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Still dead

Works fine for me.

But yeah, I guess you mean the original mp3.com, the one that used to mail out those CDs with 103 indie songs and an installer for MusicMatch Jukebox? I would suggest visiting Blaylock's Indie-Rock Playlist for a similar sampling of new artists to download every month. Unfortunately the files lowered their quality lately. Earlier years they had many vbr and >192 kbps bitrate tracks, but more recent playlists I've downloaded have been dominated with 128 kbps files. I guess the labels wised up that many people were fine with the free tracks and didn't wants to buy any other songs or albums from the artists.

I remember http://mp3.com/ having more mainstream acts than the poorly written Wiki article indicates. But they certainly sold DRM free well before Apple.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

Could you please point me to the model you have? I can only find 4-8GB flash players. One review even has It's bulky for a flash player. as a "The Bad".

I just went to Insignia's website and found 2 models. A 4GB MP3 player and an 8GB Video/MP3 player. (Aside from their website seemingly written by 2 completely different groups, both had different units, 4GB in metric, 8GB in English)

4GB
Dimensions:
15mm X 46mm X 102mm (.59" X 1.8" X 4.0")
Weight: 0.068 kg (2.4 oz)

8GB
Dimensions:
10.16mm X 40.65 mm X 83.83mm (0.4" X 1.6" X 3.3")
Weight: 0.060kg (2.1 oz.)

This is the specs for the current Nano (which comes in 8 or 16 GB).
Dimensions:
6.2mm X 38.7mm X 90.7mm (0.24" X 1.5" X 3.6")
Weight:
0.037 grams (1.3 ounces)

And here's a "big ole" iPod Classic.
Dimensions:
10.5 mm X 61.8 mm X 103.5 mm (0.41" X 2.4" X 4.1")
Weight: .140 kg (4.9 ounces)

So by "not making the device any larger" you mean making the device larger? Not to mention the for the difference between the Nano and the Insignia, you could go up to a Classic and have 15X the storage space.

In practical scenarios, this idea actually reduces key space needed to be searched in comparison to passwords. Why the users clueless enough to not handle passwords properly would handle music-based passwords better?

And you don't have to use your Facebook profile's picture to be obvious. I bet that majority of passwords will be Eminem or Rihanna MP3 clips downloaded from some p2p networks (most people don't even know how to produce and compress their own sound file); there are also certain songs that are significantly more popular from others. So there will be lots of identical passwords that are easy to guess.

A good password should be as random as possible. This is far from random. You get all sorts of hints from the public information about global music market and the password data is based on publicly available audio data. In addition, if you know your victim, you can even make more correct guesses as to what songs did that person choose.

As for MSN DRM going dark it makes just another example of how DRM equals screwed. Not to mention why anyone would pay good money for DRM audio that'll suck the life right out of your MP3 player is beyond me. Just to see how much overhead it caused for myself I took a non-DRMed set of WMA tracks and put them on my new Sandisk M260. On any of the 3 Sandisk M2XX players my family owns (gotta love how you can change batteries while on the road!) we get an average of 17-20 hours of play, depending on how much track skipping we do. After setting the player to only play the WMA tracks and putting in a fresh battery I BARELY got 11 hours. And if that is WMA without DRM I'd hate to see how much less time I would get with DRM.

Has anyone tried their MP3 player with DRMed WMA like that on MSN? How much quicker did it suck down your battery? Does Apple's Fairplay suck the life out of iPods like WMA sucks it out of MP3 players? But of course this is my 02c based on my own experience with WMA files, YMMV.

So now when one receives anthrax through e-mail, it won't necessarily be an MP3 attachment; it could be a PostScript attachment instead.

Without it, there would be no music stores with major artists [major labels] who expect to get paid.

"If big labels lowered their CD prices, their sales would ramp up and more people would be interested in their artists shows. It's called Loss leader."

Record companies get 99% of their revenue from the sale of records, so selling at a loss is not an option. As it is, many record companies end up with net margins of less than 20% (I believe the Canadian recording industry as a whole barely hit 10% last year) so they don't have a lot of room to play with on pricing, either. This will be wholly misunderstood by those who don't get the difference between gross margin and net margin, but it is correct. However, things might be totally different in Brazil.

