Apple Incorporated Chief Executive Steve Jobs has indicated he is unlikely to give in to calls from the music industry to add a subscription-based model to Apple's wildly popular iTunes online music store. "Never say never, but customers don't seem to be interested in it. The subscription model has failed so far. People want to own their music," said Jobs. The music industry would love for iTunes to begin renting music online so they can make more money from recurring income.
Hopefully, Apple will focus on making deals with all the remaining record companies regarding music without digital rights management. "There are a lot of people in the other music companies who are very intrigued by it. They're thinking very hard about it right now. We've said by the end of this year, over half of the songs we offer on iTunes we believe will be in DRM-free versions. I think we're going to achieve that," Jobs said of the move to sell songs without copy-protection software.
News source: eWeek
Hopefully, Apple will focus on making deals with all the remaining record companies regarding music without digital rights management. "There are a lot of people in the other music companies who are very intrigued by it. They're thinking very hard about it right now. We've said by the end of this year, over half of the songs we offer on iTunes we believe will be in DRM-free versions. I think we're going to achieve that," Jobs said of the move to sell songs without copy-protection software.
News source: eWeek
it just deactivates the license. but nothing stops you from resubing at another time and turning the music back on again, to my knowledge.
Or pay almost the same amount and play that and every other song in the catalog for a month.
if you buy music regularly subscription servces are better.
If you want to switch to another provider, sure you'll need to redownload, but most music you don't listen to for years on end anyway, and even then you can just redownload. you save money, and you get WAY more music.
Last edited by Chad on 26 Apr 2007 - 18:28
Last edited by Chad on 27 Apr 2007 - 14:19
and I'm also pretty damn sure it's a bad idea to go around callign anyoen muchless a mod for a NAzi,
Everyone knows DRM blows. That's why everyone downloads music anyhow.
But I find Napster to go is cheap and convenient so it's a good compromise. Jobs is just a tool for thinking this.
I remember many years ago when many companies said who would ever pay to rent a movie when they could buy it and own it. This was during the start of the Blockbuster days and this again was renting on a per movie basis not on an all you can eat unlimited basis like subscription music. In the very early days of subscription TV services (when HBO first came about) all of these so called company CEO experts kept saying not many people would pay 5 bucks a month to watch old movies they could watch in a movie theater etc. Well I'd like to point out they were wrong again as we have HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz, Encore and even sports packages. Also we must remember that we still have customers that would rather buy their content and not rent. I still see many people buying DVD movies, renting movies at Blockbuster at full price. Many so called experts felt that Netflix was a bad horrid idea but last I checked more companies have got involved including the bigs like Blockbuster. So it seems that many customers would rather have the subscription model after all.
Jobs might have said year after year they wouldn't switch to intel CPUs just like he is saying that itunes will never have a subscription service. Well I'd say the odds are far better that itunes will have a subscription service before apple will start using Intel CPU's. Oh shoot Apple is using Intel CPU's which only proves my point that Jobs is full of hot air to say the least. I bet he was shocked when people went flying for the ipod when the darn thing cost about 50 bucks less than an entry level emachines computer. I'm sure some experts were saying who in their right mind would pay very close to the cost of a brand new computer for a little music walkman device. I'll be honest and say I'm not even quite sure how that happened but I won't deny that the ipod is a great device as I own a fifth gen ipod video and love it.
I also by the way am a subscriber to the Napster service, Blockbuster Online Total Access, all premium movie channels while I also buy tons of DVD-A, Dual Discs and SACD discs. Did all also mention that I both buy and rent HD DVD and Blu Ray movies as well. I won't however pay 99 cents for a song that I cannot even play on linux though. But I don't mind being locked into a platform to rent music as I listen to quite a bit of music.
I will not allow DRM on content I own while I will have no problem with DRM on content that I rent as I understand why the DRM is needed with the rental compared to owning it. I look at this from the point of view that without the DRM I wouldn't have the choice to rent music at all. So for me I believe the choice was quite easy. But unlike subscription I do have a choice of where to buy music and before I'd buy DRM downloads at a buck a pop I'd log into BMG Music and get my latest offer of Buy 1 get unlimited at 90% off. The way I buy at BMG it comes out to around 4 bucks an album. Now I only buy SACD type albums at BMG and the rent I get from Napster via my iriver H320. So with that said if Apple offered a subscription service that worked with their ipod I would be using my ipod. My ipod was a holiday gift but I wouldn't buy another ipod unless they offered a subscription.
So I'm saying to apple right now offer a subscription service or you won't be selling an ipod to me in a few years. Maybe just maybe Jobs might have a heart attack at how many more ipods he could sell if he offered a subscription service. I didn't buy an ipod and instead got an IRiver H320 for this exact reason and I'm sure I'm very very far from being the only person. I will also say without a doubt that I would have ordered the ipod at the time if apple offered a subscription service for the sole reason that the ipod at that time was cheaper than the iriver. But I knew how I wanted to buy and listen to my music so that extra 50 bucks on the iRiver was worth it.
I know this post was long but I just wanted to give another side and a few more views of this topic.
Well I generally agree with you, but you do know that HD-DVD and BD have DRM :p
Sounds like bs if you ask me. But hey, if you're for taking our money for the music we f--king paid for, be my guest. It's crap like this though that PROMOTE piracy, not prevent it.
Sounds like bs if you ask me. But hey, if you're for taking our money for the music we f--king paid for, be my guest. It's crap like this though that PROMOTE piracy, not prevent it.
What are you talking about? I simply stated that Jobs isn't going to let Apple lose money by going with a subscription service for itunes, which has proven in the past to be futile for most every subscription based online music store.
How do you get that I want to pay over and over again for music, out of that?
DRM sucks. However, I could not even imagine renting music (To make DRM even worse). When I buy a song, I want it for life.
Napster and Apple both need to get off of that sh*t 128kbps format. At least 192, if not CD quality downloads please.
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