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Real Launches Music Download Service
fupeg writes "Spurred on by Apple's success, as well as their own purchase of listen.com, Real Networks announced their own online music service, dubbed RealOne Rhapsody. Here is the press release. They're offering songs at $0.79 per song, but with a $9.99/month subscription. The first two months are free. The press release says that 2/3 of their 300,000 song catalog is available for CD burning, while everything is available for 'on-demand' listening."
And yes, it requires a Windows PC and is only available in the United States. It looks they are having a 14 day trial, with the first three months at $4.98, months 4++ being $9.95 each. The free trial covers unlimited "on demand" music and Internet radio. CD burning costs are not covered by the free trial ($0.79 per song on each CD). It also sports a horrid image containing both Avril Lavigne and Fiddy Cent in close proximity to that David Bowie guy, who plain refuses to die and go away.
PS: fist post fools
So, correct me if I'm wrong but... The "on-demand" tunes are free, and you just pay for burning right?
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
Wow, wrong on both counts!
but I HATE real player... will they all be in RM format
nasty horrible software
Thank GOD for newsgroups.
I'd like to remind everyone, before making flash judgements:
This is a good thing. Whether or not RealNetworks can pull it off (and they might, being the first comparable option in the Windows market), competition will help. Perhaps this will lower Apple's per-song fee.
Bravo for taking a risk.
I'm sick and tired of this Anonymous Coward racking up the karma by cutting-and-pasting the text of the article. Furthermore, I hope Taco would do the sensible thing and simply remove AC postings altogether. They're a blight upon Slashdot.
Sure, it's .20 cheaper than the Apple Music Store per song... However, due to that monthly fee, the only way it actually balances out is if you download more than 50 songs a month ($10/50=$.20 - download less than that and each song is correspondingly more expensive than the $.99 charge).
Plus, this doesn't include the Apple $9.95 for a full album pricing option.
-T
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Real" guys can't have it both ways. Either do subscription thing (this is what Microsoft wants to do, and they're TOUGH competitors), OR do pay-per-song thing (this is what Apple already does, and they're tough competitors, too). Whoever has suggested this shit should be fired without any severance package.
IF this is a centralized place for downloading songs after songs.... how's this going to hold up better than P2P, where I just grab another song elsewhere when one link is discontinued?
I can't imagine most people paying for something that allows only on-demand listening. There are far too many limitations to on-demand listening:
Must be on a Windows PC attached to a high-speed internet line in the United States. So that cuts out listening to your music on any sort of musical "appliance" like a radio or cd player... You can't listen in your car, or anywhere else.
Its much like watching re-runs of Friends on pay-per-view. Who would want that?
Did they already try this and fail miserably?
It was called MusicNet.
From the link: "The original MusicNet that launched in December 2001 was a dismal failure...The subscriber numbers were so low that MusicNet has never been willing to state them in public."
Why do I h8 apple?
I wouldn't buy that service myself, but I think at the very least its a good sign that the industry is realizing that maybe (just maybe) distributing music on the internet isn't as gastly as first thought.
--- If I had a funny sig too, you might be laughing now.
unReal.
I'm suprised Real Networks is selling music, you can get it for free, from Real.com. Just look very hard for the link, it's right next to the free real player download link... really...
PS, Real Networks can burn in hell.
Please tell me these aren't all in "RA" format? I know we are going to have to deal with some stupid rights management format but at least give us something decent?
when they have been proven to not work. the only way they would beat the apple store is by using the same model but undercutting their prices and getting it out to windows users before iTunes for windows is released. The stat was that in the entire year before iTunes Music store was released, a total of 500,000 songs were actually sold from all of the subscription based services combined. Apple sold 1 million in the first 18 hours if i recall correctly.
;)
if anything, just copy apple and try to market it better... you could even call yourself microsoft then!
If the playback quality's as shitty as everything else I've seen from Real, it makes me doubly glad that I live outside the US *and* don't run Windows, so can't get the service!
You must think in Russian.
It is a wonder that Apple et al do not support mp3. If their proprietary or licenced technology is so wonderful and superior, where is the harm of offering mp3 as well for backwards compatibility since it doesn't compete? If mp3 is perceived as not having DRM, why not watermark the songs as they fly off the server so they can be tracked?
Both are quite feasible and one wonders why these services hobble themselves like this. The net result is users will stick to free p2p services, grabbing their songs from Kazaa and the record companies will get NOTHING and the services will have a fraction of the customers. It doesn't make any business sense.
from the article:
"we believe this is a great offer to consumers who are now realizing the power of online music services"
That's it, the consumer is just now realizing the power of online music. Sheesh.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
These songs are *REAL*
Apple's service enables CD burning. Real's, presumably, doesn't for recent hits - tracks that the record industry is particularly interested in keeping off the p2p services. I don't know what the actual factors are that influence Real's classification of a track as burnable or not are, but I think this makes for a viable theory.
Real has slightly crippled their service relative to Apple's, but they are, in return, able to offer a discount to those users who download 50 songs or more per month.
Of course, we have to ask - who is doing the returning here? I'd be interested in learning what sorts of costs are being placed on the supply-side upon these services. Is the record industry giving discounts to services depending on the level of crippledness they impose upon consumers? I'd be very curious to know what the terms of the contracts are that Apple and Real signed with the recording industry companies.
I dont get why so many people pay per song when they can get them for free on Kazaa. Is this the moral line we are going to draw in the sand? I never understood the reasoning behind the idea of mp3's and p2p being illegal. Before the internet I used to tape songs off the radio and make mix tapes and trade them with friends. If thats not illegal how is this illegal? Because of quality? How can the output and not the act be the sole difference between something being illegal and something not. I don't get it. Am I being glib here?
I ask for a car and I get a computer. How's about that for being born under a bad
How many of you trust or want Real to be selling you music.
This is from the company hides their free player, tricks you into purchasing an upgrade, and has an install process which hijacks everything on your browser.
Even if this was a good bargin I would reject if becuase it is from Real.
Ted Tschopp
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
Kazza is offering songs at $0.00 per song, with a $0.00/month subscription.
Really? Let's say you're an average, music-loving consumer... You might download say, 20 songs a month, right?
Apple cost: 20*$.99 = $20 (I'm rounding the penny)
Real cost: 20*$.79 = $16 (rounding the penny) plus $10 for monthly fee = $36 dollars.
So, why should Apple lower their fee? It's already cheaper. The only way the Real model gets cheaper is if you download more than 50 songs a month, every month you're subscribed.
-T
...when you think about it, how big Real Networks is trying to become when really their only product is a crappy little media player that acts more like virus/spyware in my opinion.
It even got the former CEO elected to congress...Not to say she is bad though, I honestly know little about her but Real Networks track record leaves A LOT to be desired.
I don't think there is a chance in hell I will bring them any of my business.
is there any good explanation anywhere about what on demand means? Is that latin for "You are totally f'ed when you pay for a song, then want to listen on-demand at home on your dial-up"?
You know what?
the real.com people are complete criminals. The software is sophisticated malware from hell.
MP3? WAV? Real? SOmething propriatary?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
all I want to know is, what labels have they signed up yet? I'm betting the big 5 aren't going to be as enthusiastic about working with real on this
--- Don't ever trust a woman until she's dead- B.B. King
is still the best deal in my opinion. $15 a month for unlimited access. Sweet.
79 cents sounds fairly decent for burning tracks, but if "on demand," i.e. streaming, requires that horrid Real One player, you can count me out. That damn app is too intrusive, IMO. I just want something that can play a file, but they turn it into a braying "push content" mechanism that makes me want to punch a hole in the monitor. No thanks.
And I can listen to Internet radio on Shoutcast et al...No wonder the RIAA was so adamant about getting rid of free Internet radio. The puzzle pieces are coming together, aren't they?
"CD burning costs are not covered by the free trial ($0.79 per song on each CD)"
You're kidding. They want to charge me for the use of MY CD burner and MY blank media? Gee, this plan is destined for success...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I don't know if I'd say that the above poster is a troll... I've had some pretty crummy experiences with Real. Each version has gotten more bloated, more intrusive... RealOne was when I finally gave up on the platform.
I'm not sure if this will take off. I'm betting on "no" because of two factors:
Subscription Fees are bad.
People like to own, not rent, music.
-- Funky
Guglielmo Marconi has released a new system for music delivery, its called "Radio". Unfortunately, it doesn't provide the ability to select a particular song, but it does provide the ability to choose genre.
The reduced functionality vs. Real's new system comes at a reduced price, FREE. And all songs are available for downloading and burning, all within a user's fair use rights.