"Moreover, I refuse to see how can one music piracy is related to software piracy after all. When you need software, you can (mostly) always set for a free/open version. When you want music (aka culture), there is no such option."

Curse those greedy musicians for refusing to let their recordings be freely distributed!

Seriously, though, there are lots of options. That old standby, radio (both terrestrial and streaming) is still a viable choice. If you want free MP3s, there's legaltorrents, and mp3.com and garageband.com have free downloads. Those are just aggregators -- many indie and unsigned artists release tracks on their web sites or via the P2P networks. MySpace and a few of the social networking sites have lots of bands online that will allow you to stream or download their stuff. But, I understand that as a Brazilian, you might be required by law to only use Orkut.

If anybody's unsure as to why it's often easier to find good open source software than it is to find good free music, it's important to understand that it's typically easier on an order of magnatude to contribute to an open source project than it is to rent a studio (or build your own), engineer and produce your own music. I've contributed to open source projects just by using my $500 Mac Mini and a few hours of my time. By comparison, a decent studio and engineer might cost you $500 a day. However, this fact does not make music piracy "different" than software piracy. We should respect others' rights, whether their tool of choice is a QWERTY keyboard or a Roland keyboard.

No, "Big Rock Finish"

--MarkusQ

http://www.mp3.com/albums/20003800/summary.html Yowser.... It's a sad day when robots can outdance human beings.

Is it better than Disraeli Gears?

This isn't a small lawsuit either. MP3.com wants $175

There is a plug-in for most major desktop music players to allow iPod access (WinAMP for example. This site claims the iPod is supported by iTunes, WinAmp, Musicmatch, WMP, and Real.). There are also groups who have ported Linux to the iPod (like iPodLinux) and their efforts open up a wide variety of features and capabilities including ogg support.

Taft

This isn't a small lawsuit either. MP3.com wants $175 million.

Bonus points for both technically and funkily correct use of the term "funkadelic". Now just apply the PsychoAlphaDiscoBetaBioAquaDoLoop to your Computer Games and you'll have scanned yourself beyond all recognition.

Nope its a 4th gen. This is from the creator in the article discussion:

As many have mis-read. This is not a old generation iPod with a scroll wheel. This is a 4th generation iPod with touch click wheel. It is held together by little tabs.

How about Silicon on Saphire (SoS)?

I thought that sounded familiar. Boy, The Clash sure was ahead of their time on that one!

I talked to Real's GM of Music Services and he told me how to fix the problem with Rhapsody To Go that prevents you from transferring the subscription tracks ($15 per month) onto your MP3 player. I posted it on MP3.com yesterday.

-Eliot

http://www.giantpath.com/TMIU/rhapsody.html
http://www.mp3.com/tech/services_20050753_review.p hp

I've tried iTunes, Napster and Rhapsody about 8 months ago and found Rhapsody to have much better selection. I'm not saying its perfect, but the song selection is much, much bigger than Napster and iTunes combined.

They all have popular albums like 50 cent and Mariah Carey, but Rhapsody truly shines in the undeground/Indie selection. Artists like Spoon, MF Doom and entire the Ninja Tune label are available.

I don't really care much about "owning" music as long as I can play it anytime I want, instantly.

I'm tethered to my computer all day, and I'm sure most slashdotters are as well.

For the albums I really like I own the CD anyway, for car rides and jogging.

Also supports devices like WMA11B if you want to listen in your living room.

One feature that absolutely makes it for me? Enter up to 10 artists and Rhapsody will stream your own commercial free radio station with the artists you specified among bunch of similar others as well. Great way to discover new artists! Don't like the song? Guess what, hit "Next Track" and skip to the next one.

