"iTunes Unlimited" Rumor

[MyndFyre]

I really don't care who has the cheapest subscription, or whose music is DRM-free; I want my music to be high quality, and you can't getdownload that (legally) anywhere on the internet, period. I tend to preview music in the iTunes music store to find what I like, and then go steal it from somewhere else. If I can't find a good quality version of it, I just go buy the CD and rip it as a FLAC.

You REALLY can hear the difference between 256 VBR and FLAC?  C'mon....

[Sidoh]

Yeah, there have been some informal studies I've seen that show humans can't really tell the difference.  Maybe it's because the majority of us have crappy sound equipment, though.

[Newby]

But FLAC is guaranteed to be CD quality, so you can always re-rip at a lower bitrate if you need to conserve for space. You can't do that with MP3... unless you don't mind transcoding.

[Warrior]

What? This is totally different. The court could be potentially applying affirmative action to an otherwise free market. It's a pretty dangerous precedent to set, IMO.

What?

Yes though, I do think Apple has a monopoly on the digital music market. It's always good to have alternatives. An example of Apple leading (At least psychologically, they technically were not first) in pressuring competition to embrace and idea is DRM.

Jobs called for the striking down of DRM (Which while a publicity stunt, since Apple is probably second only to Microsoft in the DRM love fest.) and it quickly became a domino effect of people latching on to the next big thing. It started with only EMI, and has grown into a full blown movement since then.

Same goes for mobile browsing, they changed the landscape. As a result, others have tried to as well.
So yes, this is very driven by competition. People react positively to subscription music. It's a smart move by Apple, even if it does come with that almost characteristic control-freak type restrictions in place like lump payments and MobileMe inflexibility.

[Camel]

I still hate Apple for taking 50% of all sales on iTunes. After the record label, manager, and producer all take their share, the artist is only left with 20-30% per song, which is usually split 4-5 ways, so in most cases each member of the band only makes about 5 cents per song sold. Apple leaches money off of the talent.

I've never heard any statistic saying the artist gets that much from any sale, other than from merchandise. What source are you using?

You REALLY can hear the difference between 256 VBR and FLAC?  C'mon....

Go buy one of their MP3s and spectrum analyze it; I will put money up that they're not V0.

[Sidoh]

The difference between 192 cbr and V0 is extremely noticeable, I think.  I almost always go with V0/V2 when I get music, but I'll only do FLAC if that's the only format available.  Sure, it has its advantages, but for playability and convenience (it takes more effort to put it on a music player), they suck.

[Armin]

I still hate Apple for taking 50% of all sales on iTunes. After the record label, manager, and producer all take their share, the artist is only left with 20-30% per song, which is usually split 4-5 ways, so in most cases each member of the band only makes about 5 cents per song sold. Apple leaches money off of the talent.

I've never heard any statistic saying the artist gets that much from any sale, other than from merchandise. What source are you using?

My band's music is on iTunes, and that's how much Apple pays us. According to our record label people and all the other people in the business we know, it's that way for bigger bands too. The rest of the math was based off of our record deal, which is a very common deal.