Apple - Idolator

Posts Tagged “Apple”

As discussed earlier, the Copyright Royalty Board met today to discuss raising the royalty rates given to music publishers for digital sales. The result? They did nothing! They froze the royalty rate for music publishers at 9.1 cents per download. iTunes ain't gonna close down. Prices aren't going up. Nothing to see here. Move along now. [CNET]

3 comments

royalties

iTunes Might Become Slightly Less Profitable

In truth, iTunes only accounts for 5% of Apple's revenue, but we all know that it's really there as a Trojan horse to get people to buy iPods/iPhones, equate Apple with more than just computers, and make people buy the wrong versions of songs. Today, that small chunk of income for Apple may become even smalller, as a panel of appointed judges called the Copyright Royalty Board (snooze alert of a name, guys!) will rule as to whether digital music retailers like iTunes, Amazon, and Rhapsody will have to pay larger royalties to music publishers. More »

10:30 AM on Thu Oct 2 2008
By Lucas Jensen
252 views, 6 comments

Latest by DW: I couldn't care less. I don't buy from iTunes. As Apple says "The iTunes Store exists to sell hardware." I love it's simplicity, but I refuse to be tied to hardware 10 years out. Also the greedy CRB can go sh** more »

pointless listmaking

Idolator Presents Five Not-All-That-Ridiculous Ways To Celebrate Rocktober

Congratulations, world! You somehow made it all the way to Oct. 1, 2008, which means one thing: It's time for Rocktober to start. How will you celebrate? Some people are linking to YouTubes of Who songs. Others are hoping that you'll have a hankering to hear the Divinyls and Foreigner within the same span of time. One guy who got the coveted domain name "rocktober.com" is even saying that we should bring back Metallica Monday, although I know of a few people who might disagree with that idea. Which is why I have five Rocktober-celebration suggestions of my own, all of which are located after the jump. More »

12:00 PM on Wed Oct 1 2008
By Maura Johnston
716 views, 9 comments

Latest by dippinkind: @Clevertrousers: you can't hide the heino... more »

historical precedents

Sidetalkin' About The Future Of Nokia's Music Initiatives

A new technology outlook from one of those places that issues those kind of things, Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Strategies, asks the question, "Can Nokia Challenge Apple's Digital Music Dominance?" The report's answer is one word long: "No." Haha, just kidding! But that's how long the report should be, if Nokia's history is any indication. More »

7:00 PM on Thu Sep 18 2008
By Lucas Jensen
69 views, Comment

rumors

Did Apple Tell Warner Music Group, "Hey, We Can Be Jerks, Too"?

File under "scenarios that I kind of wished had played out in real time": "Apple had reportedly been sufficiently annoyed by [Warner Music Group's decision to pull Estelle's Shine from the iTunes Store] that it threatened to retaliate by pulling all mentions of WMG product from the various splash pages of the iTunes Store on a worldwide basis, apart from Metallica. Had Warner not capitulated, the absence of iTunes visibility would have had a devastating impact on Q4 sales, while the leadership of Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Lyor Cohen would have once again been called into question, with the inevitable negative implications for WMG stock." [HITS Daily Double]

3:30 PM on Mon Sep 15 2008
By Maura Johnston
339 views, 6 comments

Latest by cosmiclove: Now I understand why Lyor sold $6.8 million in stock awhile back...Up and out or onward and upward? Who knows? I've got the soy chips and green tea... [www.hitsdailydouble.com] more »

burning questions

The Music Business: It Seems Like Everyone Is Kinda Tired

Yesterday's announcement of new iPods and a new version of iTunes revealed one biggish innovation on Apple's part: Genius, which is Apple's attempt at integrating last.fm/Pandora-like "recommendation" functionality into the music player. So far, it seems a bit imperfect to me: It's claiming that I'm "missing" songs that are next in line on my playlist; and its recommendations get a bit more dicey the further your listening habits stray from iTunes' best-sellers list. Kevin Maney at Portfolio wonders if the meh-ness of the products Apple unveiled yesterday is a sign that Apple has hit the wall, innovation-wise, in music, but Marc Cohen at Ad-Supported Music Central takes his argument one further, saying that the whole industry is in the doldrums, at least on the business side. More »

3:30 PM on Wed Sep 10 2008
By Maura Johnston
688 views, 12 comments

Latest by Audif Jackson Winters III: @natepatrin: Well, I was and I wasn't. But CD players were developed and came out as a consumer item in the early 80s ... and remained a rich person's toy for most of the next decade. The fact that they got more »

comin' atcha (sort of) live

The Big Apple Announcement: They're No. 1!

