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A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment.

Popular online music stores that sell digital singles and albums include the iTunes Store, Amazon MP3, fairsharemusic, eMusic, Google Play, Kazaa, Nokia Music Store, Tune App, TuneTribe, and Zune Marketplace. Paid downloads are sometimes encoded with Digital Rights Management that restricts copying the music or playing purchased songs on certain digital audio players. They are almost always compressed using a lossy codec (usually MPEG-1 Layer 3, Windows Media, or AAC), which reduces file size and bandwidth requirements. However, this may cause an apparent loss in quality to a listener when compared to a CD, and cause compatibility issues with certain software and devices. Uncompressed files and losslessly compressed files are available at some sites. These music resources have been created as a response to expanding technology and needs of customers that wanted easy, quick access to music. Their business models respond to the "digital revolution" by making legal services attractive for users.

As of January 2011, Apple's iTunes Store alone made $1.1 billion of revenue in the first quarter of its fiscal year.^[1]

Music downloads offered by artists[link]

Some artists allow downloading their songs from their websites or an online music store, often as a short preview or low-quality sample. This replaces listening to music in a store before purchase. Others embed services in their sites that handle single or album purchases. According to research by the website TorrentFreak, 38% of Swedish artists supports file downloading and claim that it helps in early career stages. The Swedish rock group Lamont has profited from file sharing.^[2]

Challenges to legal music downloads[link]

Even legal music downloads have faced a number of challenges from artists, record labels and the Recording Industry Association of America. In July 2007, the Universal Music Group decided not to renew their long-term contracts with iTunes. This legal challenge^{[clarification needed]} was primarily based upon the issue of pricing of songs, as Universal wanted to be able to charge more or less depending on the artist, a shift away from iTunes' standard 99 cents per song pricing. Many industry leaders feel that this is only the first of many show-downs between Apple Inc. and the various record labels.^[3]

RIAA against illegal downloading[link]

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) oversees about 85% or real music production with distribution and and manufacturing in the United States. They work to protect musicians while supporting the First Amendment rights. Their stated goal is to support artists' creativity and help them not be cheated out of money by illegal downloading.^[4] The Recording Industry Association of America launched its first lawsuits on September 8, 2003, against individuals who illegally downloaded music files from the Kazaa FastTrack network. At first, the RIAA's legal campaign drew much criticism. However, two years after it began, the campaign survived at least one major legal challenge and began to pick up speed. The RIAA said it filed 750 suits in February 2006^[5] against individuals downloading music files without paying for them in hopes of putting an end to Internet music piracy. Many^[who?] say that it is unfair for the RIAA to choose certain individuals to sue out of millions, but the RIAA dismisses the charge that the suits are unfair, comparing them to those who get targeted for speeding tickets. The RIAA charged The RIAA hopes their campaign will force people to respect the copyrights of music labels and eventually minimize the number of illegal downloads that happen every day.^[6][7] Additionally, according to the newest statistics on IFPIs website, one third of music CDs sold worldwide are fake, and piracy surpass legal sales in 34 countries.^[8]

Chart inclusion[link]

United States[link]

Billboard first tracked legal music downloads in 1993^{[citation needed]}, but this monitoring and reporting did not gain mainstream acceptance in the United States until around February of 2005, when the Billboard Hot 100 and other Billboard charts began including digital single sales. The year before, the Hot 100 chart was similar to the Hot 100 Airplay chart, because it only tracked CD-single sales. Inclusion of digital singles, as seen in the Hot Digital Songs, has immensely helped many songs chart and peak higher, in some cases in the absence of a radio release.^{[citation needed]}

Single certifications were introduced in February 2005.^{[citation needed]} Songs that sell a certain number of copies are often certified by the RIAA with the permission of the artist and the record company.^{[citation needed]}

United Kingdom[link]

The ''UK Official Download Chart'' launched on September 1, 2004, and includes any permanent digital download track under 10 minutes that sells for at least 40p (0.4 GBP).^{[citation needed]} In January 2005, downloaded tracks outsold physical singles for the first time in UK music history^{[citation needed]}, prompting The Official UK Charts Company to begin to incorporate downloads for the first time into the ''UK Singles Chart'' on 17 April 2005, at which time Radio 1 stopped broadcasting the separate download chart^{[citation needed]}, although the chart is still compiled. Initially this was on condition that the song must have a physical media release at the same time; this rule was fully lifted on January 1, 2007, meaning all download sales are now eligible in the chart.^{[citation needed]}

Sales records[link]

United States[link]

In November 2005, the record for the best-selling digital single in the United States was held by Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl, which sold over one million downloads, making it the first song to achieve platinum download status.^{[citation needed]} As of 2011, the record for the best-selling digital single in the United States on the iTunes Store is held by The Black Eyed Peas's I Gotta Feeling, which sold over 7,500,000 downloads.^{[citation needed]} The highest weekly sales record was held by Kanye West with the single Gold Digger. Later, Lady Gaga broke the record with 484,000 downloads of Born This Way.^{[citation needed]} Overall, the most downloaded song is OneRepublic's Apologize, with 10 million legal downloads from the original and the remixed version by Timbaland.

