Napster To Go… No Thanks
Comments
But you’re not buying the music, you’re simply renting it. Sure, you can download lots and lots of songs in a month, but if you want to continue listening to them then you have to continue paying per month to be able to keep listening to those songs you’ve already downloaded.
What if I want to listen to them in my car? Oops, can’t do that because I’m not allowed to burn a CD with the songs I download. In order to be able to do that I have to go back and pay (again!) for the music to “buy” it. Of course, even then it’s chock full of crappy DRM so that I can only do what the Big Media cartel decides they want to let me do. Heaven forbid I exercise my own rights and try to format-shift it.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that the other online music services were so much better. I don’t like all the DRM crap they’re saddled with, either, but at least I actually get something that isn’t going to automatically stop working next month if I don’t pony up more money.
Napster To Go may work fine for some people. If that’s their (your) cup of tea then so be it. I like to actually get something when I spend my money, though, so it’s not the sort of service that I’m interested in. [shrug]
Do you rent or own a house? There are millions of people that are perfectly content with “renting” their home. Why, shoot, I don’t know. I personally like the idea of owning my home and not throwing my money out the window. Yet there are millions that don’t have a problem with this.
As for CD’s. When is the last time you popped a Audio CD into a drive other than to rip it? Me, I can’t even remember when that was. Probably way back before I owned an MP3 player.
As to the DRM stuff. Apple’s DRM is just as crappy as any of the others. What happens when iTMS dies. I’m not saying it will anytime in the near future, but there really are not that many companies that last for as long as companies like Sears and Levis. Especially when we are talking about a “niche” market. All those .M4P files are going to be totally useless when iTMS and iTunes dies or your iPod dies. What if you decide that you have had it with iPod and their crappy batteries. You want to go with an iRiver. Well, there goes the $$$ that you put into iTMS music.
So the only real way to buy music is thru CD’s, but there’s another problem. The labels are trying to make it next to impossible to put the music you just bought on CD onto MP3 players. So those CD’s are going to start being useless soon too.
Naptster To Go isn’t for me. But is it a bad business model? I don’t think so. Would you be so anti Napster To Go if they were bad mouthing Microsoft instead of Apple.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPod, I wouldn’t trade it in for the world. When the battery dies, I’ll either try to replace it myself, or just use it with it plugged into a power source.
Now TiVo… That’s another story entirely. No brand loyalty there since I have had 2 die after about 18 months. I suppose I could replace the HD’s on them, but then they would just die in 18 months again. Remember, the HD is going 24x7x365. An HD only has so many good hours before they die. Gave up on TiVo and bought a ReplayTV. It doesn’t record when you “turn it off”. That’s right, I can tell it I’m not watching TV buy putting it in stand-by mode.
Opps, guess, I got a little off track there…
Up until the MPAA destroyed the torrent sites out there, I was downloading the music I purchased via iTMS so that I could have MP3’s incase something happened to my purchased music. I pretty much have everything I have purchased. However, now it’s going to be a little harder to get copies of anything new I buy. Grumble, grumble…
P.S. 2500 character maximum comments? Is this a pMachine thing or something you have specifically configured?
The whole “renting vs. buying” thing really comes down to whether something is a commodity or a service. Generally speaking, I personally want to buy a commodity, whereas I might find it perfectly acceptable to rent a service.
I do rent the place I’m living right now. To me, though, I currently see housing as more of a service. But I’m single and that makes sense to me right now. In the future when I have a family, I’ll no doubt view it more as a commodity and thus I’ll want to buy a house rather than simply rent the service of having somewhere to live.
I view music as a commodity rather than a service. I want to buy my music so that I can use it however and wherever I want. I don’t want to rent the music I listen to.
I don’t own an iPod and no where do I claim that the iTMS is the end-all-be-all. It isn’t. I do use iTunes on my powerbook; partly from convenience and partly because it really is a good application. I don’t use it on my PC (I just organize the music on the HD and play via Winamp). So, I’m obviously not trying to say that “Apple is good, everything else is bad”.
