Today, Apple unveiled the iTunes music store, which lets you browse a library of thousands of songs, hear 30-second previews, and purchase songs for 99¢ each and entire albums for $9.99.

The new service requires Mac OS X 10.2.4 or later and iTunes 4 (which is free). I just downloaded it and have started checking it out. On a basic search for "Prince," I found plenty of songs, although they're all album versions...no b-sides or remixes (yet). Also did a quick search for The Time and found all the songs from The Time, What Time is It and Ice Cream Castle.

Anyway...it's pretty cool and for 99¢ you get a perfectly legal, CD-quality copy of the song. Purchased songs are 128 kbps in AAC format, which allows for greater compression, smaller file sizes and higher quality than MP3s. A 128 kbps AAC file is comparable to a 256 kbps MP3...basically the same sound quality in half the file size.

Who ends up getting the money? Is it shared between the label, artist and iTunes?


This could see the start of the end for local and big wrecka stows. People can buy the songs from albums they like, not bother buying the fluff and be satisfied. It may actually give the record industry a shake up and get them to start making and releasing real music for the first time in years!

JimmyNothing said:

Don't know how/where the money is distributed, but it's a partnership between Apple and the music industry, so I'm quite sure artists will get their share -- whether or not that "share" is fair or not will depend on their arrangement with their label, I'm sure.

They have exclusive music available in this system, too (i.e. non-album tracks) -- just browsed through some Sting and Fleetwood Mac songs exclusively available through the iTunes store.

How can such an initiative stand while servicing only Mac-users?

deMatthijs said:

Windows compatibility will be added by year-end.

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

Plus, we Mac users are used to paying for things

Wouldn't it be nice if Warners got the b-sides and remixes up there too? This is a great opportunity to make money off of titles that are OOP and don't have the profit potential to make repressings viable. This could be cool!

kdavis said:

YES. How many of us would buy OOP titles like the Madhouse discs using this system? A great way to bring back to life discs like the Gold Experience, too.

Well done Apple. Yet another innovative idea.
rocks!

"And anybody who tries to upload iTunes Music Store songs onto KaZaA will be shocked. Each song is encrypted with a digital key so that it can be played only on three authorized computers, and that prevents songs from being transferred online. Even if you burn the AAC songs onto a CD that a conventional CD player can read and then re-rip them back into standard MP3 files, the sound quality is awful."

How long before Prince sues for $5.99 per single?

"and?"
Do you quote the article (from Fortune, by the way, you should really give credit) because you think it's good or bad? I think it's a great way to handle security. They provide more than enough leeway for legitimate use but block (or certainly discourage) clearly illegitimate use.

unremarkable said:

That article was written before iTunes 4 was released and before the iTunes Music Store opened.

It is true that songs purchase through the iTunes Store are authorized for playing on three different Macs. You can burn purchased songs to CDs as many times as you'd like, although if you create a playlist with purchased songs, that particular playlist can only be burned 10 times. But, you can create a new playlist and burn 10 times more.

I will have to test their point about re-ripping an audio CD burned with purchased songs to see how the sound quality is. However, I'm betting that the quality will be fine. To burn a purchased song onto an audio CD, iTunes converts the AAC file into standard audio CD format. So, basically once you've burned a disc, you've got CD quality digital tracks on an audio CD that you can re-rip into MP3s or AAC files at encoding rates of your choosing.

Will test it out and will re-post.

unremarkable said:

Why would someone even want to do that?

This really is the coolest thing for music lovers (and for artists). I don't think anyone even mentioned the coolest part - you can search the 200k plus song music library and listen to full quality 30 second samples of every single track. Then if you like it, it's one click buying to get the whole track - took about a second to download in the demo I saw.

For fans. No more albums going out of print. No more buying an album just for that one or two tracks that are any good. Or for, say, that one Prince song someone recorded. Or just browse the music and see what catches your ear. Buy by song, it's $0.99, buy by album, it's $9.99 (per CD).

For artists. No more albums going out of print (that has to be as frustrating for artists as it is for fans). A new way to distribute music. Someone like Prince could work a deal where he could release the stuff in the vault on here - no manufacturing costs. Have Prince 1000 tracks previously unreleased up there at .99 each and how much money would the people on here spend?

He should make a heck of a lot more money this way than he's making through the NPGMC if he started putting content up there. And it wouldn't be just from people who today join the NPGMC, but rather from casual fans who just decide to browse his music.

Raven said:

Simply to "decode" the song by re-ripping it to give someone free use of the purchased tracks without the 10-burns-per-playlist and the three-computer-uses restrictions.

unremarkable said:

Oh...and I can't tell by your post if you view this as a positive or negative point, but...

The whole point of this system was to make it LEGAL for people to download music off the net -- not a workaround for Napster or similar file-sharing sites. Honestly, if I could get every track I wanted in CD quality sound with little effort and for 99 cents each, I would not use file sharing at all.

Doozer said:

According to TechTV, Apple gets 1/3 of sales... The rest ??? Ask your freindly neighborhood record company!

Face it as much as we all love Kazaa, it won't be around much longer. Or other P2P sites as well...

I'd pay 99 "cents"--even though I can't as I'm in the UK--but not for a version I can't copy freely.

chookalana said:

they kill a P2P, something else always will spring up in it's place.

Make sure you use the feedback and request function in iTunes to let Apple know that it would be really great if they could add some OOP and non-CD stuff to the selection!

I think that labels will see the true value of a system like this if it can generate some income (as I said in a posting above) from their older catalog they they just don't see the value in re-pressing. There may be rights issues, but we should at least let them know what we're looking for, since they ARE asking for feedback.

Wouldn't it be great to have legit digital access to the old dance mixes and b-sides? How about old Paisley releases? Harvest the back catalog!

Have 2 look in2 this.

TheNewWatcher said:

where've u been?

Marrk said:

exactly. p2ps are pretty much like roaches...they always come back.

Since I don't have a Mac and can't check for myself, what kind of Prince selection do they have???

TBone72 said:

A general search for "Prince" will get you 100 results...mostly tracks from Controversy, Purple Rain, Parade, SOTT, and The Hits/B-Sides. You can purchase the entire Controversy and Chaos and Disorder albums for $9.99.

Perhaps of more interest are related artists -- they've got The Time tracks from "The Time" and "What Time Is It?"

TheNewWatcher said:

wow...I started a thread that elicited a response from TheNewWatcher! Should I go ahead and post my address here so someone can send me a free prince.org t-shirt???

TBone72 said:

They have almost all of the WB albums, though I quickly noticed no Black Album or Gold. Also, they have some tracks from The Time's first three albums (I think Ice Cream Castles is the only one of those that they have all the tracks for, but I might be wrong).
I'm curious about what the process to authorize tracks for inclusion is. It seems that it's not entirely up to the labels, since I've read that Steve Jobs had to specifically lobby The Eagles (among others) to make their tracks available. They're still trying to get The Beatles (doubt it will happen since The Beatles have sued Apple in the past). There's a lot of Bowie, but I notice that it's very few full albums. I hope the momentum builds!

U r all invited 2 discuss this further in "The Conference Room" or in the "U Tell Us section".

TheNewWatcher said:

Thanks, but talking here is free and we don't have to slog through flash animation to do it. Plus, we ARE talking about a Mac service, so many of us are Mac users...Macs+NPGMC=

TheNewWatcher said:

Hmmm. TheNewWatcher made this comment on 04/29/03 8:44am.

About 6 hours later the NPGMC have it up as a topic for discussion outside the Conference room.

Makes me wonder.