Apple MusicStore 'opinion article'

[Fran Dollinger]

  Please forgive the length of this post....I tried to send just a link 
but when I clicked on the link to returned "Item Not Found".
Mark is a columnist for the SF Chronicle (Morning Fix)
A little OT but thought maybe some might like to see it.... after having 
had all the Apple MusicStore posts....

Fran


== Mark's Notes & Errata ==
Where opinion meets benign syntax abuse

    Can't Get No $0.99 Satisfaction
    <http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2003/05/21/notes052103.DTL&nl=fix>
    Apple's iTunes music store: A rockin' revolution, or same ol'
    corporate song and dance?
    By Mark Morford

    Damn but how I'd love to believe that a nice hefty portion of the 99
    cents I just dropped in the wonderfully simple and elegant and
    it's-about-goddamn-time Apple iTunes Music Store
    <http://applemusic.com> for Björk's glorious "Bachelorette" is going
    straight into Björk herownself's orange fur-lined pocket. You know?

    Instead of where I know my money is really going, which is straight
    toward some Universal records exec's Range Rover payments, with the
    remainder right into the vault inside Steve Jobs' gold-trimmed
    bedchamber. And most likely not a single dime to the artist who
    wrote and recorded and sang the actual music.

    This is the tragic flaw, the biggest disappointment of Apple's
    much-vaunted service. It is the underlying unfair evil that, if
    you're at all aware of the music industry's long-standing vow to
    gouge your ass to high heaven and screw their own artists out of
    royalties and keep the prices of antiquated CDs artificially high
    and continue to promote slick prefab hit makers to the detriment of
    new, quirky, more talented indie acts, bites your attuned
    consumerist butt every step of the way. Apple could've gone for
    revolution. They settled for slight improvement.

    Oh but Apple did a fine job, on the surface. Leave it to a computer
    company, leave it to Apple, the masters of elegant design and clean
    interface and friendly user experience, to trump the music biz and
    launch the first successful pay music site and actually make you
    feel welcome, and appreciated, and not completely ripped off.

    No subscription fee. Any song, any artist, any genre, any length, 99
    cents. Entire albums for 10 bucks. Burn and share and transfer.
    Minimal and easily flaunted copy restrictions. It's genius. It's
    beautiful. I want to love it. But I can't.

    Normally I gush all over nearly everything Apple creates. I worship
    at the altar of the PowerBook titanium upon which I write this very
    column. The iPod is the gold standard for kickass MP3 players. The
    iMac is elegant quirky genius.

    But not this. This has a decidedly megacorporate taint, a distinctly
    snarling restrictive bent. Here's why: Most of the money you spend
    in the store goes straight into the record-biz corporate coffers.
    Maybe a few cents to the major artists who are lucky enough to have
    such a profit clause in their contracts, but for the most part, the
    old business model is still very much the same.

    Record companies rule, major artists get pampered, indie music gets
    ignored, technology barely advances. Sure you no longer have to buy
    an entire CD to get your favorite song. Very nice. But other than
    that, the corporate stranglehold largely remains.

    Bottom line: Apple's service is almost exactly the same as buying
    the CD at the store, only a bit cheaper, and more tech savvy. But if
    the money's still going to the same places, supporting the same
    outdated system, why should anyone care?

    Let's put it this way; If the choice is to download a particular
    song for free, or spend a buck on Apple's site, I'd probably choose
    the former. And why? It ain't the money -- it's the sense that the
    music industry has been ripping consumers like me off for years via
    inflated CD prices and ancient technology, and that my buck does
    nothing to change that. It's just like Big Oil -- if you had access
    to a secret stash of free gas, would you still go to the pump?

    And choice? Apple's site, unfortunately, isn't about choice. So far,
    they cater only to the most mainstream of music fans. This is the
    roster of a mere five major labels. There is no alternative music.
    There are no cool indie compilations, no underground, no small-label
    genius, no new voices. Hopefully this will change. Dramatically. Soon.

    Want the new Ani DiFranco? Maybe the latest sexy chill-out Hotel
    Costes compilation? Tosca's new "Dehli9"? Something by DJ Cheb I
    Sabbah or Perfume Tree or Fila Brazillia? Too bad for you. Not a
    wisp to be found. Gobs of Sheryl Crow and Sting and U2 and Celine
    Dion and Bon Jovi, though. Yawn.

    Claims are Apple's new service sold 2 million songs in its first two
    weeks of business. Wonderful and good and an encouraging sign indeed
    that the music biz is finally beginning to see the light of new
    technology, the potential for change.

    But my next dollar eagerly goes to the site that promotes the artist
    over the label, the music over the industry, a new and fairer
    business model over one that keeps true music lovers under the heel
    of litigious corporate hit factories. Simple, really.

    My hard-earned columnist money happily forks over to the service
    that doesn't make me feel like I'm still supporting an industry that
    treats me like a criminal for recording Net radio
    <http://http://streamripperx.sourceforge.net/> and burning my own
    CDs, that invests its billions in fewer and fewer talented upstart
    artists and more and more prefab "sure thing" arena acts, that sues
    the living hell out of a bunch of upstart college kids
    <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/30/BU82796.DTL>
    for running file-sharing servers.

    My next buck spent on the site where, say, the artists submit their
    own music and the service takes a small reasonable cut and the label
    takes a small reasonable cut and the artist gets a nice big cut and
    I can get any song for a buck and don't have to wade through the
    entire Fleetwood Mac catalogue to find it.

    Apple, can you? Please? Because everyone seems to like what you've
    done so far. But you could go much, much further ...

------------------------------------------------------------------------


-- 
Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
--Theodore Isaac Rubin