I don’t like the DRM in any of the current big music stores or the even worse stuff some of the companies have tried to put on the audio CDs they sell. I think it’s a bandaid on a broken system, which is why I’ve only ever purchased a very small handful of songs from any of the online stores.
Oh, and the last time I used a CD other than to rip it? Yesterday, in my truck. Which is, as I mentioned previously, somewhere I couldn’t use music downloaded via Napster To Go because you can’t burn those.
The iTMS DRM is not a direct comparison to Napster-to-Go’s. Your iTunes purchased music will continue to work forever even if the iTMS tanks. Quicktime, iTunes, your iPod, or the CD’s you burn from your music will work just fine regardless of what happens to iTunes or Apple.
Napster tanks a second time---and you’re SOL--your music expires within 30 days of the service going under.
Let’s say you download a realistic number of songs that someone would likely do. We’ll say 1000--anywhere from 80-100 cd’s worth. iTMS would run you $1000, assuming you didn’t download full albums. If you did, you’re talking more like $800. Let’s say you purchased a mix. We’ll shoot the middle and say $900. Now for Napster to Go, everything is great for the first 5 years--you’ve still paid less than or equal to an iTMS purchase. I’m looking at my CD collection right now, and I have music that I still listen to that is 8-12 years old (I’m 27). As your collection ages, Napster to Go becomes relentlessly expensive. And what a waste if you only listen to old songs once a month or less! After 10 years, you have paid TWICE as much as you would have on the iTMS.
At this point, not only are you continuing to pay for music that you may no longer like, or not listen to--but even if you do, you’ve surpassed how much it would have cost you to just buy the $18 cd at a music store ($1620 for the same collection, vs. $900 iTMS, vs. $1800 Napster to go)
And I can predict what a NTG defender would say: That entire 10 years you’d be downloading more and more music. The fiscal attachment doesn’t work backwards. Your service is only as valuable as the current size of your library. So a per-song cost can only be calculated at the first day of the song’s download.
So if, as Dave here suggests, you use NTG to download and start a new library, you are choosing the most expensive option available for a music library, even more expensive than just buying the CDs. DRM problems aside, which puts your library in a very unstable state, it’s simply not a cheap way to do it.
As for the rental of the music, since you never own the song, not only is your library vulnerably attached to Napster’s second (third?) success/failure, but they, the RIAA, and Microsoft are all enabled to make changes to the ways you can or can’t use said music at any time they wish to alter the licensing.
Derek, Apple is a pretty strong company considering it’s overall marketshare. The iPod seems to have over an 80% market share of HD based players. That’s impressive. However, even that could fade with something better from someone else. That said, it’s very possible that Apple’s DRM could be a problem for people that have purchased a load of songs from iTMS. I have over $1,500 invested now. If for some reason, Apple died, my iPod died, I would be just as SOL as Napster dying. Granted, it would take a few more curcomstances. I don’t consider listening to my music on my computer the only way I want to listen. I have grown quite accustom to listening to “my” music where ever I go. So I would be more than happy to convert all my M4P files to MP3’s.
Chris, you consider living in an appartment a service. That’s fine, it’s your call. However, what is the problem with someone considering music a service? There are people paying a monthly subscription to listen to satalite radio. That’s a service with music. I personally don’t see the need since I can take my music anywhere I go, but hey… NTG is just another form of satalite radio. Except, now you can listen to the music you have subscribed to anywhere.
Now here is a senerio that I would still like to see Apple help me with.
I want to check out new music. I don’t get anything out of the 30 second preview in just about every form of music buying there is. Sure, I could go to a store (do those still exist?) and listen there if they have the headphones available. However, I prefer to listen to new music like I do my normal stuff. Anywhere. It helps me better guage if I like it or not.
