How long will itunes last?
 

LOADS of big companies are launching their own music services that all support WMP and any MP3 Player.....

Apple...... out on their own... stupidly wont intigrate with any of them, and refuse to licence their fair play technology

How long till the ipod looses its shine and the itunes market share drops?

great question.. its all about how apple decides to market this software. and adapt to the every growing market. In the end. We can not predict the future.. we can see it as we would like it.. and by continuing to use apple's products, we are giving it that chance to survive

as long as the iPod is the most popular player out there iTMS will be the most popular music service - as long as they keep their prices in line with competitors... saying that - i don't use iTMS... i use the MUCH cheaper ( tho i'm not 100% sure it's legal) www.mp3search.ru

Romania, huh?
Just out of curiosity – what are you paying per track and per album?

There's also allofmp3.com, which is Russian. Basically, if the Russian (or Romanian) authorities say the site can sell the music, downloading it from them would be no different than going to Russia, buying a CD, and bringing it back. Your own country's copyright laws shouldn't affect the transaction. But I am not a lawyer, and even if I were, the record industry would have more (and higher-paid) lawyers telling you the opposite.

Just to clear this up:

As even a distracted look at http://www.iana.org/root-whois/ shows, Romanias TLD is .ro while that of Russia is .ru.

Ignoring geography to that point, unless the existence of countries that have not yet been coerced to adopt "american standards" of copyright enforcement come handy to snatch some cheap mp3s inspires me thoughts I'd rather keep for myself in order to keep this posting nice and gentle...

Anyway, allofmp3.com has won a lawsuit western music industry brought to Russia, by local standards at least, they are completely legal.

I use usenet (easynews.com) so I don't have to wonder if it's legal or not (it's not), and don't have to deal with copy protection issues or format conversions if I want to play music in non-Apple players. Until it's easier to buy it from legal sources, I'll keep using the illegal ones. I refuse to work harder to buy from places like iTunes.

Not tempted...
 

.

Russia, of course, not Romania. Overlooked that... Voldenuit, thanks for the correction. And interesting about them winning a law suit brought by the recording industry.

But I myself am not tempted to supply credit card information, or purchase tunes, from the sites in question. Please note that I am not making any judgment here, moral or otherwise – just a personal choice.

I am, however, waiting for iTunes to lower their price AND increase their quality. If I’m going to pay the equivalent of $1 per tune, I demand lossless audio file quality or 320 kbps. As fas as I can see, www.allofmp3.com and www.mp3search.ru do not offer that either.


With best regards,
ArcticStones

Bully for you, but what you're doing is wrong. And it couldn't be easier to buy from legal sources, so that's hardly an excuse.

One more comment of this sort and the thread gets shut down (or the post deleted).

People around the world are buying iPods too and there's no iTunes music store
to service them. I know more iTunes stores are popping up around the world,
( theres 20 right now, I think) but theres still a void to fill
and I can see other companies coming in to fill that void and eventually
overtaking iTunes.

Apple should sell prepaid cards in Apple stores or retailers worldwide to allow
folks from countries with no iTunes store to still get music from iTunes.

Personally, I still like to buy cd's from places like amazon

The annoyance comes with trying to use it on multiple devices made by other companies. Then you have to deal with protection removal, format conversion, and it's just not worth it. Making a CD that plays on my motorcycle's MP3 player wasted several hours of my life when I tried to include my one iTunes-purchased song.

In a discussion of people's download options and the viability of iTunes I can't post my disatisfaction with the format used, and the issues of cross-platform use?? Seriously?

Formats and cross-platform issues OK
 

As I understand it there is absolutely no one that has any qualms with you expressing the dissatisfaction that you have eloquently voiced. Surely those technical issues are relevant.

I could be wrong, but the only thing that I hear the mods objecting to, is you saying flat out that you choose to opt for an illegal solution. It seems to have been made clear that the Forum cannot accept that.

Actually, in my opinion that is a private matter – and it is possible to discuss the many relevant and technical aspects of this without dwelving into that. I, for one, have repeatedly stated what it will take for me to use iTMS: lossless audio tracks or 320 kbps resolution. In the meantime I’ll purchase CDs, at least of the music I can get ahold of.

Just my two cents...


With best regards,
ArcticStones

Carlos, that's not exactly what you were saying. Leave off all the braggadocio about downloading illegal files and your post would be fine. As you well know, we can't be condoning that in any way over here. If your need is to find a way for your legally obtained music to play on more than one type of music player, then maybe others can share how they overcome this hurdle, although I'm pretty sure you know what your options are, here.

Some of what's being discussed here relates to the issue of proprietary formats, which is a topic we've gone over (more or less) on other threads. I'm not following how or why my purchase of property in one format somehow entitles me to use it in all others.
- E.g., if I purchase a movie in VHS tape format, that doesn't automatically entitle me to convert it to DVD (not exactly easy to do), nor is the vendor somehow required to give it to me in DVD as well. I'm purchasing the right to view my movie in a VCR that plays tapes in VHS format. That's all.

So if you purchase music from Napster that plays in their approved music players, that's all you really have a legal right to do. Napster doesn't "owe" anyone more than this, and if one believes they are somehow "due" more, that's going beyond legal entitlement.

