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Name one good band on Universal.

The thing about EMI's deal with iTunes is that you know what you'll be getting: high quality DRM-free tracks that have been mastered and optimized using the AAC codec.

It sounds as if Universal is just turning their music over to these also-rans and letting them put it in any format (and bit rate?) they want. How can you be guaranteed quality if these tracks aren't mastered from trustworthy sources?

And even if that weren't an issue, I really don't feel like going through the trouble of turning all of my credit card and identity information over to another online music store. I want to buy my tracks from iTunes because I trust Apple and we've had a good thing going for a long time now.

One question - so how do you go find and keep track of all of these also ran online music stores, band websites, and other places here and far on the web?

I know... google, but who wants to? And as stated above, give them all your credit info? no way - too many crazies as it is out on the net.

I'm more interested in Apple's response, as I am 100% certain this stunt by Universal will have absolutely no impact whatsoever on iTS.

It would be like a fabric softener brand offering cheaper prices at the corner liquor store to try to stick it to WalMart.

Good luck with that Universal.

Danwaywff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Universal_Music_Group_artists

A list of artists trapped on UMG labels.

"...the company isn't selling DRM-free tracks on iTunes for now so it could use the Apple store as a control group...

"...Among the online retailers that will be selling the tracks are Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Google Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co., RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody, Transworld, PassAlong Networks and Puretracks Inc..."

Control group MY ASS!!! Sounds like bullshit leveraging to me!

I can't wait to upgrade my low quality iTMS DRMed for high quality music to play on my upgraded stereo system.

Finally with DRM free music in high quality I'll be able to adjust the gain and other things on my compilations without having to resort to lossy burn/rip MP3 bullshit.

It's annoying to hear one sound low in gain adn then the next one blasts your eardrums to butter.

The only people who will go to the trouble (or have the knowledge) to get tracks somewhere else, then put them in to iTunes are the people who pirate music in the first place. If they can get it for free somewhere else, why pay for it?

MW: "former" as in Universal is the former largest music label. Its hey day was during the era of the compact disc.

Here are 2 e-mail addresses if you'd like to let Universal know where you will be looking to purchase their DRM free music...
and

Meanwhile, the Russian based allofmp3.com has morphed into:

http://www.mp3sparks.com/index.shtml?&r=2014523713&r=1052772432&r=1941921451

No DRM and and whole albums in AAC format @320 kbps quality for around $3.50 per album.

Now flame all you want. For me it's all a matter of price and choice. And the price is the killer.

MDN word: "peace" And I'm sure this will be ignored by many future replies

Well, Universal.drop dead. I won't be able to buy music from the iTunes Store?

Then, my choice is I'm going to look for Universal music on used CDs. That way, not only do I get my music cheaper, you bums don't get a penny of it!

You screw ITMS to spite Apple? SCREW U(niversal)!

BOYCOTT EVERYTHING UNIVERSAL

if the music is DRM free on Rhapsody and not on iTunes, I know where I will buy my music. I could care less which store I buy music at.

Apple should simply strike from its catalog any DRMed music that Universal is selling non-DRMed elsewhere, for such a move is Universal being deceptive to iTunes customers. Or if it remains in the catalog, Apple should take the high road and inform the customer that Universal refuses to sell the non-DRMed version on iTunes but is willing to sell it elsewhere.

If Universal tries to trick some of its customers, Apple should be free to protect its customers.

That should screw up the control group and expose Universal for what it is really trying to do.

Doug Morris is hoping to use this as leverage to get royalties on iPods. Steve Jobs won't let that happen.

MW: yes

I recently decided to take eMusic up on all of the offers I'm always seeing for 25 free tracks. I signed up, got my 25 free tracks and cancelled my account. The thing is, I wouldn't have wanted to use it regardless of my allegiance to Apple. It was a pain. The thing these guys are missing is, iTS is simply better than the rest. Get over it.

I'm perplexed by the tone of the article suggesting that DRM is something that Apple forced on the poor record companies to the detriment of the consumer. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. After trying to shaft consumers in every way shape and form, the recording industry is going to ride in and save us from a situation THEY created?

That's a page out of Bill Gates book.

Apple created the iTunes music Store so that legal music would be available for the iPod. Yes, you can rip and burn, but Steve knew a long time ago that digital downloads were the wave of the future and without the ITMS everything would have been in the "plays-for-sure" format.

