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iTunes music store success as as sign of morality

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MichaelH

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The forum tends to focus on things that need fixing in society. That's appropriate; we need to know what should change so we know where to focus our energies. However, there are things going right in the world, and the iTunes store is one of them.

To have access to the iTunes store, a user must:

1. Have a computer

2. Have internet access, ideally broadband.

3. Be sufficiently technically competent to navigate to music and buy it.

For all practical purposes, every iTunes customer also has The Pirate Bay available. They could download an unethical/illegal copy of their music without paying, but instead they pay. And at $1 to $1.25 a song, they paid $3.34 billion dollars in 2008! This is money that goes to Apple, the labels and the artists, reimbursing them for the effort, expense, and risk involved in creating and distributing music.

It's good to know that not everyone and everything is broken. Hooray for iTunes customers!

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Personally, I buy my MP3s from Amazon's download service.

Not to detract from the OP's original point (which I agree with), I do as well for the following reasons;

1) .mp3's (especially without DRM) are easier to deal with cross-device.

2) Amazon's .mp3's still sync with the iTunes library on download.

3) Amazon is frequently cheaper on both the song and album level.

4) Amazon .mp3's are offered at a higher bit rate.

Apple has announced a wider availability of DRM-free tunes in the near future, but still in their proprietary format and more expensive. I'm thinkiing they better pay close attention because I suspect they are losing market ground to Amazon.

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Apple has announced a wider availability of DRM-free tunes in the near future, but still in their proprietary format and more expensive. I'm thinkiing they better pay close attention because I suspect they are losing market ground to Amazon.

I think they've reduced the price, and are about to implement a new pricing structure where tracks can be purchased for $0.69 to $1.29. iTunes is my means of d/l music, but I haven't been on it in a while to check for these updates.

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The record companies always had the ability to keep up with the current technologies and provide a safer, more easily accessible means of music download. The huge gap of time between the advent of pre-war Napster and the advent of the Apple Music store and Amazon just demonstrates their keenly sharpened unwillingness to adapt to a changing industry. Regardless of the fact that downloading unlicensed music is unethical, I still think those companies should've been left to go bankrupt after the huge struggle it took to get them onto a legitimate music downloading venue. I think the rise in AMS and Amazon sales shows that the everyday person, even the everyday teenager, would rather have a legitimate copy of a product they own. They may not see it themselves, but the recognize that stolen property has less value than earned property.

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The record companies always had the ability to keep up with the current technologies and provide a safer, more easily accessible means of music download. The huge gap of time between the advent of pre-war Napster and the advent of the Apple Music store and Amazon just demonstrates their keenly sharpened unwillingness to adapt to a changing industry. Regardless of the fact that downloading unlicensed music is unethical, I still think those companies should've been left to go bankrupt after the huge struggle it took to get them onto a legitimate music downloading venue. I think the rise in AMS and Amazon sales shows that the everyday person, even the everyday teenager, would rather have a legitimate copy of a product they own. They may not see it themselves, but the recognize that stolen property has less value than earned property.

Thank you, that is the same thing I've been thinking about the music industry the whole time. Napster was started in 1999, iTunes in 2001. The music industry tried to fight the digitization of music rather than adapt to the changing market. In order to stop the rampant piracy that ensued, they were forced to start attacking their customers, which only became an ever-growing PR nightmare. The piracy was still immoral and illegal, yes, but I find it akin to a store leaving its back door open a night and then suing people for taking their stuff.

The subsequent success of iTunes proves that people were willing to pay for music. The only people I know of now who actively pirate music are true Marxists who think that all music should be free. Everyone I know with a conscience pays for it.

Looking at the present- it is nice to see that the music industry is seeing the potential that videogames have as a means to distribute music. I don't know exact numbers, but I know that the download system for Rock Band has been a tremendous success and bands are increasingly seeking it out as a means for getting people involved in their music.

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