iPod Users Buy CDs, Shun iTunes 550
twitter writes, "The BBC's summarizes a Jupiter Research study, 'iPod fans shunning iTunes store.' From the article: '83% of iPod owners do not buy digital music regularly... only 5% of the music on an iPod will be bought from online music stores. The rest will be from CDs the owner of an MP3 player already has or tracks they have downloaded from file-sharing sites... [T]he only salient characteristic shared by all owners of portable music players was that they were more likely to buy more music — especially CDs.' This is despite years of iTunes promotion and apparent success. Given the outright failure of other music services, it is clear that users prefer DRM-free music, and are willing to pay for it and take the trouble to rip it."
DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly, iTunes has increased my music purchases significantly, though on CD,
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it odd how I'm so anti-iTunes due to the stated reasons, but I'm more than willing to buy games on Xbox Live Arcade, seeing as they fit within similar restrictions. Well, only if they're original and not repackaged retro-games I've played to death.
It probably has to do with the fact that Xbox Live Arcade games are only available through a restricted medium, where I can bypass iTunes and buy a non-DRMed CD and Vorbis it.
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In the end its just a value add to the apple products and their brand long term.
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A CD on itunes still costs more than a CD on the high street - and they have the physical costs of running a store, shipping costs for the media, etc.
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Insightful)
Music and games are entertainment, but they fill different facets of the entertainment genre.
Also, a video game seems "worth" more to the average person - you can get more out of it. A song is entertaining for the 3 minutes its playing.
-Red
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Insightful)
When is this faux-audiophile bullshit going to end. DRM does not change the sound of music. It does not sound any different.
A DRMd 128kbps AAC file decrypts and uncompresses to the exact same waveform as a non-DRMd 128kbps AAC file. It sounds just as bad.
A DRMd lossless format decrypts and uncompresses to the exact same waveform as a non-DRMd lossless file. It sounds just as good.
You cannot tell the difference between a DRMd file and a non DRMd file all else being equal. End of story, no argument, thank you take the next gate out of here.
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Funny)
In my experience it changes the music in odd ways different to the changes that compression cause. It gives a bass that's more harsh, and increases the midrange while levelling out in the high end. That's an issue totally separate to what happens when you compress with AAC or MP3 or whatever. If you want to test, make an mp3 and then make two identical copies of the file. Run one of the resulting compressed files through an encryption utility (it doesn't have to be Apple's fairplay, even sending it via PGP email will do) and then decrypt it. Play the never-encrypted file and play the encrypted then decrypted file one after another, you'll easily tell the difference.
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the biggest load of crap I've read on /. in a long time. Congratulations!
Encryption makes the data appear pseudo-random, however the decryption will return the bits, before they are inserted into the audio buffer, to the exact same state they were in prior to encryption.
Your own test bears this out -- just do a comparison of the resulting files. The computer has no way of knowing that the "encrypted" file was ever even encrypted (as you aren't replacing the bits -- you're duplicating them). If you can hear a difference, it's only because the voices in your head are getting louder. Or maybe your tinfoil hat is askew.
Yaz.
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Of course the computer will identify them as being the same, its job is to work with discrete components in the form of bits, where the human ear can hear on a lower level than that. I'm no digital maven, so I can't say the EXACT reason why, but I've been selling, repairing and setting up
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Your 17 years of experience are indeed in the audio field, because it's quite evident that you don't know the difference between DRM/encryption and lossy CODECs.
Or maybe you're just confused about the differences between analog/digital audio and digital lossy audio. We all know that digital audio is an approximation of analog audio, you don't need to explain such a topic on slashdot. That's at least 20 years old news to most of the p
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Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Informative)
As it happens, I know quite a bit about digital signaling. I also know that that "bit" you're reading is going to be converted several times from when you read it fro the hard disk, by a variety of independent subsystems which set their own bit levels as high or low, based on their own signaling specifications.
