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AOL Enters Music Service Fray
Masem writes "Several sites, including The Washington Post and News.com report that AOL is planning to enter the online music service market with its own MusicNet offering. The service rates vary from $4 to $18/month, the latter giving you unlimited downloads and streaming content and 10 burnable tracks a month to CD. Future plans will include a pay-as-you-burn cost as well, expected later this year. However, the service is strictly limited to AOL customers, making many wonder if it will grab enough attention of the current subscriber base to actually be of value."
Sort of gives a new meaning to AOL CDs.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
It seems like a natural move... Anything for money right?
-- Slackware Geek
Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. - Robert Heinlein
...in hell comes from.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
the latter giving you unlimited downloads and streaming content and 10 burnable tracks a month to CD
How can they let you download them, but stop you from burning them to CD? Isn't that technically impossible?
Let me guess, the donwloads will mostly be offerings from labels owned by AOL/Time Warner. Will the music available be as insipid as the online service offering it? Not that it matters; nobody shares euro-metal or 70s prog online anyway.
This plan sounds stupid. 10 burnable songs a month? No thanks. I'll stick to my usual means of aquiring music...
... that AOL would launch an online music system that didn't involve mailing out CD's, did you?
how many of the 22 million people that use AOL are either doing AOL High Speed or using it over a TCP/IP connection from another broadband provider? Is it really a good move for them to do this when they have such a large dialup userbase? There already seems to be financial trouble ahead for the ISP as the appeal of dialup dwindles even further...
No thanks, I am not paying $23 + $4 - $x for songs when Kazaa is still fucking free.
That would be all fine and dandy if it were not for the fact that music nowadays completely SUCKS!! I have a 500+ CD collection but I stopped buying music some time ago because there isn't anything out worth my hard-earned money! Why does AOL think I'd be interested in paying for the crap my kids hear on Nickelodeon?
maybe that's afrayed? what if you get some cuts that offend the patriot act?
what if the source forgerIE gooes DOWn?
fine fuddle of fits that would be.
great job with the patentdead PostBlock(tm) device again there robbIE.
Ok lemme get this straight for $18.00 a month I get to listen to sub par streaming radio and get roughly one cd's worth of music...what a bargain :(
Of course when it goes down in flames they will blame it all on piracy and claim they offered an practical alternative.
if i was to agree for something with this i would want whole albums at great quality each, i would go along with the whole pay 18 a month and only burn 10 tracks a month that is fine w/me...also high bandwidth would be nice **up to 100k/s garunteed** if im going to pay money per month i want descent service that acutally works any time i want.. sounds like a dream but you have to get it right if im going to be interested
Another product by AOL aimed at the poor masses who don't understand that most of these services are free and/or can be found at cheaper prices. (Although only with AOL can you hear an exciting 'You've got music!' sound, so that's a plus.)
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Isn't that about how many songs are on an album anway at about the same price? hmmm... However, if you are willing to pay the price you willactually wind up with the songs you want from various artists without the "bloated" and horrible "filler" songs usually found on a full release from a single artist/group. I think they could do it for less $$$ though. Different biz model with same pricing model = NO (for me).
Restricting this scheme to AOL hillbillies probably won't hurt it's chances of success.
If you're smart enough not to use AOL, then not only are you probably smart enough to know how to burn music without paying for it, but you're probably also smart enough not to use cheesy proprietary music formats and software that are booby-trapped with DRM and spyware and god knows what else.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
AOL underestimate the intelligence of us mere mortals.
I am wonderign what the usage rights will be on CDs you burn using songs from their service. One copy only?
In good /. fashion I haven't read the articles and don't know if they mention the bitrate, but even so I'd be amazed if AOL offered anything at a quality higher than 128 kbps MP3s.
Paying for audio files of low quality? No, thanks.
Nah! no way. AOL cant _possibly_ be trying that ago old trick of bottling water and selling it, could they? ;) Actually, i'd much rather borrow the cd's from the local library and copy them there. But hey, if your stupid enough to use AOL, your stupid enough to buy bottled water.
~Just keep eating, porky. Fat people are harder to kidnap.
To make this clear, first you PAY to download the music, then you PAY for the super fast net connection so you can get it this week, then you PAY to burn your own CD on your OWN time.
Yeah, I can see why consumers are going to love this idea.
I was a sub-sub contractor for a project like this that Sony wanted to do.
I spent days TRYING to talk them out of it.
They were convinced that the whole napster phenonminon proved that users wanted to burn their own CDs... not that it had ANYTHING to do with getting something for free.
CD's bought in a store are a convienence! The only convienience this gives me is that I don't have to buy a crappy song to get a good one. Yippie!
I would rather be ashes than dust!
It'll be you have Music.
$18/month for unlimited downloads plus you get a free CD of tracks you actually like in the process. Sure you need to keep subscribed to listen to the songs but many people spend more than that on their CDs every month.
Pay by the song will be interesting so long as the price point is sufficiently attractive ($0.25-$1 per song) as well as the conditions (physical PCM on the CD, no DRM bullshit).
Maybe they're sick of fighting us and actually want to give us what we want? How many people were saying they'd start buying music if they were given a chance?
Maybe this is why they're suddenly cracking down on P2P filesharing? European users have reported receiving email from AOL saying their account could be cancelled if they're found to be running p2p software.
Take your pick- either they don't want competition, or they don't want people sharing what they've bought.
I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA either A. raises holy hell about how this will cut into their CD sales, or B. demands a goodly chunk of the revenue generated to compensate them for their perceived loss.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
AOL announced in will be proactivly blocking all filesharing programs since they are a menace to society -For purely altruistic reasons.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Can we really expect any music from bands/singers that are not signed to a record company belonging to AOL/TW?
As opposed to Rhapsody (which I haven't tried), emusic has a great selection and uses the MP3 format, but 128kbps is not good enough for me.
