Slashdot Mirror

see allofmp3.com

Of Course.

allofmp3.com um, saves you money?

Like here for example. Not to mention you get your choice of formats: ogg,m4a,mp3,wma. And at about a dime a song you can't beat it.

All of MP3 http://www.allofmp3.com/ already went from $0.01/MB to $0.02. This is old news.

No way I'm I downloading it from iTunes. I'm going to wait till they release it here or here. Save 80c on my silence.

I did say that it was a long while ago when I had seen it, and the site was Slashdotted (or maybe just broken) when I posted the comment.

But now it works, and I find that they still have the album, but have strangely enough labled it as "Also known as Portishead's Pearl". This seems like an odd kind of compromise.

The point of mentioning it was that it suggests that AllOfMP3 gets at least some of it's selection off of P2P networks, which is damned shady and probably not so good for the consumer. Again, I can't prove it, and there are probably a dozen other possible explainations, but I personally was put off of the site because of that.

Additionally, the Hot Snakes are fucking terrible.

You're probably right. The guy that recommended them to me (just a few days ago) is dating a chick with a Blink 182 tatoo. I probably shouldn't trust his taste anymore.

No, the real question is: Why are you afraid? Downloading music is never illegal.

Sharing copyrighted music is copyright infringement. Downloading music is not.

In addition, they are only investigating allofmp3.com. That does not mean that a judge will actually convict them of a crime.

I will continue to buy from them.

If they are afraid of the online download distribution system (and they should be), why not pioneer it?

I used to be a member of BMG but left after i discovered allofmp3.

The revenue is declining because market forces (enabled by technology) are working around the inefficient and costly traditional distribution infrastructure. Unfortunally, the entertainment conglomerates have not realized they are in the CREATIVE business, not the distribution business, and have still failed to adopt radical and cost efficient models (for instance, http://www.allofmp3.com/) to transform themselves to a new business model.

Instead, they burrow in like ticks, protecting old and unsustainable busness models through litigation.

I believe in the short term, there will be pain as the market transitions to new driving forces. That means yes, some networks and congolmerates will put out crap, in the form of content, or ads, or whatever. But there are alternatives. If not now, they will develop. That's the beauty of free markets. The only ones that will lose in this game, are the media that refuse to adopt.

So I come to my point: Media companies are losing money because they SHOULD. Their products are overvalued and overpriced because they are saddled with overhead of a distribution system that is virtually obsolete in this new digital age.

that russian mp3 website (can't remember the name) where you pay about 5 cents per song

AllofMP3.com. And it's incredibly good! After getting a cease and desist letter from the *AA (and an accompanying threat from Adelphia to suspend for 14 days at next incident), it's a great alternative to Kazaa! Side benefit: It's legal. It costs $0.01 a MB. Very simple. You can choose the encoding type (OGG, MP3, WMA, MPEG-4, MPC) and the bitrate (128, 192, 320 kbps), so you pay for the quality you choose. No DRMs either.

I would definitely patronize such a service for movies; that has got to have the idiots at the MPAA sweating. They could really turn that into a revenue stream... idiots...

allofmp3.com? MP3search.ru?

All the materials in the MediaServices projects are available for distribution through Internet according to license # LS-3-05-03 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society. Under the license terms, MediaServices pays license fees for all the materials subject to the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights". All the materials are available solely for personal use and must not be used for further distribution, resale or broadcasting.

... Go to www.allofmp3.com. The following might sound too good to be true, but just go check it t out. It's an online music store (run by a Russian company) where you:

1) Have the choice between Mp3, WMA, Ogg, Mpc, FLAC, Monkey Audio, Mpeg - 4 AAC (iTunes compatible) ... all up to CD quality.
2) Pay by the MB.
3) Have a library almost as large as any of the US services in the market (and much better as far as back catalogue is concerned).
4) CAN BUY MUSIC LEGALLY, at least in my country. I checked and had checked by representatives of the Austrian music industry, they grudgingly conceded that yes, it is legal for me to buy music there for a tenth of what it costs me at home.

I have spent over 140 dollars there in the last six months. But those 140 bucks bought me over ... *looks it up*... 2241 songs weighing in at 11.33 Gb.

Heck, you can even pay using PayPal. There is NO reason not to use this service. Economically, music is a luxury. Lower the price for luxuries, and sales go orbital.