No DRM means you can buy anywhere and still play it on your iPod, with no Microsoft lockout from its proprietary formats.

They are playing right into Steve's hands. Besides, none of those stores will have the easy of use or mind share of the ITMS. They will have crazy variable pricing, confusing formats and bit rates, lousy navigation, and crappy software next to iTunes. Besides, all that music will be going straight to an iPod anyway.

Screw the RIAA and there labels.

Anti-DRM,

I'm not giving my credit card number or anything else to the Russians (read mafia). Might be a good time to check your credit card bill and credit rating, or you might find out that you bought a new car in Moscow.

Haha, I love seeing you pathetic Apple fanboys get yourselves worked into a sweaty rage over Univeral's decision not to sell DRM-free tracks through iTMS. You must have some incredibly perverse obsession with wanting to put money into Steve Jobs' pockets. Only problem here is, most of your arguments don't hold any water.

Danwayff:
"Name one good band on Universal."

You can tell me with complete honesty (cross your heart and hope to die) that you do not like the music of even one artist signed to Universal?

http://new.umusic.com/Artists.aspx?Index=1

Eels, Sonic Youth, Jimi Hendrix. There, that's three of mine.

Zorrin:
"It sounds as if Universal is just turning their music over to these also-rans and letting them put it in any format (and bit rate?) they want.

First of all, you don't know that. And hey, guess what? iTMS tracks aren't as high quality as the tracks on a CD. And CD tracks aren't as high quality as vinyl. So now what, you're going to stop buying from iTMS and start buying vinyl exclusively again?

Zorrin & Crack Smoking Music Lover:
"I trust Apple and we've had a good thing going for a long time now."

Amazon's not a trustworthy company? Google's not a trustworthy company?

choc:
"The only people who will go to the trouble (or have the knowledge) to get tracks somewhere else, then put them in to iTunes are the people who pirate music in the first place. If they can get it for free somewhere else, why pay for it?"

Wow... so all of those people who rip CDs they own, purchase tracks from eMusic (second largest online music retailer), and all of the people who download tracks that the artists themselves release on the web for free are considered pirates now! Nice try, but no.

Too smart 4U:
"Well, Universal.drop dead. I won't be able to buy music from the iTunes Store?"

Again, what is with the obsession of wanting to only give your money to Apple?

Apple should play games with Universal Music too by not "featuring" Universal Music artists. UM artists could be a "control" group of how well music sells when it is not promoted versus all the other music which is promoted.

And Apple, please - get 50 Cent's off of your startpage and off of the top of iTunes. Not only will you be cleaning up the sites but you'll also be poking a stick at UM. Two for one - not a bad deal.

ndelc:

"I recently decided to take eMusic up on all of the offers I'm always seeing for 25 free tracks. I signed up, got my 25 free tracks and cancelled my account. The thing is, I wouldn't have wanted to use it regardless of my allegiance to Apple."

Yes, because an average of $0.30 per song (vs. $0.99 per song on iTMS), a completely DRM-free catalog, and compatibility with ANY digital music player (hardware and software) is a bad thing. Oh wait, they don't have a music store UI identical to iTune's... oh noes, must boycott!!!!!

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't all the music stores listed, Windows only? You'll still need a windows machine to buy.

I was struggling to find a dozen artists who I own the music of who are on Universal, the number releasing fresh new material is even less and of them I'd tend to buy the CD. I won't even notice this.

Lurker is absolutely correct.

Given UMG's antipathy towards iTS and its recent decision to refuse a long-term deal, I can't see a logical reason why Apple should give UMG artists preferential placing in iTS home pages.

Furthermore, I'd also send a very deliberate message to UMG's parent, France's Vivendi, that Doug Morris is becoming a very real obstacle to ANY long-term partnerships with any other Vivendi company, including SFR which is the number two mobile company in France.

Let's see how Doug feels when the men who sign his paycheck realise that not only are they not getting the iPhone now but they're not getting it at any point in the future either.

Alternatively, Vivendi's SFR can have the iPhone for five years in exchange for 35% of UMG. Then Steve can have his man Eddy take Doug a message.

Being English (which is the magic word by coincidence) which means that screwing the French is a race memory, a hobby and a national duty all at the same time - I only wish Steve Jobs would use the weapons he has to their full potential.

@The Great Apple Fanboy Massacre

Money into Steve Jobs' pockets eh? Do you realise how many of us are Apple shareholders? Money into our own pockets more like.

