Parity Violation

Amazon.com MP3 Downloads: Popular music, classical music, new releases and more, in MP3 format. With more DRM-free tracks than iTunes, good Mac-iPod-iTunes integration and lower prices – this looks like the place to shop for digital music first. It looks like they have EMI and some Universal tracks, along with some indie labels previously available (as far as I know) only on eMusic. Hopefully this will spur Apple to get independents on board “iTunes Plus” or something similar. (Why the independents who sell DRM-free on eMusic still have DRM on iTunes is beyond me.)

With the cheaper prices one wonders – is Amazon getting a better deal from the record labels or are they making less money per song? If it’s the latter, then it begs the question – can Amazon make money selling music online? Apple probably doesn’t – but it created the iTunes store to help sell iPods, which they do make a few bucks on it would seem.

Fortunately since this is DRM-free mp3 music, there won’t be any problems if the Amazon experiment should come to and end, unlike the Virgin Music store. That store’s subscription-service based music will go poof and no one seems to know what will happen to purchased tracks.

I’d like to see DRM-free music become the norm, and without the 30% markup we’re seeing with EMI and Apple via iTunes Plus. Hopefully Amazon will help push that possibility forward.

Update – Wired attributes this DRM-free Amazon store to the desire of record companies to create an iTunes competitor even if that means no DRM. Why? Because the music needs to work on the iPod and the iPods won’t do any non-Fairplay DRM. So, some irony – because Apple only uses their own “proprietary” DRM (no more proprietary than Windows-Media DRM, which doesn’t work on Macs at all) – that forces the music industry to ditch DRM just so people can play music from other stores on iPods.

Reuters – Apple’s iPhone can only help rivals in Europe. This sounds a lot like people saying that the iPod would “help” other, already established mp3 makers like Creative, etc. That didn’t exactly pan out. (I’m dying to find a quote I remember from 2002 or so from some Creative or similar exec saying that “every article” about the iPod mentioned them too and they were cheaper. But, I can’t seem to find it.)

The iFlop – Forbes.com. MMm, maybe it’s not selling well but I love my AppleTV. I only wish it could stream more free content, besides youtube. Like, NBC.com’s web site lets me watch TV shows with commercials. I’d like to be able to do watch that on the AppleTV.

Also, if this movie rental thing happens… that’d be something interesting. Anyway, I like the AppleTV for watching my own ripped video content and to play music to my stereo. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Not everything Apple does should be expected to sell like gangbusters ala the iPod.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball weights in on what he calls the “ringtones racket” and it is definitely a racket. Other companies, as he says, charge $2.50 or more for ringtones and they don’t even last forever. By that measure, Apple’s $2 for song+ringtone might seem reasonable.

However, what I think Apple and the music / cell phone industry (I’m not sure which is causing more problems here, I guess the music industry since AT&T seems out of the ringtone loop on iTunes) are about to discover is that iTunes consumers are used to some modicum of fairness. iTunes songs at $1 a piece seem about right as do TV shows at $2. And the usage rights are liberal enough they never really bother most people. (Though try using a purchased song in Powerpoint – it’s not pretty.)

But this ringtone thing strikes everyone as a scam, to the point I wonder how much Apple is in control of this whole thing. Clearly the music industry is behind it as far as the iTunes store songs – as DF points out, only 500,000 can be used as ringtones. This is some serious idiocy on the parts of the record companies, but it seems to be their doing.

Gruber’s point about non-DRMed audio files is good though. What about songs we own ripped from CD? Or just random things we record or make ourselves in Garageband? Why can’t those be ringtones? Why is the ringtone some magical thing for which we have to pay extra? It’s dumb.

And what I think Apple and the music industry will see is that they’ve created consumers who expect fairness and reason, and those consumers aren’t going to stand for this ringtone fleecing just because they say so. As we see my the proliferation of tools from the likes of Rogue Amoeba and Ambrosia, people think they should be able to use music they’ve bought as ringtone. No extra fees, no nonsense. That’s how it should have been from the beginning.

My guess is people will continue to find work-arounds for making ringtones work on the iPhone. So long as the standard free ringers are just normal AAC files, I don’t see Apple can stop it. Nor should they try.

So, this begs the question – is there something in Apple’s agreements with the music industry that prevents them from making ringtones easily available from non-iTunes sources? Or is that restriction a bad idea Apple came up with on their own – like removing event entry from the iPod Touch’s calendar program. I’m not sure but … either way it’s not something customers are likely to tolerate.

CNN reports on possible iTunes movie rentals, which if priced at $2.99 aren’t a bad deal – but … Netflix seems to offer a better deal. I suppose the idea with renting on iTunes would be the ability to watch them on an iPod or iPhone. I wonder if they’d rent TV shows as well? I’m guessing not – since those just cost $2 to buy (well, unless NBC had their way.)

What I find interesting is it was my understanding that the iPod was completely unaware of the DRM in the iTunes purchased music and video files, which is one reason why iTunes purchases can go on an unlimited number of iPods. iTunes act as the gatekeeper checking the DRM to see if it can go on the iPod (I think) but the iPod is blissfully unaware of Fairplay.

Clearly these movie rental downloads would have to expire at some point; and the iPod would have to know as much. That wouldn’t be too hard on the iPhone and iPod Touch but on the iPods that don’t run OS X, clearly this will require some sort of iPod firmware upgrade.

The AppleTv hasn’t received much attention of late. No software updates since adding Youtube; no hardware changes except the bigger hard drive option.

With the iPhone and the iPod touch having wireless abilities and running OS X, I don’t know why they can’t sync over the network. This is something the AppleTV does – yet the iPod touch and iPhone must use the dock cable.

The other thing I’d like to see is the ability to stream content directly from an iPod or iPhone to the AppleTv. Especially as iPhones proliferate – a friend has some photos or a tv show on their iphone? – boom, stream it your AppleTV.

I hope that’s a direction Apple moves in, as Wifi starts to permeate into the iPod lineup. And I hope the “hobby” of the AppleTV gets a little more attention now that the iPod refresh is out of the way.

Ted Landau’s User Friendly View – Apple’s New iPods: Which One to Buy? || The iPod Observer – Now Playing – This post and others have suggested how hard it is to decide which iPod to buy; and this is not a good thing. There is the phenomenon known as the tyranny of choice, where by having too many choices people anticipate regretting their choice, among other things, and are likely to not choose anything at all.

So, with all these iPod models out there – it’s confusing. Apple could stand to simplify the lineup – I think the main problem is the existence of both the iPod Touch and the iPod Classic. I think combining those, even if it meant a thicker touch, would be wise.

Apple – iPod touch – Guided Tour – Medium Where does Apple find these black-clad, hand-gesture-using demo guys?