iTunes has been running for five years now, and Apple’s online music download store has become the premier place for music fans to find tunes for their iPods and their home computers. The success of iTunes has been phenomenal, and they’ve just revealed they’ve surpassed the five billion download mark.

Not bad for just five years.

However, while this is good news for Apple and the download music culture, the music industry isn’t exactly happy about the situation. The revenues of the music industry, especially CD sales, have been dropping just as sharply as music downloads have been rising. In fact, revenues have dropped by an estimated $20 billion in the same period as iTunes rise to prominence.

This has naturally led to record studios being unhappy with Apple’s success, and especially with regard to iTunes’ pricing structure.

However before Apple came along the music industry had ample opportunity to build its own music download arena, and failed to do so.

Where the music industry delayed and pondered, Apple swooped in and dominated. Who’s to say they don’t deserve their place at the top of the download tree?

Recently it was revealed that 50% of the music on the average teenager’s iPod was actually obtained illegally, either by downloading, file sharing with friends or using peer-to-peer networks.

This led to a wave of despair from music industry experts claiming that the notion of ‘paying for music’ was something that teenagers just weren’t interested in anymore.

However, Feargal Sharkey (formal lead singer of The Undertones) member of British Music Rights believes otherwise. Feargal stated:

First and foremost, it is quite clear that this young and tech-savvy demographic is as crazy about and engaged with music as any previous generation. Contrary to popular belief, they are also prepared to pay for it too. But only if offered the services they want.

This represents a refreshing understanding from the ‘stuffy’ establishment. Feargal realises that the youth of today download their music because they want instant access to it and are not prepared to wait. This doesn’t mean that they’re criminals who want to download illegal music. They’ll pay for it if it’s made available in this immediate format.

The notion of downloading music is similar to that of attending a festival. You’re more likely to come across the sort of music that you wouldn’t find in the high street, the sort of music that will excite and change your perceptions of what you’re interested in.

If the music industry is to survive and flourish, it needs to embrace music downloads, not criminalise it.

According to one Wall Street analyst, recent promotions in the USA have resulted in Apple’s stock of the iPod Touch to run low. He also believes that the launch of the iPhone 3G, which will be priced at just $199, will force Apple to change the price structure of many of their more expensive models.

Ben Reitzes, an analyst with the Lehman Brothers, the 8GB iPod Touch shows a delay in orders being fulfilled on Apple’s online store. ‘Best Buy’ also reports that stock of the 16GB model is running low in many of their stores.

It’s believed that Apple’s recent back-to-school promotion has been responsible for the shortage in the 8GB iPod Touch. In the promotion Apple were offering a free iPod Touch for students when they bought a new Apple Mac.

The reason for Best Buy’s stock shortage is hard to explain however.

Reitzes believes that the launch of the new iPhone 3G will force a price adjustment from Apple on its iPod range:

We believe Apple will need to reposition the iPod touch product by September now that the iPhone acquisition price is lower,” he says in the report. “We expect the iPod touch to experience significant cannibalization from lower-priced iPhones.

Whatever the reason for the stock shortage, it’s still good news for Apple as it means their iPod is selling well worldwide.

With the current wave of crimes against iPod users and MP3 player owners getting worse, teenagers are warned to keep their eyes open when using their portable music players in public. Ideally they should conceal their players and not make public of the fact that they have one.

Last weekend a twenty-three year old man in Philadelphia was the tragic victim of a crime that cost him his life, when the person responsible only sought his iPod. Beau Zabel was a teacher who had only lived in Philadelphia since May. In the early hours of Sunday morning he was caught up in a robbery that went wrong. Zabel was making his way home from a part-time job he had working in Starbucks. It was then that he was robbed for his iPod.

The man was apparently shot in the neck with a 9mm handgun, tragically being pronounced dead at the scene.

Captain James Clark is a spokesman for the Philadelphia police department:

At this point we believe he was possibly followed at some point to be a victim of a robbery.

Zabel’s wallet, money and his backpack was left behind, with only his iPod being taken.

This again highlights the problem of MP3 players and iPods being targeted by criminals as items that are easily sellable.

When travelling on an airplane one of the most annoying things for many people is the in-flight entertainment. You have a choice of either having to watch the often outdated movie, or listening to whatever is available on the headphones. Of course you can always listen to your MP3 player or iPod, but then you’re reliant on the batteries not running out.

United Airlines however have come up with an answer to the problem. They’re the first US airline to offer iPod and iPhone connectivity on their planes. Passengers travelling with United Airlines will be able to play the video content they have on their portable digital players on personal screens, measuring 15.4 inches. Plus they’ll be able to charge their iPods at the same time, meaning they won’t run out midway through an important video, or even halfway through the flight!

The first flight that United Airlines say will offer this facility is one flying from the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, and is headed to Zurich in Switzerland. The service is mainly for transatlantic flights.

The plan United Airlines has is to refit all of their ‘wide-body’ aircraft in the next couple of years to offer iPod connectivity to both First and Business class passengers. They’ll also have lie-flat seats, making a truly relaxing experience for flyers.

