Penn State just ramped up to the top of the list of possible grad schools!
quote:Penn State Will Pay to Allow Students to Download Music By AMY HARMON
Published: November 7, 2003
ennsylvania State University has agreed to cover the cost of providing its students with a legal method to download music from a catalog of half a million songs, in a departure from punitive efforts to curtail music swapping on college campuses.
The deal between Penn State and the newly revised Napster online service is expected to serve as a model for other universities. It comes as the music industry applies pressure on students and colleges in its antipiracy campaign.
Graham Spanier, the president of Penn State, said it was the first time a college had taken it upon itself to provide music to its students.
"It is unusual," Dr. Spanier said. "But today's college students have told us how important this is to them and with the record industry's new enforcement efforts, we think they'll be very excited to participate."
For some students, the deal may seem as though Prohibition has ended, and drinks are on the house.
The service will allow students to listen to an unlimited number of songs as often as they want. They will be able to download the music to use on three personal computers as long as students are at Penn State. If they want to keep the songs permanently or burn them to a CD, though, they will have to pay 99 cents each.
Dr. Spanier said the university will pay for the Napster service out of the $160 information technology fee students pay each year. The cost to the university is "substantially less" than the $9.95 fee that individual subscribers pay for the Napster service, he said, though he declined to disclose the precise terms.
About 18,000 students in the university's residence halls will be the first to get the service in January, university officials said. By next fall, it is to be made available to all 83,000 undergraduate and graduate students on campuses across the state, as well as faculty and staff.
As huge consumers of music, students have driven the file-sharing epidemic begun in 1999 by Napster, the brainchild of Shawn Fanning, then a college student himself.
Napster went bankrupt after a federal judge ruled in 2001 it had violated copyright laws. It was relaunched last month offering individual songs for 99 cents, albums for $9.95 or monthly subscriptions — for listening only, not copying — for $9.95.
Ian Rosenberger, president of the undergraduate student government at Penn State, said one student he had shown the service thought it was great. But Mr. Rosenberger added that other students were more skeptical of the university's service.
"There's been a lot of attention paid to students as criminals," he said, "and people who download don't see themselves that way."
In the last year the industry has sued several students suspected of illegally trading music over the Internet. Like many colleges, Penn State has used a variety of measures, from mandatory copyright tutorials to suspending Internet access, to try to clamp down. Several colleges use software programs that monitor file-swapping among students, sending e-mail messages warning them they are breaking the law as a first step in imposing penalties.
But university and industry officials hope the Napster carrot will succeed where various sticks have failed in undermining the campus culture of unauthorized copying.
"We have to try every mechanism to see what will be effective," said Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel of the American Council on Education, which represents colleges and universities. "I fully anticipate many institutions will follow suit, whether with Napster or other services."
Facing demands from the music industry to remove copyrighted files from their networks, several universities began meeting with entertainment industry officials this year to consider how to provide alternatives to making unauthorized copies of music with software like Kazaa.
Dr. Spanier of Penn State and Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, led the committee. The industry blames file-sharing services for a sharp decline in sales in the past three years.
Posted by Da_Goat (Member # 5529) on :
And thus starts the second step of making P2P programs the next radio.
Anyway, do you have the source link so I can post this on other forums?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It's from the New York Times, which I posted half the article.
Which, incidentally, is so anti-Bush it makes me laugh sometimes. The economy was discovered to be blazing this past quarter, with a growth rate not seen since 1984 120,000 jobs added. The NYT headline was "Longest hiring slump in more than 60 years ends"
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
This is a good move for the RIAA. At least they'll get a few bucks out of it.
Granted, we mice are learning faster than they can build better traps--there are already ways to keep the songs permanently without paying the 99 cents--but there's money to be made from the 'net unsavvy.
Posted by Megachirops (Member # 4325) on :
quote:but there's money to be made from the 'net unsavvy.
Or from people who would like to acquire single songs without stealing them.
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
::steps off Iccy's lawn::
Posted by Leto II (Member # 2659) on :
This is a crappy idea for one reason: it requires everyone's tuition to pay for it. If a school I was trying to go to did that, it may not make me skip that school, but I would sure raise hell over it with them. I can afford my own subscription service, and I may or may not want to go with the same service they decide to use. I'd rather not spend that much money for something I seriously doubt I would spend that much on in four months to begin with. Were the service optional, then I may not have a problem with it.