Since I couldn't make it up to San Francisco to see whatever Steve Jobs wants to dole out to his music-listening public in person (mostly because I wasn't invited), here's an open thread in which we can comment on the revelations let loose by Steve Jobs at today's "Apple: Let's Rock" event. Already, he's thrown down with the factoid that his company is the No. 1 music distributor in any format—ahead of even Wal-Mart and Best Buy—and that iTunes 8 is going to have a feature called "Genius," which will make iTunes Store recommendations to users based on their past listening habits and that "rating" feature that I suspect maybe 10% of iTunes users actually put time into. (Oh well, at least it'll defintiely be better at segues than Party Shuffle, am I right?) Anyway, have at it! [Gizmodo]

1:00 PM on Tue Sep 9 2008
By Maura Johnston
238 views, 5 comments

Latest by Ned Raggett: @Chris Molanphy: He needs to go the Radiohead route and charge people for the info leak. more »

The iTunes Store has been restored to service in China—minus the compilation Songs for Tibet: The Art of Peace, thanks to its compilers' suggestions that a number of Olympic athletes had downloaded the album in protest. The Chinese government has not offered any comment. [Fact Magazine]

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stars on mp3

A Cover Band Rushes In To Where Kid Rock Refuses To Tread

Kid Rock has refused to put his Warren Zevon/Lynyrd Skynyrd homage "All Summer Long" on the iTunes Store as an a la carte download, and it's paid off for him in a few ways: This week, his album Rock N Roll Jesus (which features the track) hit the double-platinum mark, and he's gotten a ton of promotional mileage out of being a nearly-lone holdout from Steve Jobs' empire. But an act who's profited even more from Kid Rock's tantrum is the fairly anonymous act Hit Masters, who specialize in karaoke and "party" versions of old and new hits. (I can find no other information on this act; if you know of any, feel free to send your tips along.) The band rush-released a version of the song (in straightforward and "karaoke" versions) to the iTunes store and other digital outlets, and it's currently at No. 5 on iTunes' single-song chart. Whether this speaks to the fact that people like Kid Rock's song more than his "artistry" or not, one thing's for sure: the guy who puts together Kidz Bop is kicking himself for not having thought of this first. [via Lefsetz's latest mailbag]

2:00 PM on Thu Aug 21 2008
By Maura Johnston
624 views, 13 comments

Latest by UKidol: Yep Moby, the height of hypocrisy really. When are the music press going to challenge Kid Rock over this? more »

truthmongerer

If It's August, It Must Be Time For People To Get All Hot And Bothered Over iTunes-Related Rumors

Like the Timex Social Club, I spend a lot of time lamenting the rumors that surround me every day. How do they get started? And where do they get crazy? In Truthmongerer, I'll try to suss out the kernels of truth in the rumors that are taking up airspace in gossip columns, blogs, and our tips inbox.

THE RUMOR: iTunes is going to launch a subscription site called iTunes Unlimited as soon as October. And access to as many downloads as you like will only cost $129.99 for the whole year!

TRUTH THRESHOLD: 7.5%.

12:00 PM on Thu Aug 21 2008
By Maura Johnston
626 views, 11 comments

closed ports

Report: China Cuts Off Access To iTunes Store

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Chinese officials have closed access to Apple's iTunes Store after getting wind of Olympic athletes downloading Songs For Tibet, which features songs by the likes of Rush, Underworld, and Moby. (Proceeds go to "peace-related projects" that were hand-picked by the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.) The ban came shortly after the Art Of Peace Foundation, which backed the project, sent out a press release saying that "over 40" athletes participating in the 2008 Olympic Games had used download cards they were given to download the album, thus "speaking" their mind about the geopolitical situation when the Games' rules forced them to remain silent on the issue. This isn't the first time musical support of Tibet has caused the Chinese government to clamp down, of course, and it's unlikely to be the last. More »

1:00 PM on Wed Aug 20 2008
By Maura Johnston
601 views, 1 comment

Latest by PengIn: Based on that comp's tracklist, the people speaking their minds have been saying "I like crap". more »

your $199 iphone just made my christmas gift a little less joyous

The Phone You Want, The Radio You Don't

The announcement of iPhone 2.0 dragged the Internet to a screeching halt on Monday, and now that things are starting to sort of get back on track, all the exciting features of the Phone To Save Us All are being unveiled. You know those terrible local radio stations you've been ignoring in your car or in your home? Now, you'll be able to listen to them while rapidly draining the battery on your iPhone! More »

