Microsoft admits copying iTunes.

[Mac Reporter]

The New York Times reports:
Considering Microsoft's ITunes Store.
David Pogue

On Sept. 2, Microsoft unveiled its iTunes Music Store. That sentence may sound a little strange, but that is, in fact, what happened. The Microsoft music store (in beta at music.msn.com) couldn't look more like Apple's iTunes music store (itunes.com) if you ran it through a copying machine."Apple set the bar very high," a Microsoft manger admitted. "We're trying to match that. We told our developers, 'Look at how Apple does it.'"
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[El CaMOTe]

Do you think you can paste the article for those who do not want to go into the NYTimes ??

Cheers,

[Henjie]

Originally posted by El CaMOTe
Do you think you can paste the article for those who do not want to go into the NYTimes ??

Cheers,

Tom, just use "macnn" as the login/password. Courtesy of MacNN, of course. :-)


~Henjie

[tisha]

Originally posted by El CaMOTe
Do you think you can paste the article for those who do not want to go into the NYTimes ??

try http://www.bugmenot.com/

great site that let's you bypass registration.
been able to use it even for seemingly obscure sites.

[ultratramp]

here ya go tom.

Originally posted by El CaMOTe
Do you think you can paste the article for those who do not want to go into the NYTimes ??

Cheers,

Considering Microsoft's ITunes Store

Published: September 16, 2004

In Sept. 2, Microsoft unveiled its iTunes Music Store. That sentence may sound a little strange, but that is, in fact, what happened. The Microsoft music store (in beta at music.msn.com) couldn't look more like Apple's iTunes music store (itunes.com) if you ran it through a copying machine."Apple set the bar very high," a Microsoft manger admitted. "We're trying to match that. We told our developers, 'Look at how Apple does it.'"

The music is priced the same (99 cents a song, $10 an album) and comes with the same rights – the user can copy to 5 computers, burn up to seven copies of the same playlist onto CD's, and download to unlimited pocket players. You get the same 30-second previews for free, you use the same Genre pop-up menu for browsing, and you use the same sort of jukebox software to manage your music collection (Windows Media Player 10, which serves the function of Apple's iTunes program). And you get the same one-way auto-synching feature to a pocket music player.

The biggest difference is that these songs come in Microsoft's own copy-protected sound format, so they don't work with the Apple iPod. (Microsoft's format also plays only on Windows, whereas Apple's works on both PC's and Macs.) Microsoft's songs sync with 75 other players, but not the iPod.

Of course, the flip side of this point is that songs from Apple's store play ONLY on the iPod. In other words, Microsoft is running a simple multimillion-dollar experiment to force an answer to this question: If all other variables are equal (price, selection, features), which music system do people like better: Apple's or Microsoft's?

At the moment, it's not a completely valid test, because MSN Music is not, in fact, ready to compete head-on with Apple's store. So far, Microsoft has lined up the rights to only half as many songs -- 500,000 to Apple’s million. MSN Music also lacks a long list of Apple's convenience features: music videos, gift certificates, allowances for your kids, iMixes (playlists that you publish for the world to enjoy), and so on. (Microsoft says that it will eventually add these features.)

The MSN Music store does, however, have or plan a few cool features that Apple ought to consider. Some, like the ability to buy musical ringtones, are trivial -- but some are mind-blowing. For example, where Apple's store shows you lists of what's playing on individual radio stations around the country, Microsoft's service actually PLAYS those songs all day long. It's like listening to the radio station itself, but without the announcers, the ads and the repetition. If I were you, I'd enjoy this feature right now (it's free), before the lawyers descend like locusts and make Microsoft kill this feature.

Microsoft also claims to have albums by Radiohead, AC/DC, Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers that no other music service has. That's true, but there's a catch: you can't buy individual songs from these albums. You have to buy the entire CD's worth.

It's pretty obvious why Apple and its rivals chose not to list these recalcitrant artists at all. First, the ability to cherry-pick only the desirable songs is a hugely important feature of an online music store. Losing that right is a big setback for the consumer, and possibly the top of a slippery slope to less freedom and more money-grubbing by the record companies.

Second, Microsoft has now taken a step into the past. The earliest online music stores were exercises in frustration, because every song from every album came with different rights, explained to you by a jumble of confusing little icons that meant, you know: "Listen, but can't burn"; "Download to player, but no playing on the computer"; "Available for playing Thursdays after 4 pm," and so on.

With Apple-type stores, every one of the million songs has exactly the same, reliable rights. With Microsoft's approach, you may or may not be able to buy individual songs from an album.

In any case, Microsoft's site, derivative though it may be, looks nice and works well. For the Windows-only, non-iPod crowd, it joins Napster, Wal-Mart and others as a pleasant, if somewhat superfluous, addition.

[jor]

Can we buy songs from MSN? Or if not from MSN, from other sources? I'm dying to buy from iTunes but I don't have a US credit card/billing address.