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RIAA just got both legs knocked out against Apple

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B

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051003...z3eO6qs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3YXYwNDRrBHNlYwM3NjI-

Long story short, digital music sales were over triple what they were a year ago. Globally digital music sales eclipsed physical single sales. Worldwide digital sales accounted for $790M in the first half of this year and that is expected to grow. So the RIAA will see over $1.5B in digital sales this year.

And Apple is responsible for almost 80% of that.

Looks like songs will remain 99 cents each for the time being and Warner and Sony won't do a damn thing about it.
 
Poorly compressed music for all! Seriously though, this is good news. Now iTunes needs to work on offering options in how the music is compressed, or even offer lossless options on a sort of pay-for-bandwidth scale.
 
tedtropy said:
Poorly compressed music for all! Seriously though, this is good news. Now iTunes needs to work on offering options in how the music is compressed, or even offer lossless options on a sort of pay-for-bandwidth scale.
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LMAO of all the things to nitpick. :lol
 
tedtropy said:
Poorly compressed music
Click to expand...

Even most audiophiles don't consider 128Kbps AAC poorly compressed. I get the segment out there that wants lossless, but even most audiophiles agree that transparency on the typical pop/rock sample occurs at around 160-180Kbps with the two good AAC encoders (iTunes and Nero).

Not knocking your main point, but "poorly compressed" is a tad overdramatic.
 
Scrow said:
yeah, if anything that's one of the most legitimate things to bitch about iTunes.
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really? I would think more album pricing on certain artists, getting certain artists and labels on board in general (Led Zeppelin and Evanescence anyone), "syncing" the music store and iMixes with your collection, AACplus, and a host of other genuine improvements that would affect all users would be the most legitimate things to gripe about?
 
In the end this might be what the record industry uses to kick start the next generation audio formats. Push all CD quality shit to online and put SACD/DVD Audio or whatever new format in stores.
 
Warm Machine said:
In the end this might be what the record industry uses to kick start the next generation audio formats. Push all CD quality shit to online and put SACD/DVD Audio or whatever new format in stores.
Click to expand...
lol. I said this exact same thing almost three years ago. this time though it has started. Expect to see traditional audio CDs completely phased out within 4-5 years.

Minotauro said:
Uhm, where?
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ebay, Amazon sellers, half.com, local used record shops and book stores, etc.
 
This is more interesting I think:

The Times: Music managers tackle Apple over royalty payments

MUSIC managers will today wade into the row over online royalties with the claim that bands and solo artists are being unfairly squeezed in the digital era.
The Music Managers Forum is unhappy that artists typically receive a royalty of 4.5p on every 79p track sold on Apple’s iTunes, a proportion of less than 6 per cent. On a £2.99 single, the performer’s royalty is 35p, or 12 per cent.



Jazz Summers, the manager of the Snow Patrol, and chairman of the Music Managers Forum, said: “Sale prices and royalties have gradually been eroded to the point where an artist needs to sell in excess of 1.5 million units before they can show a profit, after paying for recording time and tour support [...]
Click to expand...
 
I don't see why Apple are even mentioned there. It just seems kind of misguided to apportion the blame to them when the labels themselves are the issue. Also, Oasis don't need any more money.
 
Well, I imagine part of where this is coming from are the label's saying they can't give the artists higher royalties because apple won't raise the prices. So areas of the media (who owns the times?) translate this (purposely?) into "Apple is preventing artists from receiving higher royalties."

edit - News Corp owns the times, so I guess there is no direct vested interest there.
 
teiresias said:
When you say lossless, do you really mean lossless or do you want the original PCM track?
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That'd be great too. One of the reasons I love allofmp3.com is that they provide you options in the file you download. I can download 320/kb LAME encoded MP3s that sound close enough to CD quality for my ears and they offer PCM files for certain CDs, although you'll pay close to what the original CD was for that option. Granted, the legality of that site is kind of up in the air, but iTunes should rip off some of its better ideas.
 
tedtropy said:
That'd be great too. One of the reasons I love allofmp3.com....
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The difference is that iTunes tracks are legal, while allofmp3 tracks are not.

I have no problem downloading stuff from iTunes. People just like to complain.
 
borghe said:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051003...z3eO6qs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3YXYwNDRrBHNlYwM3NjI-

Long story short, digital music sales were over triple what they were a year ago. Globally digital music sales eclipsed physical single sales. Worldwide digital sales accounted for $790M in the first half of this year and that is expected to grow. So the RIAA will see over $1.5B in digital sales this year.

And Apple is responsible for almost 80% of that.

Looks like songs will remain 99 cents each for the time being and Warner and Sony won't do a damn thing about it.
Click to expand...

I dunno, I reckon music execs are looking at that $1.5bn in digital sales and thinking "well, if we increased the price, we'd have even more!!!!!11" :-P
 
ManaByte said:
The difference is that iTunes tracks are legal, while allofmp3 tracks are not.
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Hey hey hey now.... one man's legal is another man's I'll stick your legs in cement and drop you in the nearest body of water...
 
ManaByte said:
The difference is that iTunes tracks are legal, while allofmp3 tracks are not.