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
Maybe they should just make the $160 information technology fee voluntary, too, for the people who don't use computer labs and such.
And charge higher tuition for students who take classes from higher paid professors.
Or let students decide whether or not their tuition will go to fund the football team.
Or not. I think a vast majority of students will use this service, especially in a school like Penn State, where most students live in on-campus dorms which prohibit p2p programs.
Posted by Leto II (Member # 2659) on :
No, Ed. Not the same. If the service was being hosted on campus, much like the current service that the RIAA choked out at MIT, then it would be a service charge that is worth paying even if I don't use it. However, this is a charge that could be better spent on maintaining things in the school, that will be going straight to the RIAA.
But maybe I'm just too picky about where my money is spent. Maybe it's also because I know better ways of getting music without stealing.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I see your point, Leto.
At my school, everyone paid almost a hundred bucks a quarter for athletic fees. In return, we got to attend the games. I went to one football game in five years. That was a one thousand dollar ticket.
It isn't fair, but it is part of how universitities for things. I'd like to change the whole system, but in terms of paying for a service that is likely to be used by everyone, this sure beats the athletic department.
Posted by Megachirops (Member # 4325) on :
Don't most universities pay for cable and include it in the housing fees? This seems similar.
Wait, do all students pay that tech fee, or just residents? Because under the rules as I understood them, only residents could possibly get any legal use out of the agreement.
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
It looks to me like all have to pay. If they offered a choice in different services (say, a choice between Napster, iTunes, or BuyMusic), then that may be a little more accessible for students. As it stands, and student who comes to the school with a Macintosh and like to download music is screwed—Napster no worky with Macs. Still has to pay the fee, though.
I see too many flaws in this program for it to be "for the students." It keeps coming off to me like someone's palms were heavily greased for the publicity, in exchange for a little long-term marketing.
Posted by slacker (Member # 2559) on :
From what I read on The Register's website, there's a direct link between the presidents of the RIAA and Penn State.
quote:Well, it turns out that Penn State President Graham Spanier is serving as co-chair of the Committee on Higher Education and the Entertainment Industry, along with Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Yeah, we get the higher education gag too.
Personally, I'd tell the school to get stuffed if they think that I'm going to pay some organization (that's not school related) so that I can be told how to download music.
Also, from what I read on it, once you're done with school, you lose the ability to download anymore songs using that account. Depending on the configuration of the program, you may lose your music, too.
On another note, it's been revealed that Apple is not making any money at all on their iTunes site. All of the money goes to the RIAA and so forth. There's another music service that I won't be supporting there.
Edit: Shouldn't the title have been something like "University has students pay to download music", since Penn State isn't paying anything themselves?
[ November 08, 2003, 11:44 AM: Message edited by: slacker ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:it's been revealed that Apple is not making any money at all on their iTunes site. All of the money goes to the RIAA and so forth. There's another music service that I won't be supporting there.
No, but they are making money on iPods. Sales of iPods have more than doubled.
The early radio shows were produced in order to sell radios. iTunes is still a great business move for Apple.
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
What the heck does that have to do with the price of tea in China? When iTunes Music Store was brought up on this forum a bit ago, I already pointed that out quite clearly (just without the confirmation from Apple themselves). What does that have to do with Penn State forcing students to use only one music service?
And that's what this thread should be about. Penn State isn't paying for anything for these students, students are paying for it. Penn State is just giving them no choice.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
My darling Leto, it was a thread derailment. I was responding to slacker.
So, yes, Penn State. Penn State has psycho squirrels. One of them attacked a friend of mine who was a student there. She had to flee from the quad.
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
Oh, and businesses like Napster and Buy.com don't make a real profit from their sales, either. So, moves like this school deal look even more like an attempt to use the school as a marketing ploy instead of actually being for the students. The students, after paying this fee, don't even get to keep the music they download. No one is giving them anything.
And for a university, their math is atrocious:
quote:Dr. Spanier said the university will pay for the Napster service out of the $160 information technology fee students pay each year. The cost to the university is "substantially less" than the $9.95 fee that individual subscribers pay for the Napster service, he said, though he declined to disclose the precise terms.