User adoption is still up in the air, and Nikola Telsa is challening the patent.
I've been buying CD's now since 1987 or so. I still like some of the CD's I bought back then. I cannot fathom having paid $10/month since 1987 just so I could still have it in my collection.
I want to buy my music and call it mine to play whereever and whenever I darn well please thank you. Can you imagine forgetting a month and -poof- CD collection gone! I'm probably missing something here since I can't imagine this appeals to anybody.
For users who are actually interested in this type of service, all the competition could be good. I think 4 different institutions are now starting something like this (Apple, Microsoft, Real and PSU [kind of]). Anyone think that with all these people competing against each other for the same thing that the prices of songs will drop and they might standardise the music format?
Probably not but it would be cool
kc
I took a look at the site from your link and it was a little unclear if that was exactly what they ment. The wording sure makes it look like it's really .79 every time yoou want to burn a song, but it seems really odd they would charge per burn... if that's true then the service does not seem cheap at all, if you want to make a bunch of different kind of mix CD's.
.79 for each song on the mix and have to pay again to use it on some other CD!
One CD I'm working on now thanks to the Apple store is a mix CD of Wierd Al songs next to the original counterparts - so I have Eminem's "Loose Yourself" right before you get to hear "Couch Potato" (although currently the Apple store itself does not carry Weird Al stuff so I have to burn from CD). I probably wouldn't be making such a CD though if I knew I was going to pay
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Neither do you--iTunes is comming to Windows later this year.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
The only other major player that is left to offer content at a lower price would be Microsoft, or a major music company.... I can see the price dropping even further as these services ramp up. I also think that the monthly fees will go away with future reincarnations of this business model. Maybe these music companies are starting to get a clue that people want to download music, and not pay 16 bucks for a CD with 13 tracks that is only 38 minutes long...
So they expect people to pay $9.99 a month for the privledge of being allowed to pay them per song for lossy compressed songs? I guess there are some fools who will.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
At least if it was in RA it would be cross platform. Apparently they are using some form of WMA? Idiotic.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I'm seeing a problem.
I just subscribed to a trial of Rhapsody from Best Buy. (Is this the same as Real Rhapsody? No name confusion there...) (another side note, it's scary how much info Best Bad had based on my phone number at the cash register, but that's a YRO topic...)
I've also been interested in iTunes, if they make a Windows version. This sounds interesting, too.
Problem is, the two Rhapsody's are subscription-based. Presumably, due to partnerships, etc... all these various services will have somewhat different catalogs. I can afford to buy as much as I can afford at $.99/pop or whatever the price is... but I can't afford $10/service/month to have access to all the different songs to buy them.
Hopefully they'll all figure out soon that the model should be $.xx/song with no membership fees. I think the only way this is going to work out is if consumers have unfettered access to buy all songs available regardless of who is offering them.
To be fair, the Rhapsody from Best Buy seems to let me just download as much as I can eat, and burn them to CD if I want. I haven't read through all the license stuff yet, but obviously practically speaking, I'm buying copies of the songs. At $10/mo, that's only 10 songs to break even (assuming $1/song is fair). That's attractive, if the song catalog is sufficient.
I happily own both a Mac and PC....so this is double the fun. GOD I love competition...
;-)
>PS: fist post fools
I'm sorry....what is that about fisting?
I will never pay a subscription for music. Let me buy it and burn it on a per track/per album basis. Let me own it, just like I own the CDs I buy at the store.
I hate subscriptions, and I think I speak for the great majority of the market. Subscription was the one thing that turned me away from all the other legal internet music offerings. Once Apple comes out with a Windows version, I'm on board. If someone else comes out with a service just like Apple's before Apple does, or cheaper than Apple, I'm on board.
Someone help me understand why these companies can't figure out something so obvious? It only takes me a split second to think like a consumer to realize this idea won't fly. How can people whose full time job it is to figure this out not figure it out?
Am I the only one that cringes every time I hear about one of these new services? I feel that even so much as casting their inane 'you buy it, but don't own it' business model in a positive light is a disservice to anyone not affiliated with the RIAA.
As far as I'm concerned, music should be a black and white/all or nothing deal. Either the music is free of anything attempting to block it from WHATEVER use I choose to put it to, or I (along with everyone else) don't (shouldn't) buy it. I want the music company over a barrell begging me not to do what they don't want, not the other way around (the way it's supposed to be in a free market, the customer controls at least as much as the seller.)
This is a way too complicated of a pricing plan for a basic home user.
There are simply way to many rules with this plan as stated. I pay a monthly fee, so I should be able to use any song right? No, I have to pay for each song [after the trial]. So why am I paying a monthly fee? Then I get the song, and realize I can use it but for my computer?
You try selling that to the guy on the street.
That's why the Apple plan works. $.99 a song. We'll give you a discount if you buy a full album (for most CDs). No monthly fee. Burn, iPod, play your songs you got. There are some restrictions, but transparent to the average user. That's easier to sell to the guy on the street.
AnamanFan - Trying to find the Truth, one post at a time.
I pulled a jack move to cop this sig
You sure that wasn't supposed to read:
I jacked a cop to pull this sig move? Just asking.
10 tracks @ RealR - $7.90 + $9.95 = $17.85
10 tracks @ Apple - $9.90 + $0.00 = $09.90
25 tracks @ RealR - $19.75 + $9.95 = $29.70
25 tracks @ Apple - $24.75 + $0.00 = $24.75
50 tracks @ RealR - $39.50 + $9.95 = $49.45
50 tracks @ Apple - $49.50 + $0.00 = $49.50
So I have to buy fifty tracks per month before Real Rhapsody is even remotely competive, not to mention the fact that something like one-third of the tracks aren't burnable at all.
Someone knows at which bitrate will one be able to play/burn the songs?
Know what, kazaa is slow as shit and labor intensive if you're trying to get good quality. If someone would sell me a real unprotected mp3. (Not a windows only spyware-required piece of shit.) available for download on a fast connection with guaranteed quality and a simple search/purchase/download mechanism I'd pay.
Of course, then what's to stop somoene from uploading it to kazaa.
But the fact remains, as long as I can share amongst all of MY computers and MP3 Players I have no real desire to share with the universe if the price is fair.
Back when we had to buy a cd, rip, encode, and upload for 3 days on a crappy modem there was a cost that made it worth trading with others. I'll waste days of my life on "artist A" if you waste equal time on "artist B" and we'll swap. With quick high quality legal downloads for a fair price I'd rather say "go buy it yourself, here's the link".
If they can tap into that me-first (leachers abound) mentality and call it honest consumerism, they'll be loving life again. They can do so without limiting our civil liberties and suing the fuck out of everyone too.
Unfortunately, until a record company actually does something to repeal the evil fuckin dmca, I ain't buying shit from them, ever again. And I haven't since that piece of shit communist legislation was passed.
_O__-._O__
_|\___\|__ Dodge this RIAA!!!
_|_____|__
_/\____/\_
It's working for Apple, but I still don't think per-song pricing makes sense. At $.79/song, do I pay $.79 for Thick as a Brick and $20.54 for The Wall?
And in that case I could get Yes's entire catalog for about five bucks.
It's a tad ironic that it carries the same name as Apple's codename for an early version of OS X.
I sig for world peace
All of the above equates to you saving time and getting what you want when you want.
the word you was looking for was virii, not virouhusses.
Uh, yes I am trolling. Moronz
Well, Kazaa is cheap if you don't value your time or bandwidth. But considering how many badly encoded or just wrong files out there, and how slow transfer can be, anyone with a job is better off just paying for the songs and knowing they'll come down right the first time, off a high QoS server. I can't imagine ever downloading something off Kazaa if it was commerically available.
Better user experience is definitely a good place for the legit services to provide value.
I'm reminded of what my dad always said about going to see movies: "why pay now, when you can wait for a few years and it'll be free on television?" But I want it now, and good!
My video compression blog
Does anyone know how to save the Real streaming media to MP3/any other format to disk ?
I have tried ASF recorder for windows media in the past....
That title just begs for a goatse.cx link, you know.
For a music service to be great it needs to have some or all of the following characteristics.
I've been a Rhapsody/Listen.com subscriber for more than a year and find it to be a good deal. For $10/month, I basically rent a 10,000 album collection. They have I'd say 3/4 of the songs I want to listen to, including Guided By Voices, which I'm listening to at the moment and enjoying. The front end is pretty good, too. The bitrate is 128kbps, which is just middling, but as far as I understand comparable to Apple's. All the hype around Apple's service seems to be largely owing to general ignorance about very similar services like Rhapsody, emusic, musicnet which have existed for years. Chalk one up to Steve Jobs marketing genius!
