Teens Don't Buy Legit MP3s Because They Can't? 365
iSeal writes "According to a recent study, 13-17 year olds are both the most likely to pirate music, and also the most likely to own a portable MP3 player. Yet, as this article goes on to say, the lack of credit card ownership prevents teens from buying music online. The author maintains that since regular record shops don't sell MP3s, or gift cards to places that do sell MP3s, its practically impossible for teens to buy legit MP3s on their own. From the article: 'If the only way to obtain music online continues to be through illegitimate means, then we are no better off than in the days of Napster.'" I'm not sure I agree with some of the conclusions here (you can buy iTunes cards at Walgreens), but it's an interesting discussion.
well then (Score:4, Funny)
Clearly, the only solution is for the RIAA to start providing teenagers with credit cards. That can't possibly go wrong.
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Re:well then (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's like arguing that listening to the radio first results in lost
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See how stupid that sounds? What's troubling is that in the future it may well be feasable; billions of nanorobots that can build nanorobots or anything else, and anyone can have anything they want (Star Trek replicators?).
It will end poverty. And you bastards will fight it tooth
Re:well then (Score:5, Interesting)
In the US, I have noticed a trend since the 60s and 70s to make more "normal" things illegal, and it makes the tension between the system and the government and the people very high. Abraham Lincoln said it best:
"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things
that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Which was then followed up by HS Thompson:
"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
So much is illegal, but its not "that illegal", and that is crap. In societies where sex, alcohol, and drugs don't have these insane and intense laws and taboos against them, they do less of them than here. In societies where pornography and nudity are more tolerated, they have much less rape, child abuse, and teenage pregnancies than we do. In societies where drugs are legal, they do less of them than we do. And the legal consequences keep getting more severe here.
Back to MP3s, I think its completely stupid that after 10 years of them being around that its still basically illegal to get them. I just got an iPod, and nobody told me that I couldn't just put MP3s on it. What Apple did, was pretty slick to appease the record business, but its a PITA that I have to go through hoops to put my legal MP3s on it from multiple computers. Honestly, if I knew this from the beginning I wouldn't have bought it. I will never buy "legal" MP3s from "legit" sources, because my freedoms will be limited even more. Instead, my plan for new music is to buy used CDs, rip them, and sell them back. And even that takes a bunch of silly effort. I have so much music, and its a pain to manage it between my home, my car, and work, and elsewhere.
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Huh? I've never had a problem putting MP3s on it from multiple computers. The only thing you have to go through hoops for is to copy MP3s *OFF* the iPod; however there are plenty of free utilities (Senuti, etc.) for doing this.
Also, you have to reformat a Mac iPod for Windows (fat32) in order to use it on both platforms... But as far as putting MP3s on it from multiple computers, there are no obstacles for
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Anyway, I use GTKPod on a few different Linux machines and Yamipod on a few Macs to sync up/trade music with friends (I keep mine HFS+ formatted).
Re:well then (Score:5, Informative)
If you set the iPod to manually manage music, you can use it on as many computers as you wish without a problem. Heck, you can even copy DRMed iTunes tracks from a number of different authorized machines to it, and it'll play them all without a problem.
Please, stop circulating FUD just because you don't know how to use the software.
-Z
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Many teens don't think of legally downloading music as pirating music
Are you part of the pigopoly, or have you just been brainwashed by them? Stop calling a spade a "pointy shovel". It's copyright infringement, not "piracy".
wrong (Score:2, Funny)
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Almost as stupid as trying to market towards a demographic that doesn't have jobs or money. Gee... Who do I know who would do a thing like that?
DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Rhapsody? iTunes? Can't do that.
Only independent websites (e.g. magnatune.com) have the decency to give you something worth paying money for.
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Re:DRM (Score:5, Funny)
Where I buy all of my mp3's from I can do jsut that....DRM free
Bartron
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No amex either :)
It seems odd that it's like that on allofmp3. Perhaps in Russia MC has higher fees that Visa. Most countries though seem to lump Visa and MC together so there's no real difference what card you have, they're both accepted equally.
In the UK, a retailer who wants to start accepting cards usually is offered the following:
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I want to be able to download music, in a format of my choice, at a reasonable price, and have the artists compensated adequately.
This is a rea
More productive research (Score:5, Interesting)
Debit Cards (Score:5, Informative)
Not the same in the US?
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We're not letting them in until they pay the tax on that tea
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(Yes, I know you can get e.g. Visa debit cards.)
Re:Debit Cards (Score:4, Insightful)
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In America, we don't have a Switch/Interacc type of debit card. Anything issued by a bank is Visa or Mastercard branded. I thought it was completely bizarre when I lived in Canada for three years and they'd done it the other way. I couldn't figure out why anyone would think it was a good idea to introduce a new, incompatible card type.