You read some bits off your hard drive. The bits sitting on your drive have no voltage -- they're simply a magnetic field. This field get translated into either a 1 or a 0 bit. The drive controller copies this into a voltage that it then transmits across the drive bus to a bus controller. This bus controller then copies the bit to the system bus. The system bus copies it to the CPU, which copies it to RAM, which is then refreshed thousands of times per second. This is then copied back onto the system bus, and send to your audio hardware, which feeds it through a DAC.
Each of these transmissions is a copy operation on the bit -- not on the strength of the magnetic field, or whatever voltage was being applied to the transmitting component. So signaling in this case makes no difference -- so long as each field or voltage fits within the proper tolerances, it will be treated as a 1 or a 0, and will be raised high or low at the new voltage level as a completely new signal during each conversion. As such, it isn't the case that if the bit is magnetically weak on your hard drive that it will have a lower-than-normal voltage once it finally gets into RAM.
Thinking of it another way, it isn't like using a tin-can-and-string telephone to transmit data. It's more like the telephone game, where someone says something to someone, who then tells the message to the next person, and so on until the recipient receives the message. It doesn't matter if the first speaker is male or female -- the last person to pass on the message is going to state the same message regardless, in their own voice. The only difference in the case of a computer is that most stages have integrity checking to verify that the message is received properly, and in some cases can either request a retransmission if the integrity checking fails, or can receive the data in a manner that it can be reconstructed with mathematical certainty by using appropriate data encodings.
Encryption makes no difference. The system is not analogue -- it is digital. And the system only knows two digits. Each individual subsystem has completely different mechanisms for representing those bits, and that representation is completely independent of other subsystems. Reading an encrypted block from your hard drive causes the encrypted data to be copied into RAM, from which a decrypted copy is placed into RAM. This copy is generated electrically in exactly the same fashion if it had been read unencrypted from the hard drive. By the time it gets to the audio DAC, the data is identical from both a data and a signaling standpoint.
I'm sure you can handily replace the needle on a record player arm, but you know absolutely squat about digital signaling.
Yaz.
Playing devil's advocate... (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be possible that the decryption algorithm introduces some jitter by taking a varying amount of time to decrypt a chunk of data [cryptography.com]. A poorly-engineered system might pass this jitter through to the DAC, resulting in degraded audio quality. It might also be possible that the decryption operations cause the CPU to introduce additional noise on the power rails, which might also impact audio quality in a poorly-engineered system.
So, I don't think it's impossible that DRM affects sound quality. I'm just not convinced that it actually does.
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You fed the troll. Good job. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You fed the troll. Good job. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's ignore your assumption that this person is a troll for a second (something which I do not necessarily believe, although I also can't discount it as a possibility). When a technical falsehood like this goes unchallenged, those who are less technically inclined are likely to believe it, and pass it on as truth.
Slashdot is known as a technical site. If such claims do not go unchallenged, there is a very good chance that someone out there is going to read this, and relay it to their non-technical friends and family as the truth, because they read it on Slashdot.
I routinely have to explain reality to far too many people around me because they read something that is physically impossible on the web, and then believe it (and pass it on). Certain family members in particular are highly susceptible to such claims. They wouldn't be able to spot it as a troll, however dozens of posts from respectable, knowledgeable people pointing out the falsehoods may cause them to question the veracity of the trolls claims.
Troll or not, falsehoods need to be challenged, especially in the technical realm, which is really just "magic" to the layman in the first place.
Yaz.
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Funny)
Sony has patented a superior bit, which should be hitting the market in late 2007, but in typical Sony style, these new bits, which represent 2 or 3, instead of 0 or 1, will not be compatible with existing bits. So while audio files that utilize the new Sony bits will lose far less fidelity per bit from being encrypted and unencrypted (less than 0.001% according to laboratory testing), they will not be compatible with the iPod without an expensive bit adapter.
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between a DRM'd song and one that you rip yourself is an issue of control. With iTunes you are stuck with 128kbps AAC encoded by their in house encoding/DRM software. When you rip a song yourself you have the option of using any one of myriad different encoders, algorithms, bitrates, configurations, and etc. I usually use 240-355 VBR WMA encoding for personal use.
