Apple considers unlimited iTunes downloads
A dramatic shift in the way you will be consuming and paying for music on your iPod or iPhone could be in the making, according to an article published by the Financial Times. Instead of shelling out $1 for each track, the iPod maker apparently is aiming for an upfront payment in exchange for access to a complete music library over a certain period of time. The idea is not entirely new. Some readers may remember the announcement of Nokia’s “Comes with Music” service, which allows users to download an unlimited amount of music for free for 12 months. Announced in December of last year, the Financial Times said that Nokia may be paying its flagship partner up to $80 per device for this program, but market research indicates that this investment is apparently paying off.
The newspaper said that Apple has been in negotiations to close a similar deal, but the company isn’t willing to pay as high as a premium as Nokia and has put a limit on $20 so far. Interestingly, the Financial Times quotes market research that has shown that consumers could be convinced to spend more than $100 for unlimited access to music over the lifetime of a device, or up to $8 per month as a subscription service. An all-you-can-eat music subscription model could be very lucrative for Apple, since it is generally believed that the company is not exactly making a killing on music sales through its iTunes store: Instead, Apple is using the service as a marketing vehicle to promote its iPod and iPhone products (which usually have huge profit margins between 33 and 50%).
Source: FT, TG Daily
Comments(36)
…or of course get your own music for free like most ppl.
similar to rhapsody and others. never liked itunes, but had rhapsody for a while, but free is good to (re: in5ane)
Might consider it if the price is right.
but do you lose the ability to play those songs after your subscription is up like all the other subscription programs? It sounds like you’re limited to one device. never liked itunes…
@4, spacemonkey
there are programs out there that you can use to record exactly what your soundcard “hears” and you can just rip the music to your own MP3s. Yes, it’s hassle, but if you were going to be restricted, but you wanted to be legal and support the artists you listen to, then options are available.
I might consider it too, like mupet said, if the price is right. It’d certainly cut down on my pirating, but most the stuff I listen to is indie and therefore not on itunes anyway.
if it was 20$ and i can grab 30 full albums or more and have the wma use this drm decoder i than can make .wav files and than make mp3s and not lose to much of the sound im there.
not bad $20 to get 30 or more albums and than strip the drm crap hell yea.
also anyone ever use spiral frog? they are free and i go there and get some albums and strip the drm and i have them as free as a bit torrent only in wma files
see that makes more sense to me. i would do it if they go through with it. i would more than gladly pay the max of 15-20 a month for unlimited downloads. hell why not if its cheap and legit. that way if i get cought they can nab me for the movies (which they might not care since i don’t sell) and not for the music. for which if they did at close to 200k a pop i would owe the music industry a few hundred billion dollars
Well.. It’s a step in the right direction
Now all that is left is to make the service itself for free, get rid of custom software like iTunes, offer better quality and release the music as soon as its done.
And after that you have to pay me money to use your site instead of the ones we already got. Welcome to the Internet.
sounds like the zune pass… $15/month unlimited downloads, though once the subscription expires, so do the songs. i jut run them through tunebite and strip the drm
Piss on all those pay-for-music companies.
Why I became a pirate over 10 years ago is so I didn’t have to pay at all. Steve Jobs can suck on a railroad spike.
there will be cluases in the contracts….
it may say unlimited downloads but they will cap people who abuse the downloads…
this i do know of…
Why on earth pay $1 for each track or any subscription fee, even if it’s unlimited dls for a short period of time when you get it totally free cost-wise and protection-wise EVERYwhere on the internet…
@13 What kind of “abuse” do you mean?
Like, download songs excessively… Hundreds of gigs in 5 days or something…
I would actually consider going totally legit with my music if they did something like this. Would be great to get some albums I cannot find at the moment.
If they did this for movies, that’d be even better, too bad it’ll never happen for that.
I wonder if its gonna be like the MSN/Sympatico music store. The unlimited plan is only for streaming or mp3 player use (with DRM and 30 days of playing without synching)
The song is “never” on the computer.
constant d/loads they say unlimited they mean a certain amout till you have to much usage then you are capped at there discretion…
eg… if you downloaded 2gig worth in a month they say hold on hes having alot slow his speed and d/loads down ! hense capped….
