12.23.2006

New report spells trouble for music industry, not Apple

This is a great article in USA today of all places.

"People want their music without restrictions, and too many legal downloads, like those from iTunes, come with restrictions. You can't copy them to another player, or you're limited to how often you can do it, or you have to jump through the hoops of burning your iTunes tracks to CD and re-ripping them to a more useful format. And iTunes works most seamlessly with just one brand of music player: Apple. Right now it's not as much of an issue, with iPods having a dominant market share. But as cellphones with built-in MP3 players gain popularity, users will find themselves up against an entirely new set of usage restrictions.

Some subscription services will delete the music from your player when you cancel your subscription.

You'd almost be better off buying an LP.

Buy a CD or use a program like eMule to steal music and you have no restrictions. And that's what people want.

They don't want to have to match their music store with their music player any more than they want to have to match their brands of gasoline with their brands of car. They want, in short, to be able to use today's music the same ways they used yesterday's: Any way they want.

In fact, the industry's been down this road before and hit a similar wall. In the first decades of the 20th century, the wax cylinders (and, later, 78rpm disks) on which music was recorded worked only with specific players. Industry attempts to monopolize the technology led only to poor sales."

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