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS HAS CONVENED TO DISCUSS THEIR NEW ONLINE MUSIC STRATEGY.
AOL SUIT #1
So, the idea is this - we've already got subscribers, and the music people want subscribers, so lets turn OUR subscibers into THAT kind of subscribers! I'm frickin' brilliant!
AOL SUIT #2
But, what if they pirate the music they download? Can't they just play it out of their headphone jack, onto a MiniDisc, or basically anything else?
AOL SUIT #1 motions to the gorillas standing guard at the door. With a quick motion, AOL SUIT #2 is sent through a trap door under his chair. At the same time, his stock options are released from a hatch in the ceiling and all the other SUITS scramble to collect them.
AOL SUIT #1
Now, as I was saying...
FADE OUT
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
in other news columbia and aol combine forces to send you more cds of music you dont want than you can ever imagine. 3rd world countries are now relying on these cds for building materials for dramatically larger houses than they were previously able to build.
:)
Oh golly, AOL the classic demon is trying to sell music. I can only see good things coming from this
First: who is going to PAY for a WORSE service than they can already get for free? I have yet to see any advantages to any of these pay to download music ideas. I can get streaming radio from one of a variety of sites, including my local radio station I can use kazaaa/p2p to dl whatever songs i want all of a sudden I want to pay for this same service? GIVE ME SOMETHING NEW/GOOD TO MAKE IT WORTHWHILE!
Second: I really question the quality of what they are bringing to the market here...is there a list of artists they have deals with that we can download from? As much as I love no name artists and old Britney Spears albums are they able to offer ALL songs? Doubtful. So their service is worse than the current free services
bah enough ranting...who wants to bet me $10 that p2p programs that are free have more users in a years time than AOL.
Its not illegal unless you get caught
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Now that last year they lost more money than most small countries ever hope to see, they are starting to get their act together.
AOL should have been doing this two years ago as a way to boost subscribers to AOL Broadband. AOL should be throwing as much "fat" content like this, and their movies libraries down the AOL Broadband pipe for as close to free as possible. Something needs to stop the upgrading to (other supplier) broadband hemoraging which is sweeping through their user base like ants when one discovers candy on the ground.
Really, they were very stupid for not doing this a long time ago. This is a lot of the reason they merged in the first place.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
the true intent of the media companies is to go out and "prove" that internet distribution is "not workable".
.... if Gutenberg were alive today, they'd have his nuts in the courts for trying to "take down the industry" of scribes. Because that's all that this is... this is the 21st century equivalent of scribes who copied books.. who now see their liveihoods being threatened by that newfangled contraption which is pirateing away their profits...
Who in their right fscking mind would pay $18 to burn 10 tracks? If i want to take it in the ass, i'll go and buy a cd for $18 in the store! Hell, it may have 12 tracks on it?
And, of course, the AOL 56k modem crowd is really looking forward to downloading music over 56k because that's not the 21st century's version of Chineese Water Torture.
Look - lets all be reasonable - the media companies are dead set against the internet as a form of distribution, because the old form of distribution is what they know, and makes them money by the truckload.
Do you blame them for selling (essentially) $.50 of materials for a markup of 3600%?? If i could shit in my hand and sell it for $5 a pop, you're damn right i'd be eating "Britanny Spears Bran Flakes" night and day too.
I swear to
Who's going to write books if everyone can get a copy for nothing?
The Brits have a term for people like this....
WANKERS!
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
That's a bit steep for a cd ($25 isp + $18 service) don't you think? I bet the masses using AOL will be screaming for this service...
18 a month, 10 burnable/downloadable songs, hell, I'd almost rather do something like audiocandy's 2 dollars a song crap, though it should be closer to 1! Plus there are enough streams out there....why would anyone want an aol propriatary aol only aol quality music service? Hell, the RIAA could come up with something better than this...
Yeah, this will work (sarcasm), I'd like to download that 6 mb mp3 on my x2 win-modem. Yeah, that'll be quick. Great idea. Sheesh. Idiots.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
2) Only to AOL subscribers? Does burning CDs from dialup connections make much sense? Wouldn't they have much better success selling this to broadband users? AFAIK AOL also have some kind of content-provider service for non-dialup users? (I don't live in the US, correct me if I'm wrong). Do they also provide the service for these customers? It would appear that they don't: Subscribers already pay $23.90 per month for dial-up Internet connections. So they're talking about only dialup users.
If this is (partly) an effort by AOL to keep people from migrating away from dialup, it seems futile to me.
That's no fun. Maybe to preview songs before getting them from somewhere else?? But then again, Amazon.com is now offering mpeg previews so what's the point.
How can they compete with a totally free product? File-sharing hit critical mass some time ago. This genie ain't going nowhere - especially back in the bottle. I can't wait for this to fall on it's face - like every other anti-filesharing scheme.
I also reply below your current threshold.
4-18 dollars for the service AND exclusive to AOL users (~25 dollars). so, for 29-43 dollars a month (and i assume it will be at the higher end of that) i get an AOL-quality internet connection (read: shitty) and all the music i want...sort of (how good is their selection going to be?).
on the other hand, i pay 30 bucks a month for DSL (read: excellent) and get all the music i want...no strings attached hold on a second.....thinking.....alright, nope. still not worth it.
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
I assume that AOL will use the same marketing strategy for this, as in the past. Television ads will indirectly portray this service as the ONLY or EASIEST means to aqcuire music online. Adding another reason for me to get angry everytime I see the damn commercials.
It amazes me how many people I meet who are baffled by the fact that AOL Instant Messanger isn't the ONLY messaging program around. Although the wide spread news coverage of online music services, best example being Napster, has probably opened many eyes, I'm sure that there will still be AOL hermits who think they've got the best thing that computers have to offer.
very sad
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Who's this "mere", and why's he reading my harddrive?