This is interesting, but psychologically a fixed up-front fee is more tempting than a monthly subscription. Apple could even dig into their sales database and probably work out that people upgrade their iPods every… 2 years (say). So if they’re talking about a $200 up-front cost, that’s about the same as $8 per month, but sounds better somehow. Now if they did this for $100 up-front people would swarm to their nearest store, but I have a feeling – because it’s Apple – it’s much more likely to be nearer $200.
Thoughts?
I dont know why apple dont just sell everything to microsoft and just call it a day…
Dont you just wish? But no, cuz there’ll always be that handful of fanboys who just wanna be different..
@gripper
By “unlimited they mean a certain amou[n]t”.
I beg your pardon? Unlimited means “a certain amount”. I. e.: unlimited means limited?!
C’mon, Apple – either it’s unlimited, which would be good, or limited, which would mean – at least for me – “no sale”.
@steveo
But then what would you waste your time complaining about in comments on warez sites? There’d be a dangerous possibility you’d have to go and get a life.
actually now i think about it i will pay, but only if the recording industry cuts down on the amount of cheap pop music it churns out every second
oh, and an end to all rap music that seems to make its money by holding people down instead of doing what music was originally meant to do.
I would definitely pay something under 10$ a month to get as much music as I want to. I mean if you consider how much music you listen to it isn’t that much. Additionally you get all the covers and Id3 infos which is a lot of work if you have a bigger library. But only if I can get more music over Itunes as I can get now because I would want to get what I want if I pay for a flatrate.
ITunes made a huge mess of my music library renaming folders and moving tracks. IDevelopment team sucks on nuts all day. The downloading of one song by an artist is not as nice as an album in its entirety.
so the same thing as Yahoo Music Unlimited…
My favorite (if I don’t want to spend a lot of time) is Yahoo Music Unlimited + tunebite
$6/month
How can you state that iTunes is not lucrative when it is the number 2 seller of music with Walmart as number 1? The only clause, and this might be a guess, would be drm music which only allows you to have it for so long. As far as only working for the iPhone or iPod thats not true, you can use any mp3 player with iTunes not just the apple products.
it’s an enormous step… we made them change their minds…
i think by lucrative, he means what the company actually profits. how much can apple possibly make per song? $.25? and the profit margin on albums has to be less. dont get me wrong, a quarter a song profit is alot of money, but if they cut a deal with someone else for an all you can eat, then they would just double what ever they pay and then make money on all the ipod owners that dont purchas from itunes by drawing them in as customers. still, drm, apple, itunes, and ipod, in my opinion suck. i love my creative zen, i almost never need to convert format or compress video, might take up more space on my player, but atleast i dont have 2 files of the same movie on my hard drive.
k hold on.. this article says
“it is generally believed that the company is not exactly making a killing on music sales through its iTunes store”
then how on earth are they the 2nd highest online music seller next to Amazon???
This seems unlikely, although would be really cool. But personally if I like an album I want a PHYSICAL copy, it just makes so much more sense than the buying MP3 crap. This would only come in handy for exclusives and songs you can;t find absolutely anywhere else.
I just use Rapidshare search engines to download my music.
sorry 33 but with the revolutions caused my flash drives and mp3 players hard discs are slowly becoming a thing of the passed hence the studies show a 50 percent reduction in the number of cds bought from stores. Were in the digital age now, and it doesnt seem like that long ago people were screaming about the loss of tapes to cds
How-To Help
Britney Spears-Womanizer DVDRip x264 2008-iNDiCA
Posted on 19.12.2008 at 16:06 in
MViD, Music by Will
The other day I posted a music video of Britney’s “Circus”, second single from her latest album. Today let’s review the music video of the 1st single from this album “Womanizer”. It’s a DVDRip from group iNDiCA. I also include a MP3 pre by VAG in this post, which is a UK bonus track of the album, enjoy!
The video starts off with Britney making breakfast for her boyfriend while he gets ready for work. When he is at work, he sees a new secretary (which is Britney in disguise). She starts dancing with her dancers as she sings the chorus. Next, her boyfriend is at a restaurant with Britney being one of the waitresses (in another of her disguises). She then starts to seduce him as she sings the chorus with her backup dancers. Then her boyfriend is getting driven home by his chauffeur (which is Britney once again in her last disguise)……
NFO:
Artist: Britney Spears
Title: Womanizer