MSE News: The £850 a year cost of iTunes loyalty
Former_MSE_Guy
MSE News EditorFormer MSE 1.7K Posts
This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:
"Music fans who download tracks from the same online store could be paying hundreds of pounds a year too much ..."
"Music fans who download tracks from the same online store could be paying hundreds of pounds a year too much ..."
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Am shocked- 408 albums a year downloaded!! Wow- I love my music but am not sure if I actually download that many! (sorry to heckle you OP!)
Am laughing though as I use Napster. It is a subscription service so I do have to keep up the contract, but for £150 a year I can download whatever and however much I want! Have had to clear my 8GB MP3 twice this last year to make room for more tunes! Been with Napster about 2 or so years now? There are some holes in the software but then I notice the same holes with Itunes and its even more frustrating when you pay per tune!
Guess thats a money saving £1830 to £2861!
Downloading the music you want - for free - may be about to follow that established pattern.
This additional choice is about to be launched in the USA in the new year - if it works, should we be surprised to see it cross the pond?
Extracts from New York Times:
FreeAllMusic.com, which began a test version for invited users on Dec. 22 and plans to open to the public in January, will allow users to download songs, which may be copied and shared — unencumbered, in other words, by digital rights management restrictions.
In return, instead of paying 99 cents a song as on iTunes, users must first watch a 15- to 30-second advertisement.
Two of the four major labels have signed with the service and will provide their full digital catalogs, said Mr. Nailling, who declined to name the labels. Six advertisers are on board for the site’s debut, he added, including Coca-Cola, Warner Brothers Television and Zappos.com.
Full article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/business/media/30adco.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
they can change the face of the world.
- African proverb -
Anywhere. And your own CDs too.
Stick a CD in your PC and iTunes will copy it all over and put it in your library.
Get songs from other on-line sources and you can add them to your library (File>import iirc)
That's a bad analogy. We've already had the equivalent for decades: it's called commercial radio.
But what your news story is talking about is ownership of music. If you want ownership of programs from ITV, CH4, etc., you still have to buy it (ie DVD).
Could I kid on one of my "etc" was intended that way - nah, wouldn't be true!
PS: Just in case, I was "sitting" corrected. :A
they can change the face of the world.
- African proverb -
To further Real's comments, any MP3 file or unprotected windows audio you have (and probably other formats I have never tried) can be imported into itunes by dragging it from the folder on your computer it's currently on into the itunes music window. I have a very extensive collection of CDs I have built up over the years and MP3s I have purchased from various online stores which have all been imported into itunes just fine.
The only things you need to buy from itunes are the things you _want_ to buy from itunes - e.g. when they have the best deal available for something or when you simply can't be bothered to go hunting around based on price.
The only thing I would say is that if you buy from elsewhere online with the intention of importing into itunes (or any other player to be honest, this isn't an "apple only" problem by any means) then it needs to be unprotected / non-DRM stuff, e.g. not locked down to just being played in that online store's player (I think this is/was an issue with buying from napster to play in itunes (or vice-versa), for example).