The allofmp3.com site that I went to was 100% in Russian. I don't know where you've been.

I wish more music services would follow this example.

Of course, I also wish every music site out there used their pay by the megabyte approach, at ridiculously low rates. I actually end up spending much more on music, because I'm not afraid to waste a dollar getting a few new albums. It's proof that cheap, DRM-free online distribution can work.

Unlike the music industry, television folks are trying to get ahead of the curve and offer TV downloads in a legal and easy to use manner."

Unfortunately probably not an affordable one. Have you priced TV DVDs lately? Something like Law and Order is like... 40 bucks a season or something. And there's like nine seasons. That's insane, and I don't think it's the cost of the media that's setting this price. I think it's that they're setting that price because they're expecting you'll pay it, and I think they can just as reasonably expect they can set comparable prices on internet media and you'll still pay it. Well, I for one won't pay it. And I don't think we're going to see TV downloads reasonably priced enough that the cost is less of an imposition than the bother of me paying money to see Aqua Teen Hunger Force on my computer instead of waiting until Adult Swim time, going downstairs to my neighbor's apartment who has cable, and saying "hey can I watch your tv for a little bit?"

Look-- there's this place in New York. It's called the Museum of Television History or something and it's just this little nondescript place on the bottom couple floors of some skyscraper. They've got the entire last 60 years of television on tape. Not quite all of it, but all of it that's been preserved by anyone. That's what they do. They preserve television history. And if you go in and pay them... I don't know, It was like $8 or $12 or something rediculously cheap, they'll let you cram in as many people as you can fit into these little nicely furnished viewing booths and watch in comfort three television programs of your choice out of everything ever recorded. Now that's a nice offer.

That's not what we're going to get. By the time the dust settles and these services are up, we're going to get like.. select from this wide variety of random television programs, some of which are the ones you might actually want to watch, and we'll let you watch them once with periodic graphical glitches, hunched over in your cramped little computer chair with the tinny sound, after a 10-minute buffering session. You can watch that TV show you've forgotten from the 80s with the kid who can stop time because her dad is an alien for just a dollar an episode! Oh, what, you'd rather watch Law and Order? Well, that costs a lot more. You'd rather watch Sliders? Well, we have about six unlabeled episodes from different seasons, so good luck following the plot. But, hey, you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer? You can watch the show's entire run for just the equivalent price of a new XBox and two RPGs which cumulatively take 120 hours to finish! You like Sifl and Olly? Oh, sorry. Go watch the show from the 80s with the alien kid instead. But isn't our service great? Aren't you grateful that we're offering you on aribtrary terms and at relatively steep prices the same uneven entertainment that we offered at one time for free, and that you could continue legally to watch for free indefinitely if you or someone you know had just been forward-thinking enough to turn on their VCRs the first time they were broadcast? Man, those people who still download tv shows over bittorrent must just be so greedy.

It's bullshit. Much as it pains me to say Russia got something right, we really need to copy their compulsory copyright licensing program.

My solution is much simpler: I don't buy anything with DRM on it. If it's a band I really like and I know I'll enjoy the entire album, I'll buy the CD, always after it's dropped below the exorbitant new-release price. If not, there are plenty of ways to get music that don't involve the risk of the P2P networks. Trade music with your friends. Just like everyone's been doing for the past 20+ years with CDs, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, etc. Is this techincally illegal? Sure, it probably is. But it doesn't strike me as being some "moral wrong" that the music industry would like all of us to believe.

If they want me to buy their digital music, they damn well better give it to me in a lossless format (or at least a lossy format with a bitrate that gives quality at least as high as ~220kbps VBR MP3) with no DRM. Am I aiming too high? Probably, but I'm not willing to budge on this. If they won't sell it to me how I want it, I won't buy it. Hopefully many others feel the same way I do.

With how things are now, if I *do* decide to buy digital music, it'll probably be from AllofMP3.com.

How are you forced to use AAC (with the iPod)?

The iPod plays MP3's no problem which you can download, purchase or create yourself.

Nobody is forcing you to use AAC. Even the iTunes software gives you the option to "rip" in many formats ...

And competition is NOT alive and well in the football video genre. What insentive does EA have to improve? If you want a pro football game, you have to go to EA. The next version of Madden will probably be just a re-hash of this year's version, with roster updates. On top of all that, EA will probably have to charge more for it, just to pay off the loads of cash they've had to float to the NFL, AFL, and ESPN. (I still don't see how they are going to make a profit from that...).

