Burn A Song For 99 Cents

tusixoh writes "CNN is running an article about an online music company, Listen.com, who has signed deals with Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group allowing users to burn songs from both companies' catalogs (more than 75,000 available tracks) on Listen's Rhapsody music subscription service for 99 cents per track. Until now, Rhapsody had primarily offered only streamed music to subscribers from all of the world's largest record labels as well as several independent labels." The upside of this, of course, is that it won't be necessary to pay for songs that are just "album filler".

Comments

Neat.

[MAXOMENOS]

Now: let's see if they also allow independent artists distribute their music the same way.

Oh my god..tears in my eyes.

[unicron]

They're actually changing their business model to coincide with modern times. I'd like to believe music companies generally care about their customers. This may be the first step to realizing that dream.

Honestly, from this point on, if I want an mp3, I'll check to see if one of those labels are the labels that the artist in question is on, if so, they get my 99 cents.

So this is better how?

[kryonD]

Metallica S&M would run over $20 on this. I'd rather pay the $16 for the CD and be able to burn it in the for4mat of my choice. (i.e. ogg)

Re:So this is better how?

[mr_zorg]

Previous comments about this being a 2 disc set retailing for $25 not withstanding, let's pretend this actually was a $16 CD.

Yes, if you like the whole album, then go down to your local music store and buy the whole album. But how many times have you spent $16 on a CD for only 3 good songs? Would you rather spend $18 for a CD of 18 songs you like or $108 (3 songs x 6 CDs x $16/CD) for 18 songs you like?

Come on, we've been harping on the RIAA and music labels for some time to give us this very thing. Let's pat them on the back for finally doing it.

As for your ogg comment, please. You'd be ripping it to ogg from what? A CD . And what do you make using this service? A CD . Duh. Burn the freakin' CD and then rip it to ogg.

Stop Crying Damnit

[Anonymous Coward]

This requires Windows. So, when Version 2.0 comes out and requires a Palladium-enabled version of Windows, how exactly will this be a good thing? Not to mention they've replaced standardized components with their own. What will happen when this software starts burning special copy-protected CDs only and your CD-R reaches the end of its lifespan?

Re:Stop Crying Damnit

[willfe]

It hasn't affected your downloading warez and mp3's yet. That's an important distinction to note. Remember, the RIAA and MPAA have both openly stated they fully intend to begin poisoning peer-to-peer networks with bogus files to deter people downloading content and go after individuals (that is, not corporations or groups -- but single itty bitty people like you and I) sharing their music.

Of course they haven't started invoking the DMCA in all the evil nasty ways everyone here is predicting. It's too soon. It makes far more sense for this law to stay on the books for years, fall into obscurity, then suddenly reappear with big nasty pointy teeth to bite every music and movie sharing human right in the ass.

That "dark ages" you describe is close and getting closer; the world's most prevalent computing platform (Windows, sad as that may be) is already chock full of "Digital Rights Management" functionality to limit what consumers can do with their music and videos. CPU manufacturers are already building copy-protection schems straight into their hardware right now; the next generation of CPUs will cheerfully obey the MPAA and RIAA's wishes, refusing to run binaries that aren't blessed by someone with deeper pockets than we have.

Someone recently said it perfectly, that this "Trusted Computing" initiative isn't quite how it sounds -- Microsoft are pitching it to sound like we (consumers) can "trust" their operating system. In reality, it's an initiative to make a platform that the MPAA and RIAA can trust -- they can trust that it will only let us do precisely what they grant permission for us to do with the content we pay for, and nothing more. Do you honestly believe "compress to an unencrypted, open format with decompressors and players available for free on all platforms," "compress and transmit to my friends on AIM," and "store for future playback without the original media and license file" are going to be on that list?

Getting back on subject (today's conditions), note that students have been thrown out of dormitories (and sometimes ejected from school entirely) for sharing music, companies (namely Napster) have been sued out of existence not for sharing music, but for enabling others to do the same, and ISPs are being forced to spy on their customers' activities just to avoid lawsuits and criminal prosecution under that lovely law that supposedly hasn't affected you.

