I’m no techie but the past 24-48 hours have been full of news from Apple. First, Steve Jobs comes clean regarding his illness & his decision to step down for a few months. Today @ the Macworld conference, word has leaked that Apple, in partnership with music labels, will make it’s music catalog DRM-free.
Citing two unnamed sources, CNET is reporting that Apple agreed to a three-tier variable pricing model in return for the ability to sell music without its limiting FairPlay technology, which restricts the use of iTunes-purchased music to Apple-created devices. According to the report, there will be different prices for older catalog titles, modern but less popular songs, and current hits. The announcement could come during the MacWorld keynote.
What does that mean?
– You are now free to buy a track from iTunes, play it on any cpu or any other device. No DRM restrictions, good sound quality, etc. etc. et al.
– Rumors of variable pricing ($0.99 cents, $0.69 cents, and $1.29) for songs.
– 8 million songs have been liberated as of today.
Report: Apple DRM-free licensing in the works [THR]
It’s Official! Apple’s iTunes Drops DRM, Adds Variable Pricing [Hypebot]
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niiiice…
Not a goddamn thing on my end. Just can’t beat free.
The industry may have officially turned some sort of corner today. The direction? Not sure on that just yet.
@ Gotty Yeah this is big business. Apple was on some broad street bully ish.
Apple will get the people who don’t know where to get free music from, it’s another win for Apple.
“Apple will get the people who don’t know where to get free music from, it’s another win for Apple.”
I agree, it’s a smart move. Not everyone is as bootlegging-savvy as we are :)
Dom Corleone:
With a name like that I would think you would know better than dry snitch on yourself. *Looks over my shoulder* The cyber bootlegging police is real, they just raided this cat in BK. Took his hard drive and told him he got 2 choices: 10,000 dollar fine or jail. I wish they would give me that choice, cause I dont got 10 G’s. LOL
I for one has never EVEr bootlegged any thing, hell I don’t have Legs on my table. lol
“Apple will get the people who don’t know where to get free music from, it’s another win for Apple.”
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Truth. I know way more folks that buy from napster & itunes than i do that know how to dl.
But really, how hard is it for someone to learn how to DL music? I refuse to buy a .99 song from iTunes. Ever.
But really, how hard is it for someone to learn how to DL music? I refuse to buy a .99 song from iTunes. Ever.
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I know a lot of people who find sites like rapidshare, zshare, sharebee difficult.
I had an iPod for a month before I discovered file sharing. Just looking at different websites & blogs, I realized there’s a ton of free music out there. I’m no computer genius but the word “Free” had me getting tech savy with the quickness.
@ Amp: Trust me my ninja, there’s A LOT of e-lliterate people out there. I just had to give a chick a Google search/Rapidshare/Winzip tutorial the other day!!! Not to mention I had to school one of my ninjaz on how to open a zipfile and burn it to a cd, plus educate him on how to use torrents to get mixtapes/dvd’s. It boggles me how some people can’t even do shit as simple as that, although I guess you only learn what interests you.
ps: Fuck iTunes!!! (love the iPhone though) The only reason I fuck with it is to get applications for my iPhone from the app-store. Once Steve “Fuckboy” Jobbs allows the iPhone to display Adobe Flash and cats can start developing apps WITHOUT having to submit them to Apple, I’ll never use it again. Fuck QuickTime too!!!
Oh and another thing: Apple better learn from Sony and start making iPod use “Play For Sure” software. Sony mp3 players rule!!! You don’t need software at all, just plug ‘em in via a USB cable and drag & drop your music into a folder. Done.
I meant “Play For Sure” technology, sorry.
IPhone really the only thing that I have from Apple…and I loves it…agree with Flea…fuck ITunes…so counter-intuitive for me.
smart move by Apple though….this leads for more $$$ now…way to snatch the computer-illiterate with this.
I hit up Gotty on another site asking him how to unrar a file a few years ago.
And the rest is history…
Only song I’ve ever bought from iTunes was that classic song w/ ‘Ye. KRS, & Rakim because they said it went to charity. It probably didn’t but oh well.
Yeah, for every person I know who knows how to dl, I know 10 others who dont/wont hassle w/it.
Didn’t post this a few weeks ago but the RIAA has been downsizing it’s investigative departments & third party contractors. So that basically means they’re loosening up too, realizing that winning by suing people was really a losing effort.
@ Gotty: Did you hear about the major sports leagues (NBA and MLB namely) going after “pirates” in China who illegally stream live games on the internet for free??? They said that they learned a valuable lesson from the music industry which is that legal action is not a detterent, so they just find the sites and shut ‘em down.
When I was younger I went to a semi-private (but they called it a ‘broading school or some shit like that), and they were teaching us everything about computers (this was in 1992-93) such as commands, running applications, and so forth. But than I got kicked out (for blowing wii and a bunch of other nutty shi) and I self-taught myself everything I know about computers, besides asking my e-friends for help here-n-there. So if a little hood nigga like myself can learn how to d/l, unzip files, torrents, and other applications there is no excuse for anyone in this day and age to have minimum knowledge about the internet cause the answers are on the DAMN INTERNET!!
With that said who can help me embed videos on to my social pages such as imeem, blackplanet…..LOL!!
^
True Gotty. Now they’re trying to make ISP’s go after people who wierd bandwith activity. I don’t know why they’d agree to it though. They already get their 30-60 bucks a month already. It won’t help them at all.
LOL @ Gotty recyling comments.
“The industry may have officially turned some sort of corner today. The direction? Not sure on that just yet.”
“now that all the smoke is gone (lie-tahs!)…”
Great, does this mean I can get rid of my Audio HiJack Pro software?
maybe now ill consider giving back to those deserving artists (i.e. Devin the Dude) looking for that itunes money..maybe
” there’s A LOT of e-lliterate people out there”
True but I think most ppl who buy music off itunes just have the money to spend and not the time, patience or desire to search the internet for free music. I know for alot of us it takes only afew minutes and only alil patience but thats because most of us are fiends for music so we’ve spent enough time doing it that we have it down to a science. For ppl who only desire afew songs a week or an album here and there spending .99 or whatever on those songs is nothing to them.
Rapidshare? Zshare? Sharebee? Megaupload? I’ve never heard of any of those sites…I wonder what they’re for?
Not necessarily hip hop dl specific but bit torrent clients are a good deal too. Fast dl, and usually have a lot of the upcoming releases. I got kanye’s graduation when it was first leaked. Thats before i was up on TSS though so i probabaly would of got it either way. Still bit torrent aint done me wrong yet.
Great info. Gotty!