Review of pressplay and RealOne

c64guy writes: "Okay, so we all know that the music labels launched their own digital music subscription services, and that the new for-pay Napster should be debuting any minute. Here's a particularly in-depth review that compares the nitty-gritty of the services. For example, with RealOne, you can only ever have 200 tracks activated on your system. Even if you've been subscribed for eight months and downloaded 1600 tracks, you can still only listen to 200 of them in one month."

Comments

Quote of the Day/Week/Year/etc

[Masem]

This is from: News.com on a panel discussion held by tech/content/gov't bigwigs on Sunday.

[Hilary] Rosen, however, said the proposed bill [CBADTA] is "recognition that people who make entertainment products are a value driver for technology products." But she added later that the movie industry is running into the same problems as the recording industry, and Hollywood is not heeding past lessons.

"It's amazing that they're not paying attention to what happened with music," she said. The film studios are "clearly waiting for the ideal security. You have to get out there and change your business model, and that lesson hasn't been learned yet."

(My bold emphasis)

The rreal problem

[brogdon]

The real tragedy in all of this is that the music studios are going to release these crappy, restricted music download services for probably the next year or so. No one's going to use them because of the extra rules they impose (like the 200 track max - who wants their music collection limited to twenty CDs?) and their proprietary formats that won't go onto a CD or mp3 portable. They'll fail like Circuit City's DivX did, not because there's anything wrong with the concept, people just won't want to deal with the hassle of managing when their songs "expire" or which one they have to delete to make room for the new N'Sync single.

The record labels are then going to go to Congress and say "Look, we tried letting these people download music, but the thieves won't use them. We have to have draconian legislation and internet police in order to keep our disgustingly fat and corrupt industry alive!". Congress will examine their campaign funds, find a way to slip RIAA money past McCain-Feingold, and pass the law.

I bet they've got this entire plan in an MS Project file at RIAA headquarters.