MetaFilter posts tagged with iTunes and music

Twones is a multi-service music tracker.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:19:21 -0800

Twones is a music tracker that monitors Last.FM, YouTube, MySpace, iTunes, Muxtape, and a few other services. It's officially in private beta, but limited signups seem to have opened today (no guarantees as to how long that link will continue to work). It currently only works in Firefox 2.0 and up, as an add-on.

Ear candy for your eyes

OverlappingElvis — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:59:32 -0800

Apple's Album Art screensaver, recreated for Windows. I saw this on someone's Powerbook today and got jealous. Luckily, some developer decided to make this, for all the Windows users feeling left out.

Playsforsuren't

desjardins — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:18:50 -0800

The Day the Music Died The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [...] has also been warning anyone who would listen that they should not “purchase” encrypted music from these services, since if these services go under then all that “purchased” music will no longer… what’s the word… “play”. But mostly people ignored them (and me), because, you know, Microsoft was at the center of it all, and nobody ever got fired for “buying” from Microsoft.

The U2 iPod: Back when we were friends.

phaedon — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 08:00:33 -0800

Bob Lefsetz has been sharing his opinions on the music industry for years. In last night's newsletter, he announces, "Let the games begin!" - and indeed, let them. Universal Music has declined to re-sign to a long term deal with Apple, essentially leaving them open to exclusive deals with other services. The fact that Doug Morris (chairman of UMG) and Zach Horowitz (President of Universal's parent company, Vivendi) have been gearing up to loosen the stranglehold that iTunes has on online distribution is not exactly news. They've used similar tactics against Microsoft's Zune and YouTube. But with the release of the iPhone and following his well-timed decision to openly "share his thoughts" on DRM, not to mention his landmark deal with (perennial "armpit of the industry") EMI to sell their music DRM-free and at a higher cost - the real question is: is Steve Jobs ready to play hardball?

The Record Industry's Decline

geoff. — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 06:47:08 -0800

The Record Industry's Decline. "The record companies have created this situation themselves," says Simon Wright, CEO of Virgin Entertainment Group, which operates Virgin Megastores. Rosen and others see that 2001-03 period as disastrous for the business. "That's when we lost the users," Rosen says. "Peer-to-peer took hold. That's when we went from music having real value in people's minds to music having no economic value, just emotional value."

Apple's New Starmaking Power

nevercalm — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 07:32:00 -0800

Music's New Gatekeeper - From their Silicon Valley cubicles, Apple staffers have become music's unlikely power brokers.

Find out when your fave bands are playing your town.

dobbs — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:21:19 -0800

iConcertCal - The most awesomest iTunes plugin ever--tells you when bands you have MP3s for are playing your town. {via an email from this dude.}

Down with borders

mariokrat — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:24:49 -0800

Get your international pop tune fix. Slate has an article on the funky pop and rock gems available from the Japanese iTunes Store. From Straightener to NICO Touches the Walls, the Japanglophonic music scene is available to the whole world in the standard 30-second snippets, but the article hints at ways to buy songs for those located in other places. If you just want a crack at the weekly free downloads, you can take a crack at workaround and score yourself an account on any one of the 22 iTunes Stores. (via Macslash)

"Oh, I own that song?"

beaucoupkevin — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 07:07:50 -0800

Peter Gabriel has introduced a new iTunes plugin for Windows XP called The Filter. Using the All Music Guide in a fashion similar to Pandora, the software builds playlists from your library for you after you select a few tracks. Their marketing copy tells you that you should "Prepare to be reengaged and reinvigorated by your iTunes library."

OS X, WinAMP, and WMP versions are slated for the near future.

iNapsterTunes

mathowie — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 18:23:27 -0800

Musicast turns your iTunes (mac only) into a music sharing server that conveniently spits out a podcast feed for your friends to subscribe and download all your mp3s from. Download this quick before ~~the RIAA kills the server~~ something might happen to this wonderful app.

Linking to text is so passé

Firas — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 17:52:04 -0800

Rhapsody Distributes Their Music. So you're a blogger mentioning a song and wondering whether to link to iTunes or the Amazon album page? Link to Rhapsody: U.S. based listeners get to listen to 25 whole songs for free (per month).

Honey I've Got Rhymthms I Haven't Sued Yet: Ninja Tune's Matt Black on, among other things, doing business with iTunes

nthdegx — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:07:18 -0800

"The iPod’s a great product. However our experience in dealing with them, as regards licensing music for iTunes, has been quite depressing." Coldcut member and indie label Ninja Tune co-founder Matt Black in a pixelsurgeon interview about the new album, the relative relaxation on sample licensing, and iTunes. For another independent perspective on iTunes see The 99c Question - addressing the pressures on iTunes from major labels to raise prices.

An iTunes For The Rest Of Us?

meehawl — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:39:02 -0800

An iTunes For The Rest Of Us? Just for laughs I often flip through my (free subscription!) Stereophile magazine. You know, the one with the ads for the $12000 speaker wire and $5000 CD players. Imagine my surprise when I saw a preview of a new music service, MusicGiants, that is offering lossless music downloads for $1.29 each. Targeted to "audiophiles", MusicGiants is also selling its "SoundVault", which seems like some kind of Windows Media Center PC, albeit with a $10,000 price tag, and an ability to download the lossless tracks to some portable media players, with the notable exception of the iPod. Oh, and there's a $50 annual fee (!). Ho hum so far, but then I noticed that the service has significant buy in from most of the major labels, indicating that they seem to have developed some faith in the ability of Microsoft's DRM to shield their "top quality" downloads from pirates. My thinking on this is that if successful, it should prompt Apple to offer lossless downloads from the iTMS Service, if only because Apple likes to present a "high end" image, and having a competitor actively dissing iTMS by lumping it in, quality-wise, with "pirated music from p2p networks" has got to hurt.

the long tail of the poodle

Silky Slim — Tue, 10 May 2005 03:36:08 -0800

Did Frank Zappa invent the iTunes music store?
from zappa.com:
"Every major record company has vaults full of (and perpetual rights to) great recording by major artists in many categories which might still provide enjoyment to music consumers if they were made available in the right way. MUSIC CONSUMERS LIKE TO CONSUME MUSIC . . . NOT PIECES OF VINYL WRAPPED IN PIECES OF CARDBOARD."