And stop lumping everybody together as 'the slashdot crowd'. Not all of us applaud Apple's use of DRM. Personally, I hate it (that, and 1.00 per song. Ever hear of AllOfMP3.com?). I bought it. I should get to use it. That's why I've made a personal choice to NOT buy from iTunes.

stratjakt's comments are made when peering through your navel, with your head shoved far up your ass, with a huge frigging chip on his shoulder.

First, let me start with a disclaimer: you are an idiot.

A point-by-point evaluation:

How many times does Apple need to learn that people don't want lock-in solutions. [sic]

Why do people never learn? Why, no matter how many fucking iPod articles Slashdot posts (and, yea, there are a great many), does there remain a group who simply do not get it? How many times must one of these types be told that no-one (or, should I say "so few people that they cumulatively round down to zero") gives a flying fuck about lock-in. They probably don't even know what "lock-in" is. I know I have ranted on about it in the past to non-tech types and they just zone out. Can you blame them?

Where you buy there [sic] player and are locked into their music service.

Your frighteningly schizophrenic spelling aside, you're bandying around that dangerous "lock-in" word again. As various others have noted on here, there do exist paid-for music services which offer MP3s, e.g. allofmp3.com. There are others, but I have not the inclination to look. This aside, the average man on the street doesn't particularly care anyway, but we've already made that point.

...there is nothing out there for them when choosing Apple

This is more subjective, but I can say with certainty that in the UK, the Windows-using masses are restless, tired of spam and spyware and system updates every other day. That Mac mini is looking incredibly tempting. I am sure it is the same way - even more so, perhaps - on the other side of the pond. There is something "out there" when choosing Apple, unless you find the tortious Windows/WMA et al experience pleasurable in some way. (I have already commented on schizophrenic spelling, so I shall leave further interpretation as an exercise to readers...). The iPod's elegance and simplicity appeals to people. Really, it does.

...start supporting Ogg Vorbis...

Groan.

I posted at length about this on my blog after OGG and iPod were mentioned in the same thread a while back. It goes back to the "so few people that they cumulatively round down to zero" point again. No-one, save the militant/obstinate few, gives a shit about OGG, and, moreover, the only reason that Creative, etc. include OGG support is to try to capture some of the statistically minute militant/obstinate market. That's how marginalised they are - like a pack of mangy stray dogs fighting over scraps.

...and WMP...

At the outset you seemed to be typing yourself as anti-lock-in. I'm confused. Most people choose the lesser of two evils, and here you are, proposing that Apple sleeps with the devil.

I'd apologise for the tirade, but, y'know...

iqu >:|

"as iPod is limited to iTunes when it comes to purchasing music online and with Creative's products, you will be able to purchase music from major online vendors. ". I purchase all my music from www.allofmp3.com and have no problem with iTunes. Just give up and stop writing crap about it....

It's a fact. Most people are sheep and will go along with anything forced to them, but DRM acceptance has it's limits. I know a lot of people who asked me for help on making their DVD players zone-free, for instance.

Well, I don't know who you are dealing with but NO ONE that I know has a fucking clue what region encoding is and they certainly don't ask me how to get rid of it.

You know why they don't care? Because it doesn't affect them one bit... People I know go to the video or retail store, pick out a movie, and watch it. Region encoding doesn't stop that.

Perhaps if you said that they asked you how to remove "the color fades when they record to other media from DVD" I would be more likely to believe you.

For DRM done (arguably) right, check Apple and iTunes.

How do you figure? Because you can easily get around it? Or because you agree with their DRM? Personally, Apple's DRM is to support lockin to their portable music player and to their store. Yeah, you can play MP3s on the device but if you want to get music legally you are probably going to go to iTMS (most people don't know about other alternatives such as allofmp3).

Why don't you people use allofmp3.com. It's really cheap compared to thise 99cents shops and there are lots of options for formats (Supported file types: Mp3, Wma, Ogg, Mpc, FLAC, Monkey Audio, Mpeg - 4 AAC iTunes compatible). Enjoy the globalization ;)

AllofMP3
eMusic
Magnatune
Warp Records Bleep Store
Audio Lunchbox
I don't speak German so I don't know about this one
Creative Commons has plenty about DRM-free open music sources

It seems to me that the idea of targeting desktop Linux users is a marketing ploy to a niche market.