Personally I've only purchased one album from iTunes (unfortunatly I can no longer play it because I've changed computers too many times) and while their encoding method is fine for listening through earbuds, it shows noticable degredation vs. PCM on my 7.1 home theater setup. But it has nothing to do with watermarking DRM and it definately has nothing to do with quantum theory and schrodinger's cat, it is all about the bitrate and the encoding software. And Apple uses a substandard encoder set to a bitrate that is almost pallatable to AOL dial-up customers.
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Informative)
Just so you know, there is a button in the iTunes Music Store account information page that lets you deauthorize all the computers that you've previously authorized to play your music. It only lets you do this once a year IIRC, but it's useful if you've reached your limit of 5 computers and can't get to an authorized computer to deauthorize it.
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:4, Informative)
First of all, WMA has been shown to be the worst (or second worst) CODEC in all the audio tests that have been done.
Second, you can reset the list of computers that are allowed to play your purchased songs. In iTunes, go to the music store and click on your account button. If you have 5 authorized computers in your list, you should have a button next to "computer authorizations" which you can use to reset the list. You can use that feature once or twice a year AFAIK. You then simply re-authorize the current computers that you want to use. You don't need the old computers to de-authorize them.
Third, AAC was developped by Dolby and was shown to be the best or second best CODEC in all the audio tests that have been done. As for the bitrate, AAC is more efficient with 128kbps than MP3 or WMA.
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Aren't you jumping the gun a little? The way I see it, he didn't put any FUD about Apple - unless you can buy songs at a higher bitrate than 128kbps. Also, his st
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AAC does indeed do a great job at lossy compression. At 128kbps, it CAN beat every other 128kbps encoding out there - Key word, "can".
You have to consider, though, that "AAC" doesn't really refer to just one specific way to encode music, though - More like handing someone a toolbox and blueprints for a ho
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Re:It's "let's pretend to be a programmer day" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's "let's pretend to be a programmer day" (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but... (Score:2, Informative)
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At the very least it should de
Depends on the format (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually did some blind tests about a year ago. I encoded a music piece in different formats at different bitrates, jumbled the names and tried to figure out which one was which. It's definitely possible to hear the difference between a 128 MP3 and a 192 MP3. Interestingly, I wasn't able to hear the difference between lossless, 192 MP3 and 128 AAC. Now I'm not saying that wi
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Informative)
No, but I cannot purchase from the iTMS songs that are encoded at higher rates. That was my point.
Re:DRM is a hassle (Score:5, Funny)
It may not be rational, but if it gets the plebes to opose DRM, it's good for everyone in the long run.
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DRMed files are larger or require decryption, that is bandwidth or processing power better used for more quality.
but I already have a TON of CD's (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:but I already have a TON of CD's (Score:4, Informative)
Apple is more than happy to do this. You can go into your account settings in iTunes, and tell it to deauthorize ALL of your prior computers. You then can authorize your current system and listen to all those songs again.
As for old systems, maybe you should consider deauthorizing them before you get rid of them or overwrite the OS. Then this wouldn't be an issue at all.
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In short: If you are willing to jump trough dozens of hoops you shouldn't have to jump trough, to use your legitemately bought music, you won't have any issues with your 128kbps rip.
Yeah, that sounds much better than just getting a CD and ripping it yourself. Or just getting it in FLAC from the P2Ps while you wait for your favorite online-store to deliver it.
Seriously, the music business is trying to use digital media in a way to prevent all the advantages that can be gained by going digital. Like in
Who would've thought? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Humanity has many more chances (infinite really) to destroy your faith in it!
I know the future seems glum now, but just wait a few more days and I promise it will be even worse.
Anyone who brings up that tired old argument that humanity has an equal number of chances to prove itself is just a silly troll and I won't hear it!
I know, I know, you are thinking, "But if humanity has a choice to prove itself wrong... there must be a postive choice!" To that I must offer a scenario. There is an extremel
This is ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the outright failure of other music services, it is clear that users prefer DRM-free music, and are willing to pay for it and take the trouble to rip it.