I know it windows only. I'm running it under VMWare on my Redhat workstation at work :-)

Overall, I think Rhapsody is the best one out there and definitely step in the right direction. It's not perfect but works as well as iTunes. Best $10 per month I've ever spent :-)

Hi, I'm the guy who wrote the article in the post for CNET -- actually, the correct URL is here since I'm primarily employed by MP3.com now. I reviewed the Genica player... I believe it to be the first or one of the very first MP3 CD players. On the other hand, I doubt it would be as collectible, because it looks like a CD player, whereas these other devices are more representative of things to come. Cheers, Eliot Van Buskirk Technology Editor, MP3.com CNET Networks

That interview says rather slyly:

GS: Right. The press pack for the soundtrack said most of it was recorded almost entirely with acoustic instruments that you then modified electronically. Did you play all the instruments yourself, or did you--

AT: Actually there's things that you'll hear when you listen to the soundtrack which will be very revealing about all that. I'd rather not go into the recording techniques too much, if that's OK?

For a more honest look at how he actually composes ("play all the instruments yourself", haha :) ), then try this interview from Sound on Sound magazine.

It's funny, but the /. stance on sampling and electronic music seems curiously luddite for people so enamoured with the idea of collaborative software development, "commons"-style re-use of ideas, creative product and 'intellectual property'. I often see statements like "sampling is just stealing someone else's tune because you're too lame to write your own", which is an extremely naive and prejudiced opinion - albeit an understandable one, if the only sample-based music you've been exposed to is P Diddly.

Honestly - read the interview, which covers both the practical and "ethical" aspects of sampling, and check out Tobin's music, and see if you don't feel a little different. Here's a taster:

Sometimes I'll have an idea for a melody and that gets really tricky; for example, I'll find three or four saxes that have the right notes, so I'll try and piece them all together."

Amon has a pragmatic and highly effective way of dealing with the discrepancies between the tone and production of the samples. "It's amazing what you can do with filters; I look at it as being a bit like watercolours, when you've got various different blotches and then you use a wash to bring it all together. I also use a lot of effects in my stuff for that reason -- it's not particularly because I love delays and reverbs or whatever. Processing is the answer. I'll take a lot of samples to make a melody, then process it with one type of filter or modulation effect, re-record it, cut it up, and by then it will sound like one sample -- but sometimes if it doesn't, it can be really interesting anyway."

Filters and EQ also play a big part in isolating specific sounds or instruments within a sample. "You can take out an entire frequency that holds an instrument, so that you can no longer hear it, or you can hear it in such a background way that it becomes an interesting subliminal part. Unfortunately that means it can sometimes sound really harsh, because the EQ has to be so extreme. Some people have even said it's a characteristic of my sound. I love that -- here's something I f**ked up, and someone relishes that!

"Body Talk" Could Control Gadgets
I hope they don't mean that song by Ratt from The Golden Child...

Go ahead, mod me "offtopic".

Another way to sell your music (in addition to CD Baby) is to work directly with companies like Audio Lunchbox. ALB gives 65% of sales to the artist. They also offer up your music in the non-evil MP3 and Ogg Vorbis (even less evil) formats. You can also plug your band across the internet on various indie and digital music sites. Audio Lunchbox also offers forums for just that purpose as does CD Baby and MP3.com.

Thus, the only music download store iPod supports is the iTunes music store.

This list says otherwise.

For an Indie artist P2P is essential for helping to distribute their art to the public. They usually do not have the means to host a web server for themselves for listeners to download MP3's. Several websites exist for independent artists to share their music such as SoundClick and (the late) mp3.com which is nice when a potential fan already knows the artists' name and music. However in order to get introduced to the indie artist a listener must find his music somewhere. These days it definitely won't be on the radio or MTV, so that only leaves word of mouth or a BitTorrent amongst illegal ones on a P2P website somewhere. Speaking about Indie artists, check out DZK, a talented artist I never would have found if not for P2P.
- Cary
--
Anyone from Fairfax County or Northern Virginia?

Yeah, he's not nearly as awesome as you, with his multiple albums and two shows on Adult Swim, why what does he have to show for his...

William Hung has an album as well. You know what? His music is shit too.

This /. handle is a line taken from a Scarface song, No Tears, nothing Goth about it.

For those who aren't into Southern Rap, you probably remember the song from Office Space. It's the song that the guy is singing in his car when he gets freaked out by the person next to him.

This post is only informative inasmuch as it informs me that I really don't like you.


Am I supposed to be upset about that?

NTITE

John Lennon & Yoko Ono had a track on their "Life With the Lions" album that was called "Two Minutes Silence" and thats all it was. Two minutes of silence so you could say that this 1.3 minutes of silence is just an incomplete rip-off of that track and is therefore a blatent copyright breach.

