Escaping the iTunes Music Store Lock-in
The Internet is changing the music industry, and just about everyone would say it’s a change for the better. Besides the ever-popular practice of grabbing songs with peer-to-peer file sharing software without paying for them, the practice of legitimately purchasing music online is now mainstream as well. And Apple have led the way.
iPods, iTunes and now iPhones have changed the world forever – for many, music is now completely digital, coming from the internet and living in files on computers and personal media players. Apple have played a key role in this, building and popularizing an attractive and usable system, from purchase to library to portability. I owned an iPod back in the early days, and think that Apple have done a great job in many ways. But I have concerns about the way they have built their system.
Apple seem intent on building a closed system: you purchase your music from their music store via iTunes to play it on your iPod. The system is Apple from end to end. They have made it difficult to break out of the loop – it is a lock-in system. I understand why they have done it from a business point of view – it is good for Apple, but bad for the consumer. Apple have made some steps in the right direction – like removing DRM (digital rights management) – but so far my concerns still stands.
Responses to the lock-in vary. My son says that he doesn’t even notice the lock-in – he only uses Apple equipment anyway. But Steve, a retired Salvation Army captain, hit lots of roadblocks. He experienced frequent difficulty playing iTunes-purchased music in Microsoft Powerpoint, and wanted an alternative. “It should all just work together,” he complained.
There are differences of opinion around the Internet, too, with some trying to sue Apple for monopolistic practices, and others denying that the lock-in exists. Larry Dignan of ZDNet complains, “I was slapped in the face with an iTunes lock-in problem over a setting that took every CD I imported and made it an almost permanent member of Hotel Apple.” Make sure you let us know in the comments how serious you think the lock-in problem is, and how it has affected you personally.
There are lots of options for buying (and renting) music online – but you need to make sure you’re not just trading one lock-in strategy for another. Many of the stores have compromises that will suit one person buy not another. Here are some of the main options that provide millions of songs online as digital downloads. To help you compare, the iTunes store (only accessible through iTunes software) currently holds around 8,000,000 songs (AAC format only, up to 256 kbit/s VBR), costing $0.99 each (on average), or $9.99 for an album.
Amazon
Arguably iTunes biggest online competitor, the Amazon MP3 Downloads store contains 5,000,000 songs sold at a variety of prices, ranging from $4.99 to $8.99 per album, and normally $0.99 a song.
Although you shop using a web browser, songs are downloaded with Amazon’s MP3 Downloader software, which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. All songs are in 256 kbit/s VBR MP3 format without DRM.
Zune
Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace uses a subsciption model: for $14.99 a month you can download as many of the 5,000,000 songs as you like, and choose ten every month to keep. The songs come as either 192 kbit/s WMA or 320 kbit/s MP3.
Songs from the Zune Marketplace are tied to Microsoft Zune hardware, so this combined with the subsciption model won’t suit everyone. Although there is a very obvious lock-in strategy here also, the subscription model minimizes the disadvantage: if you move to a different MP3 player, just stop paying the monthly subscription fee to Microsoft and you have lost very little – assuming you didn’t find $14.99 a month too expensive to begin with.
Rhapsody
Rhapsody contains 6,000,000 songs in WMA or 256 kbit/s MP3 formats, which you can listen to in your web browser (any platform), or with Rhapsody Software (Windows only). It is a membership-based service with three plans:
- Rhapsody To Go – $14.99/month. Listen to and transfer all the music you want to supported MP3 players (Windows only). iPods are not supported.
- Rhapsody Unlimited – $12.99/month. Listen to unlimited music in your web browser (all platforms).
- Members and non-members can purchase MP3s in the US-only Rhapsody MP3 store. The purchased files cost $0.99, and can be played anywhere, including external devices.
Though there are compromises, Rhapsody seems to suit a lot of people. Unfortunately I’m not among them – not least because I live in the wrong country.
Napster
Napster, once an infamous music service which went bankrupt through legal action by the RIAA, has turned over a new leaf. More accurately, it is a totally different service now owned by Roxio, who are hoping to capitalize on the well-known name. The store contains a massive 7,000,000 files in non-DRM MP3 format. Napster offer both purchase and subscription models.
A Napster subscription costs $5 (I assume per month), giving you five MP3s and unlimited on-demand streaming music. When purchasing music, the songs I checked cost $0.99, and the albums $9.95. There are some limitations on their service outside of the United States.
eMusic
eMusic is a subsciption service with 6,000,000 songs that has been around for quite a while. Unlike Zune, the subscription isn’t just to listen to music for a month, it is a commitment to purchase a certain number of songs per month. Popular plans include:
- eMusic Monthly Basic, $11.99 per month, 24 Song Downloads per month
- eMusic Monthly Plus, $15.89 per month, 35 Song Downloads per month
- eMusic Monthly Premium, $20.79 per month, 50 Song Downloads per month
That means the songs cost between 42 and 50 sents each, depending on your plan. If you are a regular purchaser of music, eMusic may suit you. Songs are in 192 kbit/s VBR MP3 format without DRM.
