Bought an Album

M

mindbend

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OK, so to support Apple as well as test AppleMusic, I bought Beck's "Sea Change" via iTunes.

Here's some notes for those considering using the service, or those just curious, but not SO curious, they feel the need to actually spend the money:

1. Once you set up your iTunes account (already done for me since I have a .Mac membership), buying is literally one-click if you want it to be (can set Prefs otherwise as well as leave on a warning window). Very convenient. Maybe a little too convenient for those of us with twitchy fingers.

2. Music selection seems solid, but with plenty of room to grow. (Currently no Zeppelin).

3. Perusing was a bit flaky. Got several 505 errors and some links simply never worked. Most of the time everything came up fine.

4. Downloads go directly into your iTunes folder. A whole album took a few minutes on a DSL.

5. The individual AAC files are protected. If you copy them to another computer and try to play them, they won't play (either in iTunes or QuickTime). Nice job of protecting artist's rights.

6. Music sharing via Rendezvous is brilliant. Just turn it on in Prefs and see your library shared on the other Macs on your network. Smooth.

7. I dragged the AAC files directly into Toast to create an audio CD. Toast converts them to a burnable format. I didn't actually burn the CD, but it previewed properly. Apple's site mentioned something like "All users with a Superdrive can burn inifite CDs". Well, if you have Toast, you can use any CD burner apparently.

8. My download hiccuped part way through. A window came up telling me to try the "Check for purchased music" option in iTunes. I did this and iTunes intelligently recognized what had been downloaded and finished DL-ing the rest of the album. Smart. Easy.

9. Purchased music is added to a new Playlist called "Purchased Music"

10. Quality of the AACs sounds excellent. I don't have the original CD of the album I purchased, so I can't do a side by side, but it defintely sounds better than the MP3s I've ripped by the hundreds. I'd say for general use, everyone will be happy with the quality.

11. After a few hours I have revisited the online store via iTunes and it seems to be running a lot better. I can now get to all the links with no errors or slowdown.
 
when i try to add a credit card to the apple music store, i keep getting an error, "The Music Store could not process your request. Please try again later."

i've tried 3 times now, over the past few hours, to no avail.
 
The new service is obviously good, since I decided to buy an album within the first 15 minutes (and I don't spend money hardly ever). I stopped when I was entering credit card info, however because I wanted the album, not just the ACC files. Does anyone know if "Buy Album" is like Amazon and it will send to you? I'm not talking about "Buy Song" listed by every track. I want the cd shipped to me.

Very solid work getting the music store live. I think this may actually come through for Apple.
 
Originally posted by Koelling
The new service is obviously good, since I decided to buy an album within the first 15 minutes (and I don't spend money hardly ever). I stopped when I was entering credit card info, however because I wanted the album, not just the ACC files. Does anyone know if "Buy Album" is like Amazon and it will send to you? I'm not talking about "Buy Song" listed by every track. I want the cd shipped to me.
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You won't get any CDs shipped to you, the whole point of the service is that its online. I think Apple might include album artwork though, there's certainly an option to view it in iTunes 4.
 
Just bought David Gray's "A New Day at Midnight" Excellent quality, about 5 min download for 12 songs, I was surfing here at the same time. Excellent deal, USD10 per album, way better than at the music store. Now I just have to get some decent speakers!

For the first time in my life I read ALL of the read me first files :) I like the flexibility that Apple has given us. I think that the conditions are fine, I'm sure the 3 machine limit is going to bother some people but that seems to be the only serious restriction.

Koelling:

Nope, you have to buy your own blank cd and burn it yourself that is why the iTunes Music Store is so cheap.



The one thing I did notice browsing the Classical section was that the price remains .99 no matter the length of the song. One album had 32 tracks (50 min. of music) and each track was still .99.

Just finished burning it to cd with my Iomega external cd burner and voila!!!! Put it into my Walkman and it sounds way better than ........

Steve has sold me! I hated the idea that a CD I purchased for USD18 wouldn't play on my Mac. Now, I can play it on anything I want, make multiple backup copies, mix as much as I want, and eventually, listen to it on my future iPod for HALF the price.

Way to go!!!
 
Originally posted by Ugg
I hated the idea that a CD I purchased for USD18 wouldn't play on my Mac.
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You seem a happy bunny Ugg, just wish I could use the damn thing too! :)

I'm curious about the comment you made about audio CDs not playing on your Mac. Or were you not talking about audio? Anyway, I was just wondering as it seemed strange.
 
Ahh I see. Well I suppose you're right, 9.99 is a great price and that's how they do it, no shipping or manufacturing costs. I'm glad that was cleared up before I tried it and I think I may still be sold. Thanks!
 
Originally posted by monktus
You seem a happy bunny Ugg, just wish I could use the damn thing too! :)

I'm curious about the comment you made about audio CDs not playing on your Mac. Or were you not talking about audio? Anyway, I was just wondering as it seemed strange.
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When I was in Germany last year I bought about six CDs and failed to read the infitissimally fine print. "This CD cannot be played on a computer disk drive" Of course my computer froze and I had to reboot and eject the CD using a paperclip. I haven't bought any new CDs since then.