Soon after his death in 2009, Michael Jackson became the first artist to sell over one million download songs in a week.^[9]

Digital sales records[link]

The following albums have almost passed one million downloads. They are listed in chronological order:^[10]

See also[link]

• Graduated response
• Comparison of online music stores
• On air on sale
• Open Music Model
• United States v. ASCAP

References[link]

Ali Baba by Maxfield Parrish (1909)

Ali Baba (Arabic: علي بابا‎ ʿAli Bāba) is a fictional character from medieval Arabic literature. He is described in the adventure tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

This story has been used as a popular pantomime plot such as in the pantomime/musical Chu Chin Chow (1916). Like many other folk tales frequently adapted for children, the original tale is darker and more violent than the more familiar bowdlerised versions. Popular perception of Ali Baba, and the way he is treated in popular media, sometimes implies that he was the leader of the "Forty Thieves": in the story he is actually an "honest man"^[1] whom fortune enables to take advantage of the thieves' robberies.

Textual history[link]

Some critics believe that this story was added to One Thousand and One Nights by one of its European translators, Antoine Galland, an 18th-century French orientalist who may have heard it in oral form from a Middle Eastern story-teller from Aleppo, in modern day Syria. In any case, the first known text of the story is Galland's French version. Richard F. Burton, however, claimed it to be part of the original One Thousand and One Nights.

The American Orientalist Duncan Black MacDonald discovered an Arabic-language manuscript of the legend at the Bodleian Library;^[2] however, this was later found to be a counterfeit.

Story[link]

Ali Baba and his elder brother Cassim are the sons of a merchant. After the death of their father, the greedy Cassim marries a wealthy woman and becomes well-to-do, building on their father's business—but Ali Baba marries a poor woman and settles into the trade of a woodcutter.

One day Ali Baba is at work collecting and cutting firewood in the forest, and he happens to overhear a group of forty thieves visiting their treasure store. The treasure is in a cave, the mouth of which is sealed by magic. It opens on the words "iftah ya simsim" (commonly written as "Open Sesame" in English), and seals itself on the words "Close, Simsim" ("Close Sesame"). When the thieves are gone, Ali Baba enters the cave himself, and takes some of the treasure home.

Ali Baba borrows his sister-in-law's scales to weigh this new wealth of gold coins. Unbeknownst to Ali, she puts a blob of wax in the scales to find out what Ali is using them for, as she is curious to know what kind of grain her impoverished brother-in-law needs to measure. To her shock, she finds a gold coin sticking to the scales and tells her husband, Ali Baba's rich and greedy brother, Cassim. Under pressure from his brother, Ali Baba is forced to reveal the secret of the cave. Cassim goes to the cave and enters with the magic words, but in his greed and excitement over the treasures forgets the magic words to get back out again. The thieves find him there, and kill him. When his brother does not come back, Ali Baba goes to the cave to look for him, and finds the body, quartered and with each piece displayed just inside the entrance of the cave to discourage any similar attempts in the future.

Ali Baba brings the body home, where he entrusts Morgiana, a clever slave-girl in Cassim's household, with the task of making others believe that Cassim has died a natural death. First, Morgiana purchases medicines from an apothecary, telling him that Cassim is gravely ill. Then, she finds an old tailor known as Baba Mustafa whom she pays, blindfolds, and leads to Cassim's house. There, overnight, the tailor stitches the pieces of Cassim's body back together, so that no one will be suspicious. Ali and his family are able to give Cassim a proper burial without anyone asking awkward questions.

The thieves, finding the body gone, realize that yet another person must know their secret, and set out to track him down. One of the thieves goes down to the town and comes across Baba Mustafa, who mentions that he has just sewn a dead man's body back together. Realizing that the dead man must have been the thieves' victim, the thief asks Baba Mustafa to lead the way to the house where the deed was performed. The tailor is blindfolded again, and in this state he is able to retrace his steps and find the house. The thief marks the door with a symbol. The plan is for the other thieves to come back that night and kill everyone in the house. However, the thief has been seen by Morgiana and she, loyal to her master, foils his plan by marking all the houses in the neighborhood with a similar marking. When the 40 thieves return that night, they cannot identify the correct house and the head thief kills the lesser thief. The next day, another thief revisits Baba Mustafa and tries again, only this time, a chunk is chipped out of the stone step at Ali Baba's front door. Again Morgiana foils the plan by making similar chips in all the other doorsteps. The second thief is killed for his stupidity as well. At last, the head thief goes and looks for himself. This time, he memorizes every detail he can of the exterior of Ali Baba's house.

The chief of the thieves pretends to be an oil merchant in need of Ali Baba's hospitality, bringing with him mules loaded with thirty-eight oil jars, one filled with oil, the other thirty-seven hiding the other remaining thieves. Once Ali Baba is asleep, the thieves plan to kill him. Again, Morgiana discovers and foils the plan, killing the thirty-seven thieves in their oil jars by pouring boiling oil on them. When their leader comes to rouse his men, he discovers that they are dead, and escapes.

