The quote is a little backwards in your post! Apple is the one saying "This is what we want to do". I guess the doubly-nested quotes make that OK, but it seems a little awkward! :)

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Bad Apple? Please. The recording industry is evil incarnate. It's high time someone put them in their greedy money grubbing place. And don't get me wrong, competition is good however the recording industry is still looking for a way to return to the days where they can fleece the customer before the days of P2P. That's why they whine.

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Masterchappy:
irony (n): the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humourous or emphatic effect.

To the Record Industry:
Suck shit. Your archaic and outmoded organisation is doomed. Maybe now, we'll start to see not only the consumer get a fair go, but the artist too! Fancy that!!

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I'm a little worried that commercial media seems to love the idea of a market turn, which means competitors will have a publicity advantage when they finally introduce their products. Nothing wrong with that, I just hope that this won't make flawed products more popular than they should be.

Or, to rephrase: I hope this doesn't mark the end of the era in which Apple re-introduced the concept of becoming successful for having a superior product.

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Apple don't complain that Microsoft own over 95% market share of computers and the computer industry doesn't seem to mind either.

Long live iTMS!

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A couple of years ago, the recording industry was in shambles from all of its stupid mistakes (signing bad bands, not signing good ones, overcharging for albums, etc.) and so people turned to "sharing" music - on Napster.

So along comes Apple to explain to these morons why the entire world's music-buying public hates them, and to suggest a solution - selling songs online at affordable rates. It takes a LOT of convincing, but the desperate music industry finally concedes, and the iTunes Music Store becomes more wildly successful than can be imagined.

So now, the music industry thinks that Apple treats them like idiots. Guess what? Music industry people ARE idiots! And they will stop at nothing to try to drive prices up and continue to overcharge customers for bad product.
Proceed at your own peril, music industry weasels... because the customer will have the final say.

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Guess what? Samsung will win lots of market share! They said so! Know why this is likely to happen? Because when Sony was churning out not-all-that-great products, samsung started competing, and now the are more successful (if you measure success in how well people remember your name, as opposed to marketshare or revenue).

Seriously though, WTF. these are the same guys that think that they can stop piracy by DRMing CD's. I had to go into best buy for my friend and yell at them so I could return my CD (I told them that #1 it was false advertising, because they weren't using the Compact Disc standard for music, #2 here is my dell laptop. Now watch as I can't put it on iTunes, which is what ALMOST EVERYBODY USES THESE DAYS). Who the hell would make a CD that would be incompatible with the majority of mp3 players?

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Ya know, the iTMS will always get my money before the record companies, because the record companies put out cds I can't put on my iPod without going through a bunch of crap. That's not acceptable. Hell, I paid the iTMS $17.99 for the new Foo Fighters album that was selling in stores for $13.99 just because I knew it was copy-protected.
Until the music industry promises me every CD I buy can be ripped onto my iPod, iTMS it is. Hell I'll probably even stay with iTMS even if they were to do that--I like giving my money to Apple alot more than the record companies (and yes, I know alot goes to them, but Apple gets a profit).

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The record execs can't see that Apple's insistence on controlling the delivery and presentation experience is central to the success of iTunes. It's consistent and intuitive.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. As soon as the competition give record companies what they want, they will soon discover that their interface is a mish mash of undecipherable crud.

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Apple says "This is what we want to do" and music industry disagrees. Of course Apple means "this is what we want to do because that's what our customers want", and, of course, when has the music industry ever cared about what their customers want? They really think that their customers like getting sued for downloading music they want and not the music the industry shoves down the throat. And when we (the customers) find something we can like and use (i.e. iTMS), we are part of the cult. Thanks for insulting us again a*holes.

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nobody can sustain an 80 percent market share in a consumer electronics business for more than two or three years. It's pretty much impossible

What's Windows' share of the home market? 1995 was ten years ago, right?

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CNN is just towing the line for their parent company, Time Warner, because:

A: They own Warner Bros. Records, an old, die-in-the-wool record company who, like the rest of the record industry, sees any change in their monopolistic reign over consumers as "bad."

B: They are still bitter that AOL was able to pull one over on them, and was able to deliver to TW the biggest screwing ever. Therefore, TW would like to see any, and all, tech companies "burn in hell."'

'This is what we want to do,' and if you disagree with them you're an idiot. It's like dealing with a cult."' ... Seems like a pretty successful business model to me. It has worked for Apple for nearly 30 years.