The service rates vary from $4 to $18/month, the latter giving you unlimited downloads and streaming content and 10 burnable tracks a month to CD. Future plans will include a pay-as-you-burn cost as well, expected later this year. However, the service is strictly limited to AOL customers, making many wonder if it will grab enough attention of the current subscriber base to actually be of value.
Considering that the majority of AOL's customers are on 56k dialup that actually gets connection speeds similar to 33.6, I don't really see how this is going to take off. $18 a month on top of the $25 people already pay for AOL isn't that good of a deal, you might as well start buying cd's again. Broadband + kazaa is cheaper than aol + aol's music service and is definitly more unlimited than anything aol can come out with.
Maybe they are going to use WMA format. Which is a pain in the ass to convert to MP3 or wav when it is copyrighted
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
See, the way is works is, if you want to change your business model, you can't keep the old one around "just in case".
Nobody is going to pay $18 bucks a month to download and burn 10 songs. You need to offer 100 or 1000 (or unlimited downloads) for $18 a month. "But!", you say, "That's not profitable! We won't make any money!"
Right, you won't make any money because you haven't thrown out the OLD system yet. These two ways of doing business are mutually exclusive. Either you're selling CD's, or your selling the rights to listen to music. You can't do both. Right now, you spend millions a year on production and distribution...so much money in fact that you have to charge $18 for 10 songs (be it in CD format or downloadable format).
The solution is CUT COSTS. Stop spending millions a year on pressing and distributing CD's and just put everything in an online library. It's just that simple. Then you can offer more because it costs less to produce. Then people will buy...but not until you make the leap.
jees I hope they dont have that guy who does the aol voice do any singing....
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
I am so tired of monthly fees for everything. I pay $20 here, $9 there, $40 for tha tother thing.
I'll pay $1 a song, but I will not subscribe to any more services. It adds up quickly.
In the end, it comes to the record comapnies still fighting for a way to make the money and stop the bleeding. I truly believe that they want to offer an innovative way of releasing music "tailored" to the consumer and at the same time protecting "their " property. I still buy CDs , but 18 bucks for 10 burnable tracks per month?! I wouldn't DRIVE to get 10 tracks for $18! someone will soon get pay/play system down in retail stores that might make the grade. Tear it down and build from the ground. The way they used to do business still works but it wont for long. Adapt or cease to exist.
you never lose in ure razorblade shoes......Beck-Hotwax
There is a thriving Mac Shareware market, while the Windows Shareware market looks like it's been drying up. AOL has been able to raise rates, while discount ISPs advertise left and right. People may pay attention to AOL losing a small number of users, but they are making money on the existing one.
There are many things that I'll buy for $5-$10 when I'm in a store, but online it's a pain. I have to fish out my credit card, fill out a form, etc. If I'm an AOL user (and I actually am, it's the easiest dialup solution for when I'm out of town, despite only getting used 4-8 times a year), paying an extra couple of bucks on the same account isn't too bad an idea.
Remember, you don't have to initiate a new transfer, you just have to sign up. Also, you need to understand the scale.... get a mere 1 million signups (impossible for most dot-coms, probably not unreasonable for AOL), and you're making another $10m-$20m a month off your subscribers.
AOL users pay a premium for AOL. There is no reason to believe that they won't pay a premium for a music service that is as easy to use as AOL.
Alex
I'll take this opportunity to again sing the praises of emusic.com, which sounds like exactly what you want. Unlimited MP3 downloads for $10 or $15 a month. Their selection is mostly limited to non-major label stuff, but if you can do without Britney there are tons of good tunes to be had. Their jazz section especially is very good.
New York City was paralyzed by over a million marchers. It was way less than 1 million people I was there.
You always hear about the free vs. bottled water comparison. Basically people will pay for something they can get free if they see it as superior somehow. So why do subscription download sites keep trying to give us bottled water with floaties in it?
Isn't Time-Warner, AOL's parent company, a member of the RIAA?
Didn't the RIAA refuse to allow Napster to proceed when they proposed a nearly identical business model?
Man, this stinks.
$17.95/month and you can only burn 10 songs? It's so bad, this must simply be a ploy to get more people to buy CDs!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, I saw this and the first thing I thought was "Maybe it is time to get AOL." Many people have said that they would pay for songs if they could. Well, here's a chance. Hopefully they will release what their catalog plan is before long, as not many will jump on without know what is available. And their count of burnable seems low. But if it works out that they have the songs I want, and in a year it comes out to better than a per CD cost (especially since it may take 8 CDs at $15 a pop to get what 10 songs I want), then I will seriously consider it.
If we want our entertainment companies to take us seriously, we must in effect stage personal strikes. I don't buy CDs not simply because I can't get the mix I want, but because I think it is ridiculous that 25 year old albums cost $14+, especially when they're sometimes of LPs of less than 40 minutes of music. They can argue all they want about how much it costs to produce new albums, but if it went platinum over 15 years ago I'm pretty sure the costs are now negligible.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
In response the the above article, (insert standard Microsoft bashing, random comment about Bill Gates' sexuality, formulated comment about monkies writing OS's...etc)
doc
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
I am a current user of AOL's Music Net service. They gave me a 30 day free trial and I thought what the heck. The amount of music in the catalog is very limited right now and you must use an AOL provided software to listen to the music. The AOL software is also the only way to burn the music to CD. The software is not very good when compaired to listen.coms RHAPSODY software of which I am also a user. In the end I will not continue with the musicNet service after my free 30 day trial as they just do not provide anything that I think is worth even $4 a month.
How come M$ is always getting calls from the Justice department but AOL doesn't? I mean AOL Time Warner. Untill the past two years AOL had as much of the ISP industry as M$ has the software industry.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
"...giving you unlimited downloads and streaming content and 10 burnable tracks a month to CD..."
how one can have unlimited downloads and then somehow be limited to 10 burnable tracks to CD?