I have no problem downloading stuff from iTunes. People just like to complain.
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I think the 128kb compression iTunes uses is a legitimate complaint.
 
If you can't hear the tinny/garbly sounds that happens when you compress a song to 128kbps, you are deaf. It is completely a legitimate complain and they should provide options of song quality.
 
Warm Machine said:
In the end this might be what the record industry uses to kick start the next generation audio formats. Push all CD quality shit to online and put SACD/DVD Audio or whatever new format in stores.
Click to expand...
that would be nice, wouldn't it? maybe then we'd get some real selection in the formats.
teiresias said:
When you say lossless, do you really mean lossless or do you want the original PCM track?
Click to expand...
no kidding, even a CD is lossy. 44.1 khz/16 bit? 96 khz/24 bit is where it's at.
 
silenttwn said:
If can't hear the tinny/garbly sounds that happens when you compress a song to 128kbps, you are deaf. It is completely a legitimate complain and they should provide options of song quality.
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you people that simply mention the 128Kbps as a catch-all are full of shit IMHO. 128Kbps OGG != 128Kbps AAC != 128Kbps AAC-HE != 128Kbps Frau MP3 != 128Kbps LAME MP3 != 128Kbps WMA etc. Certain audiophiles I will concede have a point on artifacts they notice, but some of you don't even sound like you understand differences between codecs and compressors let alone even know what kind of artifacts are introduced as a result of the various degrees of compression.

And considering transparency for pop/rock samples generally occurs at around 170Kbps AAC-LC, 25% loss generational loss is damn near impossible for the majority of users to detect, and even the users who can detect it will only notice a perceptible difference. 25% audible loss from one generation to the next is not enough to significantly degrade quality. At most it will produce occasional artifacts but almost never something on the order of a constant and significant audible difference.
 
Meier said:
"Audiophiles" crack me up. 128 kbps is fine.
Click to expand...

I am far from an audiophile and if even my ears can notice a very discernible quality difference between a 128kb LAME encoded MP3 and a 320kb one with certain songs, then I'd say it's a worthwhile issue. "Fine" is nice, but so is having options.
 
128 is fine if you have shitty speakers and/or headphones. the sound quality becomes very apparent when you listen through some good sound boxes.
 
There's no such thing as an Audiophile, just some wanna be loser trying to convince people they hear a better sound on a fucking audio player than the rest of us.
 
quadriplegicjon said:
128 is fine if you have shitty speakers and/or headphones. the sound quality becomes very apparent when you listen through some good sound boxes.
Click to expand...

And what is the #1 reason iTunes exists?

beautyshot_ipodphoto_050627.jpg
 
borghe said:
you people that simply mention the 128Kbps as a catch-all are full of shit IMHO. 128Kbps OGG != 128Kbps AAC != 128Kbps AAC-HE != 128Kbps Frau MP3 != 128Kbps LAME MP3 != 128Kbps WMA etc. Certain audiophiles I will concede have a point on artifacts they notice, but some of you don't even sound like you understand differences between codecs and compressors let alone even know what kind of artifacts are introduced as a result of the various degrees of compression..
Click to expand...

I know there's a difference. My brother is a HUGE Apple geek and when the iTunes store came about, he told me about the AAC format. I downloaded a song and found out it was 128kbps AAC, and I told him that that kind of sucked. He told me that the codec is newer than MP3 and that you can't really hear the compression. And so I listened to some songs I downloaded. It doesn't sound nearly as garbly as MP3, but I can still clearly hear the compression in AAC. Some people can live with it, but it annoys the fuck out of me.
 
norinrad21 said:
There's no such thing as an Audiophile, just some wanna be loser trying to convince people they hear a better sound on a fucking audio player than the rest of us.
Click to expand...

Because they all sound exactly the same LOLAMIRITE
 
silenttwn said:
It doesn't sound nearly as garbly as MP3,
Click to expand...
garbly is a type of audio artifact now? I didn't realize that reduction of frequencies (of which most are unable to be heard by even the most astute of ears) resulted in "garbly" music. hell, even your "tinny" assessment doesn't apply to AAC at 128Kbps as there is such a minute amount of frequency loss at that level that there isn't enough bass or upper frequencies missing to allow something to sound tinny.

I'm not saying the sound is perfect to the most capable of ears (though to mine it is pretty damn close), but garbly and tinny sound like two generic ways to jump into the compression argument. Had you come in and said you hear clipping on the samples or on specific frequencies on such and such a sample you heard such and such a distinct artifact I would be more likely to believe.

oh well, that's why I generally don't participate in audiophile conversations on GAF.

/heads back to hydrogenaudio
 
norinrad21 said:
There's no such thing as an Audiophile, just some wanna be loser trying to convince people they hear a better sound on a fucking audio player than the rest of us.
Click to expand...
I guess you have no problem compressing your music to 64 or 32kbps. There's no difference after all?