There's a lot of posts from people fed up with Realplayer. Give this a whirl:
http://sn.hardnet.ro/realalt090.exe
(Windows only). Comes with the Real codecs and MediaPlayerClassic (no relation to the proper windows one - it's a very good bit of software) so you can play Real files without needing Realplayer.
If I like the music, generally I want the artist to produce more of it.
But if you don't have money, then I really don't see anything wrong with file sharing because you are not costing anyone anything.
Similarly, in college I copied programs just like everyone else but now I buy pretty much anything I use regularly because I can afford to and like to support development of good programs (I also donate money to the EFF and FSF for the same reason).
So my personal line is that if I can pay for it, I do, and if I can't, then it's OK to copy (because they wouldn't have money from me anyway). Of course the trick is deciding what you can afford and it's easy to rationalize that many things are too expensive - you just have to try and be honest with yourself about what you can afford.
I did have two or three songs from P2P services that I liked and kept in my music library - but after the Apple service started up I bought them to help support the artists (and the originals I had were 160k MP3's so it wasn't to get better quality). I know they don't really see much money but the artists do also get the intangible benefit of perceived popularity, which might help them in dealings with the label...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"It is a wonder that Apple et al do not support mp3"
iTunes supported mp3 format before it supported ACC.
"If their proprietary or licenced technology is so wonderful and superior, where is the harm of offering mp3 as well for backwards compatibility since it doesn't compete?"
Simple for Apple--They want to provide higher quality at a lower bitrate, all of the people downloading their music would be doing so through the iTMS, they didn't want to bother with the technical difficulties of ripping from the masters to both mp3 and AAC (doing a quality check, selecting 30 seconds out for streaming, getting the track information added, &c) and then deal with adding the (very mild) DRM to mp3s as well.
"why not watermark the songs as they fly off the server so they can be tracked?"
Apple does--your email address is in every AAC file.
" The net result is users will stick to free p2p services, grabbing their songs from Kazaa and the record companies will get NOTHING and the services will have a fraction of the customers. It doesn't make any business sense."
You must have flunked basic economics--either that or have been living under a rock.
Apple Sells 2 Million Songs in 16 Days
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Yes Real suck. So what.
Anything that increases competition in this market can only be good for the consumer.
\\ Mitch
I'm sure it's purely coincidental that Apple already had a product named Rhapsody...
Help, I'm a consumer, confused about who's selling this product (or so it'll go).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
After doing Enron calculus for so long, it sticks in your head forever!!!
Posting useless rant since 2003.
How can i not resist, with an offer like that you would have to be crazy not to miss it
RealNetworks can rot in hell, oh and my hostsfile
...you have to pay the per-song fee every time you burn with Real's service, right? That easily loses to Apple's service, where once you pay for the track, you can burn it pretty much as often as you like; I think the only limitation for iTunes was that you could only burn a single playlist with music from the store up to ten times. And really, why would you need to make more than ten copies of most CDs?
Apple's service wins, hands down.
I get a Rhapsody account free with Speakeasy DSL services...
I still use Kazaa.
LISTEN TO ME. I GET IT FREE. I STILL USE KAZAA.
Why?
Kazaa is easier, its less bullshit, and I get it in 1/2 the time. Oh, and its fricken mp3.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Before the internet I used to tape songs off the radio and make mix tapes and trade them with friends
... etc
You never knew when the song you wanted was going to air, the DJ's would always talk over the intro, quality of FM reception coupled with quality of recording left a pretty bad recqnng, cost of blank tapes where high
You can listen to songs all you want. You can sample and hear each of the 350,000, and perhaps might find 50 that you'd like. Perhaps not.
To do this with Apples service would cost you $350,000.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
or in error? they are the domestic errorists.
the pateNTdead bra(i)ndead eyecon0meter(gpl) says they're just doing it for the monIE.
lookout bullow.
consult with yOUR creator. that's the spirit.
It certainly can't get any higher. Hell, I can go to Tower Records and pick up an album for $9.99. Not only do I get the songs, but I get a disc that contains all the songs AND a case AND a neat fold-out cover that sometimes contains lyrics. Once I get this, I can then rip the CD and copy it to my ipod.
Where the hell is the incentive to use these services right now?
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
No way they could do that. Not at least until cars and portable players are connected to the Internet.
I don't see how, once you have paid your $.79 and burned one CD, that they can prevent you from ripping that as you please. Perhaps the hope is that you won't want to give away for free afterwards what you had to pay for first. Of course, all of P2P started with someone buying and ripping a CD once.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
and more Real execs get fired, until finally they figure out that crippled music won't sell. (And don't tell me that Apple proves it won't fail, fanboys - if Macheads bought the dreck they made in the Amelio days, they will buy anything. I should know, I'm the proud owner of a PowerBook 5300.)
sulli
RTFJ.
...this is what I've been using for four months with a different logo...it uses a bunch of browser components, a proprietary codec that plugs into Windows Media Player, and some sort of simple Win32 app to tie it all together.
I love it.
I've been around the block a few times when it comes to media players, and the Real brand leaves me cold. Every time I think about Real, my mind is once again filled with the idea of having to go to their website, re-enter all my bogus information, and get the latest version of their player. (They're like the Radio Shack of media players!) I'd be afraid to join a Real subscription service - since they'd probably change the file format of the download on a weekly basis, necessitating constant player updates. In this respect, they're much worse than Microsoft.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
For years, Slashdot readers have demanded an online music distribution service that was both affordable and convenient. Until then, many would proclaim, their only alternative was to illegally download copyrighted music.
With Apple first, and now Real, our wish has been granted... or has it? We are now able to download hundreds of songs for pennies per track, but there are those who are still unsatisfied.
There lie the true hypocrites. I am convinced they will use ANY argument to justify not having to pay for music, while trying to maintain some sence of moral propriety.
I only wish they would drop the bullshit pretenses, stop bitching about the little details about these services they don't like, and just come out and say they don't want to pay for music and never intend to. At least be honest about it.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
But why is this news?
.20 cheaper than everyone else, but so what. I seriously doubt that Real was "Spurred on by Apple's success". There just the most recent of companies to negotiate a licensing deal with listen.com.
Rhapsody has been around for some time, I've been a subscriber for about 6 months now. There are many different Rhapsody partners, Real is only the most recent. List of Other companies that have been selling this same stuff for a while.
Sure, real is offering cd burning at
Meh...
"Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...." - Abraham Simpson
Being a user of the Apple Music Store...Here is what you can do to circumvent the Apple DRM file type.
- Buy the song or album from the Apple Music Store (.99 or $9.99)
- Buy yourself a CD-RW (so you can erase it later)
- Burn the song or album to the CD-RW in CD-Audio format.
- Rip the song back into your iTunes library in MP3 format.
- Now share with your friends.
Somewhere along the way someone paid for the MP3's you are downloading from Kazaa and the other P2P applications. Might as well give back to the community. Buy an album that you truly like and share it. So many people either forgot or are too new to the MP3 community to remember the days before P2P entered the scene. Give me back the days of setting up an FTP server and giving my friends access to it, and where they did the same.
I find my self constantly trying to elliminate these nickel and dime plans from my budget - they are more difficult to manage and easily stack up before you even realize it. There is no way I would rather do this as opposed to just buying the CD I wanted. Or, more realistically, just downloading license free music. (mp3.com has a bunch)
On the mac, it's not such a big deal that the only portable supported is iPod. I wonder if they are working with other portable music players to add AAC support before the WIndows launch?
I also agree they could really use some sort of community setup - they have a marginal amount of that by showing you what other people have purchased for a particular CD or artist, but I would really like to see reviews - per song would be great! I was thinking they could tie in with Amazon to offer you the choice to buy a song, a virtual CD, or real CD along with reviews. That would be a fantastic music store and would probably help both Apple and Amazon (since you could at least find artists you were looking for that were not yet in Apple's store).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think it's pronounced that way.. but what do I know?
Look, I'm not very happy with emusic.com deciding to limit my unlimited subscription to 35 tracks at a time -- I don't want to baby-sit the track queue, I want to queue six albums at a time and go to bed -- but emusic gives me unlimited tracks at $10.00/month, and now ripped with lame 3.92 variable bit rate, so that the quality's about the same as when I rip my own CDs.
And I'd want to use Real
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
"To do this with Apples service would cost you $350,000."
Only if you wanted to listen to all 350,000 and iTMS does offer a 30 second preview of all of the songs availble. Most of us use something called a "radio" to sample songs and are willing to pay 99 cents to put it on our iPod, burn it to a CD, and keep it in our playlists when we are offline.