How the heck is 160 for a year less than 9.95 a month for 12 months? Can someone please describe what equation I would use to get $160 to be less than $120? Maybe a year in Pennsylvania is 16 months long? What dimension do they live in?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I think the students are already being charged $160 a year. Whatever was paid for out of the $160 before, the fees are now being stretched to include the Napster access.
[ November 10, 2003, 11:10 AM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Ayelar (Member # 183) on :
Uh, Leto... it's not the "Napster Service Fee", it's the "Information Technology Fee". It pays for stuff other than Napster. Like computer labs, I'd imagine, and maybe the network connection in the dorms.
Posted by just_me (Member # 3302) on :
quote: How the heck is 160 for a year less than 9.95 a month for 12 months? Can someone please describe what equation I would use to get $160 to be less than $120? Maybe a year in Pennsylvania is 16 months long? What dimension do they live in?
They're not paying 160 a year for the service. The students pay a $160/year fee, and part of that fee will pay for the service. Apparently the service costs substantially less that 9.95/month.
So all we know is that
a) the students pay $160 a year for their fee
b) the service is paid for from this fee
c) the service costs <<$120 a year.
-me
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
I think the intended meaning is that the university struck a deal where it costs them less than $9.95 per month per person to provide the service to students (i.e., bulk discount or something). And then that less than $120 per year can be taken out of (although not exhaust) the $160 per year fee.
[me and my slow fingers ]
[ November 10, 2003, 11:18 AM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
And, apparently, they give zero details about the terms of the service except:
The students can only download from the school.
The students can only listen on the computer that has downloaded the music and two others.
As soon as the student graduates—poof! That music disappears. (it's called DRM, or Digital Rights Management)
So, the students are getting nothing extra, except a high-tech radio service and gobs upon gobs of good press for Napster. Care to justify that service fee again?
And I'm not a gambler, but I can see this "deal" not lasting more than a year, three at the very most.
[ November 10, 2003, 11:21 AM: Message edited by: GreNME ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
What's wrong with a high-tech radio service? I'd like to have a legal version of that.
Posted by slacker (Member # 2559) on :
quote:What's wrong with a high-tech radio service? I'd like to have a legal version of that.
Being forced to pay for it and not having any choice as to who makes your stereo (and possibly lackluster titles).
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Also, the university doesn't get sued, and the students have an alternative to breaking the law.
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
Not to mention that not everyone can use it, like I already pointed out. It's one of the reasons I don't like iTunes Music store, but this is now a deal between a university and one of these download services, which now becomes even more... well, for lack of a better term, shady.
Posted by Ayelar (Member # 183) on :
What group has been disenfranchised from the iTunes Music Store? People without computers? People outside the US? Whose inability to use the iTunes Music Store upsets you?
Posted by Ayelar (Member # 183) on :
quote:So, the students are getting nothing extra, except a high-tech radio service and gobs upon gobs of good press for Napster. Care to justify that service fee again?
And, again, this service is coming from a fee that the students were already paying. They apparently pay the same amount, but now they get to do more with it.
When it comes to fees, especially at a big college like UPenn, this is a drop in the bucket. Tuition pays for all sorts of bizarre things that aren't directly useful to the students. Athletic fees for sports you don't participate in, activity fees for clubs you don't belong to... colleges nickel and dime students to death. It's the name of the game.
I don't know how I feel about the deal yet, but it seems odd to get so riled up about the thought that nameless UPenn students may or may not be getting a bad deal here. If you want to get upset about that, let's talk about Cornell and its lack of tennis, racquetball, and squash courts!
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
quote:What group has been disenfranchised from the iTunes Music Store? People without computers? People outside the US? Whose inability to use the iTunes Music Store upsets you?
I don't own an iPod, and will not for some time (unless they magically become affordable to me). I cannot use anything I get from iTMS in my current mp3 player that I have owned for three years. If I buy an affordable mp3 player, I will not be able to play music from iTMS on them.
iTunes for Windows is strictly a tool to sell more iPods. Apparently, it is an effective tool, because sales have skyrocketed. However, to believe that iTunes is for anything other than selling iPods—which is the only thing it will play on other than computers with iTunes installed—is simply ludicrous. Napster is just a tool to sell more of Roxio's software. Buy.com's store is a tool to get more people shopping there than at Amazon. Each of the really "big" stores are not making money to provide the service, they are making their money by creating residual income.
That's what I dislike about this deal with the university—a learning institution is now creating a situation where a specific service can corner the market on residuals.