This couldn't possibly have anything to do with Samsung's Napster brand MP3 players of course.

Just because you consider a sixty-cycle hum a catchy tune makes it music not.

And how do you arrive at that conclusion, or are you a troll perhaps ?

This issue is clear in the fact that it deals with the use of donated eggs from IVF to start new lines. It's effectively banned in the USA (apologies to 2 Live Crew). I've never even heard a technique like that suggested, and I doubt any doctor would do it.

That's an interesting idea. According to this article, Apple did not invent the iPod scroll wheel though. Apparently it was designed by Synaptics.

Apple does, however, have a patent that covers mice with a rotary dial.

You know, I think you're not really getting my point. Following your analogy, you could eat at McDo and get kicked in the nuts, but if you go to that hippie place you can get a hamburger for less and not get kicked in the nuts. Only it won't be a McDo hamburger.

With music, the choice is similar. You can get mainstream music at the record store, ITMS, etc. and pay a lot and get DRM. You can also get music from places like Artist Direct or MP3.com and it will be cheaper and without DRM. Only it won't be mainstream music.

I hope you see what I mean. You really do have a choice, and you really don't have to go with the RIAA et al. Unless you really only want their music, and then you'll have to accept their terms.

A concerted effort to market on the web as "non-RIAA affiliated" (the first link from the search yeilded 6 different indie labels) or "independant music" should do well. This is was one of the big losses associated with the death of mp3.com as a venue for independant music, and (I feel sure) on of the main reasons the record industry felt the need to control the content that was accessible via MP3.com.

Browsing shared directories on P2P networks is also a good thing, but it won't (initially) be as quick or productive as web searching.

The point here is that indy bands need to have web sites. Not just crappy, broken shite that doesn't show up in search engines, but well-constructed, lightweight sites that offer streaming and downloadable music.

It's all about Marketting. Talent - real talent - needs to be supported by real marketting. That's how the RIAA and the labels seized control to start with: they controlled the marketting and distribution. That situation no longer pertains, but the advocates of non-corporate-controlled Art (music, film, etc) need to step up to the challenge, educate themselves, and get to it.

I think that is starting to happen, but it would be nice if there were a HOW-TO on it.

Eminem? Although at first glance he is a whitey doing "black" music, He certainly has is own sound, also influenced by classic anglo poetic meter (and few black gentlemen bleach their hair).

To look at older hip hop, you will find surprising similarities between Eminem's style and 's style. In 8 Mile they pay a homage to Rakim by pointing out that he was the first successful rapper to use complex rhyme schemes. To this day, no other rapper has been able to match him in the complexity of his or her rhymes. Rakim is an upright muslim, no excessive bling bling, no big booty bitches in his videos and possibly as a result of that no mainstream appeal.

LK

I wasn't trying to compare DVDs to floppies. I was tying to use floppies as an example of something ubiquitous that is no longer so popular, and to show that huge shifts in technology have been delivered in less time than the 10 years projected in the article. On some fronts I believe floppies are superior to DVDs (they are cheaper than dirt, I can fit them in my pocket, I can use it a bazillion times, they can still hold fair amounts of data, and they're pretty durable), but CD and DVD kick ass on size and speed. No real comparison, I agree with you. As for media not used on computers, yes, audio cassettes are still easy to find and use, even though CDs are much better, and VHS cannot hold a candle to DVD; the next thing will undoubtedly do the same thing to CD and DVD media and storage.

I also wasn't trying to suggest that anything would outright disappear. If I wanted to make that comparison I might have indicated punch tape and cards, not floppy disks.

What I intended to share was an agreement with the article that the technology we have now is very likely to become weak in comparison to the technology yet to come. Imagine installing your favorite OS entirely by floppy today; it used to be that way.

