howly dog blog

sewingmachinesmusic:

howlydogblog:

What does it mean when I (recorded music junkie) want a file of the 25-minute long song “Impossible Soul” and not the rest of the album (“The Age of Adz”) and have all these options:

1. Pirate it (or the entire album) instantly; feel a small amount of guilt
2. Download the entire album off of iTunes…

Yes, iTunes is strictly for “Music Listeners Who Don’t Know (How) To Use Google.” I don’t know how much of the money goes directly to Sufjan per se, but I can tell you 30% of it goes to iTunes (Bandcamp, I believe, takes 20% or less). He also has to pay a distributer to get his tunes onto iTunes, either upfront or annually or they take another percentage. It’s actually a pretty shitty deal for the artist. However, they’re still the largest marketshare in digital music by a LOT (they make up ~65% of all money spent on music online; Amazon is in distant second with ~15%, and I have no idea where Bandcamp falls, but not in the top 5). Never underestimate the power of a business model sustained on ignorance. 

“Never underestimate the power of a business model sustained on ignorance.” Right.

I do still sometimes use iTunes, when it’s a kind of medium-sized (rather than small/local or Beyoncé-level) artist whose recordings I want and they aren’t available through a more direct paid or pay-what-you-want outlet. Basically iTunes is terrible though. Standard (i.e. bad) treatment of artists for one thing, and of course DRM nonsense and the fact that you essentially rent the rights to the file indefinitely, rather than purchasing the file, but also: clueless and unhelpful reviews/blurbs / it has nothing on Spotify or even Pandora as far as research/discovery is concerned / it has features no one is ever going to use ever. iTunes is the new Windows Media Player.