There is a theory going around right now. That theory is that if you own an iPod, then you must be a music pirate. Ever since Microsoft officially announced that they were paying a “tax” to Universal Music for each new Zune sold people have been calling iPod owners thieves. I am not sure if this is F.U.D. perpetrated by Microsoft to get consumers frightened out of buying an iPod or something done by the record companies for similarly sinister purposes. Either way the the idea is beyond idiotic and not to mention down right wrong. Many of the arguments that are coming out of this “people who own large capacity players are pirates” has a lot to do with a myth that it is “impossible” to fill up a 60GB or even 80GB mp3 player with legal music. Let us look into this further…
Lets take a great example, me. Since I know me pretty well it stands to reason that I would know a lot about me as well. I have a close to 700 compact disc collection that I spent that last year getting ripped into Mp3 format. This means I took careful care to rip each one and any that did not come out good due to excessive scratching I bought new copies. I am one of those people, I like having a physical copy of the CD I buy. Sure digital downloads are cool, and I love them when it comes to special stuff like the iTunes Original series. So if you average $10 per CD which is actually cheap I have spent close to $10,000 dollars on music alone spread out over the last 15 years. We all know that I have spent more than that because you use to not be able to buy a CD for less than $13-$15 and then you have multi-disc sets that cost sometimes two or three times more than a regular single CD. What this all boils down to is that I have, according to Microsoft Windows, I have 55.2 gigabytes of space being taken up by music that I own, and this does not include compilation CDs because I keep those in a separate folder. So we can guessimate that I have close to 60 gigs of music on my computer that I also own a physical copy of. I would also like to note that this does not include my wife’s discs as she will not let me rip them just yet for her own weird reasons (who knows, she’s a woman).
Now for a little math. I ripped all of my CDs at two times the current “standard” which is 128kbps. So that means in theory that my files are taking up two times the space that a normal file purchased from iTunes is taking up. Now, purist are going to know that this is not the case, and I am okay with that because I also know that it is really only averages out to 1.5 times the space but I am trying to make a point here. If we cut my 60 gigs of music in half we should get somewhere around 30 gigabytes of data. This means that I have enough data to fill a 30GB iPod (or Zune) with nothing but music. Since I also buy music on a somewhat regular basis so I am consistently adding to the collection. As you can see a music pirate, I am not.
I can easily fill up my 60GB iPod with legal music. If I rip my wife’s CDs I can probably get close to the 80GB threshold. But there is something that most of these executives forget while they are criminalizing their customers. I did not buy my 60GB iPod with the intent of putting 60GB worth of music on it. No sir, I also put some videos, photos, and even data. That’s right folks, I use my iPod as a pocketable portable hard drive to carry important files around with me. I carry documents, notes, and even contacts on my iPod. The Zune can not do that. I have around 40GB of music and the rest of the space on the iPod is divided among videos, photos, and data. And I am not alone. People who are buying the larger capacity devices are doing so for the purpose of putting other kinds of data on them besides music. The iPod with Video is meant to have more than just music on it and video can eat up space REAL quick.
The CEO of Universal is going to try to strike the same deal with Apple that Universal managed to get with Microsoft and he is going to fail miserably. For starters, the iPod is the most popular music player on the market today, with no sign of slowing down. Also, the iTunes Store is the biggest as well as most popular digital music store at the moment. This gives Apple a heck of lot of bargaining leverage. Here is what I foresee happening.
Universal: We want X amount of dollars of every iPod sold.
Apple: Umm, no.
Universal: Ok, we’ll pull our songs out of the iTunes Store
Apple: Umm, no, you won’t because then you will loose sales from the largest digital music store in the world
Universal: Umm, good point. Carry on.
Universal can not pull their songs out of the iTunes store without experiencing some kind of backlash from not only the customers but also the artists on their labels. Besides, in Canada a recent court case has given presidence (not here in the US mind you) that when a “tax” is paid on such devices the labels can no longer sue consumers for downloading music through questionable means. If Universal does in fact get money from Apple over this, they are basically giving people a blanket permission to download Universal artists. Universal can not afford to do that.
What this really all boils down to is content management. If both the recording and movie industries would learn to just allow geeks to do what is neccesary to play the media they have already purchased on their various devices then they would not have the problems they have. I do not agree with downloading music or movies illegally, in fact I frown upon it greatly. I do however agree with being able to rip the music and movies I have already purchased to the devices I use be it a DVD player, a computer, an iPod, or even a game console (PS3 and XBox 360 allow for streaming media over your wireless network). I should not be made to buy a physical copy and a digital copy for each device I might put it on. I should also not have to pay a “tax” on items just because they might be used to store illegal content. That’s like saying I should have paid a tax on my VCR because it could have been used to bootleg movies. Overall the industries need to figure out how to play nice with the consumer instead of trying to find ways to limit their uses of content. They need to learn that the people who do not care are not going to even go through the trouble and it is only like around maybe 3% of the population that is going to do what us geeks want to be able to do.
How do you feel about this “fee” Microsoft is paying to Universal? Do you think Apple should do the same?