What Unka Bill tried to say in his statement (and that I agree with) was that the way video, and by extension data, is presented on DVD is likely to pass the proverbial torch a different technology. Video, the most obvious current use of DVD, will be delivered differently; simply stated. Perhaps by the Internet or other network, perhaps by better optical or magnetic media, and quite probably by something we haven't envisioned yet.

iFilm is chock full of video, mp3 is full of audio (just to pick some free and legal sites--not intended as a limit of knowledge or endorsement), not to mention the various peer-to-peer and BitTorrent methods of sharing (for the other kind). This as an alternative to DVD is a more viable reality as broadband becomes ubiquitous. Currently on my 3MB pipe it can take almost as long to download from a busy site as it will to watch, but I can see things speeding up.

DVDs will no doubt be around for a very long time; at the very least, until the last manufacturer of DVD players has been long gone, and no one can repair what's left behind. However, the next greatest thing will probably not just be a bigger DVD (as DVDs are bigger CDs), but something different. Something that doesn't get scratched or broken in half or can hold more and get reused better and has faster random access.

To address the support you mentioned in your observation, 5 years is less than ten, while a decade is equal to ten; seems that you don't disagree with the timeline of the technology shift either. I must disagree with your three decades of compatibility for the past technology--at which computer store can one buy an 8-inch floppy drive? I still have some of the disks from my old Tandy system that was still in use in the mid-eighties (barely three decades),

Similarly, I bet you can't go get your favorite contemporary group's latest release to play on that fancy new phonograph of yours...maybe some, but not enough to make it your primary means of entertainment. And if you could, you'd probably rip the song from the vinyl to your MP3 player so you could take it with you anyway.

It's also kind of cool to see that they're using PHP to do some of the content management.

See: http://www.mp3.com/tech/index.php

MP3.com lead's to CNet's MP3.com.

MP3.com.com leads to CNet|Music.

The recently launched service is not the revised MP3.com -- it's the new music.download.com.

This kind of existed back during the incubation days of Napster, and the RIAA (or members of) got it shut down.

The author is right that:

... unlike cable TV, no one is selling the content that gets shared on P2P services. This difference distinguishes P2P sharing. We should find a way to protect artists while permitting this sharing to survive.

... but there exists more irony in the crushing of mp3.com (which matches his paid piracy example) than there is with comparing the industry's history to modern file sharing systems (though the former probably contributed in part to the proliferation of the latter).

No sense beating a dead horse over how poorly the RIAA has reacted to emerging technologies I guess.

WHAT DID YOU DOWNLOAD LAST YEAR because it has ALL BEEN LOGGED!.

"ONE MP3 MEANS GUILTY!"

You had a safe, comfortable middle-class life? No, you thought you had, but you didn't. You are a CRIMINAL, you are GUILTY and you can be EXECUTED.

You are just another statistic criminal. Do you want YOU and your PARTNER and KIDS to be DRAGGED from your home and SHOT IN THE STREET?

Is your anus insured for AIDS RAPE?

Does your life insurance cover FORCED PRISON SEX and AIDS DEATH ? Check the policy - maybe not. Does "your" life-insurance carry a clause in the contract about perverts, convicts and enemies of society JUST LIKE YOU? Why should they insure "COPYRIGHT VIOLATORS" like you?

Society hates you.

What are your family going to do when you are jailed for 50 years with no parole? Do you reckon your spouse will hang around for 1 year let alone 50 years before they get lonely and find another partner to love them?

You can be JAILED and RAPED.

A great big muscle-bound GAY RAPIST will tie you to the PRISON BARS and RAPE YOUR ASS with his AIDS AND WART-INFESTED PENIS .

You will be forced to SUCK AIDS INFECTED DICKS . Do you want that?

SOCIETY SUCKS and you had better get used to it because this is what you can expect when YOUR COMPUTER is EXAMINED FOR EVIDENCE by the "government".

You will soon learn how "LAWFUL" AND "CORRECT" your government is when you are being raped and the prison guards are looking the other way - or WATCHING or JOINING IN.

DO YOU WANT TO BE RAPED? WELL, DO YOU?

Your "government" wants you to be RAPED IN THE ASS and you had better wise up before they get YOUR ass, because they can recover what MP3s you downloaded LAST YEAR and use it to kidnap you and rape you.

STOP yourself and your family and kids being kidnapped and raped by criminals.

IF YOU PIRATE MUSIC, YOU WILL BE PUNISHED!



This message was generated by a wagonload of gay niggers for Anonymous Hero.