Since I promise you I won't even like 100,000 songs on the Real Service or on the Apple Store, net cost to me is not going to be $350,000 to get the full value out of the iTMS.
If you want to stream all of your music and only listen to those groups that Real is going to carry, this might work for you. However, if you are in to keeping music on your computer, burning your own CDs, or have an iPod it is wiser by far to use iTMS.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Others have sufficiently trashed the parent on the other topics, so I'll foucs on the watermarking issue.
Modern audio codecs use psychoacoustics, which encode the sounds the human ear and brain can hear over the ones that we can't.
Watermarking works by putting imperceptible sound in the signal that can't be heard, but can later be extractable by computer.
See the problem?
A codec at a "good enough" data rate (where no apparent artifacts are heard), won't be at high enough data rate to encode a robust watermark.
My video compression blog
Allow me to instruct young Grasshopper. Apples are supposed to be more expensive than PC alternatives. Don't you know that this is the way you can feel you have a better system -- because you paid more for it!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Apple's individual songs may cost 20cents more, however there is no monthly fee, puchasing music is quicker, the UI is better, yada yada yada. Moreover, albums via iTunesMS are still priced at around 10bucks.
Rhapsody makes sence if you're one of those annoying people who downloads a ton of random tracks all day long; however, if you're like me, you purchase an album every now and then, and a few random songs every once and a while. For most people the iTunesMS will be cheeper and less of a pain in the neck.
Hopefully iTunes for Windows will be out soon... or perhaps Apple could create an API for third party clients. That would rock.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I have to agree with the parent even though it is slightly off topic. I'm doing business with Apple because Steve Jobs is probably against this practice because he is enlightened.
You're not being glib. You're being an asshole.
First off, taping songs from the radio and giving them to friends is illegal, and always was; but no one really cared about music sharing before perfect digital copies became easily available.
I'm not going to try to defend the recording industry's fiscal practices or their despicable assault on music fans' real rights - but frankly it's wide-eyed disregard for the just-as-real rights of music publishers that is fucking it up for the rest of us.
How much cause would Sen. Hollings have if content companies weren't scared shitless by millions of pirates like yourself? Would we have the speech-destroying DMCA without music/movie piracy? I submit, possibly not. There's no point in debating the details of who gets what under copyright law if you're willing to flout that law for personal gain.
But don't be surprised when the entertainment industries cajole the government into flouting some rights that you might think are important.
...but none of these services can beat zero; I still don't see how Apple and Real are going to stop people from just using file-sharing software instead. Maybe this is just one of those things that doesn't make sense, like people who buy Windows instead of downloading Linux. Or maybe there are just more law-abiding citizens out there than I thought. :P
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." - Douglas Adams
If half of your purchases are through albums (as is the Apple statistic, I think), then the prices get better!
10 Tracks @Real = $7.90 + $9.95 = $17.85
10 Singles @Apple = $9.90 + $0.00 = $9.90
1 Album @Apple = $9.99+ $0.00 = $9.99
25 Tracks @Real = $19.75 + $9.95 = $29.70
25 Singles @Apple = $24.75 + $0.00 = $24.75
1 Album + 13 Singles @Apple = $9.99 + $12.87 +$0.00 = $22.86
50 Tracks @Real = $39.50 + $9.95 = $49.95
50 Singles @Apple = $49.50 + $0.00 = $49.50
2 Albums + 25 Singles @Apple = $19.98 + $24.75 + $0.00 = $44.73
The only downside to the Apple mechanism? You need a Mac running OS X and you cannot 'sample' for free. On the other hand, that's what radio/movie/tv/cable does for you. And I cannot see Apple not doing something to fix that... perhaps a tie into Internet Radio, which iTunes *already* has a feature for... Perhaps 'on demand iTunes radio'?
GPL Deconstructed
With the exception of some very light DRM (Completely removed by dragging a protected AAC into Toast, it turns it into an AIFF), Apple makes it very clear that the file is yours. It never has to phone in, you can burn it to as many CDs as you want, and most importantly, you can put it on a portable player. I think the portable player is the most important key here. I haven't messed with CDs in quite awhile, in fact, my new car doesn't even have a CD player, just a good old line in thanks to BlitzSafe. The ability to burn a CD is very weak to me, I read it as "We will sort of allow you to do what you want with your files, but we will make damn sure it is wildly inconvient." That just doesn't fly with me. I think the only way that the Real model would work is if they would partner with Creative or Rio give the ability to download to download to a portable player instead of a CD.
I've often wondered why these businesses do not offer a lossless format download so that the CD you create from it would be the same audio quality as the one you'd buy in the store. Sure, lots more bandwidth needed, but wouldn't that be a small additional expense?
As others have noticed/noted this is just a Real branded version of the Listen.com Rhapsody client/service, though with a 20 cent cheaper burn price.
:)
I used to be a Rhapsody subscriber (or still am till my last month runs out). They have a pretty good selection. If they didn't have a band I was looking for, they often had recommendations that were just as interesting. I found alot of new music that way.
I mostly listen to music at home in front of the computer (sad but true), so the streaming limitation didn't bother me. The 99 cent per song burn charge wasn't worth it to me because a)I usually only like bands where I like most of the songs on an album, b) many bands have enough songs on an album to make the price difference from a CD insignificant c)ripping from CD gives me better a quality source to make mp3's for my car mp3 player (the 2nd most likely place for me to listen to music). Thus, I usually buy the CD's I like the most after discovering them on Rhapsody.
Why did I finally give up? The software kept stopping the streaming to "Authorize". They kept throwing the fact that as soon as I stop paying them, I'll have nothing to show for it but the memories. To make it worse, the stream still appeared to download while this "Authorization just stalled there). I was perfectly happy to live with the illusion if the damn thing would have held up its end of the bargain.
Did I call tech support? No. Why? Some number of months ago I had a problem where I couldn't log in. I contacted them via email and never got a response over several days. So I canceled. Then I figured out that the problem was my fault (Zone Alarm doesn't disable when you think it does, and it silently updates in the background). Since that month hadn't run out, I reinstated my subscription. This time around I just don't care enough, so I'm gone.
In summary, I don't mind the restrictions on what you can do with the music so much as the reliance on them to provide the service without interruption. I didn't mind paying the $10 a month for the convenience of exploring new (and old) music.
Now that I think of it, I believe non-subscribers can download the client and use it for free but are limited to 30 sec clips. Maybe I'll try that after my subscription officially expires
Who then would you trust to sell you music? Honestly, folks, I don't think this is a "trust" issue as much as it is a "sell" issue. There are still plenty of people who simply object to paying for music, no matter the source.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Just 'cause they're using wma and a much worse pricing mechanism doesn't mean they didn't copy apple!
After all, it is called Rhapsody.
*tee hee*
... I'd sign up with columbia house. figure it out guys...
If you want to keep them off the P2P services, never release them on CD, never play them on the radio, never stream them across the Internet. Heck, just never let them be heard at all. Otherwise it only takes one hacked copy loose in the wilds.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
2/3 of their 300,000 song catalog is available for CD burning
So, I go to the store and buy a CD I like. But because of copy protection I will not be able to make a mix CD to take with me. Instead, if I want a mix CD, I must purchase the songs again through a service like this. Or, I could just purchase all the songs from a service like this and burn my own CDs however I like. But then I don't get the cool cover art or the feeling that goes along with owning something original.
I know they are trying but somehow I still don't feel any better.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
I agree that the scope of free music over p2p dwarfs that of trading with your friends. And I will agree that recording off of the radio was crap in regards to mp3 technology. I think the best point made was in regards to the idea of the Record companies having the money to create or manipulate laws. I am sure that conversation could go on forever though and touch relatively every aspect of our legal system. /.er's.
It is interesting to me that technology is the cause of so much legal strife lately. It seems every piece of technology comes out and conjures up this large tidal wave of legal crap. It reall is a shame b/c lost in all this copyright banter is the fact that music has become so accessable and so broad that new people are listening to new music every day. I can't imagine any musician or artist who is against anything that makes his or her art accessable to as many people as possible. Even if it is only to stroke their own ego. Oh well, I enjoyed reading the rebuttles to my question. Thanks
I ask for a car and I get a computer. How's about that for being born under a bad
I wholeheartedly agree with you in principle...
However, the tricky thing about competition is that you have to be *competetive*. I'm not too convinced this service really is. If there is no pressure on the other services (Apple especially, as I use that one occasionaly), there could be a hundred others charging $500 and a pint of blood per song and I wouldn't benefit. The only benefit I get is watching them go out of business, which I expect to see here if they don't ditch either the subscription or the burning fee.