So, to answer your question, any UK site accepts my debit card, because to them it looks like I'm using a Mastercard c
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In the UK, the reason is historical. In the '70s, there were three credit card suppliers; Access, Mastercard and Visa. Visas were only issued by Barclays (Barclaycard and Visa were synonymous when I was growing up). Mastercard was predominantly a US brand, and was quite uncommon. Access
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Actually, we do... your debit or credit cards probably have logos on the back like Star, Plus, Cirrus, Instant Cash, Interlink, etc. Those are debit networks, and when you use your debit card at a store and they give you the option to enter your PIN instead of signing, they're trying to get you to use those networks instead of the Visa/MC network (which charges higher fees). Before the Vis
Re:Debit Cards (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Debit Cards (Score:5, Insightful)
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Besides, I don't buy the whole "no credit card" thing, unless they really mean that they can't overspend and run up huge debt by buying more than they can afford. Debit cards (aka Visa Check Cards) are given out like candy at all the banks I know.
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WTF? (Score:2)
How is it possible to run up debt from a debit card?
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traded tapes of your music. I recorded many of tape,LP and then CD later when I was 18 and they showed up on the scene. well out of highschool and into college.
mp3 trading is 100% identical to trading tapes of your music. and is only getting attention because the RIAA has a bug up their butt and it's easier to share that mp3 with 60,000 of your friends.
I dont care if a kid has a $100 a week allowance, he/she will still trade mp
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Just as in the UK and US, iTunes Store cards are easily available in Australia (i
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Of course some banks, like the NAB (my bank), don't even offer this style
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I'm not sure what tip you are referring too, but you're welcome ;-)
I see no contention in your post. My point was that of those that would/might be inclined to purchase probably won't because the current system available to them lacks immediacy, is a hassle, and necessitates purchasing large (in their view) lumps of credit.
I agree that a lot of people probably would acquire their music through illegal means regardless of the ease of purchase as I noted in the final line of my original reply.
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What bothers me the most about these messages is that you can't skip them even though you have already PAID FOR THE DVD! It's ironic that people who use P2P to download movies ripped from DVD's will never see the message so all the message does is annoy the paying customer.
OT: [Re:Debit Cards} (Score:2)
The closest thing to trouble with it, that I had was I was in Norway and used it to get a cash/kroner advance at an ATM. After I got the money, I paid it off.
But the card had a policy that you get a 5 dollar fee if you have not paid off the cash advance + interest, completely. They calculated new interest everyday so by the time you received the bill, paid it, and th
They don't buy MP3 files because nobody sells them (Score:5, Insightful)
It explains ring tones at least (Score:4, Insightful)
iTunes gift cards (Score:4, Informative)
You also need to have an iPod and iTunes.
*This isn't strictly true as you could buy the bottle for the voucher and give away the drink, or not drink it at all
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This is really not about lack of funds, but about limited funds and opportunity costs. Listening to the average kid, they want all the music that is popular. However, there is not enough money to buy all the popular music, and making choices is not so easy at an early age. To solve this, the kids buy copied music for $4 instead of legit music for $12. $12 represent to
I disagree (Score:4, Informative)
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The first step to this "budgeting" is to realize what You need to live Food, Shelter, Heat, Water, these things you always need to make sure you have enoug
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They want teens to buy CDs, DVDs and games by getting hold of as much of their part time job or parents money as possible. That's why the losses to piracy figures
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I guess that really doesn't fly with me. Yes, I do think that marketing is definitely high-pressure, but that doesn't mean absolve people of personal responsibility. I'd much rather people stand up and say "I pirate music because I don't want to pay for it" than to try and pass the blame on to society.
Yes the piracy losses figures are a joke, but that doesn't
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Summary: I believe teens just don't have enough money to entertain themselves in all the ways they'd prefer. Music is easy to get for free, so they pirate.
Was there a request for validation or suggestion that his reasoning was just? No. Ok, so back off.
Re:I disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you purchase a car, and it's sitting in your drive
I don't buy MP3s because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't buy MP3s because... (Score:4, Insightful)
- E. C. Stanton
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Really? Where's that - I need to knock it off the list of "places I might like to live"?
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Re:I don't buy MP3s because... (Score:4, Informative)
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Oh yes, the problem of paying. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, I'd buy a lot of stuff online. If only paying for the stuff wasn't such a great big pain.
Why is it that international banking is such a great big headache? When the money or goods - virtual or not - cross the borders, everyone seems to be grabbing part of it, if not the governments then the people who transfer it?
Why isn't there a simple, universal, reliable, regulated method for transferring money internationally, no matter how big or small sum? A simple service you'd get automatically when you open a bank account, anywhere, in any bank in the world?