What I personally find most interesting: All of a sudden, 99 Cent is acceptable even for NON DRM protected music, while at the same time trying to pull Apple down for higher prices. That says pretty much everything. It´s the same story everywhere: Apple was good enough to grow their market where they failed miserably from day one. Universal should be lucky that people BUY stuff from their artists, but it´s not about music, it´s clearly not about the fans (without whom they wouldn´t even exist) - it´s only about control. Oh well....

I don't think this attempt should be underetsimated...

So Anti-DRM would rather give his credit card numbers, as James said, to the Russian mafia.

If you're gonna be cheap, just use the torrents, because at least they don't prop up the mafia, and the torrents pay the same royalties to the artists that the mob does.

evil Universal bunch of are looser,



Well done on contribution to sickness.

What about the Zune [storesite] (I have no idea what they call their store... and no desire to know... wanna pipe up M. ZuneTang?)

I mean MS is paying a royalty on each and every Zune. Don't they get some love for that?

The truth is, collectively, all those stores have so little share that it truly is a test market thing. Like releasing a product in Tuscon, AZ to see how it does. It really is just an experiment.

is rape, murder and Killing cool to


-------
Finally using a MAc arre happy normal, no fin popups for 5 minutes

You do have to have a control group to do valid testing, and your control when doing testing like this is your largest and most successful effort. So it does make a certain amount of sense to exclude iTunes.

That said, there certainly are secondary intentions at play here.

I believe it is evil to use a PC.
And as a human you should not be,.

So decide :

Your are supporting many bad things by doing this
I am sick of playing games

What message do you send to young inspiring people if MS is a ..


This has gone one long enough
Apple strive for beauty, brilliance, use, and dedicate their time.
Come on people you life is so cheap
Get a life and help this planet disendure MS

How many people are sick, Porn watching drug takers now on PCS

Fuck
its our choice our world, so what can people change this,

What are ppl thinking using sic.

The control group argument is total BS. Universal is exculding Apple as a way to pressurize them into....well, I don't know what.

Amazon.com, Google, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and RealNetworks are all in direct competition with Apple's iTMS. They are terrified of the iTMS growing bigger and bigger. (That's happening as we speak)

My guess is that the iTMS competitors are giving universal a much better deal on this test. They might even say: PLEASE let us distribute your DRM-free music, we'll give you all the money and ask NO FEE at all. Not joking here.

Why do artist's keep empowering the middle men - a cost that they no longer need or really want!

Apple needs to offer the artist a production way out - it time the record labels grow up - the 1950's are long gone!

Apple needs to finally free thew artists from the overbearing labels once and for all...

"Apple the control group."

Come on. Can we believe anything Universal says. Can we trust then. Do they have ulterior motives. Whenever they say something int the future we will think twice about what they are trying to get at.

Apple says it as it is.

Apple supports need to not fall for this crap - it's time to boycott Universal in this weak marketing ploy!

Universal needs to understand that it iTunes or the highway!

They need to get there hands out of the cookie jay once and for all...

Let's put some numbers on this:

If 15% of the number three music company [Warner Music Group]'s sales comes from digital downloads and iTunes accounts for let's say, 70% of digital downloads, then Universal's digital sales must account for considerably more. My guess - and it is a guess - is something like 11-13% of UMG's revenues are generated directly from iTunes.

UMG's stockholders - and by extension - their parent Vivendi SA, will not want Universal to mess with 13% of their potential profits. This is all sabre-rattling on the part of UMG, probably because they were rebuffed by Apple in their demand for a slice of the iPod pie and the variable pricing they so desperately wanted from Jobs.

In the beginning iTunes was the vehicle to sell iPods... whereas today I'd suggest that's less the case, given the iPod's dominating market share. Seems to me Jobs holds most of the cards, with the least to lose. That won't always be the case people, but I'd hazard a guess that the Apple board already have scenarios 1, 2 and 3 lined up when the playing field changes even slightly away from iTunes/iPod hegemony.

I'm calling my lawyer...

@Rutger

"The control group argument is total BS. Universal is exculding Apple as a way to pressurize them into....well, I don't know what."

"DRM meant that music players would drive customers to the music store that works with it,"

That wasn't Apple's idea. It was forced on them by the labels, Universal included.