I don't know if the limitations affected only European CDs or others as well. But, it ticked me off so much that I swore to never buy another CD until I was able to play it on my Mac and copy the music if I so desired.

Does anyone know when the music store will be available to non US mac users?
 
That's strange, I've never heard of CDs like that before, it must be specific to Germany or thereabouts.

Dunno when music store will be available outside the US. Someone mentioned May 9th but also thought that it might just be for the new iPods getting released.
 
This is a crazy question, but one worth asking.

If I buy a song, burn it to a CD, can't I take that CD and re-rip it back as an mp3 and distribute it?

Maybe I'm wrong, but the loop-hole to this seems quite obvious, if that's the case.
 
But that is too much work! :)
Your average Joe isn't going to want to do that. It is only you evil punks that are going to go to such lengths to steal ;)
 
but if you think about it...you can buy a cd from target for 8.99 -11.99 for first week or special sales. now if you cut out all the cost of duplication, manufacturing and distributing then the price of that same cd to the label must be less than 5 or 6 bucks per cd. And i bet the artist isn't seeing that extra profit....

..but on the flip side - what if i'm the independent artist who has all my tracks finalyzed using protools and my mac. now i upload the files to apple for a small fee and then i put out all my promotion via the web. I now have my music released to the masses with out the large cost of manufacturing! saves thousands of dollars
 
From what I have read, there is some kind of limitation in the software that limits the sound quality when you try to record from it. Sorry, I can't remember where I read that.

IMO Apple and the record companies aren't trying to prevent piracy they are only trying to make it as difficult as possible, AS WELL AS, creat a viable alternative to the two unworkable standards. The first standard being internet piracy, the second being the overly monolithic, unresponsive and outrageously over-priced music industry itself.

I don't think that this is an end to the above but a tentative and in my mind extremely successful beginning at finding a solution.
 
Originally posted by monktus
That's strange, I've never heard of CDs like that before, it must be specific to Germany or thereabouts.
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Hardly. Labels have been doing this lately with some of their higher profile albums to discourage piracy. They cripple albums in different ways; one is by embedding within the sound waves little bits of information that a standard stereo player will skip but over which a CD-ROM drive breaks. This is to keep people from being able to rip their songs and distribute them. One CD I know of that does this is the sound track to "The Fast and the Furious;" even though none of the songs are original for the movie, the label doesn't want people to be able to rip it.
 
Originally posted by Ugg
When I was in Germany last year I bought about six CDs and failed to read the infitissimally fine print. "This CD cannot be played on a computer disk drive" Of course my computer froze and I had to reboot and eject the CD using a paperclip. I haven't bought any new CDs since then.
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hehe yes, the dreded copyprotected cds.

Depending on what they did, its potentially very easy to get that cd working in your mac. very.

google around a bit :)

"DMCA sharpie macintosh post-it note spears" ;-)
 
I think that the iTunes Store is great. Ive purchased a couple songs, no full albums yet though.

Some of my PC friends think that $.99 per song is rediculous. I fully disagree, unless of course, it is from an old album that is only like $6 new. Other than that, I think its a great price.

The download speed was pretty good, about 15-20 seconds per song. The sound quality is pretty good too. Not CD quality, but good enough for me, and most of my friends that arent in the industry (the others would beg to differ).

So theres my two cents. I think Apple has done good today (*pat on back*)
 
For those of you thinking the artist is getting a better deal think again. I read in one publication that the $.99 a song is split up as follows:

$.30 to Apple
$.69 to Record company of which artist probably still only gets $.05 or maybe $.10 if they are a top producer.

Oh and let us not forget the 46 second beethoven track for $.99!!!!

I can't see why anyone would be individual classical songs with such a breakup. And for that matter I don't see Beethoven still collecting royalties.
 
Originally posted by dixonbm
$.30 to Apple
$.69 to Record company of which artist probably still only gets $.05 or maybe $.10 if they are a top producer.
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Artists will still get screwed over as royalty rates for 'new' technologies are less than for standard distribution methods. Its still 25% less for a CD than a tape or vinyl! This is because its still allegedly more to manufacture a CD. After the packaging costs the labels take off before royalties even get calculated. Its scamtastic.
 
Originally posted by dixonbm
Oh and let us not forget the 46 second Beethoven track for $.99!!!!

I can't see why anyone would be individual classical songs with such a breakup. And for that matter I don't see Beethoven still collecting royalties.
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You raised apoint that had already been scandalous. When Philips created the audio CD, they released all classical music on CD for the same price as new artists, while 99% is free of rights nowadays. Many people felt completely tricked by the company, and they were.

Oh, just one thing: never forget the capital letter to Beethoven. :)
 
I purchased an album, and one song. It went smoothly and with out a hitch. I like the service thus far. Not all the price schemes make sense, but still. The artists got money I otherwise would not have paid.
Macslash readers are being tough. Lets not forgot, it has been out on day!
 
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