Page 230 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

The Tunes Effect | 0

naPster
Apple’s iTunes and other services supported by the major record companies are intended
to replace unauthorized services such as Napster and subsequent peer-to-peer file trading
services. Napster was released on the Internet in August 1999 and functioned as a music
search engine. Napster featured an online database of song titles and performers search-
able by keyword, and linked participants to a huge and constantly updated library of music
files (all files provided by users, without authorization by record companies). Napster also
relied on MP3 files, which contained no protection against copying. Between February and
August 2000, the number of Napster users rose from 1 million to nearly 7 million, making it
the fastest-growing software application ever recorded. The major record companies filed
suit against Napster, claiming it was a music piracy service, and the service was shut down
in July 2001. However, CD sales in the U.S. rose 4 percent in 2000, when Napster was at its
height, indicating that users often sampled music on Napster before purchase.

Apple continues to maintain tight control over the creation, manufacturing,
and distribution of its products, leading critics to charge that the company is
more concerned with maintaining the market dominance of their costly and
highly profitable players than with allowing an open market for digital music.
The company has refused to make iTunes software compatible with music play-
ers from other manufacturers. MP3 files may be converted to Apple’s proprietary
AAC format, but songs purchased from other services, such as Napster, will not
play on iPods. If a user wants to shift from an Apple player to a rival brand, he
or she must replace all the music they downloaded from the iTunes store. As The
Economist put it, “It is as though a person’s entire record collection worked on
only one brand of gramophone” (“Apples Are Not the Only Fruit,” 2006).
In addition to tethering Apple users to its proprietary formats, the rights of
users can be altered at any time at Apple’s discretion. The Apple system initially
allowed downloads to be burned onto 10 consecutive CDs; after that, their order
must be rearranged to prevent widespread copying. In May 2004, Apple reduced
the number of CD copies from 10 to 7, while raising the number of playback
devices from 3 to 5. The system also detects and blocks similar playlists, and
does not allow songs to be edited, excerpted, or sampled except exclusively on
Apple’s terms.

musiC as a sErviCE, raThEr Than a ProDuCT

To date, three primary approaches to authorized music delivery have devel-
oped:

• The à la carte model used by Apple, in which customers buy individual tracks.
After downloading, the songs can be copied (with restrictions) onto portable
players and burned onto CDs.
• The subscription model used by Emusic, in which customers pay a monthly
fee and download a specified number of songs per month. Subscribers to