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James Hare,
Let me get this straight. You refused to buy a CD in a store because it had so called copy protection on it. Instead you paid $4 more to download it from iTMS? Is your download different from mine? Because the last I checked, iTMS put copy protection on all its music. Plus you get it in an inferior format.

If you own a Mac, there is no such thing as copy protected CD's. The copy protection only works on Windows computers.

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There is a great story on the 8/19 episode of NPR's On The Media detailing how record companies leak artists tracks to "mix tape" djs in order to create buzz for their artists. So, for these folks to then turn around and shake the trees, cry foul and start taking kids to court is just utter hypocrisy.

They probably want iTMS to charge $18 per album like "the good ol' days." In my opinion their days are numbered and I'm glad. You don't need a record company as much as you used to and I'll be glad when those terrible-music-pushing whiners stop trying to limit every personal use freedom we have and just go away.

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Apple to record companies:
"Drop dead (already)"
- to this I say amen.

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Sorry, I didn't have time to read all the previous posts, so if this is the second time this opinion comes around, oops...

All that I hope is that the recording labels don't get angry enough that they pull out of itms and the likes and then create their own online stores (easy enough for them to do). This way they'd make tons of money, and they'd have tons more control.

Good Luck Apple Inc.

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"It's safe to say that nobody can sustain an 80 percent market share in a consumer electronics business for more than two or three years. It's pretty much impossible."

Hrmmm... tell that to Micro$oft.

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To Poster # 12:

Warner Music Group has been separate from the rest of TimeWarner for more than a year. Its a private company until the upcoming IPO.

As for AOL and Time Warner, that's the fault of TimeWarner itself. Many people at TimeWarner did not like the AOL people telling them what to do and making them cooperate with each other. AOL had the best chance to finally force the *synergies* out of the monolith that Steve Ross had promised shareholders back in 1989 with the original Time Inc. and Warner Communications merger but failed to deliver because everything in the TimeWarner empire is/was run like a private fiefdom.

For example, AOL couldn't force Time Warner Cable to give them a premiere tier as an ISP, and the rest of the TimeWarner management didn't force the issue. AOL owned a big chunk of TiVo. Time Warner Cable would not use TiVo hardware for DVR settop boxes nor license the TiVo GUI even though it is superior to anything shlockfest Scientific Atlanta offers.

And the accounting scandal allowed TimeWarner partisans to snatch control back away from the AOLers. Truth be told, TimeWarner should probably split up just as Viacom is planning to do next year because nobody wants to force all the divisions to work together and Richard Parsons doesn't seem to be interested in forcing them to do so either. Parsons could've raised an antitrust issue to block Comcast from acquiring AT&T Broadband until AOL was allowed as a billable ISP option for Comcast Cablemodem service, but he didn't. So much for the empty advertising statement from Comcast about how "more Americans choose Comcast Broadband than anyone else" that they tout.

And furthermore, AOL Music offers Apple's iTunes Music Store to its subscribers. And AOL is still part of TimeWarner.

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To Jeff: I'd rather listen to a m4a over a CD any day. CDs are grating and two dimensional, while m4as give a much pleasanter listen and a open, three dimensional sound stage.

To The Jeremy: "And the accounting scandal allowed TimeWarner partisans to snatch control back away from the AOLers" Thanks for making my point!

What happened with the two "synergies" was that AOL was lying about their net worth. A bad start to any merger, don't you think? especially when the ones making the false reports were the ones who were supposed to be the bigger company. AOL worth more than TW? C"MON! Credibility helps big time when mixing synergies.

"And furthermore, AOL Music offers Apple's iTunes Music Store to its subscribers. And AOL is still part of TimeWarner." Well, gee, couldn't that be because that ITMS does hold the largest part of the market, and AOL probably knows that ITMS appeals to the large majority of its subscriber base. If AOL blocked ITMS from being accessed over it's network in favor of AOL music, subscribers would leave in droves.

AOL got what it deserved in the merger with TW. And, actually, TW got what it deserved, too, because it went into the merger blind. Five minutes of Internet research by ANYONE would've brought out the fact that AOL liked to get funky with their financial numbers, and their real net worth was always far less than what they represented it to be. I hope that the people who told TW that merging with AOL was a good idea are now all flipping burgers at White Castle; that'd be perfect for their intelligence level.

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