Posted by slacker (Member # 2559) on :
Oh, I think the fee is $160 per semester. This supposed deal just got alot worse, IMO.
Ayelar, if you want to compare programs that not everyone uses, then let's look at it rationally: while your money does go to sports, it's helping an entire program (and the school can keep the items that you're paying for). Under this scheme, you're only buying equipment for yourself, and you lose it when you're done with school. No one else gets to share it.
I can't imagine that college people everywhere would be excited to buy new football gear every semester and lose it when they're done (since sharing is a no-no).
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I'm not excited about college football wear now. In fact, I'd be perfectly happy if the competitive sports were dropped and only intermural sports remained.
With the fee, I can use it. With the athletic fee, the athletes get to use it. How is this fee somehow worse?
Posted by seriousfun (Member # 4732) on :
These students have grown up getting free music, from radio, clubs, etc., and the RIAA's lofty goal is to convince them that the internet is not another source of free music.
Now, the concept of how they are paying for this music at Penn State will remain so abstract that they will continue to learn that music is free.
The Performance Rights Societies should start executing blanket license agreements on all universities providing internet service (and ISPs in general). This will establish a revenue stream back to the artist, and bypass the RIAA.
This is how we pay for free music now over the air and in venues, and, whether run by a university or as a commercial venture, an ISP is an ISP.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Think about a university as a business rather than as a "learning institution," though. Then the whole idea isn't so ludicrous. They're offering something that lots of people will be interested in, and I imagine they stand to benefit from it one way or the other.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
The iTMS certainly is a way of driving iPod sales, but it has other uses both for apple and for users.
Apple uses the iTMS to increase mindshare, get a foothold on windows, and maintain quicktime marketshare (it's a required part of the install of iTunes) in addition to driving ipod sales.
Users find the iTMS convenient and well organized, and integrating perfectly with a great jukebox.
Also, there is a very important type of non-iPod music player that is very usable with songs from the iTMS: cd players. I'm pretty sure these still have a much larger presence than hard drive/flash based players.
I do agree that universities shouldn't make deals of this sort with apple, napster, or others, though.
Posted by Ayelar (Member # 183) on :
Good point, fugu. I have a hard time buying the idea that iTMS is completely useless without an iPod. After all, I don't own an iPod. My current computer, Wanda, doesn't even have a Firewire port. That doesn't stop me from using iTunes or the iTMS, though. I listen to songs on the machine, I burn them onto an mp3 cd and bring them to work, I burn them into an audio cd and play them in the car... Sure, I'd be a little peeved if my mp3 player didn't work with it.... but then, there aren't any other mp3 players out there that I'd be interested in buying. Posted by Megachirops (Member # 4325) on :
quote:I'm not excited about college football wear now. In fact, I'd be perfectly happy if the competitive sports were dropped and only intermural sports remained.
Actually, your athletic fee does not pay for football, so while you think of it in terms of a thousand dollar football ticket, that just reflects the extent to which you interacte with the athletic program (to the best of your knowledge). Actually, you athletic fees are paying for things like intramurals and for gyms and courts that the students can use, and for some of the less popular sports as well. At Division I schools, football doesn't cost the school money, football makes the school money. Many academic scholarships, as well as buildings, etc, are made possible by proceeds from big time sports, primarily football. (This doesn't make it a given that it's worth selling your academic soul for the football money, but I wanted to address the idea that students were "paying for" the existence of football.)
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
quote:Good point, fugu. I have a hard time buying the idea that iTMS is completely useless without an iPod. After all, I don't own an iPod.
But you run a Macintosh. Without a Mac, there are only two things that can play AAC encoding—an iPod and iTunes.
I don't really care whether you feel that iTunes for Win is an iPod push or not, because Jobs has pretty much said it was in a few interviews (sorry, I read them on paper, can't link them). I do recall a link recently where Apple made it clear that they aren't making a profit from iTunes at all. The only other logical reason would be to have it there to sell iPods. You can give the "mindshare" crap all you like, but Apple is and always has been a hardware company, and only creates software to forward their hardware. If Apple releases software that can only interface with an iPod outside of a computer (MM works with multiple players), chances are the software is aimed at increasing the hardware sales.
