Sony, Microsoft vs Apple
p2pnet.net News:- Bill Gates has declared virtual war on Apple’s domination of the insignificant online corporate music market.
Or as The Times phrases it, Gates is, “openly suggesting that his Microsoft could team up with Sony to get the world’s rock and pop fans to whistle to a different iTune.”
In an interview in today’s Wall Street Journal, Gates said Sony and MS could benefit from a broad partnership in digital entertainment, both having “a lot of incentive to work together” in digital-music “infrastructure,” including online-music services and protection against improper music copying, says the story.
“We’ve got to get to the point where people see the choice – the choice of how they buy and the choice of the device they use – as being a huge plus,” Gates is quoted as saying.
“In September a Japanese newspaper reported that Apple had offered Sony a partnership in the iTunes Music Store, which was rejected,” states the Times, adding, “But Sony has said recently that it is prepared to be more open, acting upon that by allowing its iPod-rival, the Network Walkman, to play MP3s in addition to music encoded in its proprietary ATRAC format.”
The entertainment industry has yet to come to terms with the fact it’s now operating in the digital 21st century where p2p technologies will inevitably become primary product delivery, marketing and sales vehicles. Instead, the major studios and the members of the record label cartel are spending millions, if not billions, of shareholder dollars in a vain attempt to crush online file sharing which, they claim, is devastating their businesses.
At the same time, they’re reporting record revenues.
In the meanwhile, music lovers, unwilling to pay rip-off prices for the same low-fi mp3s offered by the same corporate online music sites supplied from the same scant catalogues boosted by the Big Four record label cartel, continue to ignore the likes sof iTunes, instead flocking to the p2p networks for their sounds.
Apple recently boasted it had sold its 200 millionth song since it opened iTunes as a loss leader for its iPod towards the end of 2003.
That seems a lot, until you consider the average number of people simultaneously logged on to the p2p file sharing networks at any given moment increased from 6,255,986 in October to 7,452,184 in November, says Big Champagne.
Over the same period the number of users on p2p networks in the US went from 4,435,395 to 5,445,275.
The number of people logged on to p2p file sharing networks simultaneously grew to nearly 10 million in April 2004, a 30% increase from the same period a year earlier, says an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study.
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See:-
virtual war – Gates suggests music deal with Sony, Times Online, January 6, 2005
loss leader – iTunes sells 200 millionth song, p2pnet, December 16, 2004
10 million – P2p file sharing is increasing, p2pnet, January 4, 2005
January 6th, 2005 at 5:34 pm
Does the author consider that many of these “new p2p users” are in fact record companies seeding the p2p networks with crap files in an attempt to prevent real p2p users from sharing their files?
While I would agree that the number of p2p users has increased, it’s just my opinion. Unless you can provide accurate numbers of “users” of the p2p networks, the comparison between the number of people using iTunes (and other legal music networks) and p2p is invalid.
January 6th, 2005 at 5:40 pm
Standard operating procedure for Gates and MS. Wait for someone else to innovate. Then pounce. Sad, really.
January 6th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
Just more DRM. DRM Sucks. Don’t buy it. Go and buy 2nd hand CDs and rip them yourself. Or use your favourite Russian download site. Or whatever. But don’t buy DRMed content.
Not that enough people will listen.
January 6th, 2005 at 8:46 pm
If they would just sell an almost lossless unDRMed product at a 35¢ to 45¢ price point they could have it all. What they loose in price they could more than make up in volume. Hell, they could put the P2P networks out of business.
January 7th, 2005 at 2:16 pm
what business exactly.. ? They don’t make money, besides proliferating spyware and adware…
I mean.. oops.. there are no downsides to sketchy p2p networks…
Seriously.. the business comment.. these are not businesses.. they’re projects