Nokia vs iPod

costas — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 10:12:35 -0800

Nokia's iPod killer. Nokia today introduced their new N-series multimedia-centric phones (dropping the 4-digit model numbers they've been using for ever). The N91 in particular looks like it's shooting straight for the iPod crown: 4GB hard drive, 3G, global GSM, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, USB mass storage, FM radio and a claimed 12.5 hrs of battery time. The N90 isn't too shabby either.

Hitch-Hiker's guide to iTunes

Mwongozi — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 15:03:09 -0800

iTunes Music Store users can listen to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to, Blogging, Deadlines, How to be cool, and Technology. And various other cash-in tracks.

The Music Never Stops

terrapin — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 06:06:03 -0800

While the Grateful Dead were pioneers in the sharing of music, it wasn't too long ago that fans had to meet in-person with other DeadHeads at taping parties to grow their library of "bootlegs." In the late 1990s when CD burners became more prominent, The Dead again led the way. They went on record to say that fans were still welcome to copy, share and trade their music as long as no money changing hands—including no advertising on web sites with downloads. Yesterday, the band again made history when they announced they are releasing the contents of their vast vault electronically (and simultaneouly) on iTunes Music Store and their very own Grateful Dead online store, the latter making the songs available in mp3 (128 and 256kbps) and FLAC .

Digital Jazz

josephtate — Sat, 14 Aug 2004 00:12:43 -0800

Jazz in 2500? iTunes versus Preservation: "The digital music era should offer listeners more information about jazz, not less. The stakes are high. If jazz fragments into millions of digital files, future generations could be left with a maddening cultural jigsaw puzzle. This music could quickly become one of the mysterious art forms that is translated to the public by a small group of experts." (via ArtsJournal.com)

Should Apple be forced to open up iPod and iTunes?

tgrundke — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 15:21:07 -0800

Real and France's Virgin claim that they deserve to be able to sell their music on Apple's iPod. To prove they're serious, Virgin Mega has filed a complaint against Apple to do so. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but last I checked it wasn't anybody's responsibility to open up their product or service to purposely allow the competition in. That is, of course, unless the government steps in. Are Real and Virgin Mega just being whiny little brats, angered that they're not invited to the party? What are legitimate reasons for the legal system to get involved and to rule in favor of such plaintiffs? While the obvious Microsoft may come to mind, are there other examples you can think of? As for me, I'd like to hand out copies of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" to both Real and Virgin Mega...

Hey Mama.

Down10 — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 14:39:16 -0800

Apple iTunes 4.5 was released yesterday, bringing with it several nice new features, such as a live-updating "Party Shuffle" playlist — as well as not-so-nice features like attaching Music Store links to every artist and album in your library (I turned this off immediately). As for the iTunes Music Store itself, Apple has integrated its QuickTime features of music videos and movie trailers (this is related to music how?), shopper-created "iMixes" and for this month, a new "Free Track of the Day," a questionable asset being that today's artist is Avril Lavigne. ...Perhaps you'd rather have an album sung entirely with "meows".

It's oh so quiet...shh...shhh

marzenie99 — Fri, 06 Feb 2004 10:59:35 -0800

Hey, shut up, I can't hear! What else will 99¢ get you from the iTunes Music Store? Nothin', that's what.

And euery nyght he perchit hym In myn ladyis chaumbyr

homunculus — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 17:28:44 -0800

"I Have a Gentil C**k." A rooster that is, but Apple may not have realized that when they altered the title on iTunes (iTunes link.) The song (sample: Real Audio, Windows Media), arranged by Carol Wood, is a 14th-15th century medieval love song, a variation of the aube. It may have inspired Chaucer's description of Chantecleer in the Canterbury Tales. [Via Digital Medievalist, SFW unless you work for Apple.]

Spare Any Loose Change For An Innovator?

Blue Stone — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 12:32:21 -0800

The hugely popular iTunes is a success story. But not for Apple, which makes virtually no revenue from the online download service. "When that 99 cents leaves your wallet, the RIAA monopoly swallows most of it, and the credit card companies swallow the rest. As the supplicant in this relationship, Apple is left holding the can." Steve Jobs - "We would like to break even/make a little bit of money but it's not a money maker,"

iTunes iSbogus

kirkaracha — Tue, 26 Aug 2003 16:17:48 -0800

"iTunes iSbogus, just a shiny new facade for the ugly, exploitative system that has managed music for the past 50 years." says Downhill Battle's parody of Apple's web site. [via MacNN]

iTunes 4 + iLeech = Napster

capndesign — Wed, 14 May 2003 10:16:19 -0800

iTunes 4 + iLeech = Napster. iTunes can stream songs over the internet right now. With iLeech or iTunesDL (direct download link, no info available) you can download files from other iTunes 4 users. With ShareiTunes and Spymac Music you can search for available iTunes libraries. Now you have access to hundreds of thousands of songs. Will this mean big trouble for Apple or were they planning for this?