Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Dear Music Listener, iTunes Sucks.

I'm sorry, did I say that out loud? Allow me to reiterate: iTunes is slowly destroying music as we know it.
Say you want to buy that new David Bowie single, and you decide make your purchase on iTunes. When you click that button that says $1.29, you're buying more than an audio file, you're buying a DRM. 

 All of you non-musicians or technologically impaired, DRM stands for "digital rights management," and it is the epitome of all evil. Basically, a DRM is a digital lock that gets put on all music you buy from iTunes, Amazon, and Sony, that limits what you can do with your music. You can only put the song that YOU bought on a certain number of devices. If you're at your device limit (which is usually 4 or 5) and you try to put the song on another device, TOUGH LUCK, KID. Mr. DRM won't let you. 

 DRMs were created to help protect "the creative content of musicians," but the only thing that gets protected is a corporate wallet. DRMs also promote music piracy, which does in fact hurt the musician. If you want to read more about DRMs, the controversy, and how they effect you, click here.
The second reason why iTunes hurts musicians is payout. If I were to sell a song on iTunes right now for $0.99, I'd only ever see 26 cents. iTunes usually takes a whopping 70% or more of profits. This is almost as bad as music piracy and really hurts a lot of musicians. 

 "How can I get music without screwing over the musicians?" is what you should be asking yourself. There are two solutions:
1. Buy an actual CD or LP (vinyl). You have something physical, that is DRM free. iTunes gets to keep their greedy little hands out of your music. Personally, I buy everything on vinyl (the argument for vinyl will be a separate post).
2. I like having music on my iPhone, so I download my digital music from websites like Bandcamp, Soundcloud, or Beatport. There are alot of great musicians out there who put up their stuff for free, and many musicians who are on itunes also have their music on either Bandcamp or Soundcloud. 

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2 comments:

  1. UnknownJanuary 24, 2013 at 4:21 PM

    Surprising, I agree with you that itunes sucks! I was trying to get this Les Miserable music from itunes. It turns out that I have to pay for $1.29 plus tax for one song. At let's be honest, some of the music quality on itunes is NOT that good. I was trying to download this "Chinese pop music" from the store, and when I listened to the song, I can hear something weird in the background. I ended up go back to Shanghai and got a CD version.
    Well, I am just wondering if you know any great Online CD store? Cause here in NJ, there's not that many good CD/Record Stores.

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  2. UnknownJanuary 24, 2013 at 6:47 PM

    The Princeton Record Exchange is for you! Hundreds of new and used CDs and vinyl from around the world. Everything is also dirt cheap. I bought 6 LPs for around $25. Quite possibly my favourite place in Princeton. If you want to buy a hard copy CD, Amazon isn't the worst thing, just make sure you are NOT buying the MP3 version.

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