Boom Shanka
The inventor of radio spells his name "T-E-S-L-A" not "M-A-R-C-O-N-I." Google Cache
3. Profit!
2. ???
1. On Soviet Slashdot, a Beowulf cluster of alien Natalie Portman overlords welcomes YOU!
Get real (and I don't mean the player). I'm getting tired of overblown, unrealistic statements like those of the one-level-up poster. A few dozen copies over time -- sure. Millions? I doubt it!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
These bozos can't figure out what to do. How do these people get rich, when they are so dumb?
I didn't edit the second line that well, let's try again:
1 track @ Apple - $.99 + $1,000 (for a computer to download the songs) = $1000.99
That's better!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
And will it use mp3??
Repeat after me: The big music companies will never ever release in a format that you can share freely. If they did, those files would be all over every P2P net as the "original" files. The fact that you can burn and reencode ensures one thing - that there'll be ten thousand ways to rip it to mp3/ogg, some good, some bad, but different.
Releasing them in mp3 format would be the greatest disaster in the record companies, because it would drastically improve the P2P networks reliability, availability, quality, convienience and speed. Heck, you could probably get clients with pre-configured lists of SHA-1 hashes of songs, that will *only* download perfect songs always, reducing manual sorting/testing/normalizing+++ to a bare minimum, just fire and forget.
One of the first rules of economics is that if you're going to charge for something (read: Apple's and Real's music store), it must be better than what you can get for free (read P2P nets), and with the current DRM they simply seek to achieve that, not stop all copying, though I'm sure they wish they could do that too.
On a completely off-topic note, that is why people misunderstand Linux, because if you try to find a worse operating system, you won't find much. But that is only because an inferior product would have to cost less, which it can't, and so the product would simply be discontinued. And so Linux would always have the lower end, be it the lower 2% or the lower 90%.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Call it 7th grade math or just plain common sense or whatever but I'm not going to pay anyone just to sample a song. I have Kazaa for that. I will, however, consider paying for a high quality burnable version of a song that I really enjoy.
I trust Real like i trust a child molester.
With the latter, at least you know where you have them. 'nuff said.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
My guess is that Apple users are just used to getting ripped off.
Or perhaps their needs and desires are different from yours, thus making the iTMS a real value?
It seems quite ignorant to think that because something is a ripoff to you that it isn't something very useful and valuable to others.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Copyright is a monopoly. There will be no real competition until a statutory license for this service is set.
Nevermind.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
It's easy to get around, but usually I treat the CD's I burn as disposable and don't mind them getting scratched - because I can always burn new ones from playlists.
I don't want to have to burn two copies of every CD I burn just to avoid paying!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, Real is actually using Windows Media to rent-a-sell music (compounded monthly rental fee AND a per song fee). Sounds quality is going to suck. However, masochistics will enjoy the fee scheme.
To be correct (as opposed to just 'fair'), the Apple model lets you preview the songs before you pay for them. Double-clicking on any song gives a free 30 second preview at high quality, which is more than enough to figure out if you'll like a song. You're comparing facts to falsehoods here.
... but it took a second month because there aren't enough seconds in 1 month for that many 30 second clips)
Apple cost 100,000*0 + 10*0.99 = $9.90 (10 songs that you want to burn to CD - 100,000 that you sampled for *free* but maybe didn't like...)
Real cost 100,000*0 + 2*9.99 + 10*0.79 = $27.88 (10 songs that you want to burn to CD - 100,000 songs you listened to
Real Networks are part of the AXIS OF EVIL with Micro$soft and Gator Corporation.
I say "We Must Nuke'em all" !
I don't see how these companies survived this long. when will they understand that DRM = *piss off*
They need to realize that if they focus on refining the delivery mechanism for digital music first then they can worry about protecting their property further down the line. Right now they are losing buisness because its easier to find music and get it on Kazaa then it is anywhere else, but that can be changed easily.
Kazaa sucks ... lousy quality, unpredictable/lame download speeds, plus no guarantee of getting what you want. Give me a place that has ...
... and I am there. If companies would put DRM on the backburner for a while and focus on actually getting ppl the music they want then they would be in a much better position.
1. good quality rips
2. large selection
3. fast downloads
4. standard format
I agree that most CD's now have about 1 to 2 songs worth listening to.
But that's fine now, because I can pay them a little for the one song I find enjoyable - so they get direction about what I liked (often not the most popular song on the CD) and I get a decent version with no hassle. It's up to them to produce more of the songs I actually liked if they want more money (both record companies and artists). And for those idiotic companies that refuse to provide access to the single song I like (true of some albums on the Apple Store) they just don't get any from em and I can get the song via P2P if I really like it.
I am actually hoping that a move to a buy-per-song model will help improve the quality of albums by letting bands put out singles to placate record companies while holding off on actual albums until a decent set of songs is obtained (which would be forever for a lot of bands!). But that really relies on the record companies releasing singles without albums... which the Apple store is in fact doing to some extent with "exclusive tracks" that are not on any particular CD. I think they are finding those very popular (judging by the facetime they get at the main Apple Store page) and so will push to provide more of them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This has probably already been pointed out, but I see everyone comparing Real's service with iTunes on a per-song basis. Despite the fact that Real doesn't even cleanly defeat iTunes on that basis (you have to download lots of songs for that to work out) I haven't yet seen anyone bring up the fact that iTunes music is cheaper per album. I've seen many album containing 16+ songs in iTunes for $9.99. That's significantly cheaper than Real's .79 per song + monthly subscription fee.
The second point I want to make is that RealPlayer sucks butt on the Mac platform so Real stands to make zero inroads into the Mac market. I don't know what Real is like on Windows or elsewhere, but the Mac software is mediocrity in action. I wouldn't use Real's service at half that price unless they improved the lousy piece of dung that they pass off as their player. (Let's see, I close the main window and the application's menu bar disappears so I have to force-quit the damn thing. That's the hallmark of quality software.)
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Real is on my short list for companies that will never receive a penny from me. My reason? Mostly because of the crap they try to pull when you install software, and then the crap they pull once it is installed.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
Does it surprise anyone that Real is doing this? Apple sold two million songs in just over two weeks. And think about how small the Apple market is. Based on percentages alone, of course Real would think "hm, well let's go after the other 95% of the market. Even if we only get 50% of those, we can make a killing". That's just one part of the argument though. The "pure number" arguement. Then you get into the geek argument of "great...first we had to deal with browser wars, then media player wars, now we're going to have online music service wars". Real is a major player in the market along with QuickTime and Win Media Player. They are not going to sit back and watch Apple take the market in online music sales when they eventually take over the Windows side (iPod seems to be a hit over with PC users now...so can this). True, the pricing blows. You could buy a CD from Apple for the same price as simply SUBSCRIBING to Real's service. Riiiiiight... From their (Real's) standpoint, it's a good, preventative measure to remain a player in the digital world. From our standpoint...WTF?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Great, some companies FINALLY GET IT, 5 years later, to put stuff on a subscription/download system, and people still manage to bitch.
:) )
1. They need to make profit (yah yah let me get to the next points before jumping on the guns)
2. Other big players need to see that it's profitable to jump in, and ESPECIALLY NOT DISCREDIT THE SYSTEM AND SAYING "SEE? I told you it wouldn't work, online music is only good for piracy blablabla"
3. When many players jumps in, there's something called COMPETITION that sets in, which could be anything like better encoding technology, RAW files, cheaper prices, etc...
4. 10$ a month plus 79cents per song isn't cheap and doesn't necessarely beat the price of a CD in store, but you can actually PUT WHAT YOU WANT, in the order you want, from the bands you like, *LEGALLY* on a CD (if that's any comfort
5. In the long run I'm sure there will be more little companies and artists using that delivery method and in any forseeable scenario, it's mostly positive for everyone (including the artists) exept the big record labels who should have come up with this 3-5 years ago (any small company would have DIED for such blattant blindness to new technology and opting for status-quo).
So before jumping off, tell youself that this is a good thing... if it makes money, it will invalidate all the claims and lies about anything that is online = piracy, and heck, it will bring us one step closer of being able to actually legitimately download movies like The Matrix Revolution not too far from now (wishful thinking)
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
REAL (whose CEO literally declared war on "consumers"... I mean "thieves.")
RIAA (who will spend it on lobbying away your intellectual freedom - just as they have been doing for years now)
ARTISTS (Who? WTF do "artists" have to do with this? Go away...)
Radio was invented by Russian scientist Alexander Popov. It was him who done the actual radio transmission first. Marconi just patented his invention.