FuckedCompany.com has a nice little blurp on it, as well as the letter sent out to users. See the current mp3.com homepage for a cheezy rendition of mp3.com's future.

Let me clear up a few misconceptions:

1. MP3.com doesn't own the music they host, and has no right to do anything with the existing files other than to delete them after notifying the artist.
2. MP3.com does not create physical copies of the music on CD until a purchase is made, so in theory they shouldn't have any physical CDs to destroy except for any discs which happen to be in the middle of being made on deletion day. If they're smart, they'll disable the CD-selling feature 24 hours in advance of the closing or something.
3. MP3.com has been barely worthwhile for the last three years since it was purchased by Universal. What was once a viable outlet for independent music online became brutalized by bad legal decisions, bad web design, bad customer relations, and eventually a drowning under Universal's own label content. I can only hope that c|net, who are generally a pretty decent bunch, can make something useful of the domain.

Let me clear up a few misconceptions:

1. MP3.com doesn't own the music they host, and has no right to do anything with the existing files other than to delete them after notifying the artist.
2. MP3.com does not create physical copies of the music on CD until a purchase is made, so in theory they shouldn't have any physical CDs to destroy except for any discs which happen to be in the middle of being made on deletion day. If they're smart, they'll disable the CD-selling feature 24 hours in advance of the closing or something.
3. MP3.com has been barely worthwhile for the last three years since it was purchased by Universal. What was once a viable outlet for independent music online became brutalized by bad legal decisions, bad web design, bad customer relations, and eventually a drowning under Universal's own label content. I can only hope that c|net, who are generally a pretty decent bunch, can make something useful of the domain.

Let me clear up a few misconceptions:

1. MP3.com doesn't own the music they host, and has no right to do anything with the existing files other than to delete them after notifying the artist.
2. MP3.com does not create physical copies of the music on CD until a purchase is made, so in theory they shouldn't have any physical CDs to destroy except for any discs which happen to be in the middle of being made on deletion day. If they're smart, they'll disable the CD-selling feature 24 hours in advance of the closing or something.
3. MP3.com has been barely worthwhile for the last three years since it was purchased by Universal. What was once a viable outlet for independent music online became brutalized by bad legal decisions, bad web design, bad customer relations, and eventually a drowning under Universal's own label content. I can only hope that c|net, who are generally a pretty decent bunch, can make something useful of the domain.

Let me clear up a few misconceptions:

1. MP3.com doesn't own the music they host, and has no right to do anything with the existing files other than to delete them after notifying the artist.
2. MP3.com does not create physical copies of the music on CD until a purchase is made, so in theory they shouldn't have any physical CDs to destroy except for any discs which happen to be in the middle of being made on deletion day. If they're smart, they'll disable the CD-selling feature 24 hours in advance of the closing or something.
3. MP3.com has been barely worthwhile for the last three years since it was purchased by Universal. What was once a viable outlet for independent music online became brutalized by bad legal decisions, bad web design, bad customer relations, and eventually a drowning under Universal's own label content. I can only hope that c|net, who are generally a pretty decent bunch, can make something useful of the domain.

Some friends of mine used to use mp3.com as one of their main ways to get their music out to people. And it works. They were soon the #1 'metal' band on the site, and people in the USA had heard of them from all over the place. It was really amazing to see their growth due in large part to people finding them on mp3.com. I even mentioned their name once to my sister and she had heard of them two provinces away.

After plenty of downloads and some dedicated touring, they were recently signed to maverik records.

So you cant say that sites like mp3.com doesnt help get the music out there, or isnt good for fledgling artists.

Oops, their band name is stutterfly if someone wanted to know.
Here is the mp3.com link.

I just purchased 20 of my own CDs, since after 12/3 they won't be available anymore. I really wish I could have received more than 3 weeks notice of this, but business is business I suppose. I'm now in the process of trying to find a new host for my stuff. As I don't currently or plan to make any money off my music (I've always allowed all of my own songs to be freely downloadible, and my CDs are sold at the lowest possible price MP3.COM allows), all I'm interested in is a host that is incredibly inexpensive. IUMA looks promising, and has been around much longer than MP3.COM, so maybe they are worth a try.