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
However, the service is strictly limited to AOL customers, making many wonder if it will grab enough attention of the current subscriber base to actually be of value.
What AOL is attempting to do is to set up their ISP service and their music service as complementary products.
Will it be successful? Most likely, because A) they already have a huge catalog of music that they can use, and B) a lot of people will sign up for AOL just to use MusicNet, so AOL gets to hit them with two subscription fees, not just one.
It's an interesting idea, although, as a consumer, I don't like the restrictions on the music they place and probably wouldn't subscribe to it, myself.
Quote "AOL will charge $17.95 per month for the right to burn 10 songs on a CD, roughly the same price consumers pay for CDs in a music store."
In Canada I pay about $17.95 (+15% tax) for an entire CD (usually more than 10 tracks!) and I don't have to pay for an extra CD to burn it. At the current conversion rate this works out to about $29 CDN for ONE CD. There is no way this scheme should be attractive to anyone. Advice to all: Don't buy it, AOL will just have wasted their money investing in a huge online service that is ultimately designed to go to shambles. Unless, of course, they significantly lower the price; at which point if I was silly enough to join AOL, I may consider it.
I wish I had the smarts to work at AOL.
8|
This is the problem that everyone was talking about before AOL and Time Warner merged. Using the powers of music, tv, and other electronic transmissions to pipe information. Now they are taking all those services that use to be seperate and trying to intermingle with other services.
Doing the math it is more expensive to have an AOL account (dial-up) + another phone line + service to get "burnable" tracks (which with some time someone or some group will figure out how to make them all burnable.) equals at about 60 dollars in my area. Where i can get a cable modem connection for 40 dollars.
I would hate to be the person or committee who thought of this service, because I have a strong feeling it is going to kill AOL subscription rates. People will start to realize it is cheaper to get broadband + limewire.
Is it for AOLTW labels only, or are they partnering with the RIAA to offer this service to all the labels?
Or will it also be accessible to small bands who want the publicity?
Sounds to me like it will be ineffective.
Bands/labels should set their own prices. So if a band wants the free pr... they could offer free, content... if they want it to be a distribution point.. they set the price... and compete for us to buy.
AOL/TW is one of, if not the largest member of the RIAA.
... demands a goodly chunk of the revenue generated
/., and that is saying something!
if it does succeed, I hope the RIAA pays attention
What is there for the RIAA to pay attention to? One of the "Big 5" is doing something. By definition, the RIAA is already paying attention.
I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA
An RIAA member is already getting 100% of the revenue.
The parent of this post might be the stupidest post ever on
AOL makes money (ok, attempts to make money) by communicating with to the lowest common denominator, to the crows who don't know what DRM is and won't notice that their downloaded MusicNet files aren't in .mp3 but in .AMN (or whatever) format, that they require a new/AOL-embedded application to read them, and that their creditcard is being charged by the burn.
I wonder what'd happen if someone actually tried to bring hardcore DRM to the Mac? Audible.com comes close but the rights management is completely transparent until you try to burn a file to disk more than once (there are, of course, work-arounds), and they incorporated iTunes integration with apple's help. Anything else I think is pretty much set up to fail (anyone remember liquid audio?)
Triv
Its cheaper than this AOL crap, and allows unlimited downloads and unrestricted use of the music.
The downside is that it doesn't have Top 40 type stuff, and all files are 128kB/s, but they got tons of good music if you're willing to dig a little. (It helps if you're into jazz and/or punk).
I just wanted to bring them up as an example of a site doing it right, and worth checking out. I signed up not on principle, but because they had a bunch of albums I wanted.
If your going to provide a pay service, it must be in a standard format. MP3 is the current standard, and if it is not in MP3, it will go under. With this current strategy, Musicnet users can only play downloaded tracks through AOL! The CD burning feature is such a joke, 10 tracks? 10 tracks, considering the average song length is not enough to fill a 74 minute CD.
The most ridiculous part about this whole service is the requirement of an AOL subscription. So in order to use this service a prospective customer needs to pay $25/month for an AOL subscription and $18/month for unlimited downloads of a DRM crippled format and the ability to burn 10 tracks. So for $43, users can download low quality, DRM crippled songs from a 56k modem, and every month they can burn half of a mix CD with 10 tracks!
I've said it before and I will repeat it again, because apparently nobody at AOL/TW reads /. If you are going to charge for a service, any service whether it is downloadable music, catering, or blowjobs in a cheap motel, you need to meet the basic needs of your potential customers.
Too bad that it won't be an mp3. No where are mp3s mentioned. Now thats not saying that you cannot still get a digital copy of it--it has to be decoded to be sent to the sound card at some point--but it does mean it won't be as easy as:
1.download from AOL.
2. Burn to CD with nero.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
well.. I doubt this would be legal if it were in the US.. But if the RIAA could come up with a site like this, I'd be there. Just like I'm at this site :).. Check out http://www.allofmp3.com/ .. $0.01/mb for MP3s. Many tracks are "online encode" as well, which means you can encode them to whatever bitrate and format you want, including WMA, MP3 and OGG (yes, OGG).. Be sure to click the 'English' link at the top if your russian isn't that great ;)
Who in their right fscking mind would pay $18 to burn 10 tracks? If i want to take it in the ass, i'll go and buy a cd for $18 in the store! Hell, it may have 12 tracks on it?
/me dons flame-proof pants
Might save you a few $ if the ten tracks you want are spread across seven different albums in the store.
I don't care if this is redundant and costs me points, it needs to be repeated as often as possible:
,etc. etc. music - full albums, ten bucks a month if you subscribe for a year. Well encoded except for the metal, where the distorted guitars suffer a bit from the 128k bit rate.