To exact revenge, after some time the thief establishes himself as a merchant, befriends Ali Baba's son (who is now in charge of the late Cassim's business), and is invited to dinner at Ali Baba's house. The thief is recognized by Morgiana, who performs a dance with a dagger for the diners and plunges it into the heart of the thief when he is off his guard. Ali Baba is at first angry with Morgiana, but when he finds out the thief tried to kill him, he gives Morgiana her freedom and marries her to his son. Ali Baba is then left as the only one knowing the secret of the treasure in the cave and how to access it. Thus, the story ends happily for everyone except the forty thieves and Cassim.

Classification[link]

The story has been classified in the Aarne–Thompson classification system as AT 676.^[3]

Adaptations[link]

• The story was made into an Egyptian movie in 1942 as "Ali Baba We El Arbeen Haramy" (Alibaba and the Forty Thieves), with Ali AlKassar playing the lead as Ali Baba, and the comedian actor Ismail Yasin as his assistant.
• An 1878 British pantomime version was The Forty Thieves.
• A French film Ali Baba et les quarante voleurs starring Fernandel and Samia Gamal (1954).
• A French telefilm starring Gérard Jugnot and Catherine Zeta-Jones (2007).
• In 1970s Alibaba story was adapted in a Bengali film called 'Morgiana Abdulla'.
• A Soviet-Indian joint film of 1979 Ali Baba aur 40 Chor, starring Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Rolan Bykov and Zeenat Aman, was largely based on this adventure tale.
• A Malaysian comedy film, Ali Baba Bujang Lapok (1960) which quite faithfully adhered to the tale's plot details, but introduced a number of anachronisms for humour, for example the usage of a truck by Kassim Baba to steal the robbers' loot.
• There are two Tamil films under the title Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum ("Alibaba and Forty Thieves"). The first film starring N. S. Krishnan as Ali Baba released in 1941, the second film starring M. G. Ramachandran, released in 1956.
• The story was adapted in the 1971 anime Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (アリババと４０匹の盗賊, Aribaba to Yonjuppiki no Tozoku^?), storyboarded by Hayao Miyazaki.
• The concept of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was used for the last installment of Disney's Aladdin series, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, released in 1996, introducing Cassim the King of Thieves as Aladdin's father.
• In the television mini-series Arabian Nights, the story is told faithfully with two major changes. The first is that when Morgiana discovers the thieves in the oil jars, she alerts Ali Baba and together with a friend, they release the jars on a street with a steep incline and allow them roll down to break open. Furthermore, the city guard is alerted and arrest the disoriented thieves as they emerge from their containers. Later when Morgiana defeats the thief leader, Ali Baba, who is young and has no children, marries the heroine himself.
• A film adaption Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was made in 1944. The film was remade in 1965 as The Sword of Ali Baba. Frank Puglia portrayed the character named Kassim in both versions.
• At the United States Air Force Academy, Cadet Squadron 40 was originally nicknamed "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" before eventually changing its name to the "P-40 Warhawks"
• A mythopoeic novel by Tom Holt, 'Open Sesame', is based on characters from the story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves"

In other media[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2011)

• A Merrie Melodies Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoon, Ali Baba Bunny, has a similar premise to the concept of the treasure-filled magical cave.

• A Popeye cartoon, Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves, features Popeye meeting and defeating the titular group.

• In the Disney film Aladdin there are several references to the story. Also, in Aladdin and the King of Thieves the forty thieves play an integral part in the story. However the story is very different than the original Ali Baba story, particularly Cassim's new role as the King of Thieves.

• In the Simpsons episode Moe Goes From Rags To Riches, Lisa is Scheherazade and Nelson Muntz is King Shahryar, and Lisa tells him the story.

• The 1971 Japanese film, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (アリババと40匹の盗賊, Aribaba to Yonjūbiki no Tozuku^?), for which Hayao Miyazaki was key animator and organizer.

• A 1981 computer video game by Quality Software^[4]

• Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, a 1982 arcade video game by Taito

• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, a computer game for the Apple II published in 1982

• A version of Ali Baba appears in Sonic and the Secret Rings, where he is portrayed by the character Tails.

Iraq War[link]

• The name "Ali Baba" was often used as derogatory slang by American and Iraqi soldiers and their allies in the War in Iraq to describe individuals suspected of a variety of offenses related to theft and looting.^[5] British soldiers routinely used the term to refer to Iraqi civilians.^[6] In the subsequent occupation it is used as a general term for the insurgents, similar to Charlie for the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War.^[7]

• Due to interaction of the two peoples, the term "Ali Baba" was adopted by the Iraqis to describe foreign troops suspected of looting,^[8] and the English-speaking mainstream press mistakenly reported the slang to be native to the locals.^[9]

Gallery[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ali Baba

• "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" (e-text, in English)
• Waller Hastings, "Ali Baba and the forty Thieves": essay
• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Arabian Nights and The Sword of Ali Baba at the Internet Movie Database