I love Slashdot. It injects its agenda into every story. Nothing implies or suggests that CD sales outnumber iTunes sales because users are buying music that is "DRM-free." More likely, it's simply because online music sales are still a very new market, CDs are still a much more well-established medium, and you also get printed cover
Re:Who would've thought? (Score:4, Funny)
Blizzard makes over $100 million a month selling a chance to get a purple sword.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Let's be honest here (Score:5, Insightful)
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All the music on my iPod is legal. Plus, there are a ton of records that I have purchased MORE THAN ONCE (LP + CD or LP + iTunes). So, I am somewhat offended by the idea that I'm not being "honest".
I've never purchased from iTunes. (Score:3, Insightful)
If iTunes remembered online that I owned the rights toa piece of software and could download it again at a later time perhaps I would use it (thats me speaking blindly, I haven't even looked into it that much). My wife has downloaded a few songs from iTunes if I recall, but we both have a decent CD collection and tend to support the artists that we like by getting their whole CD.
Is it just me, or was the new iTunes release a step down from the last one? I just don't like the interface as much.
Justin
http://hatchedeggs.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
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most of us have a cd collection. (Score:2)
Re:most of us have a cd collection. (Score:4, Informative)
For those looking to rip CD's, but not learn how the command line LAME encoder works, check out audiograbber [com-us.net]. Makes quick work of turning a collection into MP3 format.
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Windows: FOR %i IN (*.wav) DO lame -b 192 -h -m s %i
Bash: for i in *.wav ; do lame -b 192 -h -m s ${i} `echo ${i} | sed s/.wav/.mp3/g` ; done
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What a bad statistic (Score:5, Insightful)
CD Purchases included in the statistics (Score:2, Informative)
FTA:
It's even covered in the summary
No, no, no (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an iPod, I rarely buy anything from the iTunes Music Store, and it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with DRM. The albums I want to buy are quite often in the $12-$13 range on iTunes, and I can get them in CD form at the same price or even cheaper. When I buy the CD I get a) higher quality, and b) a permanent backup I can store in a closet or cupboard.
I think what's really going on is that people can see the obvious: the price structure (digital vs. physical medium) is currently way out of whack. You don't save anything by buying the digital version! Why would you do it? It's not like I ever find myself saying "I just HAVE to own the new Audioslave, and I can't BEAR to wait 3 or 4 days for it!"
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I agree that the pricing is screwed up, but not because it's more than retail. I find that I often would save by purchasing albums on iTunes, as most of the albums I want are $9.99 - but $9.99 is too much to pay for 128kb AAC files. Too many of the albums I purchased with iTunes sound like crap - so I'm don
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I use iTMS (Score:2)
SharpMusique rocks
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Let me see if I have this right (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Every other online music store is a failure
Therefore, people don't like DRM.
Yeah, I see how that conclusion follows those two assumptions. How about, iTunes is successful because the iPod is successful and yet, that said, most people prefer to own a CD version of their digital music. Perhaps because they can encode either lossless or at a higher bitrate than offered by iTunes?
The average Joe most likely thinks that DRM is one of those new pop bands he's heard about.
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I think most people don't consider it "buying" unless they get something physical in return.
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Good point. And yet, why doesn't the iTunes music store offer higher bitrate stuff?
I'm guessing this has to do with the mentality. Stores which are used to locking customers in (DRM) aren't likely to go out of their way to provide choices (higher bitrate). Stores which exist to provide choices (no DRM; Magnatune) seem much more likely to provide ch
Apparent success? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's going to take a while before downloads overtake CD sales (if ever), but that doesn't mean that a new technology in a new market isn't successful.
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Free Music (Score:2, Informative)
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1.5 Billion Songs != Shunning (Score:5, Insightful)
But I guess no one will read an article that says "iPod users gradually adopting iTunes Music Store to supplement CD sales."
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I'm actually surprised sales aren't higher. People usually want only one track they hear off the radio and can buy that from iTunes for $0.99 instead of an entire CD or an overpriced single CD.