Emusic has unlimited downloads of excellent indie, electronic, blues, jazz and classical
They have the entire Matador catalog, and oodles and oodles of other off-center selections. The first few days I was subscribed I downloaded 2 gigs of stuff and felt faint and woozy with music lust.
There's no Britney or Zeppelin, but who cares? If you're a Slashdot reader you probably have offbeat tastes, so go dig in!
A system won't work until the costs become extremely cheap. Why not set up a central server where the costs are the same as radio and the user has the right to download the songs they want at anytime. Each person would be getting there very own radio station for relatively inexpensive costs. Have a maximum price per day or month and then the remaining service is free for that time period.
Wait, better go call my patent attorney.
I see a couple of potential issues here (aside from all the technical and DRM issues mentioned above).
Time Warner earned the movie industry's distaste by pushing the DVD format hard; it has a vested interest in the patents on the format (along with Toshiba and Sony) and therefore receives royalties on each DVD published and each DVD player manufactured. I would assume that RIAA members will be wary of allowing AOLTW the opportunity to build a similar power base in the downloaded-music arena by controlling the distribution mechanism in this fashion.
This brings up the second issue. A key problem (aside from pricing, DRM, yadda yadda yadda) for PressPlay and MusicNet has been making more than just their partners' music catalogs available on their service. As there is no one place to select from a broad/complete range of music, users would be forced to subscribe to more than one (or all) of the services in order to access all the artists that they desire.
Given the above issues, how likely is it that AOLTW will be able to license & distribute music other than that from Warner Music Group?
It seems as though it would be a non-starter...
Nanoox
payper liesense stock markup corepirate pyramid schemes.
there are far less than a million of them, butt each won lost causes much hardship to US all.
bullast away.
The time that free P2P will fail is the time that subscription services like this can offer better service than all the other free P2P networks combined. This includes file availability, speed, and price, though the price will fall in if the first two factors are well met. This AOL service is a far cry from being anything close to affordable or useful. No one wants to pay $18 for 10 tracks, equivalent to buying a regular old CD at regular old price.
That old system is idiotic, and the entire way that the music industry does business will change. No longer will they sell albums at huge rates like we see today. If they want to survive, they will have to sell each track individually and to keep the 'album system' intact, they will have to have the price of albums significantly lower than those of the combined prices of the tracks on that album. As it is, there is no reason why a soundtrack should cost more than the movie itself, as there are obviously no development or research involved in either of the medium, there is virtually no cost to produce either medium, and the content on the DVD is greater than on the CD. Yet the RIAA blames their slumping sales *completely* on piracy.
While these are not by any means new arguments, the industry just doesn't seem to be getting the picture. By offering services like these to "cater" to your average Joe KaZaA user, they are simply outlining the fact that they don't understand why KaZaA is so successful. It offers what users want at low rates (in this case free), and for the industry to compete with that price, they will simply have to offer a better product, and people will pay for it, *somewhat* like the idea of open source.
I've been subscribing to listen.com since they came out with their new subscription model a few months ago and have been very pleased. $10/month for unlimited music on demand, with a very broad catalog. Even more reasonable is the $4/month radio plan. You can create stations based on favorite artists and hit a button to skip songs you don't like.
They typically charge $1 per song to burn, but have an offer going through March 31 to charge $0.49 per song. This seems to be the pricing point that folks on Slashdot have been claiming they would support. I plan to burn a few CDs just to show my support.
Also, when I had problems getting their new software to work through my University's firewall, a developer worked diligently with me through email before finally sending me a patch to test. It worked great and ended up being included in the next release. It was a level of support I don't encounter with software much anymore.
I'm not affiliated with listen.com, but I do endorse them and I seriously doubt AOL/Time Warner will be able to match up.
I used to love working as a radio station DJ because I could take home all the cd's that I wanted each week. The new releases were off limits, but I was more interested in having the opportunity to listen to a new album in its entirety on a whim during the week.
So, lets assume that I was given access to a library of thousands of cd's. I could have copied them all, sure. Instead, I listened to what was of interest, then later made an effort to pick up a copy when I decided that it would make a good addition to my library.
I don't want it all for free, but why not drop prices online to the point that I can download several albums for a few bucks. If I like it enough, sure, I'll go buy the CD. If it is a waste of my time, don't worry, it will be deleted soon.
Picking up a CD that you haven't heard before is such a gamble these days. At current prices, it is hardly worth the risk.
-S
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html
Intresting link with a good all round look at the DRM vrs Fair Use issue. Peronally I don't think the companies get it. They need to get back in touch with the fact that the customer is always right. Right now the customers who have braod band access are thumbing their collective noses at the music industry because the industry is thumbing their noses at them. Get with the times folks, your hoarding bronze weapons when steel is on the market.
In regards to this joke of a music service being offered I have this to say. As long as they are going to practice highway robbery there will be pirates aplenty. Pave a 6 lane highway with no speed bumps and you might be amazed how many people are willing to pay to use it. You know this service reminds me of the end of Blazing saddles where they put up the Toll booth on the prarie only they expect it to work in real life.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Doesn't RIAA stand for Recording Industry Association of America?
Isn't AOL/Time Warner a member of the Recording industry?
Could RIAA really demand fees from a member????
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
You simply can't sell what the public knows it can get for free. Someone at AOL must have more balls than brains...who would even _propose_ this idea in a meeting? The pop-music-swapping demographic they're aiming this at is the same that's grown file sharing to what it is today -- there's no way they'll pay for crippled versions of the same product they now consume for no cost, ethical or not.
"The volume of CD albums shipped in 2002 reached another all time high: 221.6m units"
Source: British Phonographic Industry
So sales haven't declined at all. I guess they just haven't risen as much as they hoped. At least in the UK, that is...
Music Match MX is the best. They found the correct way of providing this service. Both sound quality and pricewise. For me the sound quality is much more important though. Other than MX, I did like emusic.com but their 128 kbit Mp3's were awful for me.. I am still subscriber for them too.
