Gamer said:
Finally after all the rumors we finally have it! Our very own iTunes Music Store. Wow, what a great day to be Canadian.
See for yourself:
http://www.apple.com/ca/itunes/
It is not! The iTunes Music Store Sucks! I mean sure, you're able to pick and choose the songs you want instead of buying the whole album, and even if you do buy the whole album on iTunes, it's cheaper than the CD. However, it's a major ripoff because:
1)There is no CD with a case and illustrations. Sure, you can print out the album art to make a cover, but it's not the same as opening the CD case, seeing tons of photos, reading the lyrics, band bios, etc. And at least with CD's, tapes or vinyl, you have a physical object of value which you can proudly display in your home. If all you have are a bunch of CD-R's with flimsy paper covers, and a handmade label or a title scrawled on the top, it's going to look pretty pathetic compared to an actual CD collection.
2)The songs available on the iTunes Music Store are not of a very good sound quality. And contrary to what they may have told you, they actually sound WORSE than MP3's obtained through P2P filesharing programs. Apple claims that the songs offered through iTunes are AAC files, all encoded at 128 kbps, which, thanks to more efficient compression, are equal in sound quality to MP3 files encoded at 192 kbps. What they didn't tell you, however, is that the bit rate is only one factor in determining the quality of the song. You also need a good sample rate, equalizer setting, and finally, it all depends on the software you're using. In either case, some of the MP3's on my computer are of high bit rates (160, 192, some even more than 200), but most of them are encoded at 128 kbps, and surprize surprize, they actually sound better than the songs on the iTunes Music Store. Apple also claims that the 30-second previews you can listen to before purchasing a song are of the same fidelity as the actual songs themselves. The previews sound like crap, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is. The truth is, any kind of encoding can sound good, but if you don't know what you're doing, it doesn't matter if you import it as MP3 or WAV. It's going to suck. MP3 may be an inferior compressor, but if you have a knack for equalizer settings and digital audio editing and a little bit of patience and good ears, it can sound better than anything the iTunes Music Store has to offer. In fact, someone I met on another forum claims that he imported his CD's to his computer in MP3 format, remixed them, and burned them to a CD, and his new CD made from MP3 versions of lossless audio tracks actually sounded better than the original album.
3)All the songs are encrypted with DRM, which is an infringement of consumer freedoms and fair use. It's really nothing to worry about, because it can be removed using
HYMN, just like how Copy Control on CD's can be cracked. So basically it doesn't work unless you're computer illiterate. The point is, unless you have the tools and the knowhow, you can't convert Apple's AAC files to MP3. So if you want to burn an MP3 disk, or if you have an MP3 player that can't play anything but MP3 files, you're completely screwed. If you buy a CD that doesn't have Copy Control (which is starting to die off because of complaints that protected CD's don't work in many CD players), it's no problem ripping it to your computer in any format you like, transferring it to your MP3 player, and even sharing it over a P2P program if you choose.
4)The selection is pathetic. As you may have noticed, there are no Metallica tracks available, apparently because Lar$ and the boys are completely paranoid of their music being available on the internet, even if they get paid for it (although I can't see what the big deal is, they only get about 10 cents a song anyway). This is just stupid. First of all, if people want to download their music, they will, and because of Alcohollica's arrogance, they'll just download it for free instead. And secondly, if people buy downloads instead of CD's, it will actually be harder for them to share it over Kazaa or something than if they bought the CD's, because when you import a CD track, there is no DRM to prevent it from being copied to another computer. But enough about them, I don't really like Metallica. The selection is bad enough in the US and other countries. The least they could do is give us the same catalogue. Instead, we are only given access to 700 thousand of the one million tracks offered on the US store. This doesn't make sense to me; do they have to use separate servers for each national store? Anyway, I can't even find any Iron Maiden tracks on the Canadian store, but the US store is full of them (except for some reason, they don't have the full Powerslave album). If they don't have the music I like, they've lost me as a customer. Whether you buy music from stores, online CD stores, or download it for free, it is very easy to find what you're looking for.
5)You're not guaranteed any kind of secure investment. At least when you buy an album, new or used, you have the disk or cassette in your hand. Everything you paid for is stored safely on a tangible medium, which you can easily back up to your computer, another disk or cassette, if you choose. The odds of ruining your cassettes or scratching your CD's are very slim, as long as you're careful with them, because CD's and cassettes are very versatile and durable. Mac OS X is also very durable, so we don't have to worry about crashes, viruses, etc. But since the iTunes Music Store is also available on Windows, it's easy for them to buy a bunch of songs, and then suddenly their CD burner stops working, or they get a virus and lose everything before they have a chance to make a backup. At least with free filesharing, if you lose all your music to a virus attack, it's no big deal since you never paid a cent for it, and you can easily start your collection over. But who cares about Windows users, right?
Anyway, these are all reasons why I continue to reject the iTunes Music Store and its competitors, and I encourage others to do the same. If you don't live in Canada, and you want good music legitimately without supporting the RIAA, buy used CD's. They're easier to find, they're cheaper, they come with illustrations, they will always sound better than a burned iTunes album, and you can always use iTunes to rip it to your computer in any encoding you like, make a backup copy, transfer it to your iPod, or edit it to achieve better sound quality. And you don't have to deal with any restrictions on how you use it.