You only have to let 1 person download a song from you. Within a week, millions can have the same copy. Exponential growth.
...but only 30 seconds. So if you modify it to be:
...you'd be correct. The question is, is 30 seconds a good preview of the song? Depends from song to song I guess. Either way, I think most people will *still* use P2P for "mass previewing" and then buy the music they like, or related music that the music store can recommend.
Apple cost 100*0.99=$99.00 (10 songs that you want to burn to CD - 90 that you heard the first 30 seconds of, bought and figured out you didn't like the rest fo the song...)
Real cost $10.00 + 0$ for 100 songs listened to + $7.90 for the ones you liked = $17.90
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Joke hint: Rhapsody was the code name for Mac OS X.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I get to pay per song, I get to burn some of them, I get to pay a monthly subscription, AND I get Real's quality and un-intrusive software! Sign me up dude, I'm there!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
So you have to download 50 songs a month to break even compared to Apple's service.
Apple's service costs $1,000 for a lifetime subscription, which includes a special "Macintosh" brand Internet terminal used to access the iTunes Music Store. This equals about eight years of Rhapsody service.
Will I retire or break 10K?
And your PC was free? That 90% got their PC's for free? Asshat. When you actually reach the fifth grade come back with more sense.
Ok, maybe "millions" per individual person is a bit over the top.
But would say that the ability to hand out, for free, perfect, first gen copies of music, for which you yourself have paid exactly $0.00, to anyone and everyone who asks for it...constitutes fair use?
Would you say the same if it was your livliehood on the line? Your music?
And I'm tired of BS rationalizations for obtaining use of a product without providing compensation to the originators.
Now, where's did I misplace that HijackAudio2MP3 applet.....
"The file 'David Bowie - I'm Afraid of Americans' could not be played, because your audio driver is not signed by Microsoft." Of course, this won't stop you if you're tunneling audio through an analog hole.
Will I retire or break 10K?
What are all these Modern Relatives moving in certain directions?
I use Total Recorder to "creatively cache" the songs to my iPod.
Which may not work because Total Recorder is anything but a signed driver.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I can pay for it, I do, and if I can't, then it's OK to copy (because they wouldn't have money from me anyway).
In fact, that argument just might have a chance in court. The most important of the fair use factors is "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." If the copyright owner refuses to sell more copies of a published work, then the copyright owner may be admitting that the work has no "potential market".
Will I retire or break 10K?
"6. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
You shall promptly notify Listen in writing upon your discovery of any unauthorized use or infringement of the Subscription Services (or their contents) or any patent, copyright, trade secret, trademarks or other intellectual property rights of Listen or its licensors."
Great, we are paying to be Real's beta testers.
"5 (d) Stolen Account Information Your Responsibility
You are solely and entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password, and for any and all activities that occur under your account."
So if somebody hacked its site and downloaded user info en masse I am responsible as well?
The free Linux operating system now has 98% market share among home computer users...
Current music services, with the exception of Livephish.com do not offer high enough quality to appeal to audio enthusiasts, the same people who would be likely to spend the most amount of money.
And your PC was free?
Can a Windows or Linux machine purchased before iTunes Music Store was announced emulate a Mac running Mac OS X? (No, I can't just recompile iTunes with gnustep because iTunes source code is an Apple trade secret.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
What's flooded the e-world is the equivalent of an infinitely reproducible audio cassette. Perhaps if the music industry hadn't spent an entire decade hawking such a shitty media whilst they "phased out" vinyl they wouldn't be feeling so threatened by a tin-eared public they themselves created.
Music publishers have a right to make a living - but when the only product they can imagine to market has dwindled to essentially zero value they also have the right to starve. That's the way the world of "free enterprise" works: if you don't have something of value - or if you can't figure out a way to add new value to something that has lost its value - then you sink to the bottom with all the other fish feces. So it was with sheet music, and with the player piano - and so it will be again. The publishing industry must remain free to adapt or to die; if a new technology kills a now antiquated industry, so be it.
If someone figured out a way to send hamburgers through the internet we'd be hearing the exact same wailings from a now-obsolete fast food industry. Everyone would be up in arms about these "thieves" who now give away free food to anyone who can afford the few hundred dollars for a food replicator while depriving countless farmers, food processors and fast food chains of their "right" to earn a living. The fact we are, in reality, talking about an imaginary property and not even something so tangible as a hamburger vividly illustrates how ludicrous the publisher's argument really is. Dying industries have to be free to die - that's how we evolve.
Someone pull the plug on Hollywood, already!
Remember those buy 4 or 5 cds and only pay 1 cent? In the end you are forced to buy more music by joining the server, old story, same idiots who buy into it. They make you spend more money, by making you think you need to justify the subscription.
You are idiots if you think it is a good thing.
...most people just call it sighing. :)
Liberty uber alles.
Not to be all nitpicky but.. Actually, no one "owns" the music but the person or people who own the publishing rights to the song. When you buy a CD or tape (or in my youngest of days, a vinyl album), you're only buying the medium it's recorded on and the license to listen to it, just like software.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
So when is WARP Records going to release their first SACD?
Is the day for muddy thinking, or is it just me?
Lossy compressed music files aren't first gen. And I don't see much song-length swapping going on in .wav files, which I would consider first gen copies. Yes the higher bit rate, compressed music files at higher rates are very listenable and capable of further distribution without additional losses, but not to be confused with the original CDs -- which themselves are often a notch or more below original studio tapes these days.
And I haven't been giving rationalizations for obtaining use of a product without providing compensation to the originators. I've only been pointing out how impercise and overblown these types of statements are.
If you can't argue precisely, why should I take you seriously?
Btw, who says you can't make a profit selling what the consumer can otherwise get for free? How else can you explain the success of bottled water?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Your attempt at flippant responses forgot one thing: CONTENT. You didn't rebut a single fucking point, Apple weenie. Try again.
Real didn't make this program. Rhapsody is a seperate program at www.listen.com who has many sponsers. As far as I can tell they are all the same, they just have a different logo. I got mine through www.jambase.com, RoadRunner has one, as do many other companies.
Interesting point on the music store... but I disagree with that about Linux. Windows may be more intuitive (though not so much as MacOS), but for programming I prefer Linux to Windows, and find Windows' lack of a decent command line a damning flaw. I mean, sure, X11 sucks, but Windows doesn't have anything which comes even close to bash.
And on Slashdot, I'd say you're outnumbered.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
about a great many things. Taping songs from the radio and giving it to friends is not now and never has been illegal. It's called Fair Use. I refer you to any given post from any given article ever posted on Slashdot about this topic. It has been repeated so many times that I am frankly just astonished that anyone could still be ignorant of it.
Second, the rights of corporations that you deem equal to those of the individual are in fact quite different and lesser. In the Western legal tradition the rights of man are considered to be "natural rights" and are granted to him by god. That is, they cannot be granted, only taken away. (I refer you to any course on the Western intellectual tradition.) Corporate rights, such as copyright and corporate personhood are completely artificial and are allowances granted by the body public for the purpose of furthering the public good. If the public later reconsiders that allowance, it is quite a different thing entirely to alter it than it is to attempt to alter, say, a natural right like the freedom of expression. In other words, the two are certainly not equal. Natural rights trump all others.
So if Sen. Hollings, Hilary Rosen, and their ilk think that their artificial rights should trump natural rights, then it is they who should be afraid. They will be corrected in the error of their ways easiest by bankruptcy and removal from office, but ultimately by violent reminder.
It is essential to remember that we as citizens are not governed by laws imposed upon us from above, as though from a celestial power, but by conventions we agree to abide by. If that agreement goes away, as it demonstrably has in the case of music consumption, then that law or convention that forbids it loses all force. Imposing laws upon populations where no agreement to abide by such is the province of tyrants, and we all know what happens to tyrants.
Chew and digest...
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
...or, you could subscribe to emusic.com for $10 a month and burn all the CDs you want.
It's pretty hard to figure out who really to send a check to. Sure the members of the band should get something, but I also feel like some of the other people involved deserve something as well - like the producers or other people that get a cut. Even the record companies probably deserve something for helping to promote the band (though certainly the contracts they have now are criminal). Buying a song at least means everyone gets something, even if the distribution is not fair something is better than nothing.
I do also buy smaller label stuff, like CD's from cdbaby (which is a great store) where I know the artist will get a better cut. And I tend to go to concerts and buy shirts and such which helps a lot... but for one song I like I'm going to go to a concert and buy a shirt! Or even waste money on a stamp and a check. It's just that some of the music I like is on mainstream labels, and I hate to shut good music out just because it's owned by a giant unfeeling corporation bent on the destruction of us all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This implies that you don't need a computer to run Real.
