Christiane Martin's List: iTunes/music survey

• The Copyright Royalty Board has handed Apple and other online music store operators a big victory, as it has decided to keep the royalty rate the same for physical media and "permanent" (nonsubscription) music downloads. The decision, which was handed down Thursday afternoon, defines the mechanical rate terms for songwriters and publishers as 9.1¢ for physical products (like CDs), as well as music downloads, mitigating fears that significantly raised rates might force the closure of popular online music stores.

• iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside the higher quality iTunes Plus versions when available. In addition, iTunes customers can now easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums.

• What is iTunes Plus?

   

  iTunes Plus is the new standard on iTunes. iTunes Plus downloads are songs and music videos available in our highest quality 256 kbps AAC audio encoding (twice the audio quality of protected music purchases), and without digital rights management (DRM). iTunes Plus music can be burned to CD as many times as you need, synced to any AAC-enabled device (such as iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV), and played on any Mac or Windows computers you own.

• I just downloaded the Slumdog Millionaire soundrack for $8.99 and it came automatically in Plus format. The files themselves are considerably bigger than the average previous iTunes download and the quality is quite nice. Most importantly, however, there is now a “create MP3 version” selection when you right click on the song.

   

  iTunes Plus is now standard and free for most music.

   

  

   

• This sounds like a good deal, until you read the fine print.

   

  
  Here’s what iTunes offers me to upgrade.

• In February 2009, a Tiscali UK survey found 75 percent of the American public polled were aware of what was legal and illegal in relation to their file sharing. However, there was a divide as to where they felt the legal burden should be placed; 49 percent of people believed P2P companies should be held responsible for illegal file sharing on their networks, 18 percent viewed individual file sharers as the culprits, while 18 percent either didn’t know or chose not to answer.^[44] In the same survey, 60 percent of people reported downloading music because of a limited budget. A common attitude concerning music downloading was that of ‘why should one pay for something when they can get it for free?'

• reflect press release official milestones as published by Apple on their website.

   

• The survey of 1,000 fans also shows that many14 to 18 year olds are now streaming music regularly online using services such as YouTube and Spotify.

  At the same

  time less than a third of teenagers are now illegally downloading music, the survey suggests. In January this year 26% of 14 to 18 year olds admitted filesharing at least once a month compared with 42% in December 2007.
• time less than a third of teenagers are now illegally downloading music, the survey suggests. In January this year 26% of 14 to 18 year olds admitted fil

• The research revealed that many teenagers (65%) are streaming music regularly, with more 14 to 18 year olds (31%) listening to streamed music o

  n their computer every day compared with music fans overall (18%).

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