Music Match MX, I think, uses MP3pro instead of Mp3. That probably explains the good quality. If you select CD quality for MX, the sound quality satisfies me. I am usually satisfied with 256kbit Mp3's minimum.
MX Gold ($3/mon) gives you something like a radio, you select an artist and listen to similar artists. You can skip songs if you want. Great for new music discovery. But MX also has a Artist on Demand feature if you buy the platinum service ($5/month). So you can only listen to songs from one or more groups. You don't get to select the songs, but you can skip to the next song if you want. Usually first songs are the popular ones.
You can create your radio stations based on artists, era, genre, and select the weighting of these. The system works great for me.
The current "on-demand" subscription services (the major ones being Pressplay, MusicNet, Listen.com's Rhapsody) all have licenses from all 5 major labels plus a number of indies that allow them to do the following:
- on-demand streaming (e.g., search for a track and stream it)
- tethered downloads - DRM'd downloads that can only be played on the PC they were downloaded to
- burnable/portable downloads
The licenses from the labels generally require the subscription service to pay a small fee (say, 0.2 cents) for each song streamed or each time a tethered download is played. Each time a portable/burnable download is purchased, the label gets about 50 cents. The music publisher gets an additional fee of roughly 8.5 cents.The prices now are all about $9 to $10 per month for unlimited streams and tethered downloads plus about $1 per track for burnable/portable downloads. Rhapsody and MusicNet currently don't offer transfers to portable players, only burns, but of course you can rip to MP3 after burning.
Currently the selection is variable, with some albums or tracks not available at all, some only available for streaming/tethered downloads but not for burning, etc., but the selection has been steadily improving over time. For example the current no. 1 album by 50 Cent is available on all of the services, and is available for burning. The Norah Jones album that just won 8 Grammys is as well. Some artists like Dave Matthews, Madonna, Metallica and the Beatles own their own digital rights and have not allowed their music to be made available on the subscription services yet.
Another issue affecting availablility is publishing rights - the subscription services need to make deals with publishers representing songwriters in addition to the artist or label who controls the master (recording) rights. In many cases this is why only certain tracks on an album may be available.
when faced with the choice of going legit and overpaying for music, or grabbing it for free, they're gonna grab it for free.
But this does nothing to address the stupidity of it all. They get their 'free' music, thinking that they've gotten away with something. Meanwhile, the people who have a clue are the ones who aren't downloading songs for free, and aren't buying the music at stores. In other words, they're the people who have decided to pick up their marbles and go play somewhere else until such time as the RIAA decides to play a fair game. It's the same that you'd do with any other product. The only difference is that the ability to transform music into a digital medium makes stealing it a nearly effortless proposition, so instead of playing by the rules, people opt to do this instead.
>Fully automatic small-caliber weapons are perfectly viable arms for hunting very large game or for home defense, but they are illegal because
:)
Fully automatic small-caliber weapons are crap when it comes to hunting very large game or for home defense. Against very large game a fully automatic small-caliber weapon is going to have a very angry very large animal stomping on your head and in your home all it does it tear up your precious belongings and make a lot of noise.
They are not against the law, however, in the USA (ymmv in smaller communist countries and no I don't care.) They are documented and ownership requires a background check but Class III weapons (fully automatic small-caliber weapons) are legal to own by regular 'ol people assuming they follow the well defined transfer process and pay their $200 transfer tax.
The Civil War was way bloodier than the crap that happened during prohibition so I call bullshit on that aspect of the discussion too.
You are destroying any credibility the rest of your semi-accurate post may have by using these lies. Please stop, stick to the facts (the true ones) and the things you know. Like music piracy
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
...and, if necessary, they could not only use a proprietary format, but they could also use seriously lossy compression or other tricks (such as including advertising at the beginning or end) to make it simply undesirable to burn on your own.
That would provide an ability to sample the music and figure out what you'd like, but would still have people going through AOL to get their custom CDs.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Wrong - they have music from all 5 major labels plus many independent labels. Rhapsody has this as well. MusicNet is a separate company from AOL and is actually owned by three of the five major labels (Warner, BMG and EMI).
Ok. Here's a business model that I would really like, with the potential to make a lot of money:
Offer a music service that, either for free, or for a fixed price, allows you to download all the songs you want, from fixed servers or from other peers, in some compressed format.
Provide software or a web site that allows you to easily design a "mix" CD, based on either songs you already have on MP3, or lists of songs that you don't have from a catalog.
Once you've selected up to 80 minutes of music to fill your mix CD, you design the CD label. You can pick from a template, or upload your own disc art. You can also design your own template. More on that below.
Then you select "purchase" to order a custom CD.
o The custom CD is burned to a CDR, using full resolution, uncompressed WAV files.
o The CDR is printed on a high-resolution full color inkjet or dye sublimation printer, using the disc art that you selected or designed.
o The CDR is placed in a white sleeve, and mailed to you.
The cost would be say, $11.95 per disc plus $5.00 fixed shipping and handling charges no matter how many discs you place in a single order. Keeping the per-disc cost low and the fixed charge high is advantageous, as it would encourage larger orders.
This way, you could use the P2P system to "sample" and explore music, and find the music you really like, then order an uncompromised, top notch, attractive product:
1) The music you really like in uncompressed format -- the same bitstream as the original CD, as opposed to lossy MP3s.
2) Attractive, highly professional custom-printed CDRs with zero effort, instead of piles of hand-labelled CDs.
The "user community" would be built around bulletin boards, mix lists and disc art. Once you had paid to burn a CDR, you could opt to save and publically "publish" your mix list and disc art, so that other people could make identical copies of your mix CD by clicking a "purchase" button. You could also upload your own cover art templates that could be used to print any track list. There would be no way to download other people's disc art -- the only way to get it would be to have a CDR custom burned. This would create an additional incentive to use the pay service. There would be a system for people to rate and rank mix CDs and cover art, and a regularly published top 100 list. You could set up a system where if 1000 people use your mix list or disc art, you get a free CD, thus encouraging people to put a lot of time and effort into coming up with really good track lists and sick disc art.