If they paid attention, I think most people could hear the degradation in 128kbps encoded music, even on Ipod through relatively crappy headphones. It's very obvious in MP3 encoded music, and AAC is better but not really that much better. As soon as you get any better earbuds or headphones, it becomes even more obvious, as does Ipod's noise level problem. There's nothing wrong with paying slightly more for higher quality, nothing wrong having an option to do so.
 
norinrad21 said:
There's no such thing as an Audiophile, just some wanna be loser trying to convince people they hear a better sound on a fucking audio player than the rest of us.
Click to expand...


heh
My friend was really curious about this so I had him bring a few CDs (original releases) and also burned MP3s of the same songs to a high end audio store. The difference between the MP3s and the real CDs was clearly evident in a $1500ish (entry level) stereo. Although the differences are hard to explain. MP3 does an awesome job, however the lossless CD felt more alive in every case. Better dynamics and imaging. Its a sublt difference, but one that many people are willing to pay the difference to hear. You'll need some freakin golden ears to hear the difference between CD and mp3 on your computer speakers, but it becomes much more evident the higher up the scale you go in audio equipment.
 
The compression on 128kbps is noticable, particularly in the high frequencies (i.e. cymbal crashes, hihats). Applause turns into a sound that resembles running water. A similar effect happens with cymbals/hihats, where they don't sound as crisp or sharp as with higher bitrates.

If the music execs want more money, offer a higher quality recording option. Leave the $0.99 option for people using primarily portable audio solutions, then have a $1.49 option for 192kbps versions for use at home and lossless for $2.49.

Nathan
 
gblues said:
The compression on 128kbps is noticable, particularly in the high frequencies (i.e. cymbal crashes, hihats). Applause turns into a sound that resembles running water. A similar effect happens with cymbals/hihats, where they don't sound as crisp or sharp as with higher bitrates.

If the music execs want more money, offer a higher quality recording option. Leave the $0.99 option for people using primarily portable audio solutions, then have a $1.49 option for 192kbps versions for use at home and lossless for $2.49.

Nathan
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$2.49 is a lot to pay for one freaking song when you can just rip it yourself for half that price if you buy the cd.
 
$2.49 for lossless? :lol

That would be like $30 for 12 songs...
Why the hell would anyone pay $30 for 12 lossless songs when you could get the same CD at best buy for $10-12? :lol

Makes no sense dude :lol
 
Miroku said:
heh
My friend was really curious about this so I had him bring a few CDs (original releases) and also burned MP3s of the same songs to a high end audio store. The difference between the MP3s and the real CDs was clearly evident in a $1500ish (entry level) stereo. Although the differences are hard to explain. MP3 does an awesome job, however the lossless CD felt more alive in every case. Better dynamics and imaging. Its a sublt difference, but one that many people are willing to pay the difference to hear. You'll need some freakin golden ears to hear the difference between CD and mp3 on your computer speakers, but it becomes much more evident the higher up the scale you go in audio equipment.
Click to expand...
very fair. the two responses I would have are:

what MP3 compressor was used?

AAC != MP3

The differences between MP3 and AAC-LC at => 128Kbps are pretty dramatic. MP3 you end up with diminished returns the higher the bitrate you move to, AAC you almost gain higher returns seemingly between 128kbps and 192Kbps. The fact of the matter is that there is very minimal frequency loss at those bitrates (especially above 128kbps) and most of the problems with AAC beyond 128Kbps are related to sample specific artifacting introduced by the compression as opposed to overall loss of quality throughout the entire track, arguably more related to artifacts introduced by the compressor than the actual compression of frequencies themselves.

I find it funny that people just throw out the 128Kbps number as a catchall or compression in general. If I were to give many of the "audiophiles" in this thread (not naming any names) a 128Kbps VBR OGG ABXed with the original PCM I doubt many of them would be able to accurately (even 66% of the time) tell the difference.

Hell, there are "audiophiles" on hydrogen that hit transparency with a 140Kbps AAC sample.

Unless people are talking about extreme dynamic frequency samples (classical, etc) I just don't see where this "dramatic degradation" in quality with 128Kbps AAC is coming from.

Especially considering human hearing starts degrading by the time you hit your 20's and by 30s most of us have lost the ability to hear many upper frequencies anyway. Even worse if you don't take care of your ears.
 
Bleep does LAME VBR & FLAC(albeit not for everything) for the same price. What's stopping Apple from doing the same?
 
borghe said:
garbly is a type of audio artifact now? I didn't realize that reduction of frequencies (of which most are unable to be heard by even the most astute of ears) resulted in "garbly" music. hell, even your "tinny" assessment doesn't apply to AAC at 128Kbps as there is such a minute amount of frequency loss at that level that there isn't enough bass or upper frequencies missing to allow something to sound tinny.

I'm not saying the sound is perfect to the most capable of ears (though to mine it is pretty damn close), but garbly and tinny sound like two generic ways to jump into the compression argument. Had you come in and said you hear clipping on the samples or on specific frequencies on such and such a sample you heard such and such a distinct artifact I would be more likely to believe.

oh well, that's why I generally don't participate in audiophile conversations on GAF.

/heads back to hydrogenaudio
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not an audiophile so if you were expecting super detailed descriptions then I got nothing for you. I hear the compression and it bugs me and I just hate it when people say there's no noticable difference between lossless and 128kbps AAC.
 
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