Because people go for the "it works for me" kind of approach. To American companies, credit card "works for me". As long as there's a stopgap measure that covers 85% of who they consider their market segment at the time, there's no problem. They just happen to ignore the tons of people who silently mutter "well, I'd love to get this, but I can't".
Sure, I'd love to buy music. I'd love to buy tons of music. I use Linux and have a (non-Visa-logo) Visa Electron. No iTunes for me? Well, looks like I'm still sticking to ocremix.org and remix.kwed.org for my music needs, then, it's not like other people are producing much music worth listening to anyway.
There used to be some sort of non-DRM MP3 store that had grand total of two songs available and required SMS messages as payment. That rocked. Yay. Too bad they never went past the pilot phase. Would have been the perfect model.
Think of Google. They went for the "long tail" thing - index every nook and cranny of the web, make web advertising easy for small sites, both as advertisers and as advertising space sellers, and make life easy for advertisement viewers too. Then think of search engines of 1996. Small indexes, tons of big-name advertisers, ludicruously priced annoying ads, "let's just focus on the big sites because that's where the money is". That didn't go too far, now did it? And where's Google now?
(Not saying Google Money Transfer would be a particularly good idea - PayPal is a private company and has a lot of problems not found in banks. Not saying Google should necessarily go to the music store business either. =)
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Perhaps you work on getting the Linux and Open Source community more open to the concept of allowing DRM, and not making it as evil the Devil. Because God forbid people actually making money off their labo
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I guess this has been explained tons of times already, but here goes: Random Linux users probably don't care if there's DRM or not. Random Windows or OS X users probably don't care if there
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The reason there's no open-source DRM software is not because the content companies are short-sighted or too dumb to make "good" DRM algorithms. It's because open-source DRM
iTunes & MP3s? (Score:5, Insightful)
iTunes is selling MP3s? Since when? Last i heard they where only selling DRM encumbered stuff (which is the reason i personally haven't bought anything from iTunes
International Teens (Score:3, Interesting)
It's too bad CDs aren't around anymore (Score:5, Funny)
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Yup, I remember those days too... $20 a disc, for a CD that is 66% empty, which has exactly one song on it you actually like.
Those were the days.
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"Where the hell does everyone get the "$20 for 1 good song and a bunch of fillers" thing from."
Why, from the Big Book of Piracy Rationalizations, of course! Here's the TOC:
a more important cause (Score:2)
so buy a debit card... (Score:2)
Er... (Score:2, Insightful)
How does that help someone who owns a portable MP3 player? (As distinct from an iPod)
not just teens (Score:2, Insightful)
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Otherwise it's just an excuse.
The solutions (Score:2)
Another option would be to push use of prepaid credit cards (basicly, those cards that you get and load up with a certain amount of money and can then be used like a credit card) or debit cards (credit cards that take the money straight out of your bank account). Unfortunatly, for some stupid reason, you have to be over 18 to get prepaid credit cards or debit cards too.
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Maybe this is the credit card companies' fault? (Score:3, Insightful)
The question is how to do it. Being old, I remember when credit card companies had "learner's" college accounts with limits like $200-$400. Maybe the companies have become so insanely greedy sending out applications for $10K-$20K limits for people's dogs that they just don't want to be bothered with miniscule accounts that train young people to be responsible? But they should.
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Keeps you from spending money you don't have.
They sell it where I always go, (Score:2)
Prepaid debit cards (Score:2)
Haphazard article... (Score:2)
Broader issues (Score:2, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight (Score:2)
So you're saying that kids who (most of them) cannot drive a car, must go to a STORE, so they can go back home to buy things ONLINE. Why not just GO TO A LOCAL MUSIC STORE (while there are still some left).
No. Here's a better solution. Apple or somebody has to set up either prepaid accounts that parents can initiate for their kids, or quotas that their kids can't bypass.
Not exactly true (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple should be happy, because that seems to be where the majority of her money goes (and yes I have regular backups in place for her computer).
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Re:Maybe tens simply lack the money? (Score:5, Funny)
Lousy parent! (Score:2)
Given the time of year, I'd highly recommend one of the sweeter german Oktoberfest beers.
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If you "license" content from iTunes, you're not buying a physical product. You bought a licence, and you should damned well expect that that license - unless othewise stated - is perpetual. There is no media t
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OK, where is it then? Do you have to click "Buy" again?
They don't make it obvious.
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This sounds like a flimsy excuse to me.
Nobody is forcing you to buy whole albums, buy the singles you like, or borrow a friends CD to see if you like it. Besides, music is pretty cheap. I dont
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Having said that, there's no reason why things should not be allowed to change. Today's technolo
Exactly (Score:2)
One of the draws of buying music online is that you DON'T have to go to the mall. But if you have to go to the mall, or wherever, to get a card simply to buy that music, that specific draw is lost.