It seems like it would be fun to me. Sound like a good time? Would people pay for that?
Ok...10 burnable tracks for 18 fucking dollars? You've got the be fucking kidding me. I can even buy a crappy CD with 15 tracks for less than that. You can buy a compilation CD of tracks you like for 15 bucks for 20 tracks. These people are nuts. You want to sell online music...it's so god damned simple. Streaming all tracks are free, Twentyfive cents for all tracks at 64kbps encoding, $1 for all tracks at 128kbps encoding, and $2 for all tracks at 256kbps. Simple, and people would buy it. I imagine most people here would pay 2 lousy dollars for a quality mpeg. Oh, and no DRM. That shit blows. If they really want to make sure you don't trade their MP3s after you pay for one, just make them only burnable (but playable on any computer) on the computer they are downloaded onto. Or if they really really want copy protection, only bother protecting the 128 and 256 mp3s. Honestly, I can't believe they haven't done this shit already. Oh, that's right, the Recording industry is a bunch of greedy whores.
The article at the Washington Post is not as complete as the one at the New York Times. In particular, AOL is trying to sell a value-added service to consumers who already have broadband service.
...They can also download the songs to their computers for higher sound quality and the ability to listen to them when not on the Internet." What you will not be able to do for $8.95 is burn CD's from the downloaded songs. "A subscriber can listen to MusicNet's downloads on no more than two computers. They also cannot be copied to other devices or sent to other people."
"In the next few weeks, AOL is going to introduce an improved $15-a-month service, with a bundle of content and services meant for people who already buy broadband connections from their cable or telephone companies. That offering will include a limited version of MusicNet that will let users download 20 songs a month and listen to another 20 one time."
For those who don't want the regular AOL, "for $8.95 a month, users will be able to listen to a catalog of music, now at 250,000 songs and growing, on their computers... The standard $8.95 version of the service will allow users to listen to an unlimited number of songs on demand
The premium service is $17.95 and allows the burning of 10 songs a month in addition to unlimited listening.
maybee it will push the issue of overpriced music. maybee prices will come down. ha i can make myself laugh........
You've got...
shitty taste in music
whew, glad that's over
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
(And once they sign up, AOL will make it actually impossible to cancel the service. Naturally.)
Do these companies have no idea at all how people use Gnutella right now? Do they not do any research? Everything they offer us seems to be a business model designed around their needs, not around us as customers. We've all figured out that we don't want to subscribe to Columbia Records by now, so let's drop the stupid monthly fees: people will pay by the song, you'll make loads of money, so get it through your heads and give us what we plainly want...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
will have about 250,000 songs, including half of the most popular offerings on Billboard's Top 200 list
I'd be interested if they had something I liked, but bleah. Sturgeon's law applies to the Top 200, and odds are the 20 I can actually stand won't be in the set available.
However, the service is strictly limited to AOL customers, making many wonder if it will grab enough attention of the current subscriber base to actually be of value.
That's a lot like Tommy Hilfiger forcing customers to wear T.H. pants before entering their store, isn't it?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
>Odd. For home defense, I'd think that an automatic small-caliber weapon designed to wound a person would be ideal.
:)
p gj pg. jpg3 .jpg
:)
Nope. Movies and special effects not-withstanding, an automatic small-caliber weapon will make a LOT of noise and will spray bullets all over the place, possibly hitting an intruder (possibly not) but not your best use of force. Submachine guns jump around too much for my preferences, good for keeping someone's head down but not something you want to use in your own home - it would be analogous to using a flamethrower : effective at scaring away the bad guys but bad for your belongings. Get a 12 gauge shotgun and alternate buckshot and slugs.
Want to prove it to yourself? Take a heavy duty 1 gallon plastic jug full of water to the range. A Borden's Milk Jug works and if you don't drink milk then a 3 liter Coke jug works. Full of water, with the cap screwed on tight.
Walk it out to the other side of the range.
Put 9mm round nose ammo into you SMG (the manufacturers recommend full metal jacket round nose for proper high speed feeding) and point in in the general direction of the jug and spray bullets. If you hit (not particularly easy at 50 feet) walk over to the still full jug and watch the water dribble out. Takes a while. When the jug is empty, that is how long a guy with a bullet in a good place will last. Hitting the jug more than once at 50 feet during a spray of 25 bullets off-hand is going to be magic or luck. People don't simply fall down and die when they get hit - people die / go down / stop hassling you due to : shock from combined blood loss and seeing their blood all over (could take a while), lack of oxyen to the brain (depending on the size and placement of the holes in his body could take a while), cut a nerve cord (spinal cord) that makes the bottom half go limp (not very likely unless you get real lucky.)
Take a new jug and shoot it with the 12 gauge slug. No gray area there, if you hit a 1 gallon jug full of water with a 12 gauge hollow point 1oz slug the shock value shatters the jug and sends little pieces in all directions and the water rains down for about 15 seconds. For good reason, the sound of a 12 gauge shotgun pump action racking a shell into the receiver translates correctly in every language on the planet
In home defense if you are going to shoot somebody, shoot to kill them. If they live they are going to a) sue you in court (and possibly win), or b) come back and shoot you because getting shot hurts like a MOFO.
>Automatic weapons are illegal because
Let me reiterate this. Automatic weapons are not illegal. Live near Austin, Texas? Give me a call and if you have a clean police record and $6,000 we can go buy you one. No joke. Not cheap, and it isn't cash and carry (there is a background check before the transfer goes through) but if you have $6,000 and a clean record you too can legally own a machine gun. Short-barrel shotgun too, if that is your fancy - it is called a Class II weapon and if you submit the proper paperwork it is also legal.
