Today iTunes hits its fifth birthday. That’s not really that amazing. What is amazing is how Apple prodigiously linked its popular iPod to an excellent e-store. And it’s not just another music store, but a store that dominates the online sales and distribution of music to upwards of 80% of the market!
Still 80% doesn’t mean iTunes is the only music store. With hundreds of millions of tunes sold each year there are some alternatives. Two that I use are emusic and the new AmazonMP3 store.
First, let’s take a look at emusic. It’s the place for those who don’t want to listen to or buy overplayed and over-hyped hits. They offer a quirky selection of music from indie to alternative to chill to everything else. This is where you’ll find the next big thing or listen to the big things from the past.
Some people come to emusic and are disappointed because they can’t find the latest from Usher, Britney Spears, Madonna, or any number of the rubbish-mouthed rappers. But emusic does have its share of artists considered top 40 such as The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and others.
While iTunes gives you one paltry free download per week, emusic gives you one per day! Plus every month they offer free sample tracks on featured artists. Last year I think I received over 400 free tracks from eMusic. Not all of them were great but they were free and it was an easy thing to simply delete the stinkers.
Another nice feature you won’t find on iTunes is emusic keeps a record of your purchases. If you mangle the file or lose your library you can download all your purchases again.
Best of all, emusic gives you Digital Rights Managed (DRM)-free MP3’s. Use them on any computer or device you want. Emusic only offers monthly subscriptions so the cost per download can go as low 15 cents! I buy the $15 per month package giving me 65 downloads per month (@ around 22 cents per download).
According to my iTunes playlist these are some the most popular tracks I play from emusic:
Enough - Frank Popp Ensemble
Overkill - Colin Hay (ex. Men at Work)
Silence Between Us - Bob Mould
Rock Me - Ike and Tina Turner
Set You Free - The Black Keys
(Now that I revealed to world my music tastes, let me remind you that I have over 10,000 tracks in my iTunes library. I’m all over the place in my music tastes.)
amazonMP3 has got the right thing down by going pure DRM-free MP3’s that load into iTunes and work on the iPod. The best thing this caused is it forced iTunes to move to DRM-free tracks. At first Apple tried to add 30 cents to the cost of the track for DRM-free, but later went to DRM-free for some of its catalog at the same 99 cent cost. Eventually, DRM-free tracks will be universal as this article from USAToday suggests. They report that “Apple now has 2 million songs from EMI and independent labels available without DRM, out of its 6 million-song catalog. Amazon offers 4.5 million DRM-free songs.”
Why are DRM-free tracks so important? Right now any track you buy from Apple has to be played on their iPod. But today we are finding more and more devices that will playback MP3’s. These include SmartPhones, photo-viewers, car stereos, and other devices.
The problem I have with AmazonMP3 is their interface. You can’t tell if you are in the music store or out in the general store. I wish they would develop a music store-only look to their site.
AmazonMP3 appears to be able to match iTunes with a full selection of the popular hits but my test is always in the “long tail” of off the beaten track tracks! So far iTunes has matched AmazonMP3 in terms of selection. I was able to find the same songs in both.
What this all means is the options available over the digital music world are not over yet. There is much more to be played out because consumers need more choices in terms of stores and tracks. For instance,
- More music/record catalogs needs to be made available. There are plenty of artists, albeit obscure, that haven’t made the iTunes store yet.
- Some tracks are worth more than others. If emusic can make money at 22 cents a track, why not open up the pricing at iTunes? Charge $3 or $4 for new hits while price the low volume ones for less than $1. Or vice versa. Charge less than $1 for the hits because of volume and more for the low volume tracks. Either way, market forces should apply to the pricing. I think the artists would appreciate this.
- Purchase rights need to be global. It’s very frustrating that music available in the U.K. can’t be purchased in the U.S. and vice versa.
So happy 5th birthday, iTunes. We can’t wait to see how you look when you’re ten!
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Would you like to learn more? You may:
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