Quote:
Apple says its online music sales soar
Apple Computer Inc. said Monday it exceeded record industry
expectations by selling more than 1 million songs since the launch of
its online music store a week ago.
"Our internal measure of success was having the iTunes Music Store
sell 1 million songs in the first month. To do this in one week is an
over-the-top success," said Doug Morris, CEO of the Universal Music
Group.
The sales affirm what analysts and industry executives have said of
the Apple iTunes Music Store - that it's one of the most consumer
friendly methods yet of buying songs electronically and legally.
Songs are 99 cents per download, and unlike competitors the Apple
service has virtually no copy protection. Customers can keep the songs
indefinitely, share them on as many as three Macintosh computers and
play them on any number of iPod portable music players. No
subscriptions are necessary and buyers can burn unlimited copies of
the songs onto CDs.
More than half of the songs were purchased as albums, Apple said. The
company also sold 20,000 of the newest iPod models over the weekend
and received more than 110,000 orders.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs won licensing deals with all five major record
labels to open the online music outlet - a coup that other
industry-backed, subscription-based online services obtained only
recently after more than a year of stagnant sales.
The iTunes Music Store launched April 28 with 200,000 tracks. About
3,000 more songs will be added Tuesday, Apple said.
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I am very glad this worked out. If something like this came out for PCs, it would overtake traditional album sales, which is in no way a bad thing. The entertainment industry has attempted to ignore technology for far too long, and stuck to their outdated business model because it has become extremely profitable for them. They opted for persecution rather than change, and they are losing. Hopefully they will realize that this method of business works, and design something similar for themselves. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
There are times that I would still use filesharing programs to find new songs, but once I found one I like, I don't think I would hesitate to have a perfect copy of that song on my hard drive with no tedious searching for only 99 cents. And at a buck a song, there will be no more paying 14-18 dollars for 9 songs, of which you like maybe 3 and the rest are shit. With this system, I would save myself (assuming I could buy the CD for $14) 11 bucks.
It's a beautiful thing, and suddenly I have hope for the future of music.