And I recieved a 300-dollar mp3 player as a christmas gift three years ago (Nomad Jukebox, the player Apple got the idea from the iPod from to begin with). I'm not peeved that Apple's DRM files don't play on it, but it keeps me from bothering to buy anything form Apple's store. Apple doesn't sell mp3s through their store, and they should make that clear to people who rush for it. Despite my gripes with the actual software itself, the store has nothing to offer me that I can't get for the same price elsewhere, but with far greater compatibility. I refuse to be locked into that kind of system.
And that is one of my gripes about what the university is doing. It's committing the students to a single service, and offering them no choice. For any college kid who has a Macintosh or doesn't download and install Napster's software, they get no access. They don't get to keep the music (but I'll bet five to one kids are ripping it to non-DRM versions in a month). I'm not seeing how they are getting any kind of deal or being given an option to not steal. It looks to me like the school has found a way to shrug off culpability, while Roxio has found a huge marketing tool. There is nothing in this that looks positive to me.
And mind my prediction: the service won't last past a year or so, and kids will be ripping the music to savable formats within a month of this going live (has it gone live yet?). In fact, the semester after it goes live, I'll bet there is a software being distributed to assist other students in ripping those songs off. And because of that, the service will cut ties. The RIAA will pull some lame "I told you so" and keep right on with their mafia-like tactics.
quote:Users find the iTMS convenient and well organized, and integrating perfectly with a great jukebox.
I hope you don't mean the resource hog that is iTunes. Trust me, I ran the two (iTunes and WinAmp) in a test of CPU usage, memory usage, and battery life on the laptop, and I'll never use iTunes on something where performance is integral. It's popular because the iPod is the single largest portable music player in the market currently... I'm willing to bet it's above portable CD players by now. The best way to access the iPod is through iTunes, which is a hell of a lot better than the MusicMatch interface (I may not own one, but that doesn't mean I don't get to check them out ). It's definitely out there for the iPods.
[ November 10, 2003, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: GreNME ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
mindshare crap, eh?
While mindshare will not make a successful business, it is arguably the second most important reason for apple still existing, Steve Jobs being the first by a hair.
Of course it all comes down to making a profit (in apple's case on hardware), but there're the short term sales of iPods for immediate gratification, and there're the long term sales of macs because macs have a ambient positive reputation.
Don't discount delayed gratification.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
And you completely ignored the concrete benefit to the quicktime platform, which widespread presence is a driving force behind apple's deal making power with much of the multimedia industry.
Posted by Ethics Gradient (Member # 878) on :
How is this blatantly unfair?
Universities are not free for all marketplaces where you pick and choose what happens to your fees. The university can choose what it does with fees.
AND THE STUDENTS ARE ALREADY PAYING THEIR $160 PER SEMESTER. So, either they pay their $160 per semester and keep getting what they get now... Or they pay their $160 per semester and get the ability to legally download music. Errrm. Isn't this a step in the RIGHT direction? Doesn't the provision of this service benefit more students than the creation of another computer lab or two?
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
Quicktime sucks for everything but .mov files in Windows. That iTunes requires it to be installed is not just rude, but unnecessary.
quote:Of course it all comes down to making a profit (in apple's case on hardware), but there're the short term sales of iPods for immediate gratification, and there're the long term sales of macs because macs have a ambient positive reputation.
fugu13
That's why sales have dropped for computers for Apple, even with the advent of their " FASTEST SUPARCOMPUTAR EVAR," right? I'm not even going to get into the debate on what is "better" than what, but this year's trend for apple has been that it has excelled at peripherals and digital lifestyle equipment (like the iPod), but their computer sales have not grown at all (whatever happened to "Year of the Laptop"?). Your "delayed gratification" has no basis in fact as far as Apple's recent history (even going back five years). Apple makes sleek hardware, to be sure, but they may end up making most of their money from devices like iPods in the near future if judged by this year's trend in sales and market share (we won't get into the disappointing numbers of last year ).
Posted by Ethics Gradient (Member # 878) on :
Why is there no smilie for 'pissing contest'?
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
Oh, and in answer to your last post, EG (not the "pissing contest" one), read the part I said about ripping the DRM content and just stealing the music anyway. In the originally downloadable form, the students won't be able to keep what they get, but I can gaurantee that I could rip the file into a savable format within a few minutes. I know for a fact I can do it—with any music service. It wouldn't take much to put together an easy-to-use ripper program for students to take advantage of this service. In fact, I already expect it to happen. How is that teaching anything?