Remember: the DMCA created brand new crimes out of thin air. I can literally write "this string is encrypted", forbid you from decoding it without buying a license from me, and if you point out I've ROT26'd it, you've just violated the law. If an RIAA minion catches you handing a CD-R with a copy of a new album on it to a friend, you can be thrown in jail for copying and distributing the material, and your friend can be thrown in jail for receiving it. The DMCA is being invoked more and more every day. I imagine you might be pretty surprised if the cops break your door down to confiscate that evil, crime-breaking computer of yours that's sharing your favorite Pink Floyd tunes, and to haul you to jail for it. You can literally spend more time in jail for a criminal violation of the DMCA than you can for certain violent crimes.

But you're right. I'm just being pessimistic. The DMCA doesn't affect us. Not one bit.

Re:Slashdot Better Like This

[Kevinv]

i don't think a dollar a track is cheap enough for online delivery. that's still $15 for 15 tracks which is pretty typical for most CD's. I'm paying for the CD and my part of the bandwidth and my burn time....

good start though.

Re:bah too expensive

[pcidevel]

Yes, but it's 18 dollars for 18 tracks you WANT, instead of 18 dollars for 2 tracks you want and 17 tracks of filler. Doesn't sound too bad to me.

You could do like me and only listen to bands that make full CDs of good music. I can't imagine only wanting to buy a part of a CD. IMHO a band isn't worth listening to unless they build a decent albumn. In fact, a good deal of the best CDs in my collection are intended to be played from start to finish as one full serving of excellent music, not as a collection of individual songs.

So close... yet so far...

[ChaosDiscord]

It sounds so good, then I see the details.

A dollar per track is a bit high, but I would certainly be interested in buying some tracks for that price. However, that price is "in addition to paying a monthly subscription fee of $9.95." I can't imagine buying more than ten songs per month. Once that's worked in we're up to two dollars per track. Two dollars? Too much.

Furthermore, I expect that this new functionality will be available through their proprietary software. I don't want to deal with your unknown software (even if it did run under my primary operating system: Linux). I want to open a account with some money, then download songs off your web site until my account is empty. Nice and simple. Do it for one dollar per song and I'll very occasionally use it for catchy tunes. Do it for fifty cents and I'll regularly use it. Do it for twenty five cents and I'll make heavy use it, regularly buying music on a whim.

Four times cheaper for back catalog access

[yerricde]

Sure you get to cut the worthless songs but even then the prices match the store prices

The price matches, but the quality I can get for a given price increases dramatically. When I go to Best Buy and plunk down my hard-earned 13 USD for an album with 13 songs on it, I want 13 songs I like, not three. The way I see it, these CDs will be four times cheaper than[1] the CDs I can buy at Best Buy.

[1] Pedants: "Cheapness" here refers to the number of discs I can afford with a given amount of money. Thus, "Four times cheaper than" means "one-fourth as expensive as".

This is not far enough a benefit to make it a sustainable venture.

How can you be sure that four times cheaper for the average fan of oldies singles isn't enough of a benefit?

album filler, etc

[syrinx]

I *still* like my nice packaging and nice looking CDs, rather than a CDR with "Bob the Box - I Like Potatoes" or whatever written on it with a Sharpie.

Also, as other people have commented, the whole "album filler" thing seems a bit off to me. In general, my CDs have one or two songs I don't like, or even songs that suck, but those are the minority.. I don't get the "one song rocks, everything else sucks" thing.

And even if you could weed out the songs that suck, how would you know which ones suck and which ones don't, unless you already know them? Many times the best songs are the ones that hit me suddenly after weeks or months or years of having the album, and never really noticing it before, and suddenly, bam, wow, that song rocks, why didn't I notice it before?

well, that's just my 2 lire (I don't presume to think that my opinions are worth as much as $0.02.. ;) )

Mix discs without a PC?

[yerricde]

make it a dollar per track, but I'm licensed to use that track for my entire lifetime, in whatever current music format is popular, that way I don't have to re-buy the song for my 8-track, cassette, LP and MP3 players.

That's what the current model does. A 10-track disc costs $10, and under the Betamax precedent, you can copy it to whatever writable medium is popular at any time.

let me mix and burn my own music without the need of my own PC

Mix your own music without a PC? How are you supposed to do beat-matched crossfaded transitions between songs? Yes, I do that on my own mix discs, even of rock music.

And why does a CD with one hour of audio (which cost thousands of dollars to produce) cost as much as a DVD

A soundtrack album (or any other CD for that matter) is as expensive as the movie because unlike the movie, you can play an CD in your car, in the kitchen, in your pocket player while jogging. Unlike a movie, a recording doesn't demand your full attention. Thus, you play it more often.