iTunes Match

[Mr.Skull]

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/07/apple-offers-music-pirates-permanent-amnesty-for-24-99/

Apple's got a pretty interesting idea going here. I personally haven't really wrapped my mind around all the pros/cons to this. This being a production forum where audio fidelity is so important to everyone, maybe there aren't that many iTunes users. But I thought you guys might find it interesting anyways.

 

[JeffTD]

It makes sense to avoid having everyone and their mother upload songs to a server and stream personal music collections, so in that instance it's genius in the amount of space it saves.

To be perfectly honest, if you're streaming your music, you're probably not TOO concerned about it not being FLAC/wav/whatever.

 

[Mr.Skull]

Good points made.

But I guess I should have clarified what I found so interesting: the fact that they're going to "legalize" all of your music obtained outside of iTunes for a one-time fee of $25 (well, with a 25000-song limit). That's a pretty brave offer to make if you ask me.

 

[006]

The music isn't streaming. The track/album literally downloads to the device, 256kbps AAC.

 

[egan.]

If it works they've squeezed water out of a rock if only a few drops.

 

[006]

Good points made.

But I guess I should have clarified what I found so interesting: the fact that they're going to "legalize" all of your music obtained outside of iTunes for a one-time fee of $25 (well, with a 25000-song limit). That's a pretty brave offer to make if you ask me.

Could have sworn I saw 50,000 on the chart during the keynote. At any rate, it's cheaper than Amazon's services, and Google hasn't announced their prices yet, I'm guessing they were waiting until after the WWDC to try and match or beat Apple's prices.

 

[LydonB]

I think this thing will be even better if/when streaming is added.

 

[JeffTD]

The music isn't streaming. The track/album literally downloads to the device, 256kbps AAC.

Then yeah, OP makes a great point - you basically pay $25 to legitimize a massive collection of pirated songs if you so choose.

 

[ThatGuitarGuy]

Then yeah, OP makes a great point - you basically pay $25 to legitimize a massive collection of pirated songs if you so choose.

On a regular, month-to-month basis at that.

I argued (with people who I would talk to about this...no one important though) about this a good 6 or 7 years ago that the industry was slumping and would need to drastically change. They needed to move to a system where you could listen to ANY song whenever and wherever you wanted for a monthly fee. Literally EVERY song.

Knowing the RIAA, I knew this would be a pain to achieve (and we've seen that it took a heck of a lot to even get them to this point, and it was by Apple).

In simplistic terms, I thought:
Most people will buy one CD a month if even that. At max it's $16-17 if you're silly enough to pay that amount in the US or $10 like many are when they're on sale. Most won't even buy a CD a month.

If you give them an option to listen to any song they want whenever and charge $10-20 bucks a month, you've got a consistent revenue of "a CD or two" every month. That's still more than what you were getting before.

Looks like it's almost there. $25 a month and only for what you've already "purchased" or obtained.

Not a terrible way to get piraters to start paying for music that they took, but those artists will probably not see a dime still...

 

[LydonB]

It is only $25 per year...which is a total steal...pun not intended.