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Gateway to Ship PCs with Pre-Installed DRM Music Files

Posted by michael on from the yay-restricted-music-everyone-cheer dept.

Captain Chad writes "News.com has an article about Gateway's decision to bundle Pressplay's music service with its PCs. Of interest is the fact that 2000 popular songs will come pre-installed, helping reduce download time for those of us with modems." I wonder how much Pressplay is paying for this privilege. All sorts of interesting legal wrinkles here: you're buying a computer which contains data that you cannot legally access.

3 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Secure Audio Path by yerricde · · Score: 5, Informative

    You caputer the digital out of your sound card

    Make that "analog out". Windows ME and Windows XP operating systems have a Secure Audio Path that disables digital outputs and unsigned drivers when playing restrictions-managed audio files.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  2. Re:No.... by b0r1s · · Score: 5, Informative

    Your interpretation is wrong.

    Under the Pressplay deal, Gateway consumers can access the Pressplay service and features in several ways, including a 90-day free subscription to the service that contains 2,000 songs preloaded and available for streaming and downloading. .

    You get 90 days free when you purchase the system, and in those 90 days you'll be able to access any song PressPlay offers (access = listen to, not burn). The 2,000 on the drive are there to save you time.

    --
    Mooniacs for iOS and Android
  3. What pressplay sells by jbolden · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pressplay sells two plans:

    $9.95 / month for unlimited streaming + downloading into press play format
    $17.95 / month for unlimited streaming + 10 conversions to portable formats
    they also offer the $17.95 / month plan as $14.95 / month if you pay for the entire year in advance.

    The non portable format is tranferable to one other system. Further tracks can be organized in play lists and sets....

    My guess is that they are trying to sell people on the $9.95 / month to have a large music library on their computer. I'd further guess that pressplay also is coming out with some sort of portable player for their format.

    So a gateway customer paying $9.95 / month has:
    1) a very large music library on their system
    2) The ability to add to it freely as new music comes out
    3) The ability to take this music and move it to their portable player

    I can see this doing quite well. 200k songs ~ 18k albums ~ 500 shelves ~ 100 sq foot CD collection ~ 1/2 a small record store excluding duplicates ~ a small record store including duplicates.

    That's a lot of music for a home user at a price which is not unreasonable. I can see music fans which aren't that computer savvy going for this. The main thing that needs to happen is for gateway/pressplay to offer a way to get the music into a car for people not to realize this is not as good a deal as it looks like.