Jump to content
Washington Football Team Logo
Extremeskins
Forum Rules and Guidelines

Apple iTunes worst nightmare: Spotify offers free, infinite music—and it's all legal.

deejaydana

By deejaydana
in The Tailgate

Recommended Posts

deejaydana

deejaydana

Posted
Posted

Link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-31/the-itunes-killer/

Some real competition for iTunes? I guess we'll find out soon. I love iTunes myself but they've had the lion's share of music sales. Competition is always a good thing for the consumer.

Apple's worst nightmare, and a music lover's best friend, is about to cross the Atlantic. Spotify offers free, infinite music—and it's all legal.

The European online music service Spotify offers six million tracks—a practically limitless catalog spanning Aaron Copland to ZZ Top—in an interface as polished and intuitive as Apple’s iTunes. And unlike the pay-per-song iTunes, Spotify’s entire library is free for the taking, assuming users can tolerate an occasional advertisement.

The service is presently confined to Europe, where it’s available in the U.K., France, Spain, Norway and Sweden—but it is planning a U.S. launch for early 2010. The prospect is surely creating a little anxiety at Apple’s Cupertino, California, headquarters.

Inside the tech world, the summer days have been flush with news of Spotify’s rise. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed Spotify “so good” amid chatter that the two companies have been secretly negotiating a partnership. The Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing confirmed that he had invested an undisclosed sum in the startup. And if back-of-the-envelope math is to be believed, Spotify is now valued at €170 million, or about $244 million.

In Europe, Spotify has shown itself a keen competitor. In August, the head of Universal Music in Sweden said Spotify has become the label’s largest source of online revenue in the country, overtaking iTunes. Now Spotify is turning its sights to the U.S., where a spokeswoman says the company plans to launch in “early 2010.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites
dchogs

dchogs

Posted
Posted
But one digital music entrepreneur says he believes Spotify’s revenue from advertising and premium subscriptions can’t possibly foot such a hefty bill. “There’s just no way to make any money,” says Michael Robertson, who founded MP3.com and is chief executive of the music startup MP3tunes. “Any time you have to pay a per-stream fee, the economics don’t work out for an advertising model...They’re going to go bankrupt, like all the other streaming companies as well.”

Those licensing fees will only increase once Spotify expands into the U.S., where iTunes today accounts for a quarter of all music sold—a larger share than Wal-Mart. The extraordinary growth of the iTunes Store over six years has been built on the premise that consumers are willing to pay for legal music online but don’t want to shell out a monthly fee to stream an unlimited amount of songs. “The subscription model has failed so far,” Apple’s Steve Jobs has said. “People want to own their music.”

the two things i thought of right away showed up on page 2 of the article. 1) i want to be able to take my music with me and 2) i don't see how advertising is going to pay the royalty fees.

personally, at work, i'd still take pandora over this. i like the fact that i can hear music that i might not be aware of yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Toe Jam

Toe Jam

Posted
Posted

I'll add two more things.

1) I use Rhapsody. Fifteen bucks a month and I get, legally, all the music I want and can also take it with me using compatible MP3 players.

2) Put the source (Daily Beast) in your thread title so the mods don't pay you a visit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Blackest Eyes

Blackest Eyes

Posted
Posted

I would love to have Spotify available in the US. I would mainly use it just to stream new albums to decide if I want to buy them. This is a perfect way to combat music piracy and if the big executives do not see this, they are complete idiots. A lot of the reason people download albums is because they do not want to make a purchase without previewing. Spotify can solve or at least help with that problem.

In zero way is Spotify a substitute for buying a CD or MP3's on iTunes. At least I don't think it is. But I am sure people have reasons why it can be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Drew_Fl

Drew_Fl

Posted
Posted
I don't mind iTunes at all, but I missed the memo when they changed a lot of songs from being .99 cents to like a 1.29 recently.

agreed. now every time i want to buy a song i always check amazon first. lately they have been beating itunes by having most of their songs at .99

i do love itunes though

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Blackest Eyes

Blackest Eyes

Posted
Posted
i thought this was about torrents...

:doh: No...we are talking about legal services...not ones where you are pirating music.

What is the bitrate of Amazon.com MP3's? iTunes went to 192 and the price went up. I'm not against paying more for higher quality, but I hate mp3's and others love them. It's all relative.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Drew_Fl

Drew_Fl

Posted
Posted
:doh: No...we are talking about legal services...not ones where you are pirating music.

What is the bitrate of Amazon.com MP3's? iTunes went to 192 and the price went up. I'm not against paying more for higher quality, but I hate mp3's and others love them. It's all relative.

all my amazon purchases have been 256kbps. i'm really happy with the quality. works seamlessly with itunes as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...