256 kbps (that's not necessarily 'double' the fi, though; most folks seem to feel AAC, like WMA, can offer somewhat higher fi at a given bandwidth over conventional Mp3s) -- and a number of albums sell for less than at iTunes. Many are only $9. One of my old favorites was under $7 (although, perplexingly, it was missing one short song from the album).

[Super 8]

Well, we knew this was going to happen eventually.

 

Is there anyway to strip DRM from an MP3?

[Billster]

 

As Daniel Del'Re pointed out in his coverage of the Amazon announcement, when people buy songs on iTunes, "the only portable music device on which users can play back songs is the iPod." In that way, DRM has served as a retaining wall for Apple, keeping the owners of 100 million iPods sold to date within the iTunes corral when they buy music.

 

 

This is just another example of how uninformed most end users are.

 

Even where AAC is propietary and locked to iPod, there's no reason to buy the music from iTunes exclusively. iPods play plain ol' mp3's or even .aif or .wav (if you don't mind the file size). iTunes will rip from your CD collection to mp3 or AAC depending on your choice.

 

Even if you do buy from iTunes, there's workarounds to get the music from your computer to your Zen player or whatever.

 

90% or more of my iTunes library is mp3's of stuff I created, obtained direct from the artist, or grabbed from a CD. It all plays on my iPod. "Locked into iTunes" is the biggest myth out there.

 

The misunderstanding of a lot of consumers has more to do with the success of iTunes Music Store than does DRM

[Billster]

 

Is there anyway to strip DRM from an MP3?

 

 

Burn an audio CD, and then re-import.

[Rabid]

I looked for 5 complete CD's and 3 single's on iTunes. Only one single that I wanted had the DRM free option. The catalog is still very small.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Even if you do buy from iTunes, there's workarounds to get the music from your computer to your Zen player or whatever.

 

 

What are these? My girlfriend purchased two songs for me from iTunes so I could play these at my school's dances, and I can't even burn these to CD!!! I don't own an iPod or similar device, and just want to play the !#%$! songs in a CD player.

[Magpel]

1.29 per song is just stupid. I laugh at that, and I'm not even an illegal downloader.

 

How in the world can you justify a per-song price that is a fraction cheaper than the going rate for CDs, if at all? Am I expected to believe that the costs associated with online infrastructure and delivery are roughly the same as those for media, packaging, and distribution of CDs? Well, I don't. All around me, I see idealists who are distubuting online for free...the music is not tytpically very good, but the cost of delivery certainly isn't the problem with that. What exactly am I paying for when I pay 99 cents or 1.29 for a song--methinks it may be the costs associated with DRM...

[amplayer]

 

What are these? My girlfriend purchased two songs for me from iTunes so I could play these at my school's dances, and I can't even burn these to CD!!! I don't own an iPod or similar device, and just want to play the !#%$! songs in a CD player.

 

 

Just get the iTunes app for your Mac or PC, dump the tunes into the iTunes app, and then create a new playlist from those tunes, and then click the burn button (assuming you have a CD burner in your computer). That's all you need to do.

[amplayer]

 

This is just another example of how uninformed most end users are. Even where AAC is propietary and locked to iPod, there's no reason to buy the music from iTunes exclusively. iPods play plain ol' mp3's or even .aif or .wav (if you don't mind the file size). iTunes will rip from your CD collection to mp3 or AAC depending on your choice. Even if you do buy from iTunes, there's workarounds to get the music from your computer to your Zen player or whatever. 90% or more of my iTunes library is mp3's of stuff I created, obtained direct from the artist, or grabbed from a CD. It all plays on my iPod. "Locked into iTunes" is the biggest myth out there. The misunderstanding of a lot of consumers has more to do with the success of iTunes Music Store than does DRM

 

 

I personally agree with you. I have an iPod, and I have it filled with stuff that did NOT come from the iTunes store.

 

However, even though the export and re-imort option exists, I think it is true that most users do not see a way to play their tunes they bought from the iTunes store on a different player. Therefore, Apple has effectively locked the tunes they sell onto their own devices for most users.

Nevertheless, my guess is that this pseudo-monopoly was not the main goal of Apple when they created their AAC audio format.

[Super 8]

 

Burn an audio CD, and then re-import.

 

 

Yuck! There's got to be a better way than that!

[blue2blue]

Well, we knew this was going to happen eventually. Is there anyway to strip DRM from an MP3?

Actually, Mp3's don't come with DRM.

 

But AAC's, WMA's and a couple other proprietary formats do. That Zune format that MS tried to shove over on people, too.

 

 

And it's possible to set up the DRM so you theoretically can't burn a CD or can only burn a limited number.

 

 

I can't help but feel with Amazon in this that the days of DRM are -- happily -- almost over. For now.

 

 

I have to say that I'll never buy another DRM-hobbled album after the one and only album (in the "tried and true" DRM-hobbled WMA format) "lost" the permissions of about half the songs after a few months.

