Apple on iPods...

Posted April 28, 2003 6:30 PM.

The best commentary I can find on the Apple keynote about the iPods and the Apple music service is here. I'm going to talk more about this later, but in the meantime go and find out all the cool / scary news...

Comments

Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.

"The iTunes Music Store is only available in the U.S." Oh. How disappointing...

→ Posted by: Nick Smale at April 28, 2003 7:30 PM

Interesting enough so far, but no news on indy labels that I can find yet. Would be lovely to be able to sell your own music via the sytem too. Doubt the big 5 labels would have allowed that though..

→ Posted by: Chris Adams at April 28, 2003 8:26 PM

Why would indie labels want to get involved with such a service anyway? Most of them seem perfectly happy to provide free downloads of songs, knowing that majority of the punters they cater for will pay for the albums, etc. (Look at Epitonic.com, for example.) And besides, the concept of the album (as opposed to the concept album) is still very much alive in the non-mainstream, whereas it died some time ago in teeny bopper world - downloading a bunch of songs at a dollar a pop and burning your own CD just isn't the same as buying an actual album, or even a label compilation. Indie labels and the underground in general are still very much in love with the tactile and the tangible; it's much more than just liking a song, it's understanding the context in which it lies, the effort that was put into it, etc. Maybe I just feel differently about music than the majority of people, but I'm surely not the only one.

→ Posted by: MacDara at April 29, 2003 6:59 PM

Here are a few reasons why the indie labels would want to get involved: 30 second previews of every single song. A cut of the price of every song downloaded (Apple is currently paying the big five labels $.65 from every dollar). And a retailer who has no incentive not to stock infinite copies (e.g., digital copies) of their records. Find a local store, or even a place like amazon, that can afford to stock more than 2 copies of the less-selling stuff - you can't. this is an opportunity for a truly level playing field - every song in the system, whether it's big label or indie, gets 30 seconds to grab a customer. We should all be lobbying Apple hard to add this...

→ Posted by: tim at April 29, 2003 10:43 PM

Here are a few reasons why the indie labels would want to get involved: 30 second previews of every single song. A cut of the price of every song downloaded (Apple is currently paying the big five labels .65 from every dollar). And a retailer who has no incentive not to stock infinite copies (e.g., digital copies) of their records. Find a local store, or even a place like amazon, that can afford to stock more than 2 copies of the less-selling stuff - you can't. this is an opportunity for a truly level playing field - every song in the system, whether it's big label or indie, gets 30 seconds to grab a customer. We should all be lobbying Apple hard to add this...

→ Posted by: tim at April 29, 2003 10:43 PM

Those are some fair points. I guess I was coming at the question from the perspective of many indie labels not just existing but also flourishing _outside_ of the mainstream music industry (and therefore, why would they need a helping hand if they can do fine on their own). But if Apple could open this market to a new audience without the indies being exploited in the process, it should in principle be a good thing. It hasn't always worked like that - remember the grunge years - but this _is_ a different era, I suppose.

→ Posted by: MacDara at April 30, 2003 7:06 PM

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