1:00 PM on Fri Jun 13 2008
By Dan Gibson
335 views, 8 comments

Today In Unsurprising Major-Label Negotiation Tactics

With the forthcoming launch of the 3G iPhone, Apple is trying to make the iTunes Store available to any iPhone users, and not just those who are already within reach of a wireless connection. But he needs to make deals with the major labels in order for this to happen, and so the majors are hoping that this means the idea of variable pricing—in which, say, Hard Candy will cost the few people who still want to buy it out there an extra couple of bucks—is back on the table, as is the whole "Comes With Music"-like all-you-can-eat plan that gives over a chunk of change to the labels for each device sold in exchange for said devices having "any" songs (that the labels want to keep in digital print and, presumably, don't feel like overcharging for) available to users who want them. Not to seem all biased and stuff, but I do hope Mr. Jobs stays strong in these negotiations, because the whole Comes With Music plan in particular seems like a stinker with a shelf life that will come screeching to a halt as soon as the labels figure out that they've made all the money they can from it. [Listening Post]

1 comment

Overly excitable music-business types are looking at Apple's recent deal with HBO, where top-tier shows like The Sopranos are priced at $2.99 per episode on the iTunes Store (as opposed to The Wire's $1.99-a-pop price), as a sign that the company may someday embrace variable pricing, which would allow the music business to revitalize itself by charging the $2.99-a-song price that "4 Minutes" and "Touch My Body" so rightfully command. Thankfully, Anthony Bruno at Billboard splashes a bit of water on this notion by pointing out that the shows that HBO has placed on iTunes last quite a bit longer than three minutes and thirty seconds—which, one would think, might attract just a bit more money—and that most of the variants in price can be explained away by the shows' relative lengths. Prediction: Some poor major-label act is going to be corralled into releasing a 10-minute debut single for the purposes of "testing the $2.99-a-song waters" within the next six months. [Billboard]

8 comments

100 and single

Forever Leavin' Pork & Beans: Big Chart Moves By Summer Single Contenders

Chris "dennisobell" Molanphy, our resident chart guru, looks at the upward, downward, and lack of movement on this week's Billboard charts:

You can't kill Leona Lewis, you can only make her stronger. For the first time in 30 years, a song returns to the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 after being evicted twice. Love her or hate her, Ol' Dead Eyes is back.

As unusual as Leona's threepeat is, the more interesting moves this week are made below the No. 1 spot, in part because it looks like the songs we may be hearing during car-radio season are hitting the charts now. That includes big debuts by the unsinkable Chris Brown and heartthrob Jesse McCartney, a first-time appearance by new British "It" girl Duffy, and a huge move on Modern Rock by a certain gang of veteran geek-rockers trying to regain their cred.

2:00 PM on Fri May 2 2008
By Chris Molanphy
1,689 views, 7 comments

polite requests

UK Music Companies Ask Apple For Some Money

The Music Business Group, which represents record and songwriting companies in England, would like to see the makes of computers, iPods and other things that make money to give a slice of that pie to the owners of music copyrights. Not that they'd have to, as everybody copies CDs anyway, but it'd be awful nice of them. More »

1:15 PM on Mon Apr 14 2008
By Anthony Miccio
152 views, 1 comment

Hypebot is wondering if the stalled effort to make more digital-music stores' catalog free of digital rights management is the fault of the stores or the major record labels. I have a third theory: The roadblock isn't really because of either side digging in its heels: It's because the "issue" of whether or not music should be free of DRM is one that doesn't really matter to 95% of consumers, as long as they can get the songs they've already purchased online to work on their computer/portable device, and so pouring a lot of money into a "solution" for this overhyped-by-the-tech-nerds problem isn't really as high a priority as, say, negotiating deals for possible subscription services or wrangling holdouts' catalogs onto their stores' virtual shelves. (I know, readers—it's hard to think that the opinions of people on the Internet might not be all that important in the grand scheme of things!) [Hypebot]

5 comments

oopsie!

iTunes Leaks Raconteurs Album, Apple Switchboard Prepares For The Worst

Looks like the iTunes Store accidentally leaked the Raconteurs' Consolers Of The Lonely a few days before its Tuesday release—reports are filtering in from people who successfully purchased the album on both the US and UK versions of the iTunes store, and it's apparently popping up on the peer-to-peer services as well. (In the interest of reporting, I tried buying the record, only to be greeted with a "This album is no longer available" message.) Who among us would not love to be listening in on that angry phone call from Jack White? [The Modern Age]

1:30 PM on Fri Mar 21 2008
By Maura Johnston
1,099 views, 6 comments

Latest by scott pgwp: "Accidentally," sure. That's what they get for dissing iTunes and advance release dates in one press release! more »

Billy Corgan Has Some New Entrance Music

Posts Tagged “Apple”