Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family, iTS
Forbes reacts to video iPod rumors
On the heels of the Wall Street Journal article that revealed Apple's intention to sell music videos in the iTunes Music Store, and possibly produce a video-capable iPod as early as this September, Forbes magazine has posted a reaction on its website. The article asks a question that I hadn't thought of: For years, music videos have been a popular way to advertise an artist or album, but haven't been very lucrative in and of themselves. You could argue that music videos spur record and concert ticket sales (did I really just type "record?" I'm getting old), but production costs could get very high, and aren't necessarily recovered, as with other forms of advertising. With Apple proposing a way to get consumers to pay to view these costly ads, you'd think record executives would be tripping over themselves to get this deal done.The article goes on to mention that piracy has negatively affected the amount of money available to produce and distribute music videos. Could Apple's plans help offset these losses? Talk about executives tripping over themselves. First the iTunes Music Store, the most sucessful solution to legally selling music on the internet, and now this. It looks like Apple could be setting themselves up to be the darlings of the music industry. Who knew?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
arkowi said 10:16AM on 7-19-2005
Dave, I'm 25 and have never owned a record or record player and I call albums records. I think a lot of people do. Stay true to your slang.
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Brian said 10:38AM on 7-19-2005
A reason this is even more tempting is that the artists pay for their own music videos. That means that sales of music videos could more directly benefit the artists. I'd be in support of that.
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Steve said 9:54AM on 7-21-2005
It looks like Apple could be setting themselves up to be the darlings of the music industry. Who knew?
And this from a company that is embroiled in an ongoing lawsuit with the Beatles Label Apple Records because at one time Apple Computer thought they would never really be involved in the music biz. Indeed, Who Knew.
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Kacy said 2:14PM on 7-19-2005
Music videos are paid for by the artist but much in the same way that most of the other promotion is. If a record recoups the cost of the video and other costs the artist is likely to see money. I don't think any solution being negotiated with the major labels is going to result in much money, if any, for the artist. It was also once said that iTMS would mean that artist would get a better hunk of the pie. But in my experience, it is still the distributors and the labels that get the biggest hunk of the wealth.
I am not convinced that listeners will suddenly be happy to pay for something that until this point has been a commercial for records. Will the videos be somehow different than what we can see for nearly free on MTV (MTV2, fuse, Vh1, BET etc)?
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Small Paul said 2:36PM on 7-19-2005
Yeah man. Records. It's even better now vinyl's rarer: makes it a more generic term.
Apparently, I really like generic terms.
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Brian said 4:46PM on 7-19-2005
I can't remember if I read it here or somewhere else, but along with videos, perhaps they will sell concerts, or clips from live concerts. That wouldn't take away from the actual ticket buyers...in fact it would add to it.
For instance, Garth Brooks made good music, but remember how his concerts made the music 10 times better. Those were good shows. If you could go to a show like that, then come home and buy some segments of it from the iTMS, that would be sweet.
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Wheels said 6:48PM on 7-21-2005
To me, talking about the video iPod and only having it relate to the selling of music videos seems to be a bit narrow minded, especially in light that almost every new home video release is either on DVD, or the new PlayStation Portable disk. There's something that I thought would never be embraced, watching movies on the small screen of a portable video game system. But, apparently, the industry is embracing the idea and the format. It's for that reason alone why Apple needs to move on a video iPod and a video distribution system like iTunes. Because the first successful - in terms of sales - format is going to leave unsuspecting companies in the dust. Apple got left behind with digital music until they were lucky enough to leapfrog over the competition with the iPod. They know that that was luck, and they know they can't lag behind again.
I think the new service will, at first, only sell music videos to get the infrastructure set up and, despite what Kacy says, I think there's a market for them. After all, have you seen a music video on MTV, or VH1, lately? I haven't Not only that, I can listen to my FM tuner for free, but I still download music from iTMS.
After selling music videos, I think the next step will be to offer movies. Actually, this progress will probably be hastened, if Apple hits another one out of the park as it did with the iPod and iTMS.
I hope that this all - the iPod, iTMS, and the video iPod/video service - will lead to one thing, the death of the laser disc (CDs & DVDs). The way I see things, I want a table top appliance with terabytes of storage that will be hooked up to my entertainment center and'll able to play music and video, downloaded from a massively fast internet connection, either from a computer & Wi-Fi or hooked up to the device itself. This device would be able to receive encoding and decoding software updates, so i would always be getting the most out of my video and audio files.
A perfect music source for my tube amplifier, now that's what I talking about!
HA! Tube amplification...now that's even more obscure than records! :)
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