Does a Free Download Equal a Lost Sale?
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As more economists study the economics of downloading music freely, the consensus will likely be that it does hurt sales of music, but how much?
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Direct sales aren't working the same magic they once did for the PC maker. Can it now cash in at retail?
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Is all fair in love, war and adware? A federal court may help decide - as far as adware goes, at least - in a case involving software from one company uninstalling a rival&#39;s computer code.
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In the latest proof that the label is at least testing DRM-free music sales, consumers can buy gift cards from physical stores and redeem digital albums online. The bad news is that the music is also "anonymously watermarked."
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In this era of high-speed Internet access, the back-to-school season features college students streaming back into their broadband-wired dormitory rooms, booting up their computers and letting gigabytes of digital tunes flow like a waterfall -- and for many students, the question of whether the downloading violates copyright laws plays second fiddle. However, a legal, affordable alternative has a chance to thrive in this potentially huge market, or at least that's what the digital music business and the universities are hoping.
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With Web sites like Yahoo and MapQuest giving away maps and driving directions it seems like a waste of money to buy a standalone program that basically does the same thing. To survive, software publishers need to offer a lot more than the online freebies. Microsoft Corp.'s Streets &amp; Trips 2005 does just that.
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By Anne Krishnan, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.  Feb. 14--Q: I have discovered a Web site that allows free downloads of programs such as WinZip. How do I find out if sites like this are legitimate and if the software is safe?   T.W.
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One great way to determine whether your digital product is destined for greatness is how many people want to steal it. The same goes for open source.
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Donaldson dips, but is it enough of a discount to warrant a purchase?
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Blog: The question of whether upcoming documentary was helped or hurt by bootleg copies that cropped up online may soon be answered.
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When I got back from Europe my black MacBook wouldn't boot, it just sat there with a disk icon and a flashing question mark. So I made an appointment at the Apple store in Emeryville to have it looked at. When I got there, there was no wait, they were calling my name. The repair guy opened the Mac, took out the disk, went into the back room, and came back saying the disk was bad, I'd need a new one. How much? $160. How large? 80GB. I've been buying disks lately, I bought a 500GB disk for $150 a few weeks ago, and just bought a 1TB disk for $280. So I knew that $160 for 80GB, even in a portable form factor, was probably a ripoff, but I figured here I am now, I can get the computer working, so I said OK and shrugged it off. The new disk went in, I signed a form, and was about to leave and asked for the old disk and the clerk said it was his not mine. They were going to send it back to the manufacturer. I figured it would be refurbished and sold cheap to someone in a third world country. Little did I suspect.  He got his supervisor. She insisted that the drive belonged to Apple, even though I had paid an inflated price to buy a new one. She showed me the language on the reverse side of the form I signed. It was even worse than she had said. There was no guarantee that the drive they had just put in my Mac was new! It might have been someone else's defective drive. I said it was outrageous. I grabbed a copy of the agreement and left.  I scanned the agreement, highlighting section 4, the part the store manager cited. Now there are a lot of speeches I could give. Here are a few. 1. I buy Macs knowing they're more expensive, but I expect to be treated better. I drive a BMW for the same reason. Luckily there's Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, et al to keep BMW customer service in top form (which it has been so far, I'm on my fourth BMW). I always say this -- Apple service is outstanding when you buy something, but it falls down, often, when you need it fixed. Not always, but often. 2. There are consumer protection laws that require auto repair shops to offer you the old parts. Why doesn't that apply to computer repairs? Or maybe it does. 3. Apple prices are ripoffs, but this is an unusually heinous ripoff. To charge such inflated prices for used parts, they should have some shame. 4. They don't seem to have any fallback when there's a dissatisfied customer. As an Apple shareholder, I think it would work better if store personnel felt they were guardians of the company's reputation. Consider for a moment that you are ripping off the customer. What tools can you offer the sales person to make good with the customer? Could you let the customers who object take their drives home? Could you offer a discount coupon on the next purchase, or free premium support for a year? That they let me walk out of the store, a person who spends thousands of dollars with Apple, feeling like I had been abused, says they haven't got all the glitches out of their retail process.  5. Falling back on the fine print is really lame. I think they should tell you up front, before they do the work, that you're not getting the old drive back. What if the data on the drive can be recovered? What if there are credit card numbers and other personal information on the drive? Source code? Trade secrets? Does Apple really want to treat their customers privacy so shabbily? For what? Don't they already make enough money off the $160 price for the new disk? It's amazing that a company can make it this far, having such special customers, and rarely if ever acknowledging it.
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Apple has announced that it will drop prices on its DRM-free AAC downloads to $0.99, the same price as all other single-song downloads. Amazon responded by giving its affiliates a 20% cut of all sales.
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Blog: Upgrades based on purchase history allows users to recover previously purchased and lost iTunes files
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Study comparing iTunes music catalog with Limewire concludes that the free file sharing service isn't such a good deal.
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A Gartner analyst finds a direct connection between Linux and piracy: many systems come preinstalled with Linux to keep prices down but then bogus copies of Windows get loaded.
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By ANNA FIORENTINO Staff Writer  Forget the Napster disaster. iTunes didn't stand a chance.  At least with those looking for free music online.  Just when it seemed the World Wide Web had succumbed to $1.99 download deals, at least one site prevailed.
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Other than the Linux version shipping this quarter, the vendor still hasn't said much, like which features will be provided free to existing customers and which will be considered options and will incur a separate charge.