22% (8)
52% (19)
5% (2)
19% (7)Well, maybe he didn't have a Ben Franklin salad, but he certainly put his money where his mouth is. I was wrong (and pleasantly so).
Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store
Poll: What will happen with legal, DRM-free downloads on iTunes?
Only members of can vote.
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Apr 2 2007, 7:58 am
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Airjoe
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I vote that everything stays the same. DRM is not the reason I pirate music. Although a lot of people blame it on DRM, I think they're all really just cheap &#;*@^%*$ :]
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I don't blame piracy on DRM, I blame not being able to own digital media on DRM. I think if I pay for it I should have the right to play it where ever I wanted, on whatever I wanted, as long as I didn't transfer ownership of said digital media without destroying all my copies. That being said, my option was just to boycott DRM, rather than complain.
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I don't have an ethical issue with the "I paid for it, I own it." thing... the saying is "You get what you pay for.", and if the company's offering the terms, "Okay, see, you pay us $1.00 and you get the right to do this but not this"... and you pay them the $1.00... that's what you get.
"as long as I didn't transfer ownership of said digital media without destroying all my copies." Nothing against you personally, but the American people are hardly more trustworthy than the giant megacorporations on this one... would you run your personal business with a model of, "Okay, you give me your money and then I turn my back and trust you to only take the things that you paid for?" That's not to say I think that DRM's a fabulous deal or anything. Like you, though, I think the solution is to not take the deal rather than complain about the terms. | |
Hedgemistress wrote:
I don't have an ethical issue with the "I paid for it, I own it." thing... the saying is "You get what you pay for.", and if the company's offering the terms, "Okay, see, you pay us $1.00 and you get the right to do this but not this"... and you pay them the $1.00... that's what you get. Oh, I agree. That's why I just don't buy those. If I want music, I'll buy the CD, which I can turn into digital versions and do whatever I want with. Nothing against you personally, but the American people are hardly more trustworthy than the giant megacorporations on this one... Agreed, but which is worse, the freedom to be able to break the law, or the lack there of? That's not to say I think that DRM's a fabulous deal or anything. Like you, though, I think the solution is to not take the deal rather than complain about the terms. Seems like the best thing to do with me. Big business responds to sales more than anything else. Only problem is, some people will buy it regardless. For every one of me there is boycotting DRM, there are 50 people ready to buy, or should I say rent. | |
Yeah, collective bargaining only works if a solid chunk of the market place is willing to use it.
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.....Okay? I just pirate my music anyways, and if I like the music, I go buy the CD( like the Static-X CD I bought on my way home) ;)
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Yeah, like Airjoe, I didn't see the "Nothing changes significantly" option.
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Jtgibson wrote:
Yeah, like Airjoe, I didn't see the "Nothing changes significantly" option. Damn those bastards who made it so you can't edit polls! Yeah, maybe nothing will change with respect to piracy and iPod sales. But I certainly expect good things from this for the future of legal, digital music downloads. It's certainly a win for honest consumers. | |
That's good news! I will be a lot more likely -- in fact, literally infinitely more likely -- to buy tunes from iTunes if I know I can use them independent of the application without a lot of rigamarole.
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On that subject, I'd like to know what it portends for digital TV shows... I would love to buy my TV shows online and view them on my Zen instead of having to watch them on TV, but right now everything is iTunes exclusive.
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I believe the government will soon be providing a trade-in program where you can get a real player in place of that Zen...
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Ha ha ha ha ha ha shut up. :P
I'm assuming, of course, that by "real player", you mean "something made by a company other than Apple," because until Steve's lofty vision is fulfilled, an iPod is nothing more than an expensive plaything... except the person who buys it isn't the one doing the playing. | |
Or maybe it was a piece of government cheese for the Zen...still seems like a fair deal!
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I'll admit it doesn't have the same great features as iPod, like... looking trendy... or curing cancer... or solving spooky mysteries. It just plays music, audiobooks, and movies.
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Oops, I think I'm being sucked in...
