frenik

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 The entertainment industry has attempted to ignore technology for far too long, and stuck to their outdated business model because it has become extremely profitable for them.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.

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Phat Bank

I LOVE the new Apple Music Store. I've already picked up 3 albums and a handful of singles. Very high addiction potential, so I'm going to have to be careful not to spend too much.

There was a serious amount of FUD going on when it first came out, mostly on Slashdot, about the 99 cents per song being too much. Well, the albums are all $9.99, so you end up paying less that the 99 cents.

For singles, a buck isn't so bad of a price. Imagine buying a CD that had 18 tracks that you knew you liked. That'd be worth the average price of today's CDs; unfortunately, it's almost never the case that one likes everything on a given CD.

It's gonna take Apple until the end of the year to put this out for Windows, but when they do, it's gonna be even bigger than it is now. For the time being, I'm happy to be a Mac-user and to have this special, near-perfect service available to me and my kind exclusively.

Charlatan

They have to figure out how to price it in Canadian... That's a $1.29 at song for me...

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billege

I can not wait until this is available for windows. RIAA can go screw itself. We've been waiting for this one for too long.

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troit

frenik -- This is a very good point you bring up. I too agree that the tape and even the CD will be a thing of the past. I own an iPod and truly believe its ahead of its time. Before you know it they will have iPod clones out there not not only have the capacity to store 30 gigs of .mp3 and other files but the ability to play mpegs and other multimedia...

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redrum

yes, but sadly who is going to develope it for windows?
microsoft?..then it wont work right.

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Cynthetiq

they already exist...just cumbersome to use and not as simple as the ipod

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Spungfoo

The Apple music store is still a no go for me. If I'm paying a dollar a song or 10 bucks for an album, I'd expect full CD quality at the least. AAC may be a better format than mp3, but the quality isn't where it should be for what you're paying. Also, I refuse to buy music with DRM. It doesn't protect the artist's work since there's always a way around it, so it just becomes a huge pain in the ass. If I'm spoending my money on an artist's music I shouldn't have to put up with that pain in the ass to convert the music to whatever format I wish to listen to it however I wish. This is a step in the right direction, though. It's new, so I'm going to wait a while before passing final judgement.

xMetal

I understand the POV of those that want "full cd quality" in their songs and all that, but for many of the people that are targetted by the iTunes store, it's really irrelevant to them.

In my case, as an example, I have not listened to an actual CD in years. I've bought more than a few, but literally the first thing I do when I get one is throw it in the powerbook, rip it and get it on my iPod. And then the CD goes in the drawer.

If I want to listen to cd's in teh car, I'll burn a little compilation album from iTunes. My car is so ridiculously loud anyways that any slight quality loss will never be noticed. Likewise for average headphones on an iPod.

So, for a very large portion of folks that just want their music quickly/easily to put on an iPod (or similar), the actual technical specs of compression or quality loss don't mean a thing.

I'm glad the iTunes store is a hit, and when the Windows version comes out (which is being developed by Apple) it will be huge.

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xMetal

digby

Actually, as I read, the RIAA rather supports this venture. Apple gets a 1/3 royaty (33 cents) on each song sold, and the other 2/3 goes to the label, who (in theory) pays the artist. What will be interesting to see is if the labels attempt to charge a packaging deduction on music sold online like they do with CD sales. For reference, all the big labels charge artists a $3.50 deduction to cover the price of manufacturing the CD and the inserts... charge 3.50 to make a CD... right...

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Mr_A

Ummm why pay for it when you can get it for free...

Rant

That's what I'm sayin. Long live Kazaa and the Morpheus networks!

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Stilts

Because people try not to be thieves. That and to support artists that they get so much enjoyment out of.

That said, I think personally that the recording industry is a bunch of crooks themselves. Unfortunately when you buy a cd, you don't really support the artists, almost all of the money goes to the record companies.

I always thought it was ridiculous how much a cd cost. Hell, you can get a dvd that cost millions to make for cheaper than you can get a cd for, and all it takes to make a cd is the guys from the band, a couple of other guys, and a recording studio. I wouldn't buy any cds for a long time because of this, but I refused to download a single song until I heard about them making cds that purposefully would play on or even damaged peoples computers and releasing cds that were of inferior quality on purpose just to mess up players. I consider those actions to be an attack and an attempt to steal from me. I don't have any problem now days with downloading songs.

gibber71

I'll be the odd man out here since I'm a working musician.I understand everyones point of view but to say the record companies make all the money from cd's is misleading.A cd does not just fall out of the sky.Some of the costs to be covered in the expense of making a cd are;paying the people who record the cd( recording engineers,musicians,producers,recording studio costs etc..).Then there is the raw materials that make the cd,the plastic cd cover,the artwork,the people who are paid to do these things.There are the people who work in distribution centers packaging,shipping and driving the trucks to the airport for shipment to destinations.Then from there are retail owners who have to sell the marked up cd's to profit and have a viable business.Plus record copanies spend alot of money promoting artists and have a lot of people behind the scene working very hard to make that happen.All these people are not doing this for charity but to make a living,because one way or the other they love music.Incidentally,if the artist writes their own music,they get approx. 6 cents per song per cd sold, and that is only after all the bills are payed by everyone else. Is this unfair to all concerned? I dunno,That's up to each individual artist to decide and to the people who are losing there jobs in the record business.Personally I can't wait until people start stealing hundreds of millions of Ford trucks and changing the logo to something else and giving them away for free.Oh I forgot,that's not intellectual property.

BubblegumTeflon

Well I just installed the new iTunes and tried out the music store. It's very addictive, I just bought 21 songs. I love it. Finding new artists is easy since you can just browse their catalog in a genre that you like.

Daval

I think this is a great idea and I hope it comes out for us Windows users soon!

I hate buying overpriced CD's when I am only after a song or two. I would definately use such a service and would probably spend more than i would on CD's - while getting exactly what I want.

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digby

Gibber -

Actually, mechanical royalties are payable straight to the artist unless the artist had a horrible lawyer and signed a contract where mech. royalties are cross-collateralized with royalties from the sales of CD's. (and I've never heard of any lawyer that bad working long in the biz) The $1-2 that the artist gets per CD sale is what is used to recoup the cost of recording/manufacturing/promoting the CD.

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gibber71

digby,your right and that's providing the record label isn't screwing around with the publisher concerning royalties.

juanvaldes

Know win32, C++ and interested in a job from apple?

It's on it's way.