April 8, 2009

Living in the material world.

"...Dhani Harrison, George Harrison’s son, suggested that Apple Corps was dissatisfied with the price Apple, the computer company, was charging for iTunes downloads, and hinted that the Beatles might sell digital downloads through a system of their own."

***
Met them all there in the material world
John and Paul here in the material world
Though we started out quite poor
We got Richie on a tour
Got caught up in the material world

8 comments:

Ron said...

Make no mistake about it; back when they were the Quarrymen, John and Paul kept their eye on the wallet. Their lawsuits against each other over the years are amazing just for the dollars floating around them. It's what happens when you are first to sell a billion records, worldwide, so this doesn't surprise me.

T J Sawyer said...

I read the whole article at the link but never found out if they thought the price charged for downloads was too high or too low!

TMink said...

"Was it a millionaire who sang "Imagine no posessions?"

What they need to do is sell hirez digital files of the original master tapes. I am saving up to buy a hirez download of "Raising Sand" that must sound sumptious.

Trey

Mr. Forward said...

An Apple's low pay,
Keeps the rockers away?

Bissage said...

Living in the material world.

Being involuntarily subject to fitful moods where I despair that I can no more conceive of anything being super natural any more than I can conceive of a Universe either finite or infinite, I never much cared for the expression "material world," as if there could possibly be some other.

Well . . . as in life itself . . . The Colbert Report to the rescue!

A week or two ago the end-segment guest was Derrick Pitts who used the expression "apparent world."

That made a world of sense to me so I took the noose from around my neck and stepped off the chair and made myself a sandwich.

But for everything that is gained there is something lost and I should mention that “Living in the Apparent World” would not make for so nifty a song.

Go figure.

Sigivald said...

Lots of luck with that, Apple Corp.

I'm sure people will be lining up around the block to buy your special sole-source audio files...

Well, a few people might, but your most rabid fans are both A) old and B) already own all the songs.

I can guarantee you that the next generation of possible Beatles fans isn't going to bother with a precious "system of your own" - and any chance of them paying at all just flew out the window if the material isn't on ITMS or Amazon.

srfwotb said...

Then there's this clip of what looks like a less than sober John Lennon talking about how he still likes to steal stuff, but can't be bothered now (all the way out at 8:10):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJPzVcZghL8

Which is, in fact, the basic philosophy behind Steve Jobs' itunes. (i.e. Our real competition is filesharing, so we have to make it cheap enough, $1, for people to want to pay to download because otherwise they're wasting time having to try 10 different fileshares to find one that was encoded decently and they can't be bothered - it's easier to pay the $1.)

blake said...

srfwotb--

Just so.

A smart music service, though, is going to offer easy search, recommend music, and community input.

This is worth a $1, even if no one owns the song. And, let's face it, we're looking at some old stuff here.

Hard to imagine why the Disney company should have the rights to something created 80 years ago, by a man who died 40 years ago.