I still don't know why the music industry doesn't sell FLAC (or other CD quality lossless) with no DRM online. It's not like it's going to contribute to P2P as it only takes one ri
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Irrelevant comparison. CD players are not compatible with audio cassettes. However, the iPod is compatible with both downloads from the Music Store, and with CDs. The iPod does not force one to change formats. When the CD was released, there was no way for the consumer to burn CDs "ripped" from their existing audio cassettes. In fact, many people replaced their existing c
Re:1.5 Billion Songs != Shunning (Score:5, Insightful)
Jump through hoops? I'm not sure what you are talking about. You simply insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive, iTunes rips the files, tags them, and transfers to your iPod. It's exactly as convenient as listening to the CD in a normal player.
It be like everyone was buying cassete players, but still buying 8 track tapes and recording them onto cassettes.
Not really, because the CD was a quantum leap in convenience from tapes. No more rewinding, or hunting for songs. It was also a big increase in audio quality. Never mind the fact that 8-tracks never had the kind of market dominance that CDs enjoy.
Similarly, the iPod was also a big increase in convenience. No more sorting through physical discs to find your CDs. No more bulky collections to carry around. The iPod did not increase quality - but the main reason for the success of both the CD and the iPod was not quality but convenience.
Maybe the switch will happen when the CD player is less dominant elsewhere (like stereos) and the media center PC becomes a reality in every home.
That's pretty much already happened. How many people actually play CDs in standalone CD players these days? How many people have a computer with a CD-ROM? I'm not sure why you need a "media center" PC to use iTunes. The difference is that people already have huge collections of CDs, and have stores that sell CDs in their neighborhood. I don't think it has much to do with people not being comfortable with using their PCs for music.
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I doubt very much this is happening. I would suspect there is a very low crossover between the sets of people who buy CDs, and the people who pay for iTunes.
CD sales aren't growing because they *can't*. The only way to increase the number of people in the developed world who have CD players is through birth and immigration. You may as well be comparing it to phone use. Everyone has one
I don't doubt the figures... (Score:3, Insightful)
That, and it basicly comes down to this: You can have water (silence) or mixed soda (P2P) for free or pay for brand soda (iTMS). Of course you'll have a ton of people that never wanted to buy a soda in the first place, but who'll happily take one if it's free. And if it's one they hate, all they lost was a little time in line.
Spot on... (Score:2)
My iTunes library contains 2977 items, of which 215 were purchased from the iTunes Music Store.
Most all the rest were: ripped from CDs and/or transferred from LPs, but:
There is also a considerable smattering of "personal content" including home recordings of my brother's piano recitals, radio shows recorded off the air with a Griffin RadioShark and "time-shifted" (I play them on my iPod in the car, then delete them), some downloaded public domain materia
Re:Correction (Score:2)
It's not just DRM... (Score:2)
However, DRM is still a big issue, which is why I will forgo commercial artists in an iT
Abuse of Statistics (Score:2)
First, don't we expect a vast majority of music on an iPod to be from CDs even for people who buy a lot online? I mean the iTunes Music Store is only a few years old, yet most CD collections are a decade or two old. It would take me a long, long, long, long time of buying online music to equal my CD collection.
Second, the article says just 17% of iPod users are regular online shoppers of music. In my experience, a small percentage of people buy ever
In other news today (Score:2)
Water remains wet, the sky is blue, the sun is hot, and the RIAA are jerks.
Shunning iTunes? (Score:2)
1. Most people already have a collection of CDs. So of course all their music will not be from iTunes.
2. Legal digital downloads are a very recent phenomenon
3. Many countries do not have access to the iTunes Music Store yet, as the roll-out has been slow.
Given all these factors, I'd say that 5% of music on iPods being from the iTunes store is actually a huge success. How many people have 5% of their songs from the same independent record label?
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I don't know about that, but I'd imagine you'd find most people purchased a lot more than 5% of their cds from one store.
5% of a giant number (Score:2)
And I don't think most users give a shit about "DRM-free music." I think it's this:
- buy a CD, rip it: super-easy
- buy a song online, burn a CD: not as easy
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
I was totally with the article up until the last sentance, which makes a stupid, spun, assumption based on a causality. "People are buying CDs more than online music," great. "People PREFER buying CDs to online music," still good. "Online music has DRM," yes. But "Therefore people must not be buying online music because of the DRM," is NOT a good proof. DRM is one of MANY characteristics that separate CDs from music downloads, and I would argue it to be one of the least important to people. Even the "lossy/non-lossy" arguement is a very small, elite few, compared to the masses, of whome hardly care about the quality of their music. No, the three biggest reasons why CDs are still more popular is: tradition, the regularity of going to shop at a place, where you can then pick out music. And the third, which I think is probably the biggest, is the ownership of a physical object after purchase.
