You probably have an MP3 player. Millions of people use iTunes to purchase songs that they play on their computer and/or MP3 player. Apple recently announced changes in the copy protection and pricing of the songs that it sells. This week’s article explains the details of Apple’s announcement. Go to the link below and read the article. Write a reflective comment that shows you have read the article, expresses your views, and addresses my questions.
Have you ever purchased music that you downloaded? Have you ever downloaded music that you did not purchase? What do you think about the changes described in the article that Apple is making? How do you feel about the pricing changes? What is your opinion about DRM? Apple has been campaigning against DRM at least since February 2007. Why has it taken this long to remove it? What should be done to motivate people to legally purchase music?
iTunes Article
10 comments:
I used to purchase songs from iTunes, but now I use Limewire since it is a more effective and cheaper way of getting songs. However, if I can't get a song from Limewire than I turn to iTunes and buy the songs from there. I always look to iTunes when it comes to TV episodes, such as Family Guy, since Limewire never shows them. I think that Apple is doing a good job with the changes that they are going to do since its annoying to me when I can't get the songs that I downloaded from iTunes onto another MP3 Player due to the fact that the songs had some sort of restriction when it came to moving the song. The price changes sways me both ways. I feel happy since some of the songs are going to be reduced from the usual .99 cents to .69 cents, but then I feel depressed since the more popular songs are going to be priced at $1.29. From what I can tell from the article, DRM are the reasons why I can't get my purchased iTunes songs onto another MP3 Player so I have a negative feeling towards them. From the article, it seems as if all the music companies want to put Apple out of business so DRM were probably in on it in order to stop people from purchasing iTune songs. I think that if the prices for everything were lowered to .69 and movies lowered to $10 and that all the pirated programs were rooted out, it would then motivate people to legally purchase music.
iTunes is a music player which is installed on the computer to play music, and is competing at the highest levels with Windows media player. Because of the economic recession, in my opinion I would claim that the reason of why Apple is trying to remove the DMR is to get people buy the itunes program and purchase more music from its online shop. Me as a person I didn’t buy downloaded music from the internet, but on the other hand I download music from other websites for free. As I said that Apple is in need of money, as a result they are reducing the prices of the music downloaded and by removing the DMR to get consumers using other mp3 players other than Apple. I don’t feel anything towards the price change because I’m not buying music from the internet or itunes. Removing the DRM was impossible for Apple before two years but at this moment they removed these restrictions to get as much customers as they can.In my opinion DMR is a restriction preventing manufacturers from interfering with each others services. To motivate people in buying music legally they should have a different system in paying for the music other than the Visa cards because some people fear from giving their bank account number, although removing the DMR is a good motivation and encouragement for people to buy music online.
I think that this will be a boost to the market within the itunes store, because their will and could be more competition amongst song sellers, but that the problem of pirated music is still largely at fault and until something drastic is done about pirated music, the music industry may continue to loose its power. this is a shame because if more music is acquired illegally then eventually there wont be music at all! for anybody!
i use itunes and i buy from the itunes store, so i am disappointed that to buy popular songs the price will go up, but what i am more disappointed about is the face that to get the restrictions off my existing songs, i have to pay 30 cents a song. I am pleased though that many of the songs i buy will reduce in price to only 69 cents. this is because many of the songs that i buy usually aren't the most recent, most popular songs on the market.
i agree with apple that DRM is not very convenient for the itunes customers, but it is used to protect the the songs from being copied illegally. this is obvoiously why its taken so long for decisions to be made.
People who purchase or own new ipods, should have the license agreement 'brick' the ipod if illegal music is put on to it, so that people will use the itunes store, and continue to be able to use their favorite mp3 player. they should also plaster big warnings on all the ipods that will be affected because otherwise half the world will have useless bricked ipods.
-nicolas
There are many ways to download music right now. The Internet provides many ways to do so, although, very few are legal. iTunes is the largest music-downloading center at this moment, and has the highest rate of consumer sales. iTunes provides a completely legal way to download music, by paying a standard .99-cent fee for each song. This new pricing deal of paying .69 cents for most songs, and $1.29 for new or popular songs definitely has its pros and cons, although, I would say I have to disagree with it for the most part. The reason I use iTunes is so that I can get single songs immediately for the lowest price, instead of going out and buying a CD just to buy 2 or 3 songs out of an entire album. Theses usually are the ones that are most popular, or from a brand new album. I disagree with this, because while it may only be .29 cents higher than the previous price, it makes me have to wait a while to wait while all the prices go down, and its popularity decreases, which I have found to be a smart way for buying pretty much anything. With this new deal, it makes no difference between going and buying a hard copy of the album, and buying it on iTunes. On the other hand, I am very satisfied with Apples’ DRM function with iTunes. To be honest, I get very angry with iTunes because of the DRM. It prevents the use of moving songs from one computer to another, and if I own songs on one user of a computer, I can’t move it to another user just to get all my music on one ipod. With this said, I am completely satisfied with itunes lift of the “DRM curse”.
I first began purchasing music off iTunes (using my mum’s account) but when I discovered Limewire, I started downloading all my songs from there instead. Though Limewire is not as reliable as iTunes when it comes to downloading music, it is easier to use.
