May 01, 2003
Billboard: iTunes Music Store "Overwhelming Success"...
Billboard: iTunes Music Store "Overwhelming Success" [MacSlash]
Well, like just about every other Mac user in the US I dove into the iTunes Music Store as soon as it was announced. I have two major impressions, one Apple did an incredible job on the technology and two the record industry still doesn't get it.
The integration with iTunes is beautiful and Apple truly has made the experience easy, maybe even too easy since you can set things up to buy things with no confirmation. I had things set this way, but changed my mind since my nieces sometimes use my computer now. I'd hate to see what would happen if they realized how easy it is to get songs from the Back Street Boys and such (assuming BSB is actually on the service that is).
From peeking under the covers a bit it looks like everything is XML and appears to use a REST style web services architecture. The responsiveness of the system (after the initial deluge of users) is extremely quick and this should really be powerful ammunition for people who want to complain about how XML is slow and bloated. This service in iTunes works beautifully, is quick and it's all XML behind the scenes.
One thing that's really unfortunate, even though Apple has used a very open mechanism for building the service, the agreement you must accept before using it prevents using any of the content for any other purpose. Very unfortunate, especially since Apple will see the revenue for all sales regardless of what channel it comes through. Having things like an RSS channel for new releases would be much better then having to visit the store to keep checking that. I'm not expecting Apple to provide this, though building one would certainly be easy given the way the service works. Oh well.
Now as for the record company involvement in all this. They still just don't get it. Everything that is bad about this service is the result of the record companies restricting what is available and how it can be used. In particular one thing that has absolutely driven me crazy is the number of partial albums on the service. Most of these seem to be missing maybe one track, but it's enough to prevent being able to buy the whole album at once. I generally like to buy whole albums and would continue to do so with this service if they were actually available. This is really pretty sickening and it really hurts the service.
Another thing that makes me sick is that the one track that I would want to buy individually, Days Go By by Dirty Vegas, is the one track off that album that isn't available separately. It seems the whole point of this service is to enable this type of purchase, but no the ultimate of one hit wonders forces you to buy the whole album to get their one hit. Bah, now they just won't get any of my money as I've heard other tracks off that album and they aren't that great.
Really though, problems like this run throughout the service. It's a huge, huge problem in genres outside pop music. Who wants to buy a single track off a jazz or classical album? Artists in these genres aren't about selling hits, they're about art and that art is in the form of an entire album. However, album after album of Jazz and classical are listed as partial albums. That's just useless and severely handicaps the service.
I give Apple a lot of credit for being able to get what they have out of the record labels. It's just too bad it's still not good enough. The DRM while vastly better then what's come before is still too much. The problem with it has nothing to do with today and everything to do with the future. It ties the music to a service and anyone who remembers the Circuit City DivX fiasco should know why this is a very, very bad thing. In this case the DRM isn't absolutely horrible and is easily defeated, but really it's just punishment for the people who are actually willing to pay for music and that's just sad and stupid.
I ended up buying a few things to try it out. Three albums and one single track. The experience is truly great. Unfortunately, I'm extremely worried about protecting my investment and I'm not comfortable with the current DRM scheme. I'll probably buy things every once in a while, but overall it's still not open enough to make me comfortable given the current pricing. Strip away the DRM and put the full catalog online and the service could be quite compelling. I still think the pricing is too high, but there's room to add value there to justify it. As it stands right now, you're paying awfully close to CD prices for less quality and that is not a good bargain. I guess if you like the kind of music where there's only one good track on a disc then it could be a better deal (assuming they'll actually sell you just that track), but for people who like real music by actual artists where the whole album is worth hearing, the service still isn't there yet.
Of course I'd still rather have a $10 per month unlimited streaming service, but that clearly doesn't fit with the Apple iPod strategy. If I actually owned an iPod I might feel differently, but I'm not too sure. I'd probably still rather have on demand access to a larger body of music with the option of buying the stuff that I really want to keep. Listen.com Rhapsody is still the closest thing available, but alas not on the Mac.