Can you imagine how much money Apple's going to make when this goes Global and they may bring on AOL as well as it's music service of choice. Ca'ching!!!!

John Fanning was actually the one who wasn't willing to work with the record company at that time. John was Shawn's Uncle who took over the operation.

[circa 1978]Hey guys! Betamax is far superior to anything VHS could ever do! Don't buy into those bigger cassettes. They aren't going anywhere.[/circa 1978]

:lol:

Just a little followup, Apple reported selling over 1 million tracks for the first week of operation, and took orders for 110,000 iPods.

I thought they promised Paul, Ringo, Yoko et al that they wouldn't use the "Apple" name for music industry ventures....Unfortunately I didn't have the time to look for an update on that case! Perhaps they all settled amicable and permission was granted for U.S. Apple to use the name of the music firm set up by the Beatles way back when!

Now the RIAA and the big labels will begin to see the error of their ways, and it still may be too late because people are used to getting music for free now.

If the MPAA and the studios make improvements to early adopter sites like www.movielink.com they may be able to avoid the disaster the music industry has found itself embroiled in. Quality product, delivered at a reasonable price reliably, without undue restrictions and difficulties. What was so difficult about this for the RIAA to understand? -rolleyes-

The worst part of this service is the incredibly annoying commercials that are flooding the television right now. Some of the most annoying I've ever seen. Don't you just want to smack that little kid singing Eminem?

YES! Whoever thought of this ad campaign needs to be beaten with a bat and stabbed repeatedly with a dull knife!

I won't be using it. Premium price for a very inferior product. 128kbps m4a's? You HAVE to be kidding me. How much would you pay for a cheap cassette of new music? That's what you're getting from Apple. Pains me to say so because I use Macs and I own an iPod but this is just silly. I'll buy the CD at full price before I fork over for such low grade files.

From what I've read, the format compression of 128 translates to about a 192 mp3. That isn't so bad. I've met very, very, very few people who truly can tell the difference between me playing a 192 (or even 160) mp3 and a regular cd. Those who can tell the difference are a minority.

Forget it, Alyoshka. These people are just looking for any possible way to rationalize continuing to steal what doesn't belong to them.

They have more or less gotten what they have been whining about for a few years now and it suddenly isn't good enough.

:up: to Jobs. I will be using this service as soon as it is ported to PC and/or Linux.

You mean just like the rest of the "smart aleck, better than you" Apple commercials that are always running?

If you're listening to the music on your computer with the typical $20 headphones then sure, very few people (if any) can tell the difference. If however you have a decent stereo system it's not that difficult to pick one out from the other if you burn the mp3 to a disc, which is nowhere near "CD" quality.

I'm with Surf on this one...why pay for an inferior product?

It's a decent enough idea, but I can't see them getting a lot of the somewhat obscure stuff I listen to any time soon. Besides, $10 for a digital copy versus $11-12 for the physical thing? I'll take the CD every day.

Why pay for an inferior product? Because you don't want to play a cd. They want to sell acc's for the IPOD so that you can listen on you ipod. I bought my IPOD so that I would have music to go. I didn't buy my IPOD so that I could burn my mp3's into a cd.

If you want music for your home stereo -- buy the cd. That is both better and smarter than converting mp3's to wav. If you want portable music than the Applemusic.com site is a perfect way to legally grab a few songs.

However, I realize that some people are always going to make arguments that it's not good enough because they'd rather steal music than pay for it. That is between them and their conscience.

I agree. If you want a cd then that is by far the better deal. If you want digital music for the Ipod then I think it's worth it to download a few albums to store on my computer and play on my ipod. Then I don't have to mess around with cd containers, ripping mp3s, etc.

I wouldn't do it for every album that I want, but I will for a few.

And if you only want one song from an artist it is a good idea, you aren't forced to buy a $15 cd for that one song. $1 isn't that bad. And if mentioned above the quality is on par with 192, I would say it is worth it. Especially if you are making a mix cd and you can't seem to find that one song you need for free, what is $1?

Apple is trying to make a headstart in this business and I applaud them for that. But the people that steal night and day, and haven't bought a cd in years are going to complain about $1. That is soooo high. Whatever.

Apple :up:

Here's my favorite comment from this thread.

So the gross for song popular enough to get 100 thousand people to pay to download it should be $10K? After Apple, the record company, the agents, taxes etc. take their cut the artist will get a check for what, $1500?

Yeah, that sounds fair.

Interesting article from Wired claims that the proper price for this type of service is $0.18/song:

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,58684,00.html

If anyone is interested, the Future of Music Coalition is a group of artists who seek a pragmatic solution to the digital music situation. There is a ton of info here for both sides of the argument:

http://www.futureofmusic.org/

I still don't know why there was so much press about this. Emusic has been doing this for a long time. And their service is cheaper.

And their service has a bunch of bands that the vast majority of Americans could care less about.

Don't get me wrong, even though I've never used eMusic, I have a soft spot in my heart for it because They Might Be Giants have always had a strong presence on the site. And for fans of certain types of music, eMusic's roster might be more complete than Apple's.

But take a look at their artist roster and compare it to Apple's -- there's no question that Apple has a more popular roster ("popular" meaning traditional album sales). That's why Apple got so much press -- they managed to get a bunch of artists to agree to participate when they hadn't before.

That, and I think the press just tends to lap up whatever Apple does. (And I say this as an Apple user.)

Maybe that's it. Their selection is much more to my liking than J-Lo or some crap like that.

Here's their top 20 artists under Alt/Punl:

The Pixies
Bauhaus
Cocteau Twins
This Mortal Coil
Red House Painters
Stereolab
Peter Murphy
Badly Drawn Boy
The Fall
His Name Is Alive
Dead Can Dance
P.J. Harvey
Kristin Hersh
Mojave 3
The Delgados
Tindersticks
Tom Waits
Guided By Voices
NOFX
Buffalo Tom

BTW, I've never used them either, but I think I might.

I don't have dsl/cable internet, so it's not worth it. But I may in the future.

These type of services will never replace CD's for me. But I probably will use it when the PC version is launched, simply to buy a song or two off of albums I don't like well enough as a whole to buy.

I'd much rather pay .99 cents a song, than $12-16 for a CD with only a couple good songs, or rip the artists off by downloading it without paying anything.

I downloaded like a gig and a half of classical music from them a couple years ago. I should probably get around to listening to it.