 

And, yes, I did have to re-rip from an aduio CD I'd (thankfully) burned right after DLing the album

 

It WAS a hassle and it DID sound slightly worse, as one would expect. That is one "workaround" that is as big a hassle as it is insulting to have to go through. You should simply be able to back up the file you buy as data and be done with it -- not to mention play it in any player you want.

[Geoff Grace]

How ironic that "Today's Top MP3 Song" at Amazon.com is "1234" by Feist. (That's the single currently playing on Apple's iPod commercials.)

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Gus Lozada]

 

AAC is propietary and locked to iPod

 

 

Not a myth, tough! ... for AAC files.

[Billster]

Gus, my point is that you can play any type of file on the iPod, not just AAC, so you can acquire the music for your iPod anywhere.

 

For getting an AAC to another brand, jumping through the hoop of burning a CD and reimporting is a PITA, but still a method if you buy from the iTunes store.

[blue2blue]

Actually -- unless you hack your iPod -- it will not play the WMAs that have been the only thing being sold at all the other major online music stores (besides Emusic, of course).

 

You can (apparently) use iTunes to convert a WMA to an Mp3 (with the resultant degradation that comes from applying one perceptual encoding algorithm to a file that is the product of another) -- but I strongly suspect that you can't do that with a WMA bought from such a store because of the DRM.

 

 

 

Anyhow, with the introduction of Amazon's DRM-free, higher quality 256 kbps Mp3s, that's old news...

[Mosby]

Y'know, people drill Apple for DRM, and all that, however, they were the ones who pitched *and* sold iTunes to the labels - and the labels wanted some sort of control. Apple said ok. Of course, all of us nerds are appalled that Apple would encode their "mp3s" while overlooking the fact that at that point, Apple had managed to do the impossible - they got the labels to agree (generally) on a digital distribution method/medium. Just food for thought.

[blue2blue]

Y'know, people drill Apple for DRM, and all that, however, they were the ones who pitched *and* sold iTunes to the labels - and the labels wanted some sort of control. Apple said ok. Of course, all of us nerds are appalled that Apple would encode their "mp3s" while overlooking the fact that at that point, Apple had managed to do the impossible - they got the labels to agree (generally) on a digital distribution method/medium. Just food for thought.

 

I don't, for an instant, discount the mostly very smart business moves Apple has made in recent years. Their "cat-herding" (in the case of lining up most major labels for the iTunes store) was nothing short of heroic (not necessarily in the modern, altruistic sense, though).

 

And -- yeah -- I don't think we would have got here if Apple had not all-but single handedly carved out the mindshare for iTunes and the iPod.

 

 

But paradigms shift -- as Apple has clearly acknowledged, with their own, upper non-DRM product tier.

 

And for the first time, it looks like there's someone poised to be a major competitor who might shake things up, some.

 

It seems like that can only be good for consumers, no matter what platform, player, or format they prefer.

 

[Billster]

 

Actually -- unless you hack your iPod -- it will not play the WMAs that have been the only thing being sold at all the other major online music stores (besides Emusic, of course).

 

 

But WMA is a propietary format too, so why beat on Apple about AAC?

 

Like I say, most of my purchased music artist direct, (maybe I have esoteric tastes) and mp3 is the format of choice for most of those folks.

[blue2blue]

I was simply offering correct information with regards to the incorrect assertion that one "can play any type of file on the iPod" which is, of course, not true.

 

Now, I did beat up on MS's WMA DRM pretty good (and, as I noted, I'll never buy a DRM WMA again). I also beat up (in passing) on MS's Zune format (whatever it is called).

 

I'm not a fan of DRM. But, as I look through this thread, I don't see where I've been beating up specifically on Apple for their DRM. They made what many see as a savvy business decision to create a tightly vertically integrated player, store, and computer based media player and it's served them very well.

 

 

I'm just glad that consumers will have a better range of choices now. And I think it's exciting that a major vendor is giving some shrift to higher quality formats. A 256 kpbs CBR Mp3 is not, technically, as potentially high a quality as the high VBR Mp3s that Emusic sells, but for most program material, it's likely to be indistinguishable by most naked ears.

[blue2blue]

Well... I put my 89 cents where my mouth was...

 

 

I bought my first Amazon un-DRM'd Mp3... ironically, the retro/lo fi Amy Winehouse song, "Rehab"... Sounds as good as I think it could...

 

And it was certainly pretty easy. I didn't install their downloader, which is what they use to DL whole albums, since I was just buying the one song.

 

But at 9 bucks for an album of relatively hi fi 256 CBR Mp3's (less than the price of a used CD at my local, otherwise excellent ma and pa record store) I imagine I'll probably eventually end up buying a few whole albums...

 

 

 

PS... I can not imagine that there's much profit for the big A in an 89 cent CC purchase... that may be an angle they may eventually feel the need to tinker.

[blue2blue]

Today, Microsoft announced that, along with a complete overhaul of the Zune player, they are moving forward with their plan (announced to little attention in April) to put one million un-DRM'd titles in the 'Zune store.'

 

http://www.news.com/Microsoft-unveils-revamped-Zunes/2100-1041_3-6211357.html?tag=nefd.top