Apple currently doesn’t give us the option of downloading an album and “trying it out”. NTG gives you this option. Is it worth $15 a month? Maybe. I pay more than that a month to rent DVD’s for the same purpose. For music, I either have to download it from a P2P site (which is becoming harder and harder to do), or hope I catch it on the radio (which I pretty much don’t listen to since I either listen to my music or audiobooks), or I don’t get new stuff.
Seems to me, that people not “buying new stuff” is the whole problem with the record industry at this time.
So make the “try before you buy” version of the songs I download off of iTMS last for, oh, 15 days. Give me a chance to listen to it where I typically enjoy listening to music, and then if I want to buy it, I’ll purchase the tracks outright.
Since NTG works on non iPod players, that option is not available to me. So I won’t be using the “service”. If I had a different player, I would have to give it some serious thought. I almost subscribed to the service when it first came out. However, I didn’t feel comfortable listening to the music I downloaded to my PC only on my PC. So, I dropped it. (It was a free months trial)
> However, what is the problem with someone considering music a service? There are people paying a monthly subscription to listen to satalite radio.
That’s fine, if it’s the person’s choice. I was simply speaking for myself. I do, however, see how my original post might sound like I was making a general statement, so I’ve revised it. See above. A lot of people, though, will simply buy into the advertising and won’t really realize/understand that they’re simply renting the music. Well, at least, not until it’s too late. For instance, my roommate didn’t “get it” when he saw the ad recently. So, while the NTG advertising isn’t “deceptive” as such, it also isn’t very forthcoming when it comes to explaining some of the details.
Someone else pointed out (and I’m simply taking their word for it since I haven’t looked myself):
You might notice that the Napster website is very good about avoiding saying that you are “purchasing” anything. Napster users can “find,” “get,” “transfer,” and “listen to” all the music they like.
As for the “try before you buy” feature, I think that would be great. However, the only reason that NTG (specifically, the “expiring music” part of it) is now available on windows-based PCs is because of the special “Janus” DRM that Microsoft introduced. That isn’t available on macs, so the same sort of thing isn’t possible (for now, at least).
If for some reason, Apple died, my iPod died, I would be just as SOL as Napster dying.
No, you are making a direct comparison that simply does not exist. First: your music is yours from iTMS. Meaning that you can burn as many copies as you want of it, and have a physical CD audio copy. You can use those disks on any computer to import into any present codec or conceivable codecs created in the future.
Assuming you don’t want to do that, you can leave them in the AAC format they come with. If Apple dies, your iTunes application won’t suddenly stop working. The application checks once on your computer, when you first buy it, or transfer it to a new machine, to see if you are authorized to use that file. There is never any check made down the road to “actively update” your library. You Mac dies? Use iTunes on a PC. Harddrive corrupts after Apple tanks and no longer distributes iTunes and no other archival mirror or fan sites have it available for download? Open source communities already have apps and plugins for other apps to playback AAC encoded music. (You see we’re getting into hypotheticals that are just so deep so as to not believable, whereas Napster failing is much more likely)
So going back to your argument that “If for some reason, Apple died, my iPod died, I would be just as SOL as Napster dying.” is not only false, but even if the conditions would lead to Apple failing as a company AND a mysterious hardware meltdown of your equipment that you already own: you would still have all of your music.
I rent a house right now. But if i could own it for the same amount of money, i would.
I buy maybe an album a month from iTMS. So it’s allready cheaper for me, but even if i did buy more, if i couldn’t take the music with me on CD, it would not be worth it. I can’t see paying to rent music. That would be like paying to rent my Lord of The Rings box set, if i missed a payment, i would loose it :/.
<blockquote>That would be like paying to rent my Lord of The Rings box set, if i missed a payment, i would loose it :/.</blockquote>
Huh, yet there are people out there that pay around $20 or more a month so that they can watch the same movie series you mention…
What ever guys. I was just trying to show the other side of the coin. Nevermind…
No one is disagreeing with you that it’s certainly a choice someone can make to rent their music instead of own it. Ok, well, I can say that I wasn’t making that argument. My point is merely that you’re wrong about it being a cheaper way to build up a new music library, and about comparing it’s potential for loss of your music with the iTMS model.