I’m glad that iTunes decided to put the price down on some of the songs. I really don’t mind that the older songs are cheaper because I’m into oldies, but I also don’t think it’s fair to the majority of the people purchasing newer more recent songs having to pay more. In my opinion it should be the other way around really, like wine I suppose, the older the song the more you pay. Oldies are harder to come across these days, then again probably because no one listens to them anymore, which again is another reason they should be the more expensive songs to purchase.
I’m actually happy they got rid of DRM. I didn’t know what it did before i read the iTunes article but now that I do, I’m really glad they got rid of it. This way I can download music easier without DRM stopping me.
If prices were lowered on not just the old songs but newer songs as well, I think that then people would begin legally purchasing music. Illegal purchasing of music exists because it’s the cheaper version of the exact same thing. The only difference between the music you get illegally and the music you get legally is the price.
I never purchase music that I download I always get it from Limewire. So that is music that I download that is not purchased. I think the changes Apple are making described in the article are going to get Apple a lot of money but also make CD buying go down more. I don’t feel like the pricing changes are a huge difference because I don’t use itunes. I think it is good that they are getting rid of the DRM because when I buy a song I should be able to do whatever I want with it but with DRM I can’t be too flexible. It has taken them this long because they weren’t at their best till now and now they make the most profit. But also they have made deals with other companies so nobody will lose money. To motivate people to purchase music legally they should make it easier to use and no DRM. However, I still think Limewire is better than itunes because it is a lot simpler and you can do whatever you want with the song, with no DRM.
I have both purchased music that I have downloaded and downloaded music that I haven’t purchased. The changes are in my opinion too little too late if record companies planned for them to boost their online sales. They offer very little more to encourage people not to use piracy to obtain their music. The most interesting change to me is the pricing change. To me as a customer, the pricing changes will actually discourage me from buying music from iTunes because the songs whose prices are to be increased, new songs and hits, are the type of thing I would typically pay to download. Often the only time I will pay for music is when it is new enough that there aren’t torrents for it yet, for example the day after a new album is released. Ultimately record companies want to make money, and through the pricing changes they hope to. The only way they will make more money is if people pay more or buy more and it seems as though buy increasing the pricing on the songs most in demand they have opted to make people pay more. Does it really sound as if this will encourage people to purchase music instead of steal it? The DMR restrictions are probably welcome to many people and make iTunes more viable for more people but again, it does nothing to lure people away from illegal downloading. So far one of the best incentives I have found for people to legally buy music is one of the oldest. A few bands I enjoy have added free hidden tracks to their albums that are only available if the album is bought through iTunes. To me, this simple incentive has motivated me to buy these bands albums off iTunes. Rather then fight illegal downloading, record companies need to make their own downloads worth the money that one pays for them. After all, they are competing against file sharing software that allows unlimited free music.
Interestingly enough, I just downloaded both iTunes and Limewire less than a week ago, so I feel that this blog is very relevant to me right now. Limewire is a program that allows you to download music for free, however there are a lot of unreliable sources inputting music into it, and you can easily get viruses off of it. Fortunately, I haven’t so far, and I find it a very accessible and usable (and free) source for music. Because of this I have never used iTunes for anything except for storing music, so the changes iTunes is making has little effect on me. Despite that, I like the changes that iTunes is making; I believe that economically it makes sense to start with the price of a popular song at a higher price and gradually lower it according to it’s popularity, at least from a supply-and-demand standpoint. So when the demand drops, so does the price, thus keeping people constantly interested in downloading the song.
I also like the idea of DRM, because it means that more people will turn to iTunes to get music, and that the iPod will not be the only device with the ability to download from iTunes. From this I predict that iTunes will become more popular, and the iPod will falter in popularity. This may be a good thing because it will keep iTunes from monopolizing the iPod and soon all devices will be able to use iTunes.
I don’t know what can be done to stop people from illegally purchasing music from network sharing files like Limewire. Perhaps if the pool of songs there was smaller, and if it was less reliable then I would turn to the iTunes store, but what my major fear is putting a credit card number into a site like iTunes, where they can do whatever they want with it, and I feel safer anonymously downloading music.
I used to purchase music from I-tunes regularly. However, a few months ago my I-tunes account started acting up; it didn't let me download half the songs, and the songs that I did purchase it charged me for, but didn't actually download. I don't have Limewire, so when it comes to music I have to resort to downloading songs from websites such as BeeMp3.
The fact that I-Tunes is increasing their prices really ticks me off. The 99-cents-per-song setup was a brilliant idea, and made me feel like I was really getting a good price for the music I downloaded. The fact that they're increasing the prices of popular songs to $1.29 really bugs me because popular songs are pretty much all I buy. And why would I want to purchase a song that nobody likes, even if it is 30 cents cheaper?
I love having the freedom to purchase music cheaply, and I-Tunes, which I used to worship, really screwed it up. Why can't they just increase the prices of the actual I-Pods?
Why, why, WHY?!
i have an account on iTunes and i get most of my songs from there and as far as i'm concerned they keep changing their policies! cant they just stick to the every song is .99 cents and thats it? the only advantage for the customers is that they will be able to save some money when they reduced the price of the songs to .69 cents but the bad thing is that is some songs are popular people will buy alot of the song whether its cheap or expensive. thats why i think they should leave it as .99 cents. itunes has alot of problems where when you or if you delete a song by mistake you cant download it again if you click on check on purchases it doesnt find it in the system that i purchased it. but besides that ive lost a couple of dollars because of this problem. But besides everything their new plan might work. atleast im hoping it will.
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