NYTimes: 22 Songs Per iPod

I personally don't like buying iTunes tracks, both because of the DRM and the idea of having a physical CD collection. I'd say in the last year I've probably purchased something like 17 cds. Most have been out of their package twice, once on the ride home and once to rip it into iIunes (320 kbps/mp3). Once I have it on iTunes i can use it on my iPod, or my mp3 phone if i wish, or any other medium i want. Can't say that about DRM'd music.

Well besides the possible assumption that every iPod ever produced is still in use. there is also another limitation.

Although there are many iTMS users all over the world the service is not available in every country.

Where I live there is no iTMS
and yet there must be hundreds of thousands of iPod users.

I think maybe some iTunes shoppers own multiple iPods. I for one own several iPods and have *GASP* loaded my iTunes purchases on all of them. Please don't tell the RIAA. I'm sure they would want me to purchase a copy for each.

teh iTunes store is the biggest waste of money ever. allofmp3 is still allowing ppl to download. i've been purchasing music from there like a mad man before the russian government poisons the owners and proprieters to death.

oh, and ripping CDs is where its at.

in conflusion: you are stupid if you buy from the itunes store

I buy one-hit wonders or 2 or 3 songs by one artist from iTunes if that is all that I want of their catalog. I buy CDs (mostly from Amazon) when I want the whole album. The price is sometimes exactly the same but for 2-3 dollars more a physical backup that I can rip at a higher bit rate is well worth it. Occasionally I will buy an album on iTunes if the CD price is way higher.

Almost all the music on my iPod is legal. In fact, the iTunes store has greatly increased my interest and purchases of music.

Now.....

I think it is high time to recognize the fact that most of the music on Zunes is stolen! In fact, they are just repositories of stolen music. ;-)

I wonder what Blowhard Ballmer is doing to keep Zune buyers from downloading music from P2P networks? Or do only iPod owners steal music?

I buy loads of music - CD, vinyl and downloads from eMusic. Apple's irritating DRM is a showstopper for me. Plus, the fact is, generally I want to have the option to be able to sell my music on at some point (unlikely that I will, but it is nice to have the option). So, yes, I prefer physical media.

The figure (or iMatt's lower figure) sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Maybe I'm just a cynic, too used to Britain's high-price/low-quality culture, but I mostly refuse to buy from the shiteTunes Store. My iPod is full of music I've ripped from my own CDs, free podcasts and (ahem) CDs I've borrowed from the local library.

Like stuuu28 says, all Apple have to do is offer lossless downloads and they'll get at least some of my trade.

There is also a compound interest aspect. I buy an iPod (+22 songs). Then I buy a shuffle to work out with (+22 songs). Then it's time to upgrade to a video iPod (+22 songs) and so on. so the real number of songs sold to one person may be higher than just the number of songs sold per iPod.

ok, whatever...

Well, here in Colombia, iPods are in expansion and are the new wow, of course there is no iTS for my country or even Latin America, so we have our cd's, rip 'em an go!, but guess what?, CD's here are unbelievable expensive so... use your imagination. On the other side, I'm doing my math, so far iTunes has sold 1 billion (and counting) songs and there are 60 millions(and counting) iPods sold, so if we can subtract the iPods sold in countries where iTS doesn't exist, we have about, oh, let's say 45 millions iPods sold: so we have about 22.2 songs per ipod, umm that's makes me think a lot...