Here's what I think asshat meant:
For the next six months, the Windows route is cheaper because one can re-use the same Windows PC for both Half-Life (or pick any Windows game that hasn't been ported to the Mac) and the music store.
Some people may have been given a PC for free but the chimp seals the deal with "90% of all computer users."
The question is not whether they got their Windows machine for free in the first place but whether they already have a fully-depreciated (est. 3 years) Windows machine in their possession. I'd estimate that there are several times more people with a 3-5 year old PC running Windows than people with a 0-4 year old Mac running Mac OS X.
Will I retire or break 10K?
They screamed bloody murder about the cassette while they spent milions shoveling out crappy soundalike megabands like Foreignstar Jourkansas - and then bitched when they started losing all their sales to tiny little labels like Stiff and SST (who actually had artists and a cool new sound) while the dinosaur crowd simply recorded the "hair classics" from the radio.
And how did they know what was on? Because disc jockeys, in a giant thumbing of nose at "the industry," began a very widespread practice of pre announcing tracks and running "album nights" when they would play entire albums without any interruptions at all. This further incensed the music publishers and is likely one of the biggest reasons they spent the last decade buying up virtually every station they could get their coke-sweaty palms on.
I know it's hard for a young person to imagine radio actually being cool and supporting genuine artists while thumbing its nose at the RIAA, but it really did happen - a long, long time ago, in a glaxay far...
I believe that is Metallica?
There lie the true hypocrites. I am convinced they will use ANY argument to justify not having to pay for music, while trying to maintain some sence of moral propriety.
I agree somewhat with your argument (some people just aren't ever going to pay for music), but there are still important features missing from these online music services (Real, Apple).
The issue is that everyone has extremely different music-listening habits. People listen to music in different locations and on different types of devices. Personally I listen to music at home, at work, and in my car. When I buy a new CD, I'll make Vorbis OGGs at work and at home and then keep the CD in the car, so I can listen to all of my music at any location.
And lots of people also have portable MP3 devices.
In order for these online music services to be truly appealing, they must allow customers to listen to music in the way they're used to. I need to be able to have copy of files at work and at home. I need to be able to burn a CD for my car. Why should I pay for anything less? I'm not going to buy I song that I can only listen to at home; I spend 2/3rds of my listening time elsewhere!
Similarly, streaming is not acceptable... many people are behind firewalls at work.
Apple's service has been successful so far because it does a pretty good job of catering to the listening habits of its users. Listen to it on your machine. Share it with another machine. Burn it to a CD for your car. Put it on your portable iPod.
On the PC side, most consumers aren't going to buy into a solution that keeps them from listening to their music in all the locations and on all the devices that they use.
I can just imagine. I'm browsing for music and play a track. I decide I don't want it. A window pops up: "Are you sure you don't want to buy this?". I say Yes. Another window pops up: "Are you really sure you don't want to buy this?". I click Yes. "Well scroll down to the bottom of this window and click on the really hard to see checkbox to agree that you definitely don't want us to draw money from your account to pay for it". I click on it. An hour later a window pops up: "Are you sure you don't want to get the track?". A bit later I kick up winamp. A Real window pops up going: "We at Real networks can see you like playing music. Would you like us to uninstall all of your other music apps and make Real the default and install spyware all over your hard drive and BTW do you want to buy that track?"
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Have litle interest in an Apple, other than perhaps on a notebook...Plus I like the ability to use whatever platform I like without worrying whether it will transfer.
Now just wish they had a workable Linux client...
Is that 'two thirds' or 'two or three'?
sic transit gloria mundi
And I don't see much song-length swapping going on in .wav files
No, instead people use the lossless SHN compression.
The last little while we've seen announcements from a couple of the big guys, Apple and Real, about their new music services, but what about the existing music services that don't suck?
I've been a very happy E-Music (http://www.emusic.com) subscriber for the past 4 months and love the service. I pay a flat rate per month ($9.99 or $15.99) and can download as many songs as I want (within reason of course. I suspect if I tried to hoover the whole site they'd kick me and I wouldn't blame them). The songs they provide are licensed and I get to keep them as they are a legitimate licensed copy. They doesn't expire when I stop using the service and since they're mp3s I don't have to use a special player or worry about DRM.
For anyone who really appreciates music the service is well worth it. Sure they don't really carry new releases or the current hit singles, listen to the radio for that stuff. What they do carry though are up and coming bands from a variety of labels as well as tried and tested albums from very respectable bands.
Some of the stuff I've aquired lately includes most from Bad Religion, The Pixies, The New Pornographers, Camper Van Beethoven, The Distillers, International Noise Conspiracy, TurboNegro and tons more.
There sure is a lot of misinfortmation flying around here, so let's make some points clear:
* This is the same product as listen.com's Rhapsody, just with a Real logo stamped on it. That Real logo is what makes people recoil in pain around here, but AFAIK this app doesn't suffer the same issues that Real apps usually do (spyware, etc)
* There is quite a lot of music avialable. Go to listen.com and click "The Music" where you can find a full catalog of artist names.
My huge complaint is that you can't burn about a third of the library to a disc, which probably means you have to keep shelling out monthly fees if you want to listen to the Top 40 stuff (yes, yes, I know. Some don't like it, but many do.)
I shall continue to shell out money for the two satelite radio services and enjoy near-CD radio with dozens of genres and many different songs for a mere $10-$12 a month. But that's just me.
Real is charging $10 per month for unlimited streaming tethered to a computer and Internet connection and then $.79 to burn a track to CD while Apple charges $.99 per track that you can do almost anything you want with with no monthly fees.
The Real advantage is the ability to have access to an entire library of full songs that you can stream on demand but for $10 per month one could just subscribe to XM Radio and have unlimited, (mostly) commercial free, CD quality audio played anywhere and anytime plus news, comedy and other content.
Wouldn't XM + $.99 downloads from the iTMS be a better deal? The downside to XM is the hardware investment but hey, that's a downside to owning a Mac too. (I'm a Mac user so it's not trolling just the compromise I willingly accept to use the platform I like)
Until they can provide me with some modicum of security, I have no intention of dealing with this outfit, especially now since DMCA prevents me and others from verifying and reporting the "honesty" of their code.
It is my recommendation that this software should be used by people who really don't have anything private on their machine, such as credit cards or any accounts of online businesses, don't have an email addy to be harvested, or can delegate accountability of resulting disasters to some lower subordinate.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Now if more people would step down of their self-righteous perch and understand that they're dealing with someone else's property here. Like it or not, that's the way it is.
How original to copy Apple's iTunes store. If the quality of Real's software is an indicator, the quality will be horrible. Also, monthly subscription services are a thing of the past. Real, get real !!
Subject says it all.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Let me get this straight. You prefer Apple to have a monopoly on selling you music? Do you understand this mean they will be able to charge you more for music, the same way they charge you more for hardware? Also, Apple falls into your "DRM driven competitors" catagory, so I don't see how you think they're the good guys there.
Vote for Pedro
All these new online music services are great and all... but I'll stick with EMusic, 10 bux a month, unlimited downloads of non DRM encumbered Lame --alt-preset standard encoded VBR mp3's that play on my mp3 player and can be burned to cds. Tons of good music in every genre known to the ear. No, they don't have all of the latest popular music, but they do have tons of lesser known but fantastic albums.
I at least suggest you use their free trial.., and no I dont work for them, I am just really freakin impressed with their service.
www.emusic.com
I am used to the concept of once I have data, its mine as long as I want to keep it, not like some VisiCalc program whose data is extinct when it can no longer be read.
I believe the ASCII file formats, .WAV, .MP3, .OGG, .BMP, .GIF, .JPG, .MPG, .PNG, etc, will be around forever, but proprietary formats will be gone or redefined in a matter of years, if not months, with earlier formats rendered unreadable.
If I am going to buy a book, it better be written in my native language, English. Its worth very little to me if I have to hire an interpreter to read an obscure dialect if the book was published as such, as the day my interpreter dies is the day I no longer have access to the information in the book.
We, the people, ultimately make the decision as to which file formats media will be released in. If they run some weird proprietary formats up the flagpole and nobody salutes, they will keep at it until people pull out the wallet. I won't buy bolts at the hardware store which are incompatible with my existing hardware... why should I buy into incompatible file formats for my data purchases?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Hear, hear. Real has been inflicting us with their shitty software for the better part of a decade. I can only hope that the inevitible failure of this plan finally bankrupts these sleazy, no-talent fucks.