[Technorati Tag: Commentary]
Michael Koby 
I Own An iPod (So I Must Be a Pirate)
There is a theory going around right now. That theory is that if you own an iPod, then you must be a music pirate. Ever since Microsoft officially announced that they were paying a “tax” to Universal Music for each new Zune sold people have been calling iPod owners thieves. I am not sure if this is F.U.D. perpetrated by Microsoft to get consumers frightened out of buying an iPod or something done by the record companies for similarly sinister purposes. Either way the the idea is beyond idiotic and not to mention down right wrong. Many of the arguments that are coming out of this “people who own large capacity players are pirates” has a lot to do with a myth that it is “impossible” to fill up a 60GB or even 80GB mp3 player with legal music. Let us look into this further…
Lets take a great example, me. Since I know me pretty well it stands to reason that I would know a lot about me as well. I have a close to 700 compact disc collection that I spent that last year getting ripped into Mp3 format. This means I took careful care to rip each one and any that did not come out good due to excessive scratching I bought new copies. I am one of those people, I like having a physical copy of the CD I buy. Sure digital downloads are cool, and I love them when it comes to special stuff like the iTunes Original series. So if you average $10 per CD which is actually cheap I have spent close to $10,000 dollars on music alone spread out over the last 15 years. We all know that I have spent more than that because you use to not be able to buy a CD for less than $13-$15 and then you have multi-disc sets that cost sometimes two or three times more than a regular single CD. What this all boils down to is that I have, according to Microsoft Windows, I have 55.2 gigabytes of space being taken up by music that I own, and this does not include compilation CDs because I keep those in a separate folder. So we can guessimate that I have close to 60 gigs of music on my computer that I also own a physical copy of. I would also like to note that this does not include my wife’s discs as she will not let me rip them just yet for her own weird reasons (who knows, she’s a woman).
Now for a little math. I ripped all of my CDs at two times the current “standard” which is 128kbps. So that means in theory that my files are taking up two times the space that a normal file purchased from iTunes is taking up. Now, purist are going to know that this is not the case, and I am okay with that because I also know that it is really only averages out to 1.5 times the space but I am trying to make a point here. If we cut my 60 gigs of music in half we should get somewhere around 30 gigabytes of data. This means that I have enough data to fill a 30GB iPod (or Zune) with nothing but music. Since I also buy music on a somewhat regular basis so I am consistently adding to the collection. As you can see a music pirate, I am not.
I can easily fill up my 60GB iPod with legal music. If I rip my wife’s CDs I can probably get close to the 80GB threshold. But there is something that most of these executives forget while they are criminalizing their customers. I did not buy my 60GB iPod with the intent of putting 60GB worth of music on it. No sir, I also put some videos, photos, and even data. That’s right folks, I use my iPod as a pocketable portable hard drive to carry important files around with me. I carry documents, notes, and even contacts on my iPod. The Zune can not do that. I have around 40GB of music and the rest of the space on the iPod is divided among videos, photos, and data. And I am not alone. People who are buying the larger capacity devices are doing so for the purpose of putting other kinds of data on them besides music. The iPod with Video is meant to have more than just music on it and video can eat up space REAL quick.
The CEO of Universal is going to try to strike the same deal with Apple that Universal managed to get with Microsoft and he is going to fail miserably. For starters, the iPod is the most popular music player on the market today, with no sign of slowing down. Also, the iTunes Store is the biggest as well as most popular digital music store at the moment. This gives Apple a heck of lot of bargaining leverage. Here is what I foresee happening.
Apple: Umm, no.
Universal: Ok, we’ll pull our songs out of the iTunes Store
Apple: Umm, no, you won’t because then you will loose sales from the largest digital music store in the world
Universal: Umm, good point. Carry on.
Universal can not pull their songs out of the iTunes store without experiencing some kind of backlash from not only the customers but also the artists on their labels. Besides, in Canada a recent court case has given presidence (not here in the US mind you) that when a “tax” is paid on such devices the labels can no longer sue consumers for downloading music through questionable means. If Universal does in fact get money from Apple over this, they are basically giving people a blanket permission to download Universal artists. Universal can not afford to do that.
What this really all boils down to is content management. If both the recording and movie industries would learn to just allow geeks to do what is neccesary to play the media they have already purchased on their various devices then they would not have the problems they have. I do not agree with downloading music or movies illegally, in fact I frown upon it greatly. I do however agree with being able to rip the music and movies I have already purchased to the devices I use be it a DVD player, a computer, an iPod, or even a game console (PS3 and XBox 360 allow for streaming media over your wireless network). I should not be made to buy a physical copy and a digital copy for each device I might put it on. I should also not have to pay a “tax” on items just because they might be used to store illegal content. That’s like saying I should have paid a tax on my VCR because it could have been used to bootleg movies. Overall the industries need to figure out how to play nice with the consumer instead of trying to find ways to limit their uses of content. They need to learn that the people who do not care are not going to even go through the trouble and it is only like around maybe 3% of the population that is going to do what us geeks want to be able to do.
How do you feel about this “fee” Microsoft is paying to Universal? Do you think Apple should do the same?
[Technorati Tag: Commentary]
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