If people put money down on something, they want to be able to physically "hold it in their hand" (so to speak). It's human nature, we're used to dealing with physical objects. Being told, "now you have it, now go have fun" without any physical evidence doesn't naturally feel as ligitimate has being able to spend money, and hold in your hand the item you just bought. This may change, but currently people are comfortable exchanging money for items, admissions, but we haven't yet completely bought into this "paying money for non-physical data" thing.
I remember a study that showed that the majority of computer users didn't consider illegally downloading software or media to be anywhere as offensive as shoplifting. Similarly, I would suggest that people don't consider purchasing something online to be of the same legitimacy as buying something in a store.
Give me a decent, unbiased study that shows me that the common person gives much of a shit about DRM, and I'll listen, but this says nothing at all.
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Sensationilist reporting (Score:2)
But I Want My OLD CDs Back! (Score:2)
But I didn't know anything about compression back then. 128 bitrate? Sure. Why not? The shareware ripping program I'm using says it's CD quality. Good enough for me!
Because I'm lazy, I long ago gave away all of those old CDs (over 100), or lost them, or threw them out because I didn't feel like packing them for a move. Over the last few years, my CD
Users don't care about DRM, they want a hardcopy (Score:2)
In most cases, it's not the lack of DRM that keeps people away from music downloads, it's the lack of a tangible physical product. People don't trust their computers these days - in the eyes of most common computer users, viruses and other disasters routinely kill computers and destroy data. On the other hand, people do trust CDs. They know that, as long as they take care of it and keep it mostly scratch-free, the CD will always work; it's clear that pressed CDs (recordable CDs excluded) last for a very lon
magnatune.com (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only do they not have DRM, but they encourage you to give away up to three copies of the music you buy, as a form of advertising.
They have a sliding scale on prices: you can choose what you want to pay, within a reasonable range. (I just checked, and at least for the album I checked, the range was from $5 to $18.) If you only like one song on an album, pay less for the album. If you really want to encourage an artist to make more albums, pay more. That's cool.
When you buy an album, the artist gets 50% of whatever you pay. Not 50% of the profits, and then they cook the books so they "don't have any profits"... 50% of the gross income. That's outstanding. I love their slogan: "We are not evil."
I have no connection to them, other than being a satisfied customer.
steveha
I have over 20GB of music in iTunes (Score:2)
not about DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Given the outright failure of other music services, it is clear that users prefer DRM-free music, and are willing to pay for it and take the trouble to rip it.
The DRM on iTunes isn't that onerous. You can still convert to MP3. I guess what some people are upset about is that there's no lossless way to convert AAC to a non-lossy format. I doubt that the average person cares. The sound quality on an iPod, after all, is limited mainly by the earbuds, not by the compression scheme.
I suspect the main reason people don't buy much music digitally is the same as the main reason people never bought e-books: price. People just aren't willing to pay the same amount of money for a string of ones and zeroes as for a physical object. They want a discount to reflect the fact that the digital thing is worth less to them than the physical object, and they also know damn well that the publishers can afford to give a discount, because they don't have any distribution costs.
The last time I started up iTunes on my wife's mac (I don't use it much myself), it gave me a little informative message suggesting that I make a habit of backing up all my music regularly. Uh, and what would I back it up onto? CDs? In that case, why not just buy a CD? Sure, a lot of people prefer to buy pop music a song at a time, but personally I buy mostly jazz and classical, and I'm not interested at all in buying single tracks.
And this is news? (Score:2)
Don't buy digital music? (Score:3, Funny)
New music Tuesday is a good day... (Score:3, Informative)
I look forward to new music Tuesday to listen for new tracks by my favorite artists and for trying to find artists that deserve my attention. With radio being as commercial as possible, iTunes is about my only source for new and fresh music.