However, you can already use a service like this. It's called AllOfMp3. You choose the format (MP3, WMA, OGG Vorbis, MPEG-4 AAC, MPC) and the bitrate (even lossless), and you're charged a penny per meg (well, 2 pennies per meg after Jan. 15).

Yup, that's basically useless to me; if I can't rip my music to my HD in *my* format of choice and play it in *my* player of choice, I really don't want to know.

Big labels would do well to make it easier to get what I want, because if they don't someone else* surely will.

* Anyone else? These are the only two places I'm aware of where I can buy FLAC's for download.

Suddenly another unconnected corporation is pissing in Apple's pond

I wouldn't call them unconnected. They are selling licensed music from the RIAA's affiliates, just like Apple. They are connected to the whole mess in some way. It's not like the RIAA and Apple are trying to do the legit thing and some bizarre upstart showed up unannounced selling music against the artists' wishes. The only issue here is whether they can offer playback on Apple's hardware without licensing from Apple.

The RIAA has already agreed that both companies can sell their music and has, therefore, implicitly agreed that both companies have acceptable DRM measures in place.

Personally, I say that if people insist on dealing with these people at all, they should do it in a way that is legal and doesn't require draconian DRM measures.

http://www.allofmp3.com/

http://www.allofmp3.com/

allofmp3.com

.
AllOfMP3 has accepted PayPal payments for a while now, and also won't limit your options with formats/encoding/drm--not to mention that it's much, much cheaper.

Can they be cheaper than allofmp3.com at $0.01 per MB?

That's where it all hits the fan - DRM. If the RIAA wasn't such a greedy bunch of pigfuckers, we could all trade MP3s and get dinged for each trade (say, a dime per trade), and everyone would be happy. Napster had a system like that under works, and were ready to roll it out, then it was reduced to a smoke hole in the ground over in Redwood Shores. Dime a Trade? I'd do it. Especially if a source got a rating (this way asshats who rip stuff at 64 mono, have clicky messy files, or are shills for the RIAA, can be avoided) like in EBay. You would have to use a specific client, and that client would be wired to your bank account. Everybody happy, and we could all use plain vanilla MP3s - no muss no fuss no chocolate mess. RS

That's where it all hits the fan - DRM. If the RIAA wasn't such a greedy bunch of pigfuckers, we could all trade MP3s and get dinged for each trade (say, a dime per trade), and everyone would be happy. Napster had a system like that under works, and were ready to roll it out, then it was reduced to a smoke hole in the ground over in Redwood Shores. Dime a Trade? I'd do it. Especially if a source got a rating (this way asshats who rip stuff at 64 mono, have clicky messy files, or are shills for the RIAA, can be avoided) like in EBay. You would have to use a specific client, and that client would be wired to your bank account. Everybody happy, and we could all use plain vanilla MP3s - no muss no fuss no chocolate mess. RS

you buy music at 5 cents a song.

Uhh, ::ahem::... (raises hand) I don't use iTunes. Maybe I will in the future, although that's doubtful. Basically when I got my iPod last month, I filled it up with the many thousands of MP3s I've downloaded over the years and never listened to. (I download MP3s compulsively and I probably listen to about 1/10th of what I download.) Canciones aleatorias/random shuffle has been a fun and enlightening experience, indeed.

Maybe it's just because I'm in college, but no one else I know uses iTunes either. And I go to Berkeley, where judging just by a stroll through campus, we have a higher iPod:student ratio than maybe any other school in America. Like probably 1/3 or something.

As a matter of fact, they are perfectly legal. The reason for this is that copyright law differs in different countries. Here in Russia there is an "anti-RIAA". This anti-RIAA is ROMS - "Russian society for multimedia and digital networks". By law they hold certain rights to all works produced and sold in Russia, which rights can be licensed from them for a very modest fee (determined by law and they can't refuse, basically).

Legal info on AllofMP3 and MP3Search says just that - the music is licensed according to Russian laws from copyright holders. It is perfectly legal as long as you have the right to download content from other countries. IANAL, but I think it is legal - just as legal as ordering a movie abroad, which was not released in the USA (or even after it was released in the USA). There might be some export legislation, but in general I think it is legal.