So, how does one build a library (of NEW music) if they don’t listen to the radio? Without wasting money on buying CD’s that they wind up not liking. Not to mention legally of course.
This is my dilemma. I don’t listen to the radio, for the same reasons I don’t watch TV without my ReplayTV. I can’t stand commercials and the DJ’s blathering on about who knows what.
Without the radio for new music, I really don’t have any options. Pity there isn’t a free, commercial free, streaming station that caters to modern, non-hip hop (I really hate that stuff) music. If there is one, I haven’t been able to find it.
Is showed you the math. iTunes (or a comparable online outlet that lets you actually buy your music for $1 a song or less) is still the most economical way to build a new library.
As for commercial free streaming radio without pop or hip-hop, there are plenty. I’ll see if I can get a list of links together that I use. You have iTunes though, the stations built in with it have plenty to offer of what you’re after.
iTunes stations, commercial free? Really. Mind you, I haven’t spent a lot of time going through them. I guess I’ll have to take a closer look.
Please either post the list or email them to me. I would love to “widen” my selection of music. It takes me about 4 months to cycle through my nearly 6,000 tracks. That certainly beats the 6-7 hour cycle that radio stations have, but I’m always looking for new, and old, music I don’t currently have.
Thanks
This is retarded.
I currently rent AND own a house. The house I live in and pay rent costs me $850/month. My landlord pays around $600/month mortgage taxes payment and interest. The house I OWN and rent to other people costs them $600/month, and my payment is $390/month. Owning is cheaper!
Now to the real point at hand.
If iTunes shuts down tomorrow, you still have the audio files. If you move to Antarctica and have no internet, YOUR iTUNES STILL WORKS for playing your songs! Not so for Napster. Actually, not only would Napster software not work, your already unlimited amounts of downloaded songs would magically disappear, because you didn’t take it upon yourself to check in with the mothership. Good luck reloading all them tunes.
If APPLE dies tomorrow (I’ve only been hearing that since 1988), YOUR iTUNES STILL PLAYS SONGS!
If your iPod dies tomorrow, YOUR iTUNES STILL PLAYS SONGS! Buy a new iPod or other mp3 player (granted you will have to convert your AAC to mp3 if your new player doesn’t support AAC)
If your computer, Apple, your iPod, your internet, and your iTunes blow up tomorrow, then, DUH, that’s why you burn your songs to cd, or dump your iPod onto your other computer (in my case i have identical libraries on my pc and my mac with a pc formated iPod...God bless ipodlounge and third party software)
So nice try apple haters, but if you own it and lose it, its your fault. With Napster you don’t own it (unless you buy it IN addition to your monthly fee, yeah, that’s real smart) so when Napster’s done, your music is done. Oh and don’t forget to check in, or Napster takes their songs back.
Anyone wanna bet Apple is around long after Napster goes away?
Have you? Done the math that is? Think about it. You can have any music you want from Napster’s library for over 50 years compared to the amount it would cost to “fill an iPod 40GB”.
To someone who, doesn’t really have a music library yet, Doesn’t have ~$9,000 disposable cash, it’s a tempting offer.
The only scare factor I can think of is: Is Napster going to be around for 50 years? Probably not.
It’s funny, I hear people complaining about this deal, yet they are willing to spend around that every month for the webhost that they are subscribed to. Way more than that for a Cell Phone. They are more than willing to spend $2 a “song” for ring tones for their cell phones, yet they are complaining about a mear $15 a month for all the music you can eat?
I already had a huge library before iTMS and P2P. I nearly filled a 30GB iPod. So the offer really doesn’t work for me. However, for folks that don’t really have a library yet, this could be a really good thing.
By Dave M. on February 14, 2005 at 10:05pm link