Hedgemistress wrote: Ha ha ha ha ha ha shut up. :P To be fair, anything Deadron says regarding Apple is to be taken with a grain of salt, given his employment situation. That said... I'm assuming, of course, that by "real player", you mean "something made by a company other than Apple," because until Steve's lofty vision is fulfilled, an iPod is nothing more than an expensive plaything... except the person who buys it isn't the one doing the playing. I can understand this view because (1) the iPod is popular (and popular stuff automatically sucks), (2) it's shiny (and shiny stuff automatically sucks), and (3) it's not the least expensive player out there (and more expensive stuff is automatically overpriced). So, this is probably a pretty common first impression. I know it's basically what I think of most overly slick new products at first. And it's still possible to come to this conclusion after spending real time on it, and that's fine too. Differences of opinion are great. But I suspect that many people holding this position haven't done that. They probably went with that first impression and never worried about it again. But for my money, the iPod has one feature that makes it far and away more valuable than any other player I've researched, regardless of the other factors: seamless sync with the media library on the computer. - Add new songs to your library? They're automatically copied to the iPod next time you plug it in. - Play some songs on the iPod while you're out and about? Their play counts and last time played are automatically updated on your computer next time you plug it in. - You can use this data for funky, auto-updating playlists like "instrumental music I haven't listened to in the last month". And those same playlists are still auto-updating on the iPod itself. Best feature ever. - Modify metadata for some of your songs? Only the changed ones are copied next time you plug in the iPod. - There's also no clunky dragging and dropping of files and folders. I used to obsess over every little detail like this, and scoffed at the notion that having files and folders hidden from the interface was somehow desirable. One day I realized it didn't matter where the files and folders were, as long as I could manage the media. I care about the songs. That's the important part, and the iPod+iTunes does that with a heck of a lot less hassle than if I were still using my little command-line scripts. Now that I have more time since I don't spend hours managing my music collection, I can make pointless posts like this. ;) | |
1) the iPod is popular (and popular stuff automatically sucks I refer you to my impassioned defense of Internet Explorer. :P I don't care if it's popular... I hate iPods because they're trendy, which is a different matter entirely, and trend-bashing is in this year. Where have you been? I don't think there's a player out there that doesn't have the option of automating the sync process, though not with all the bells and whistles you describe. There's one feature which your description of the iPod's version doesn't tell me if it has or not: the ability not to do so. :P With all the compressed movies and lengthy audiobooks I carry around on my player's 30 gigs... and my propensity for gathering unto me new age and trad/folk music collections... it's not inconceivable I could run out of space on the thing. If I had a 60 gb one, I'd put more movies and books on it, and be back at the same place. And while it's not inconceivable that I could find myself going, "Hey, what's on this that I haven't listened to lately?"... I'm much more likely to, after having gone through a kick where I only listen to, say, Irish instrumental music, go, "Hey, I want to listen to my contemporary Native American library again."... or, "How about some showtunes?"... or "The atmospheric, orchestral score to a movie.", or... "Let's pull out the classical piano."... or "Acoustic guitar from the Isle of Man."... or... if there's the slightest chance that anybody's going to ask me what I'm listening to in the next half hour, "The Pussycat Dolls." The "you haven't listened to this in a donkey's age" feature... while it wouldn't do anything to hurt me... wouldn't actually help me. If it does something for you, okay, it might be worth your money, but I have a feeling a lot of people who buy iPods after having researched that really nifty feature will end up using it maybe once, as a demonstration to their friends of how cool it is... and then either keep it on random or just use their own set playlists. I also suspect that a lot of... I'll call them "casual listeners"... the digital-music-playing equivalent of the people who just use their computers to surf and check e-mai... end up going with the iPod simply because when their relatives ask them what they want for Christmanukan, they say, "an iPod", because they don't know any other term for "thing that fits in your pocket and holds a metric assload of songs."... or when they go to the store, they ask "Where are the iPods?"... or they search the online store for iPods. If they happen to see "Creative Zen Vision:M" and "iRiver" and whatever and go, "What the hell is that? I want an iPod." Apple wins out because of successful branding. I'm not going to call that a mark against them... again, see my impassioned defense of Internet Explorer... but I will assert that for every person who bashes the iPod just to be trendy (yeah, there's trend-chasers on both sides), there's probably more people who go with the iPod just because it's the iPod. | |
For the record, I haven't used a Zen and am just having fun with that.
If I were to buy a non-iPod, I'm sure it would be a Zune, as when I have friends over I like to squirt all over them. Welcome to the Social! | |
Someone stole my MP3 player :'[
I had a Dell DJ, so I'll probably end up replacing it with a Zen, since Creative made the Dell MP3 players. | |
For my part, my "curing cancer and solving spooky mysteries" reply was sincerely and earnestly meant.
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