Majin Planet

Death of Online Music

Well I read this article today about how itunes music store is losing money. I thought it was kind of funny because the article says that for every ipod sold, only 20 tracks where sold and out of every household only 3% have bought online music. Also that CD’s still have a large hold on the total sales of music.

Its funny because the reason CD’s are the highest and will be the highest selling music format because people don’t like to be force to have to use something. Yeah ipods are cool, but what happens if something better and cheaper is out there and you want that. Well you can get it but if you buy anything off itunes it wont work on that player or any player other then ipods. Also if you buy music from another store like say Napster, it wont work in itunes. So Apple wonders why they have low music sales.

Its because Apple locks the music to where it can only be used in ipods. And everyone wonders why most people have ipods. However that may be changing with MS new player as well as other players that are coming out. People are starting to wake up to the bull shit the music industry has been doing for the last 5 years since they took down Napster and other music sites that allow you to download music for free.

Its a double edge sword for sure, if you stop and think about it. People would go online and download music illegally. So I can see who the music industry would be pissed as well as the artist who work their hardest to give us great songs (well most of them). I mean I know if I where in their shoes I be pissed too. However not only did they fix it but they flip it. Now its getting to the point if you buy music you can’t do anything with it.

What do I mean? Well to put it simple, its coming to whatever you choose to go with your stuck with. If you want to buy from Apple you have to download itunes, which is limited to windows and apple computers. So if your on something else you screwed. If you say are like me and you have a collection of CDs you have been buying since the 90s and you kind of missed the whole downloading music online for nothing era you had loads of choices. You could buy any kind of MP3 player or use any computer to burn them on to. As far as I know if you buy music you have the right to do what you want with it, remix it, whatever, as long as its for your own personal use. You can make a endless number of copies, that is as long as they are for backups and you don’t sell them or give them away for free. I think most people do that because even know CD’s last a long time they can get broken or messed up and be unplayable. Plus you want to be able to burn them to your computer, all the songs you like and then make mix CD’s so you can take it with you (if you don’t have a MP3 player). I think under the current laws this should be allowed. I mean you pay for it right?

Wrong! They want to take this away from us. How? Well first off if you buy music from itunes your not allow to burn it to CD (as of the last time I read the user agreement). You can’t convert them to other formats like MP3 because they are locked. On top of that your not allowed to unlock them. So you buy music form itunes and lets say you have some random brand of an mp3 player (not an ipod). Now you want to put that music on your player, but you can’t because the player can’t read the files. Lets say you want to make a music video but you can’t convert it to the format because its protected. So what is your options? Drop $200 for an ipod for those who want to take your music away from your computer. The rest of you are screwed.

Is it fair? Yes and no. If your like me and you make music videos or other stuff with music for the fandom of it or for your own personal use, and you want a song but can’t find the CD or maybe the CD (like most) have 12-13 tracks of crap and one or two songs you’ll end up liking. Its rare to buy a CD and more then half of it are good songs. Most CD’s sell for $14.95 to about $24.95 depending on how many CDs it comes with and where you buy it. But wait there is hope, you can get the one song you want online for .99 cents. Great, your saving money at the cost of not being able to do what you want with it.

The good thing is most music stores like mp3.com and even Napster let you burn your music to other players in mp3 format and even let you do what ever with. However do you trust them? If your like me your worry about giving out your information online as there are people out there that want access to your hard earn money. But here is the kicker, I’ve seen any reports on this as of yet, but I’m sure it will happen. With the itunes+ipod deal I’m sure more will follow. This brings me back to my first point of music CDs having the most share on the market and its because it doesn’t have the protection locks on it that digital music has. Mostly because CD’s have limited space. However with new and better CD formats coming out, I could see in the next 5 years CD’s getting some sort of “protection” lock on them where you wont be able to do what you wish with them such as making copies (for backing up) reconverting or moving from mp3 player to mp3 player.

I know some of you may be thinking, it’ll never come to that. Maybe but think about this; Its kind of already happen. I know one example for sure, about a year ago the group “The Foo Fighters” CD that was release has a write protection on it making it so you couldn’t burn the music off it on to your computer or any mp3 player like ipods. I remember because one of our long time members here posted about it and we had a little debate on it. Sadly that was back on Banshee Force and also that board was ended and restarted. But its plain and simple, if they where able to do it once, I’m sure they can do it again. So to but it nice, I think its time we all start downloading music offline illegally and either try to find a good source that works for you and/or just buy the CDs legally. The last thing I want is to go pay $20 on a CD to find out that I can’t burn the songs to my computer.

I know you don’t want that. I highly doubt it will come to that, but you never know in these times where everyone is so worry about the law and copyrights. But you know there has to be a balance, for those who break the law and for those who want to show their support. Maybe the music industry needs to take a hard look at the anime/movie industrise. I mean yeah we have loads of illegal media sites, but it hasn’t effect ticket sales or DVD sales at all. Why? Because with the options they give us, we don’t feel limited or cheated out of what we pay for.

Well I hope you enjoy that, mostly just some of my opinions and views on the matter of online music. Do I think its the death of online music? Not really. Can it happen, sure. If they keep up all this bull shit like what itunes has been doing for years yeah. I mean I couldn’t see anyone buying any music from online stores to tell your the truth. I mean if already have an ipod (most people do) then it really wont effect you to much. But its something to think about.