GoMusic
GoMusic, like AllofMP3 which went before it, is a Russian online music store with incredibly cheap prices, ranging from just 9 to 19 cents. The legality of buying music at the site has been questioned (e.g. here and here and here), so beware – AllofMP3 was eventually put out of business. Songs are MP3 without DRM.
Alternative Music
If you love exploring new non-mainsteam music, there are lots of excellent sites out there. You won’t find Michael Jackson or Miley Cyrus – you won’t find anyone you’ve ever heard of. You never know what you’ll discover. Here are three sites to get you started:
- Magnatune work directly with independent musicians – never work with major labels – and give their musicians 50% of the profit. You can listen to every album in its entirety before buying or becoming a member. They have 9,221 songs.
- On Jamendo artists allow anyone to download and share their music. It’s free, legal and unlimited. They have 22,124 published albums.
- Soundclick have been around since 1997, and currently have 3,388,202 songs. They feature signed and unsigned artists, have many free songs, and also an MP3 store.
What Do You Think?
There are tons of online music stores out there, so there’s a good chance I missed your favorite. And this space will continue to change and evolve – it will be interesting to see what happens to Pirate Bay and Kazaa in the future, as they try to transform into legitimate music stores. Let us know your favorite online music store in the comments.
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Comments
Adrian
Adrian is writer and editor for Audiotuts+ and the AudioJungle blog. He has been playing keys and acoustic guitar for three decades, and has six kids. Follow him on Twitter at @audiotuts.
Good article, Adrian, makes a good point about Apple. As an Apple user myself, I don’t mind “the lock in” they’re obviously using as a business model, however, it has caused some problems for me in the past. I used to DJ/mix mp3 audio and release it online but audio DRM-protected audio purchased from the iTunes store wouldn’t load into the mixing software. That was always a royal pain!
“Once you go Mac, you never go back!” is very true, so once you’re within the Apple bubble, the advantages of Macs, iPods, iPhones and iTunes outweigh any negatives there may be, so ultimately, Apple are doing most things right.
What does concern me generally however with digital audio is:
(a) How we purchase it from different sources at different quality levels, import content from our CDs etc… and so there’s an inconsistency with the audio quality and sometimes formats too. This is particularly true if you’ve been converting and cataloging your mp3 audio for over 10 years, because 10 years ago when, for example, the original Napster was still prevalent, lower bitrate quality was acceptable and more forgiving (due to bandwidth speeds and storage capacity issues). But as technology has advanced with faster computer processors and larger, cheaper hard-drives, we now have the ability to store and handle much better quality audio at higher bitrates, but we’re still stuck with our older content at a lower quality. It’s almost neverending to have to keep maintaining your digital audio collection. What happens for example if a new technology comes along to replace or compete with the mp3 format in another 10 years time? Do we start all over again?!
(b) How safe are our digital audio collections? It’s always a red flag to me how unsafe our .mp3 and/or .aac content is. We save it to our portable audio devices, to hard drives, even to external servers. But bad things sometimes happen. Computers die, hard drives crash – and even back-ups eventually fail. So all that digital music we own is very susceptible and could disappear in a blink of an eye. No-one yet has come up with a practical, viable and cheap way to securely store digital media. Most people don’t even think about backing-up their ever-growing audio collections. This is my biggest concern about digital audio, that one day, all the time and effort invested in converting and collating our audio collections, will be wasted if the content suddenly disappears.
Just to wrap-up, I wanted to mention that I’ve had nothing but good experiences with Amazon.com, I tend to buy most of my digital audio from them at the moment. The good price, simple and fast download process, and the totally DRM-free audio is a big attraction. As much as I love Apple and iTunes, there’s nothing like having options and healthy competition.
Hi Scott. Thanks for those clearly expressed thoughts. Sounds like you’re in the same boat as my son – pretty happy with being in the Apple boat, and not intending to jump ship.
Your comments about how safe our digital music is remind me of one of my experiences. Around five years ago I spent many months converting my music cassettes into MP3 music – which is very much harder and more time consuming than ripping CDs. After I finished (hundreds of cassettes), the hard drive crashed seriously, and I lost the lot.
I know I should have backed up, and keep kicking myself about it, but I’ve never gone through the pain and effort of doing it again. One day I’ll have to before the tapes deteriorate too much – which I suppose is a reminder that “old fashioned” music doesn’t last forever either.
I agree, regarding the “how safe are our downloaded files” comment, most services make you pay to download again, iPods may only switch between five computers, and so on, it’s incredibly mad.
It is impossible to be in a business where the possibility of production is infinite but not expect some sort of shrink (losses due to theft.) Considering how low the pricing is set on most download services, I’d rather trust my audience and my customers to want to pay me and don’t mind the risk of not forcing it upon them. Social pressure will adjust behavior properly, though it may take some time.
Finally, it is not really our place to tell our customers what to do with the content we create. I give suggestions of what I think something I created is useful for, but in the end, my buyer has the right to put it into any sort of project. The AudioJungle license carries an incredible amount of value for our buyers.