How good is this going to sound? Will the CD burn be CD quality?
I went to Tower. They didn't have what I wanted. So then I went someplace else - didn't have it.
Then I finally found it on Amazon and had to wait a week to get it.
vs.
"Click" - I bought it from Apple.
What they're saying is that the unfortunate few who haven't discovered online music yet can be suckered into buying from Real.
I decided to give the new Rhapsody trial a go just to 'see' how it is. I am honestly quite impressed. It does not have "feature creep" as almost all other versions of Real software have. I was quite surprised, the music collection size is quite staggering as well. They actually had almost all of the big name artists I searched for. Don't knock it til you try it.
Ok lets think for a second... Napster started in 1999, the internet which facilitated this "filesharing revolution" is much older than that, and it takes until 2003 before companies actually begin to offer full legitimate alternatives. Where was the record companies right after this download mania became popular. Oh yea, they were spending all their efforts suing napster out of existence. It takes them FOUR FREAKING YEARS to finally allow OTHER COMPANIES (read: not their costs) to put their music on the internet in grand scale. That is four years of wasted time, which is a lot in the digital age, in which they allowed free p2p to solidify its market share. Reason's for this delay are easy to see in a online strategy that relies more on litigation that service. (shakes head) I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm more than content to steal (no sugar coating for me) into extinction any SERVICE based industry that would rather buy a new law than expand their business in a necessary amount of time. I mean they COULD have done this before napster, but they were also given a while afterwards to rectify the mistake but instead they chose to sic their pet senators and lawyers on college kids. Any organization that relies on a thin moral code and leverage to operate should not be surprised when consumers>>>>people do the same when the table is turned.
Open Source Sushi
You're post had incorrect pricing information, maybe you should pay more attention.
- sigs are for wimps.
does anyone actually use these things?, i mean 300,000 songs isn't exactly a massive resource to tap, and to spend at least $50 a month on this service (to meet the difference between the 2 services) just seems like a waste.. i'd rather take my cool hard cash down to my like vinyl store and pick up a dozen albums for that price..
I am used to the concept of once I have data, its mine as long as I want to keep it, not like some VisiCalc program whose data is extinct when it can no longer be read.
VisiCalc spreadsheet files are actually made of the keystrokes that reconstruct the spreadsheet in memory. Most of those keystrokes are in the VisiCalc printed manual; learn about the rest at user groups, most of which have established a web presence. Solution: Just make a program that emulates VisiCalc's keyboard interface, and then have that program export to CSV.
I believe the ASCII file formats, .WAV, .MP3, .OGG, .BMP, .GIF, .JPG, .MPG, .PNG, etc, will be around forever, but proprietary formats will be gone or redefined in a matter of years
What makes you think .MP3 and .GIF aren't proprietary formats? Sure, .GIF will become free in the States in a couple weeks when 4,558,302 expires, but .MP3 still has a few more years before its patent expires.
Will I retire or break 10K?
They don't consider a device that runs Linux as a PC, or the group that uses such devices as a viable market.
9:20AM: Read article about Real subscription service on CBS Marketwatch. Compose crapdot article, and submit.
11:00AM: Find that article has been rejected by the self-appointed content editors. No biggie, maybe it just isn't news that's interesting to the Live-At-Home-With-Mommy-In-A-Basement-In-Holland-M ichigan crowd.
3:09PM: Article submitted by someone else about the SAME FUCKING THING accepted and posted to front page of crapdot.
Suggestion to the "Editors": Why don't you just go ahead and take the fucking subscribe button away from users you don't know? You WILL NOT accept stories by anyone who doesn't kiss your ass, so why fucking lie and pretend that you will? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, QUIT PRETENDING YOU POST "NEWS FOR NERDS, STUFF THAT MATTERS" WHEN WHAT YOU REALLY POST IS "MLPS FROM OUR FRIENDS AND SELF-CONGRATULATORY BACK-PATTING BANTER FROM LIKE-MINDED PASTY WHITE FUCKS DEDICATED TO INSTALLING THEIR 7TH GRADE SOCIALISM ON THE REST OF THE FREE WORLD". Then again, I suppose Fent would have trouble making a .jpg that fit that entire motto. Just take the submit button away and quit pretending you're user-oriented instead of the cliquish little enclave of losers that you actually are, dicks.
/*- Mohammed -*/
or can you buy songs without using that program?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
While I'm not personally interested in buying anything but unencumbered MP3s, I'm glad to see another mainstream company throw their hat in the ring. More competition is exactly what's needed to drive down the price to what the most people are willing to pay. Plus the more companies get into the act, the more likely it becomes that someone will "add value" by offering unencumbered files in the most portable format.
.RA or .WMA files myself, I still see this as ultimately a Good Thing, at least if they have success similar to what Apple is experiencing.
So even tho I'm not interested in
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Since you can get USB sound cards, and USB memory / hard disk devices, I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to make a USB device that pretends it is a sound card but is merely storing the audio data rather than using it to position loudspeaker diaphragms. It could then be interrogated like any mass-storage device (digital camera, slot reader, external CDRW/HDD &c.) and spit out files of captured raw sound card data.
Of course, if you did not mind total lameness then you could just plug the speaker socket of one sound card into the line-in of another and do it all in the analogue domain
Meanwhile, here's a question for the music industry to think on. Given the ready availability of photocopiers, scanners, printers &c., why is there not a problem with mass 'piracy' of books, magazines and newspapers?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Here's my problem.
In the beginning, when the whole napster thing started, and even in the early days of Audiogalaxy, I was simply disgusted with the music industry for overcharging me all these years, and I was waiting for things to change.
However, something happened.
Around the time they aquired AG in what can only be described as a military coup, I realized that the RIAA only serves to antagonize me. I began to feel that they were insulting me, who had over my teen and preteen years, help keep them in their penthouse lofts, their armani suits, their luxury sports cars, and their million dollar mansions. And what had I to show for it? Constant news reports where that militant bull dyke Hilary Rosen and her little bitches Lars, Dre, and Trent Reznor would call anyone who downloaded an MP3 a pirate, a criminal, etc.
These were artists I had bought CDs from and been fans of, and now they were turning against me. It became personal. For millions of other swappers, it's the same way. The game industry cracks down on piracy, but they, with the exception of the evil MS, do it via the asian rings in hong kong, etc. They don't go after the "1337" gamer who wants to mod his DC to run the Japanese version of Ikaruga he got off the internet. The music industry could learn a LOT from the game industry.
I think that any failure of online music services has less to do with price than it does with the fact that you cannot piss on your consumers' face, and expect them to wipe it off, then say to you "please sir, I'd like some more."
It seems to me that the RIAA, users and the music industry at large are missing the whole point. People download songs using p2p services because it's fast, easy, they can use the music how they see fit and, it's free! If pay services want to compete then you should be able to use the music as you want after purchase.
.99 or .79 fee and record it as you listen to it, then do what you want with the music.
The RIAA it out to lunch on piracy. They think that by shutting down p2p services or coming up with elaborate copy protection schemes they can stop it. Wrong! If you can listen to music you can copy it plain and simple. Modern sound cards can playback and record simultaneously so just pay the
The RIAA needs to cut the price of CDs if they want to make inroads into piracy. People aren't stupid, they know that CDs are cheaper than cassettes yet the music industry expects us to pay more for an album on CD than on cassette. Rocket science for sure!
Rhapsody was actually aquired along with listen.com last month by real. Its been around the whole time.
Well, in that case you "own" the right to listen to the music when you want, where you want, and however you want. Compared to a service like Pressplay or Real Rhapsody, in which you "rent" music. I'd say that's a significant difference.
If you have a PC connected to bandwidth and your stereo, you can make a playlist of say 250 songs very quickly and stream them unlimited for the monthly fee.
Rhapsody: 250 songs + no portability + minimal searching time = $9.95
Apple: 250 songs + limited portability + longer search, buying, and filing time = $247.50
Thus, limited portability - searching costs = 247.50.
If portable mp3's are worth $247.50 to you and you have free time to spend choosing and buying one record at a time, Apple is for you.
The $0.79 fee is only for when you want to burn a CD, and its of high enough quality you can re-rip it as data.
The services compete nicely with each other with different product features which each appeal to a different set of users....but the whole issue with Mac only having 4% of the market gives Rhapsody an incredible competitive advantage.
Still, though - I'd say portability is the main part... When do most people listen to music? In their car, during their commute. Honestly, not that many people (programmers and /. posters are the exception) listen at their computers.
-T
Do I need to say more?
Metallica covered it, it was origionally performed by the Anti-Nowhere League.