The Beatles- Now on iTunes

[Brandon]

What's Eclipse if its not following Brain Damage?

2:01

[katy]

Oh, I know. I just mean that's his (and Kid Rock's) argument:

I actually totally agree with his argument.  It really doesn't make sense to price all ITunes the same -- the label backing, advertising, has less influence on the Internet since things spread virally.  Basically equal pricing leads to Antoine Dodson performing on the BET Awards.

And I'm a huge fan of Antoine Dodson, but you know what I mean.  The ITunes model favors one-hit wonders.  That's all very well and good, but if I were a long-term artist with an extensive back catalog that's worth something, I would hold out as long as possible.

Plus, Kid Rock sells to the country market now and that's the one genre that's still selling CD's.

Is Zeppelin on there yet?  I recall them being the other big hold-outs.

[Brandon]

They've been on there for a while now, yeah. I remember Zeppelin coming on being kind of a big deal, but not nearly as much as The Beatles.

[sean]

What's funny is, I've always thought it made sense for the pricing to be equal or at least equalized, but I've always thought there should be a sliding scale based on the length of the song.  Assuming the Beatles allow individual songs to be sold (I haven't looked), it's silly that "Her Majesty" costs the same amount as "Revolution #9".  Or even a good but long song.

I kind of feel like the labels and big artists complaining that they can't set their own price is like the Tea Party movement.  The argument makes a bit of sense, until you remember that following that argument led directly to the troubled times we're in now.  They had a monopoly, the started charging a ridiculous amount, and then technology changed and, suddenly, people decided it was better to just download the stuff they wanted for free rather than paying their outrageous prices.  Going in and messing with iTunes so that the labels set their own price and it's higher than a non-label artist -- aside from the implicit suggestion that "You're not as good as us if you aren't on a real label" -- would just lead back to that, wouldn't it?

[LpF]

iTunes has had three pricing tiers for over a year.  I don't get why people keep using "everything costs the same" as an argument against iTunes when it's literally not a thing anymore.

[katy]

iTunes has had three pricing tiers for over a year.  I don't get why people keep using "everything costs the same" as an argument against iTunes when it's literally not a thing anymore.

Hmm, well, I was just going on Kid Rock's word, and that quote could be from more than a year ago.  I actually wouldn't know, as I neither own an IPod nor use ITunes in any format.

It's not my thing.  I'm PURE.

[sean]

I actually thought they did (I assumed the Beatles wouldn't settle for "$10 a CD"), I just never buy anything from iTunes because of the low quality of the music.  I don't want to pay money on low quality m4as that I need to cause further loss on by changing them to MP3s so that I can listen to them on my Archos (and that's even assuming I don't have to add a step of burning it to a CD-R which may or may not cause ripping problems when I bring it back in, if there's DRM or anything on it).

EDIT: Just to be clear, though, that's *both* of Garth Brooks's reasons that are now false?

[LpF]

iTunes music is 256 kbps, and has no DRM.

Granted, if you switch them to mp3s the loss may still be too much for you, but 256 isn't THAT bad.

[sean]

It's weird, I swear I added "Or did they change that too?"

256 is fine.  I can't hear any real difference between 256 and 320, but because I can hear the difference between 192 and 320, I know logically that there is one.  I do think that you should be able to select your own bitrate, though.  Most people would go with 128 and not care, and the people who do care could order lossless.  I'd personally still rather buy a CD, which gives me the option of ripping at my own bitrate and, if the files get corrupted or deleted or lost, I can re-rip it myself instead of re-buying it -- but that certainly gives me one less reason.

So, when they eliminated DRM, what else did they get rid of?  Aren't there still m4ps which can't be viewed on unauthorized computers?

[LpF]

Yeah, I'm not sure about videos in general, but if you get a digital copy from a DVD set I'm pretty sure that's still DRM'd.

Also, though I am an iTunes shopper, it's not perfect.  My computer crashed mid-download and while the file download restarted and is playable, something went wrong with it and I can't transfer it to my iPod.  I'm not sure I have any recourse, so when that happens (twice total, I think) I pirate the individual track and replace it.

[nate.3.0]

Hmm, well, I was just going on Kid Rock's word, and that quote could be from more than a year ago.

That quote was from Monday

[sean]

no, I meant the audio files, but they come up as "m4p" when protected/locked and "mp4" when they're not.

As far as I understood, when they were locked that way, you had to be on an authorized computer to play them, and it wouldn't let you change them to MP3s.  You had to burn a CD of it, then re-rip that CD as MP3, which inevitably led to lossiness (but I think this was also starting with 128 or maybe 192 bit rate files to start with).

[Brandon]

What's funny is, I've always thought it made sense for the pricing to be equal or at least equalized, but I've always thought there should be a sliding scale based on the length of the song.  Assuming the Beatles allow individual songs to be sold (I haven't looked), it's silly that "Her Majesty" costs the same amount as "Revolution #9".  Or even a good but long song.

They sorta have a length based thing, in that if a track is over 10 minutes you have to buy the whole album to be able to get it. I know for most groups that might not be an issue, but if you're, say, a Phish fan like I am, or like jazz or prog-rock that quickly becomes annoying.

I do think that you should be able to select your own bitrate, though.  Most people would go with 128 and not care, and the people who do care could order lossless.

Apple has its own lossless format, ALAC, yet they don't have it on iTunes. The only reason I know it exists is because I got a digital download of Tom Petty's new album and that was one of the format options. Live Phish.com uses it, too. I prefer lossless, though I know most people could care less (same reason my girlfriend makes fun of me for buying exclusively blu-ray if it's an option), so I'm not surprised it's not an option. I wish it were, but know it'll probably never happen.

[LpF]

no, I meant the audio files, but they come up as "m4p" when protected/locked and "mp4" when they're not.

As far as I understood, when they were locked that way, you had to be on an authorized computer to play them, and it wouldn't let you change them to MP3s.  You had to burn a CD of it, then re-rip that CD as MP3, which inevitably led to lossiness (but I think this was also starting with 128 or maybe 192 bit rate files to start with).

OH!  I see.  OK, so I just checked in my file system and they're .m4a now.  I'm not sure what that means, but I do know you can right-click and transfer them to .mp3 in the program, no burning/ripping required.  I don't think they have a limit on how many times you can burn them anymore, either.  As far as I know, whatever the .m4a file format is, there's no DRM on it at all.  At least not in any meaningful way that I've run into since the changeover.

[sean]

they don't even need their own lossless format; you can make m4a lossless.  I've never done it -- to me, the difference between 320 and lossless is negligible and not worth the extra disc space and, also, I can't listen to lossless on my Archos (man, this thread, I'm making it sound like the Archos is a bad thing, but I swear the sound quality is better than an iPod and the amount of space is just amazing.  Obviously, it does other stuff too, I just don't care about that stuff).  But I believe you can.

There are definitely people who would buy from iTunes if they had lossless that don't because they don't.  I have a feeling that they don't want to sell in lossless because they want to wait until everybody's bought everything and then say, "Great news, we've got a NEW FORMAT and, in a few years, it's the only one that will work on your iPod and iTunes!  Get busy re-buying!"