Posted by Ethics Gradient (Member # 878) on :
Oh, it's not teaching anything. I just don't think it's necessarily against student interests.
And you know you want a pissing contest smilie, Leto, it'd save you lots of typing Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Their laptop sales did grow.
And perhaps you neglected to read the words long term. Apple has never intended to take over, but to maintain a small but solid market share.
Also, I agree that quicktime for windows is a crappy implementation. Luckily my comments had nothing to do with its quality.
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
EG My whole point is that this will do nothing in the long term except give Roxio a boost in marketing. Other far better implementations of making music available to students have been stamped out by the RIAA (look up MIT's LAMP network), and then this type of stuff pops up.
fugu, your optimism is noted, but there is absolutely nothing but marketing material to base that assumption on. All indicators point to iTunes being for the purpose of bringing in hardware sales.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Clearly it is important to drive hardware sales. But the dependence on Quicktime (which need not have been a requirement) definitely supports what I said, and apple's close attention to mindshare (the reason they appear in so many movies/tv shows/ads is they give the hardware away on that proviso) makes it silly to think they weren't thinking along those lines.
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
Um... no. They required quicktime because they want their software everywhere, to be sure, but that gets them nothing if people aren't using it. And because QT and iT go ahead and trump file associations like they do, I'd be more willing to bet that the "mindshare" for Quicktime is more about annoyance. That isn't going to convince them to go buy a Mac. However, having iTunes is a perfect reason to go get an iPod.
So, let's look at the facts:
Since winTunes, iPod sales took a sharp upswing.
Since winTunes, Mac sales have made no significant increases (in fact, they've decreased, but not because of a causal relationship to iPod sales).
Apple makes zero on the music store and the win software.
Apple makes a killing off thier iPods.
Jobs has said that iTunes was made for Win to give their biggest iPod market a better interface (no mention of "mindshare" and no mention of some "trojan horse" philosophy)
Like I said, your optimism is nice and all, but the reality of the situation points directly to a hardware decision. I'm also sure the agreement Apple had with MusicMatch to handle iPods had something to do with the decision, as well—iPods were taking off in sales, and Apple hates working with other companies when it comes to their products. Even making the store available to Win customers is to sell more iPods, because the only way people are going to be able to pass the music on is to burn it on CD (cars and home stereos are about it nowadays for that) or put it on an iPod (which can go everywhere, and has become a "pop" product). I know it feels good to attribute altruistic motives to the companies we like, but they're all about making moolah, and for Apple, the best way to get more people buying iPods is to give them more reasons to carry an iPod (hence the Apple-only format and DRM).
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
What's altruistic about what I'm attributing? I'm simply working from the assumption that they're a sensible business, and moving from there. For that matter, what's anti-altruistic about leveraging software for other sales?
The big advantage of quicktime isn't that people use it, but that it is present. Many of apple's deals (for instance with cell phone makers and movie studios) have been inked partially because they can use quicktime to embrace and extend media formats, by virtue of its widespread presence.
As for mindshare, I have pointed out that it has always been firmly in apple's mind. Perhaps apple would have continued regardless of mindshare concerns. But are those concerns real? Very. Its one reason iTunes was so carefully polished before release, resulting in so few bugs. If the velor of iTunes's windows release had been bad, the common windows user's perspective of macs (and thus apple's mindshare) would have been greatly harmed.
Posted by GreNME (Member # 3401) on :
Methinks you overestimate regular users' opinions as it is.
And you're making a lot of assumptions about why winTunes exists, but they are not based on results or fact. QT has been around for years, and has done nothing positive for Apple's computer line. However, iTunes (and the music store) are going to do a whole lot of positive for the iPod sales, but that will not directly reflect on their computer sales significantly, not even in the long run.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
I was responding to slacker.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
]![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Trust me, I ran the two (iTunes and WinAmp) in a test of CPU usage, memory usage, and battery life on the laptop, and I'll never use iTunes on something where performance is integral. It's popular because the iPod is the single largest portable music player in the market currently... I'm willing to bet it's above portable CD players by now. The best way to access the iPod is through iTunes, which is a hell of a lot better than the MusicMatch interface (I may not own one, but that doesn't mean I don't get to check them out ![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
fugu13![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)