StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Well this is a nice surprise. Apple's released a new version of iTunes on the 1 year anniversary of the opening of the iTunes Music Store.
What's new ...

• Playlist publishing; this is called "iMix"
• Free Single of the week
• iTMS will sell Music Videos
• Movie Trailers are now downloadable from iTMS as well
• Something called "Radio Charts" which lets you see the most popular songs played on real radio stations in the U.S.
• Printing of CD inserts from inside iTunes
• Importing of WMA files (non-protected only)
• Lossless AAC encoding (!)
• Links to go directly from your Music Library, to the iTMS to (apparently) get artist info, other songs, etc.

Free single of the week is definitely cool. They've also allowed authorization on up to 5 computers now, where it used to be three. They've also lowered the amount of times you can burn a single playlist to CD to seven from ten, but I think that trade-off is more than fair. And as far as I can tell, they're still committed to the $0.99 price-tag for each song. This is a relief, given that the record execs are already talking about jacking the price up.

I think that the DRM changes are very telling of Apple's attitude toward the service. They saw people using things like PlayFair to break their DRM, and what did they do? Did they clamp down with an iron fist? No, they concluded that these things were popular because people had more computers than authorization allowed to play music. That's a smart move.

Now I know that some people will never be happy until they can get the music they want in a non-DRM format, but that will never happen. DRM is a reality in the music business, at this point, and it won't go anywhere. So all we can hope for is that the DRM stays non-intrusive and reasonable. Apple's DRM is by far, the most transparent, and they're the company that's most in touch with what music lovers want, which is not to be treated like criminals.

The one article from MacObserver I read failed to mention the increase in computers that could be authorized, I'm rather relieved (I don't have a problem with the playlist thing since I don't burn CDs).

Line out > stereo > line to another computer.

EmperorMing wrote:Line out > stereo > line to another computer.

Exactly. Or simply burn to a CD and rerip in DRM-less AAC or MP3. Apple's measures are designed to prevent casual piracy, not stop the seriously determined people. Trying to clamp down hard on piracy is a fruitless endeavor. You're not going to stop the determined people, and if you try, you'll just end up making everything extremely inconvenient for the end user without actually accomplishing anything.

but is it finally compatable with my Sony MiniDisk?

then agian my PS2 oughta be compatable with my sony walkMD

My condolences that you use MiniDisk. Sony seems to be obsessed with it, even though it's obvious that it's not going anywhere.

I don't know why it's not popular besides the lack of support by others. The disks hold more info then MP3/Ipods, they don't skip like CD's do, and you can change out the disks for a cheaper cost...

now if only I could easily burn them....

MDs hold a lot less than HD-based MP3 players do (or even some of the higher-end flash players). No computer-based jukebox is really 100% compatible with MD -- and NetMD is something of a farce, anyways. DataMD never took off, either -- though I'd take that over Iomega's Zip Disc anytime.

MiniDisc is still big in Japan but never really took off in the US.