Slashdot Mirror
Audiogalaxy Returns as Pay Service
Triv writes "I just got an email from Audiogalaxy explaining how they have come back from the dead as a subscription service, labelled as Rhapsody."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Woo, come here Microsoft, I want to rent a new OS!
Seriously. Is such a paid, streaming content model really a viable solution? When Thomas Jefferson put the idea of intellectual property into the Constitution of the United States, he did so because he realized that information leaks; once people learn something, they can reuse that knowledge. If there was no protection to intellectual property, people would not be encouraged to share knowledge with others. Writers would not write, inventors would not invent, artists would not . So in the US Constitution, it says: The reason why this is important is spelled out in Jefferson's own writings: His assumptions are based on the fact that you can not control what people do with information that you give to them. If you hand someone a book, they can transcribe it. If you give someone a physical invention, they can disassemble it. But if you give them a new form of media, say, a song on a copy-protected CD, and they can no longer listen to it except on approved devices that they cannot copy from, why should the government provide the same protection to you? The record companies and movie studios want to have their cake and eat it too. They want traditional copyright protection, technological copyright protection, and a government guarantee of technological copyright protection. They want to deprive all those bearded Linux hippies their DeCSS, so they can't watch bootleg Buffy the Vanpire Slayer DVDs in their parents' basement. But if they have technological protection, then why should the government give them traditional protection? It was only there because information was hard to protect as property.
How far are we going to let the copyrighters go? We need to remind people that copyright, like most laws in the US, is a balance between two forces, and the scale should not be tipped too far to one side.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Once again... I'm willing to pay, but I have to GET something as good as I used to get.
There's no way that "Over 17,000 albums by over 7,000 top artists" is going to come close to the richness and variety we got from of individual fans trading their individual favorites.
I am now going to make a quick test on four items I obtained from the "real" Audiogalaxy a few months ago. This is an authentic test, I do not know yet what I am going to find. Bernard Cribbins, 'Ole in the Ground; Harry Champion, "I'm Enerey the Eighth;" Nervous Norvus, "Ape Call;" and the MIT Chorallaries, "We Are The Engineers."
Well, it seems you can't search for individual titles unless you actually join, but with great labor you can page through the artist list, and I find:
Bernard Cribbins: Nope.
Harry Champion: Nope.
Nervous Norvus: Nope.
The MIT Chorallaries: Nope.
Now, someone is saying "What kind of market is there for the MIT Chorallaries, for pete's sake?" Well, all I can say is, when Audiogalaxy was for real, _I_ wanted to hear them and _someone_ out there wanted to share them.
Without SHARING, all you're ever going to get is Britney Spears and Elvis Presley.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
- Good: Well, from the screenshots at AG's site, the interface looks well designed, though it does fill the entire screen in a manner
which is ill-suited for those who just want a music player. Like me. There better be a "compact" mode.
- Bad: From the list of available artists, I'd say they have a rather impressive collection for a RIAA-stomped file sharing service
making a comeback. Except of course we're now limited to a mere 300000 or so (probably fewer) tracks, and it's not possible to add your
own music to the mix anymore, download remixes, or download rare tracks that are hard to find elsewhere, legally or illegally - just the
stuff I used to use AG for.
- Good: They've got a free preview period. Which doesn't require you to give away CC details. I figure lots of people will sign up for
the preview only to dump it 2-20 hours later or when the preview runs out, whichever is sooner.
- Bad: It's no longer free. Well of course it's not, the users aren't providing the content anymore! Though $9.95/mo would be quite
nice provided the downloads were high-quality MP3 or OGG's - heck, even WMA's (wo DRM) would be preferable to the streaming shit they
currently offer. Which brings us right down to
...
- Bad: STREAMS! God, don't we all hate those things? Can't save them. Will definately require a special program to download and play, which means bugging down our systems with even more apps, probably loaded with DRM. Also, most of us aren't on connections that can handle a constant speed of 128-192kbps, especially not people living far away from the servers (which will be centralized, no doubt).
- Bad: No way to burn music to a CD (apart from analog copying - if I can hear it, I can record it) or otherwise get those streams to somewhere without an Internet connection. That thing alone renders the service utterly and completely useless to me as a music consumer. I believe I'm not alone in feeling that way.
- Bad: It's Windows only. No further explanation or comment req'd on that one
...
- Bad: It's only available in the US due to licensing restrictions. I mentioned above that not being able to carry stream music with rendered the service useless to me - well, since I live in Sweden, this "US only" thing kind of ruins it a little more.
Conclusion: This will crash and burn. It doesn't even try very hard to succeed, the people running AG know what it takes to please the crowds who want UNRESTRICTED, FREE FILE SHARING, not limited access to a closed library of songs from a relatively small selection of artists. This will fail, unless lots of people figure the music that's available is enough for them, and that they can live with the obvious drawbacks and restrictions - in the light that it is still quite possible and easy to get those very same tracks in MP3 or OGG format through any of the file sharing services still available and thriving. I might mention Gnutella, I might mention Direct Connect.Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
$0.00/month or $0,000.00/year.
In the car.
On the tram/train.
Family cabin (no phone, not even cell phone).
Jogging (riiight.. let's just say, outside).
And heaven forbid, what if the server or whatnot is down? DoS'ed? Or my ISP?
Sorry, but unless your life is confined to your WLAN coverage area, mp3 is extremely much more portable, reliable and supported. Tell me again the advantage?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
What is to prevent somebody from releasing some open source software that is a clone of AG?
Actually, the Open AGS project is working on an open source Audiogalaxy server. I believe that all they have right now is a design document, but I wish them luck, and look forward to their results.
Better yet, Usenet is organized by category of interest. Like garage? alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.garage. Punk? alt.binaries.punk. Usenet is a great resource for discovering new music from others who share your interests and tastes. I can't recall the last CD purchase I made that wasn't the result of a newsgroup download.