Another interesting fact is that all content produced (anywhere) before 1973 is public domain in Russia. So if you were to set up a free (or for a nominal fee to cover the bandwidth) download service in Russia with Disney movies made before 1973, you would manage to really piss off Disney, but they won't be able to do anything. :) Unfortunately, the current trend for "harmonisation" and forcing every country to agree to WTO rules or "fuck off and die" means that in the future there will be less such freedom. :( But while it lasts, enjoy it!

P.S. FUD spread by some people that these Russian servers would steal your credit card numbers and do other scary stuff is completely unfounded (like all good FUD should be).

if I want to buy music online, I am locked into iTMS

No, there's at least one other place you can buy AAC files online.

And of course, it can also play MP3 files, Audible files, WAVs, &c. There are many places you can buy MP3s online too. Hardly a lock-in.

Those who download MP3s are addicted to it.
That's not true. I am what you may call a hardcore pirate. Almost 99% of all the movies, music and software I have are pirated (but I go to the movies sometimes). I have friends who work in wholesale piracy. I've been translating movies for pirate releases. I am really put off the idea of buying media. However, I do buy it sometimes. A few days ago I really liked Blackmore's Night music. The group made a very smart decision of putting some mp3s on their site, further fueling my interest. I wanted to download all their music, but couldn't immediately find all full albums for download.

I don't have a problem with buying the album if it's more convenient and affordable. I can't get it from iTunes, because I don't live in the USA, don't have a credit card and don't consider 1$/track affordable. But I found it on AllOfMP3.Com, MP3Spy.Ru and MP3Search.Ru for tenth (or even 1/20th) of the price and legally (that's 0.5-1.5$/album), so I might just buy it today.

I don't see anything wrong with pirating media, but I don't see anything wrong with buying them either. If I earned enough (and not 30$/month I get as a PhD student now), I would definitely buy more than I do now. And thanks to the taste I developed through piracy, my demand for media is much greater now than it could have ever been without piracy. I am sure most pirates think more or less the same way.

Why couldn't Linux user buy music before? I use Linux and WinXP and I have been able to walk into tons of music stores and buy music. I was never thrown out because I like Linux. As for buying online music, I have been able to use AllOfMP3 under Linux with no problems. Oh, and AllOfMP3 charges $0.02 - $0.25 per songs depending on qulity vs. $0.99 for iTunes. AllOfMP3 sounds like a much better option for my money.

Well, from AllOfMP3 you can get 2.5GB of music for $25, that is about 700 MP3's at 192kbs. The same number of songs from iTMS would cost you oh, about $700! With almost _all_ of that money going to the RIAA and Apple, _not_ the artists.

With AllOfMP3, you can get 2.5 Gb for $25. If your average MP3 is 3.5Mb you can get about 700 for that $25 vs. $700 with iTMS. Most of that $700 for iTMS will go to the RIAA and Apple, with the artists as usual getting the shaft. Until that stops, I will never use a system like iTMS which just encourages the RIAA and Apple to take a larger share then what the artist gets. When I want to compensate an artist, I check their website for items to buy or go to their concert.

Some places are cheaper still

Allofmp3 is a great store with no DRM and a CD is less than a track from iTMS. Forget iTunes, I'll stick with Russia.

Yeah, this apeal is exactly null to people outside the countries served by ITMS. For example Poland. And even if they wanted to sell here, I believe it would still be 0.99eur per song -- I can buy cheaper CDs here, legally.

No, thanks, I'll keep my 4G MuVo and continue to buy at some other store in the format of my choice.

Robert

Ever heard of allofmp3.com? It's based in Russia, and from what I've read it wouldn't be legal in an awful lot of other countries. It might still be illegal for you to download the music, but it's not illegal for them to share the material.

those godless communist bastards are preying on our innocent capitalism aryan heros like 50 cent, eminem, and britney... think of the children!!!

My research indicates that it's legit, and has been online for awhile. According to the copyright laws of the US, you can "import" things from outside the US, even if they violate US law if purchased here. As long as it's legit where you get it, and you import it for your personal use, you're OK. Kind of the same how you can buy bootlegs outside the US and bring them home. Heck, it even gets good reviews

Plus, they have not ripped me off since May, and so far no one has shown how this is illegal.

While I know it's not Soviet Russia, it's damn cheap. You can download an album for $1.50- and it's legit.

This one?