With Apple's iPod having around 70% of the MP3 market - Universal's test audience is pretty small. Exactly who is going to buy this? Most folks are not going to give up their iPod to buy from Universal.

I hope Apple can begin to eliminate the record companies and directly sign artists. So long Universal. I already have all the Hendrix albums I'm going to buy.

@Rob Enderle's Incredible Shrinking Reputation:

Yup, probably something like that. Other stores and Microsoft have been less stubborn in screwing over customers. I'm not saying Apple isn't in it for the money but they at least didn't just totally kowtow to the majors.


Universal also wanted part of the revenue from iPod sales. How can they ever justify that when only a small part of the music on iPods comes from the iTMS (the rest is "other sources", i.e. P2P).
iPods sell because they are cool and great music players, not because Universals back-catalog being available in the iTMS.

If Universal wants to break the iTMS stranglehold on the digital downloads market, they should:

-a : Set reasonable minimum prices for tracks, EP's and albums
-b : release the music DRM-free
-c : Let you OWN what you pay for
-d : Accept that information wants to be free

All of this is not going to happen with greedy luddites running major labels.

Universal is being a tad provincial.

iTunes is THE standard software to manage all your music and videos for millions of people.

Like someone said earlier, how will the music and videos be managed that you buy from Universal??

Not in iTunes!

re: Meanwhile, the Russian based allofmp3.com has morphed into:

http://www.mp3sparks.com/index.shtml?&r=2014523713&r=1052772432&r=1941921451

No DRM and and whole albums in AAC format @320 kbps quality for around $3.50 per album.

Now flame all you want. For me it's all a matter of price and choice. And the price is the killer.

MDN word: "peace" And I'm sure this will be ignored by many future replies

----

IF you are crazy enough to give the Russian Mafia all your credit card details then thats fine with me!

Just dont come crying to MDN when all your money is taken from your bank accounts and you have a £30,000 credit card bill.

And all because you bought one cheap album from that website... the internet is a wonderful place for scams!

Sorry fella, but its obvious your an MS fanboy. :-( Sorry to hear that.

Like Dave and others said, many here are Apple stock holders or (like me - ) just fans of really great products. I won't argue your ramble cause I have learned that its just not worth my effort. :-(

But to all the trolls here, I have really found the tone of your posts really interesting. Fan boys of both sides usually just toot their own preferences. But the real trolls, just go out of their way to try and make their stuff look great and the competition look bad. Most Apple users -- really dont care if you have a terrible computer experience.

Sorry, but while I will give you my 2 cents worth, I really dont care what you rant about cause it just pulls BS from the air and you are not going to listen to my side. So, to those trolls (and you know who you are ). Have a nice a day as you can, using your hardware of choice. And tell the MS rep that pays you, I said "Hello".

en

Sorry Apple fanatics, but I see nothing but positives from this. This might lead to lower prices, variable bit rates, more options, and <gasp> healthy competition. The fact that these songs can be played on an iPod without any conversion whatsoever is a huge plus. And for any of you whining about the stores perhaps being Windows only, well you can still access it from a Mac, so no problems there either.

If you're going to test DMR Free tracks the only way to do it is to put them in the largest on-line store first and test it. Anything less is a stunt. At the end of their Stunt they will announce that it made no difference and they sold more DRM'd tracks through iTunes so they are going back to DRM'd tracks only.
If I were a label and selling DRM's Tracks I'd run to Apple and strike a DRM Free deal while Universal is playing the low quality MP3 test deal with the on-line stores that have no real market share even if you combined them into one store.
You beat the Giant while he's picking his noise. It's time for everyone even all the small labels and indies to make deals and do get out of the DRM trap while Universal is playing games and trying to constrain and control a free market. iTunes isn't perfect but it is currently the best on-line Music retailer on the internet.
Make no mistakes about it Universal will go back to 100% DRM's tracks at the end of their test.

"Sorry Apple fanatics . . ."

I appreciate posts that start that way. It makes it easier to skip them.

This is too funny! Universal is selling DRM free tracks for 99 cents! That means that when they cave and come crawling to Steve to let them sell DRM free tracks on iTunes Steve will say sure! BUT, since you only need 99 cents for a DRM free track, Apple will be happy to keep the 30 cents from the $1.29 price we'll charge for a DRM free track on iTunes. Cha Ching! From all the holders of Apple stock, Steve, we thank you! Universal has to be the stupidest company around!