Note that it is against the law to possess a machine gun without the proper tax stamp (costs $200, for the record) that you can only get during the transfer of the weapon, but then again being in the possession of a car or a computer that you did not obtain in the proper legal manner is also illegal.
As for hunting big game with a submachine gun the hide of a rhino or elephant would stop 9mm bullets from doing much damage, fired from your normal H&K MP5 etc... Even if they penetrated the skin and muscle there would be slim chance of them doing enough massive damage to internal organs to stop them from coming over and destroying you before limping off into the forest to die four days later of blood loss.
>They may be inaccurate, but if I believe that they are true
Fair enough. I can find a better way to spread the truth than by diss'ing on you. I will work on that, sorry.
http://www.cox-internet.com/arielinc/MP5PI006.j
http://www.cox-internet.com/arielinc/MP5PI013.
http://www.cox-internet.com/arielinc/MP5PI020
http://www.cox-internet.com/arielinc/MP5PI02
Oh so off topic, and yet so informative. Mods would have a field day if we weren't hidden down so far
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
$18 is around, or slightly more, than the cost of most CD's these days. Why would anyone pay $18 for an album's worth of MP3's, which even at 192kbps are not as sharp as the real deal on CD?
The only way a pay service like this will fly at that price point would be to offer downloads in a lossless format. Of course, that means 60-70 megs per song but on broadband that's not a big deal.
If I can get the same quality audio as a CD and choose the 10 songs I want (vs. the 2 good / 8 bad song paradigm of most pre-packaged albumns) for $18 its probably not the worst deal ever given the marketplace (I will refrain from the obligitory ramblings about why CD's should not cost $18 given their production costs, etc.) It might even be worth it to throw in my own $25c CDR, store it some place (jewel box etc.) - i.e. make the whole thing nice like a store bought CD, but if it would really be worth it is a close call and unless there's really a clear advantage, the service will fall flat on its face.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
Business had the chance to make money from this type of model when it was just Napster. With central control, a reasonable fee for downloading and burning I think most people would pay for that as a reasonable service. BUT, by shutting Napster down and going for the lengthly path of the law they are now too far behind. Kazaa et al are not centrally controlled and as a result I'd guess that people will stick with the 'what I know/any ISP/free' option as opposed to the 'unknown/AOL/charge option'. Sadly, I can see business turning round in a year and saying that the law is the only way to deal with music swapping on the net.
I was a sub-sub contractor for a project like this that Sony wanted to do.
I spent days TRYING to talk them out of it. They were convinced that the whole napster phenonminon proved that users wanted to burn their own CDs... not that it had ANYTHING to do with getting something for free.
The only convienience this gives me is that I don't have to buy a crappy song to get a good one. Yippie!
Sony was right, people do want to burn their own CDs and are willing to pay reasonable amounts for it. Napster was about being able to get anything you wanted, especially rare and discontinued music and other audio files.
Time-Warner is screwed up. It's no co-incident that this overpriced service is being offered within a two months of the big shake up at AOL-Time Warner. The AOL people are out so now, YEARS after the merger, AOL gets the boost it needs. The only problem is that it's being done on Time-Warner Terms. NO ONE is going to pay the price of an AOL subscription plus 19/month to be able to stream sub par music and then write ten dinky Digital Rights Denied songs a month. So it shall flop. Too little too late TW.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
You seem to know how to save us and suggest this course of action:
The solution is CUT COSTS. Stop spending millions a year on pressing and distributing CD's and just put everything in an online library. It's just that simple. Then you can offer more because it costs less to produce. Then people will buy...but not until you make the leap.
Let me remind you what will happen to us if and when we become just another web site and why you don't want that to happen. Two armed thugs are on the way to your residence right now to break your legs. When they are finished with you, be a good boy and go buy some sothing music to recover. You will find lots of nice offerings at any mojor music outlet. Don't look at a used CD store, one of those silly indempendent stores that have no-non major label music because we won't let them, or online because we broke all of that just like your legs.
Your friend,
Ben StuffedShirt
AOL Cheif Competive Research..
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
With the number of mp3 and ogg devices out there these days, it might be useful to add to your +1 interesting comment the following:
.wavs available, converting to .mp3, .ogg or even (bleah) .wma wouldn't be an issue. Of course, the consumer could always rip them themselves.
- give an option to burn as an audio cd or a data cd
- if a data cd is chosen, high quality mp3s (say, 192kbit) or ogg files are burnt
If you've already got a huge catalog of
Personally I'd be willing to pay the same price as a regular CD from the store, or even a little bit more (which it would be with shipping, taxes, etc) as being able to get a "real" CD with the songs I want would be great.
My real dream would be able to get a mp3 CD of properly tagged high quality songs that I could plug right into the mp3-CD player in my car, without having to dig through kazaa for the songs I like, tag them, rename them, listen to them all to see if they are good quality, complete, etc, then burn....
That's not going to happen anytime soon though...
For $18 a month, I get unlimited downloads and streams but can only burn 10 songs a month? Whats the whole point in downloading the songs if I can't burn them to a CD? I can get free streams of music on-line from Shoutcast and its not limited to one company's offerings ( AOL TW ).
10 a month?? Can a AOLer even download 10 songs a month over 56k?
What a wonderfully stupid business model.
In case AOL hadn't noticed, even your grandmother has downloaded illegal mp3 files for free !
Music piracy has gone too far to make a workable online business model out of it and there's no way they can stop the piracy with p2p applications and the rise of wireless internet.
When are these guys going to wake up and smell the roses ?
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
It is imperative when flying coach that you restrain any tendency toward
the vividly imaginative. For although it may momentarily appear to be the
case, it is not at all likely that the cabin is entirely inhabited by
crying babies smoking inexpensive domestic cigars.
-- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"
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