Everyone is missing the point! (Score:3, Interesting)
My entire music collection is legal, but I can tell you one of the major way my friends get music - from their friends, through sharing their music collections.
Everyone here on SlashDot seems to be saying "This survey shows that people would rather buy CDs than music online! This probably says they do not want DRM!"
I think the article is saying "People will take *free* music their friends recommend over paying for music online."
This is not at all surprising, and really does not speak to people's views on DRM.
Cost vs Time (Score:4, Informative)
I've been sampling different methods of DVD ripping since yesterday and have discovered the most efficient way to rip a DVD while retaining overall data quality is to go through a series of three different applications... at least on the Macintosh side of things.
- Mac The Ripper [mactheripper.org]
It seems there is a huge issue with trying to rip directly from the optical drive that often results in several hours of time used to obtain potentially buggy and incomplete data from a DVD. By using this utility to copy the raw DVD data directly to your hard drive, you'll find your DVD ripper will function much faster and much more reliably in a single pass, than it would with ripping straight from the DVD media itself. A 90 minute movie can be copied in about 10 minutes, and then ripped in realtime... rather than taking upward of three hours to obtain the same results.
- Handbrake [m0k.org]
This utility converts raw DVD data to a Quicktime-compatible format of your choosing. To ensure easy compatibity with the iPod, try out the new Instant Handbrake software. Despite being a bit buggy and in the beta stages, the results it produces are impressive. When used with raw dvd content stored on a fast hard drive, you can achieve a complete conversion in realtime or faster.
- iSquint [isquint.org]
This utility simplifies the process of ensuring your ripped files are in a format that conforms to iPod-playable standards. Depending on the intended use (portable viewing or viewing on a TV screen) you can store a full 90 minute movie using H.264 encoding within 250-500MB of space with very little loss in visual quality. This may add about 2 hours to the ripping process, but is easily worth it for the assurance you've performed the process correctly on your first attempt.
All three of the above utilities are freeware/open source and readily downloadable at any time.
As for CDs though, the ripping process is so trivial, there's no point in not buying a CD of a band you like, when you might well end up spending just as much on the individual DRM-infected tracks.
No choice where I live (Score:3, Interesting)
Analog CDs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, good old ANALOG CDs...
From TFA:
Well no-shit. CDs have been around for decades, and most everyone owns dozens, if not hundreds, of them by now. Meanwhile, Itunes has only been around for a few years... It seems pretty significant that in that short time, they've sold so many songs as to bring decades of CD sales down to only 80% of the tracks on an iPod... though that could have something to do with people listening to OLD CDs less than new tracks.
Instant Gratification (Score:3, Insightful)
It's never been any trouble to rip a CD- and usually not even to get artwork. The only real appeal (for me) of iTMS over used CD's on Amazon is instant gratification. That means I get to listen to a song as soon as I decide to buy it. Some times a friend will com over and say "have you ever heard 'X' " then we usually muddle over how it went, then I usually plunk down my 99 cents to get it now on iTunes; even if there's a good change I'll buy the whole CD later.
Thats the total appeal for me. Same with the movie store- the appeal is that I can get it now.
-Ed Palma [edified.org]
Poor interpretation, even poor choice in headlines (Score:3, Insightful)
I expect most users use the store a lot like I do: We use the store to test new artists and for the occasional song that there's no way we'd buy an artist's album for. Personally, I find it shocking that the iTunes store makes up as much as 5% of the music on an iPod, when you consider an iPod can hold thousands of songs.
But the slashdot spin on this story is even worse: People may shun the iTunes store, but I doubt most iPod users are shunning iTunes.
I also don't see any link to DRM anywhere in these numbers. It's an interesting theory and may even be true, but it lacks evidence. So far as I can see, the story submitter just tacked it on for the sheer hell of it. Better standards should be applied (and no, I'm not new here, I'm just always midly surprised at how low slashdot can go).
Re: (Score:2)
I think most people buy music for the music, not for the artwork. If they bought for the artwork, then vinyl LPs would still be dominant - th