How many tracks on your MP3 player have you actually paid for? It might be surprising to many, but 50% of the music on the average teenager’s MP3 player is actually illegal. They haven’t paid for it, either via online music stores or as CDs; instead they’ve downloaded the music via illegal download sites or file shares.

A recent academic survey into the music habits of the young showed that MP3 players and iPods belonging to teenagers and students have an average of 1,770 music tracks on their hard drives. Half of that music, according to the survey, hasn’t been paid for.

According to the results, 63% of the MP3 player users questions aged between fourteen and twenty-four regularly use file sharing websites to download their music, and 42% of those questioned actually upload their music, perpetuating the illegal download culture.

80% of the youths who admitted to downloading illegal music said they would actually be prepared to pay for a legal service that offered unlimited downloads. 60% of those also said they would be interested in still buying CDs from the shops.

If you know someone who has a swimming pool, an iPod and generally everything, what do you get him for Christmas? It’s the age old question of what do you get the man who has everything; why, a floating iPod speaker for his swimming pool of course!

Grace Audio have just released a waterproof iPod speak system which connects wirelessly to your iPod (obviously) and not only survives a few splashes from over excited pool dwellers, it actually floats in the pool. What better way to provide music for your pool party than to toss the speaker system directly into the pool?

It’s even submersible, so you can play with it in the pool, toss it around and even dunk it under the water. Don’t expect the sound quality to be particularly crisp when it’s under the surface of the pool though. You can actually take the speaker under the water down to a depth of nine feet, for half an hour.

It’s the perfect way to bring the music directly into the pool party, just in case your normal speaker system isn’t quite loud enough at its ‘safe’ distance from the water.

It has a range of 150 feet from the music source, and will last 6 hours on its battery. The cost in the US is reported as being $150, and you can even buy additional speakers for $100 each, creating a network of up to 10 speakers for those really noisy pool parties.

A British man who worked as a teacher in the Austrian city of Vienna was killed as he tried to cross a road while listening to an MP3 player. The man was run down by a tram on the street, unable to hear the oncoming tram.

Hugh Linley was forty-six years old and a teacher working in Vienna. The driver of the tram tried to stop in time was moving too fast to avoid hitting Mr Linley, causing multiple injuries to his head, ribs and kidneys.

The man died in hospital after being in a coma for three days. This further highlights the dangers of listening to MP3 players and iPods while out on the streets, as it means the wearer cannot hear traffic noise that would effectively warn them against dangers.

Less than a month ago Lisa Morgan, a twenty year old student from Glasgow University, died in North Carolina while listening to her iPod. She was jogging while listening to her iPod and was hit by a bus while on the campus grounds at Chapel Hill University.

Mr Linley had lived in Vienna for a great many years and was married to an American woman.

An Austrian policeman stated:

He was lying unconscious in a pool of blood when we arrived. It was a horrible sight. He had suffered serious multiple injuries and was in a life-threatening condition.

We summoned the helicopter emergency service as there was no time to wait for an ambulance car.

It was a very serious accident. He apparently failed to see and hear the warning signals of the tram as he had headphones on and was listening to loud music from an MP3 player.

Ten years ago this year the MP3 Player was born, and this summer marks its tenth birthday. The invention of the MP3 player has revolutionised the way we listen to music, and even the way we buy music; so much so that many high street stores are no longer selling music on CDs.

The MP3 player was born, of all places, in South Korea, when the company SaeHan first launched their player named the ‘MP Man’. The MP Man offered just 16 megabytes of storage space, which is very modest when compared to the massive 160 gigabytes on offer from the iPod classic, a massive 10,000 times more storage capacity.

That’s the nature of progress though, and it wasn’t until the Rio PMP 300 was introduced in autumn 1998 from the company Diamond Multimedia that the MP3 player market really took off.

It was ten years ago this summer that the Diamond Rio 300 made people realise just what was possible with the technology, packing a slightly more impressive 64 megabytes of storage space.

It’s incredible to think how far the market has come in just ten years.

The beauty of MP3 players and iPods is that you can download music from different sources for your player, rather than having to go out and buy the music in the shops. Sometimes you can even find music for free, though you have to be careful that you’re not downloading illegal music of course!

The difficulty with that is it’s not always obvious where to download MP3 files, as many sites pretend to offer music but instead just install spyware on your PC, or many sites want you to enter your contact details before sending you spam emails.

Charles Ward is a fan of downloading music, and he’s partnered with the company Neekam to bring you the new blog MP3 365. This new website promises to offer you news and reviews of music sharing and download websites so that you know where are the best places to get your music.

The intention of the website is to help its users make the most of their MP3 players and iPods and enabling them to find the best websites to find music.

According to Charles Ward:

Modern information technology users expect MP3 applications of superior quality that gets the job done. This blog shares knowledge about streaming technologies that are perfected to capture music in full quality, something that most other recording applications are not able to do.

By using the website MP3365.com, Charles Ward hopes you’ll find the music you were looking for to download to your MP3 player.