So how long will iTunes last? As long as it's competitive with other music services, and as long as the iPod continues to be the premiere music player, as others have noted above. That's my view, at least.

iTMS is here to stay – and dominate!
 

Well, I would actually stretch it considerably further than that…

Do you remember the “digital hub”? That is exactly the strategy Apple is implementing – and with far more success than any other player. Today they have a 70 % share of the legal music download market. Granted, the total size of that market is humble right now, but it is expanding incredibly fast – and Apple is more than holding its own while driving that expansion.

Within 5 years, the sale of physical CDs and DVDs will look hopelessly old-fashioned. It will all be online.

At that time I expect Apple to have a 50–70 % share of a far broader range of digital media downloads. Why? So far nobody is close to Apple when it comes to relevant innovation. Movies are soon to be offered on iTMS – perhaps already on September 7th. It will be possible to play them on a suitable iPod video, or stream that video to a large-screen TV. Apple will become the Microsoft of digital content, in fact they are well on the way.

So iTMS will be here for a long time, and it is sure to get even more exciting! And very soon!!


With best regards,
ArcticStones

That's my point, I'm just stating what it will take for me to be an iTunes customer. I'm not posting up a how-to on piracy, I'm not advocating it, but just stating that it's what I choose to do because it's the least time-consuming. The cost is completely irrelevant to me, but time is far more valuable. I thought I was directly to the point of why I do this, and I'm sure there are many others that feel the same way. I think it speaks to the point of iTunes viability (and that of other services).

Yes, there are ways to work hard at converting your iTunes music to something you can use everywhere. That's my point; I'm not willing to work for it. I expect to be able to drop a CD in my PB and have a disc ready to play on any standard non-Apple player with very little effort.

And for the most part, I own CD copies of the music I've downloaded, or purchase them later on. I just won't buy a CD before listening, nor buy restricted files. If saying that isn't to the point of this thread, or not allowed now that this site is part of big media, well, I'll just stay out of these discussions I guess.

Hopefully with better quality than 128k AAC/MP3!

I feel that iTunes rips CDs at an acceptable speed.

You can [partially] preview music through the iTMS.

If you're going to go high quality, go all the way.

- Edit

Carlos, we NEVER condoned illegal activity of any kind on this site before it became part of "big media." It would probably be best for you to "stay out of these discussions" if you're going to make those kinds of cheap shots at the site and forum. You know our policies very well and have for some time.

Great, In 10 years time my 'large' hardrive will be filled with music
and movie crap because I can't buy cd's and dvd's anymore.

What's wrong with physical cd's and dvd's? I like to collect them and I
hate having things like music and movies unnecessarily fill up
my hard drive space.

Discs will disappear only as the number of people who have the means and desire to buy and maintain a computer and a broadband connection approaches 100%. After the events of this week, it should be pretty obvious that large swaths of America (much less the world) still can't afford the hardware, software, monthly broadband service fee and periodic hardware upgrades necessary to replace a simple $35 CD player with all digital downloads for the rest of one's life. People have such a dim awareness of the extent to which technology had added huge "private taxes" to our monthly lives.

Styrafome, that is a very cogent argument; point taken!

However, there are changes. Mobile phones, for instance, are becoming incredibly widespread, as are CD players. In some countries TV sets are not common, but their solution is to gather in the one house in the neighbourhood that has one. But when broadband becomes cheaper than such solutions, I definitely believe they will spread further and wider. But I do realize that parts of the world are so mired in poverty that those options are sureally beyond the range of possibility and imagination.

Some years ago, Laurie Anderson did a wonderful song/performance piece about what she called “the personal arms race”. Very, very interesting and utterly hilarious. Certainly most of us in this Forum, I suspect, are strapped into that.

The various and sundry “private taxes” are what now consume most of our incomes – along with payments on must-haves. Proof? How much do spend on food, electricity, housing and sufficient clothes (not counting fashions)? How much do you spend on your car, entertainment, fashion, holiday, computing, subscriptions, Christmas, etc.?

Survival and creature comfort is not what is costing me dearly…


– ArcticStones

Yeah, good points on the technology divide. I wonder though if those people at the bottom poverty levels are even buying CDs?? That would seem a luxury itself.

A basic 1GB MP3 player is really cheap, about what that CD player costs. I wonder if there is viability in "fill up stations" where you can plug in your USB-based MP3 player and buy music without owning your own computer? Kinda like the photo printing kiosks.

There was a band that was selling Shuffles with their album on them, for just the regular cost of the Shuffle. I can't remember the name, but they said it was pretty successful.

Absolutely right. Furthermore, I buy only CDs because I don't know how long I'll keep my current mac and linux boxex, and my iPod was a accidental purchase (for my wife who then was not interested). So I am certainly not going to buy music that is tied to to any perticular hardware of mine that can fail any day (like some of my CD players did).

another stupid move!

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Enterta.../News/A9X6C3R5

These iPod "partners" will probably all just raise their prices and pass their fees on to the consumer. That's usually how it goes . . . unless they just weren't doing well with their accessories in the first place, in which case this will be the ko punch.

10% of what? The retail price? The cost of the parts?

Didn't Steve say something about the record labels being greedy because they wanted a part of iPod sales which they had nothing to do with? Same thing here.