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Buy.Com Debuts Music Download Site
elucidus writes "Buy.com on Tuesday launched a new digital music download service -- the site, BuyMusic.com, offers a catalog of more than 300,000 songs. The site only loads in Internet Explorer and all the files are Windows Media 9 formatted with DRM. No word yet on whether the public announcement of a supposed gaping hole in Windows Media DRM caused any concern before the launch. Compatible players include the Nomad IIc 9 and Creative's Jukebox Zen."
O.K., so I went to the site and started looking around. First thing I noticed is that again, Apple's look and feel have been copied. Badly. Even down to the ads. Oh, well, what about the content? Pretty good, although their jazz selection it pretty weak compared to the iTMS, but here is the other deal: lots of songs are listed as Not Available for Sale.????? What?!?
Next issue: Their big deal is that they are cheaper than iTMS, but just look at the wording. Songs as low as 70 cents and albums from 7.95. Bogus.
Also what about the rights management? Aside from the Windows Music format issue, we have no real way to deauthorize a computer that I can find and I have to use IE as my browser due to ActiveX. What about all the other browsers? And here is the biggest thing: No consistency. I have no idea which songs I can burn to CD or put on my iPod (or any other MP3 player that I can think of).
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Do not buy anything from spammers.
They recently started spamming ALL Email addresses in their database, regardless of whether the account is inactive, supposedly deleted (I have 2 of these), opted-out of their junk spam or in any other status. If they have the Email in their db, you will be spammed.
I'm getting six copies of every spam of theirs after about 2 years of silence from these scum.
More details at Google Groups.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spamming scum
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Your digital media player must be Digital Rights Management (DRM) compliant, because your music download files use DRM license encryption technology. Non-DRM compliant digital media players will not decrypt or play your music files.
There are also primary and secondary licenses (secondary licenses so you can play the song on a second computer but NOT copy it to an SDMI DRM digital music player). Each label decides if and/or how many times you can copy a song.
So the whole "relatively open, exceedingly easy" part of the iTunes Music Center just completely passed them by. Good to know.
After hopping on a PC and doing a few quick searches for music, I noticed that there are hundreds if not thousands of songs in their system which are "Not Available for Sale"... They still have a 30-second preview and album info, but you can't buy them. I wonder how many songs in total there are like this... they seemed to be in every search i did.
From their FAQ:
Content Use Rules. All downloaded Content is sublicensed to End Users and not sold, notwithstanding use of the terms "sell," "purchase," "order," or "buy" on the Site or this Agreement. Your Digital Download sublicense is non-exclusive, nontransferable, non-sublicenseable, limited and for personal entertainment use only within the United States. End Users who buy Digital Downloads may play the Digital Downloads an unlimited number of times on the same registered personal computer to which the Digital Download is originally downloaded.
So, I'm not actually buying the songs, just licensing them. Unless I'm using the exact same computer, my use of the songs are limited.
Different Record Label Companies Permit Different Added Uses Of Their Digital Downloads. Information on the Site will state all of the following permitted additional uses, if any, of the Digital Downloads pertaining to a particular music song, partial album or album ("the Works"): (i) the number of allowable transfers to other computers owned by you and registered with the Site, (ii) the number of transfers of each Digital Download to approved electronic Portable Devices, (iii) the number of Compact Discs that may be "burned" in making permanent copies in an uncompressed form conforming to the industry "Red Book" technical specifications to either "write once" blank recordable CD-R compact discs conforming to the industry standard "Orange Book Part II" technical specifications and/or blank "re-writable" CD-RW compact discs (collectively, "Metadata Information"). No other uses of Digital Downloads are permitted.
End User may only use, copy, transfer and display the Digital Downloads as stated in the particular music song or album's Metadata Information. Metadata Information is displayed next to each song, partial album or album offered. To determine how many copies, or "CD-burns," are permitted, click on the icon representing a CD-ROM. To learn how many transfers to registered personal computers or Approved Electronic Devices are permitted, click on the computer or headset icons. As a condition of purchasing a Digital Download, you represent to BuyMusic that you understand a particular song or album's Metadata Information, which is hereby incorporated by reference. All other rights are reserved.
Each song offered will have different "rules" associated with it. Oops...sorry, you've transferred that song too many times to your iPod, you can't do that anymore.
The FAQ is worth a read. If you lose your songs (hard drive crash) you have to pay for them again. You agree to be spammed by them (purchasing a song apparently constitutes acceptance of email solicitation). Bah...could go on and on.
I also have to wonder what happens when you buy a new computer...
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
It's a new service. If they get enough requests, they may (doubtful) spend the time (money) necessary to support other browsers too. Though, with the windows media DRM, it looks like you'd be out of luck with Linux anyway. Though I was ticked that I couldn't use Windows Moz/Firebird, but it's their choice.
Take a look at this page:
http://www.cdburner.ca/digital-audio-formats-artic le/digital-audio-comparison.htm
You'll see that WMA files at 128k get a very high (95% quality) rating. The article suggests that this is perfectly fine (good) for pop music. In fact, if you look at the next page, you'll see that WMA is their recommendation for the average consumer/listener- at 128k.
128K WMA files sound very good. Not like that MP3 garbage- the files are smaller, and the quality is better.
No reason to lie.
By Alex Veiga, AP Business Writer, 7/22/2003
LOS ANGELES -- A new Internet music download site for PCs debuting Tuesday boasts the cheapest per-song rates yet but many of the same restrictions on copying that have stymied wider use of other music services.
Although online retailer BuyMusic.com will offer a catalog of more than 300,000 songs from the five major record labels, users of the service will not necessarily have the freedom afforded customers of Apple Inc.'s iTunes service to transfer the music purchased to multiple computers and portable devices, or to burn it to compact discs.
BuyMusic hopes to score the sort of attention that helped drive sales for Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store since its launch April 28.
BuyMusic founder Scott Blum called Apple CEO Steve Jobs "a visionary, but he's on the wrong platform." While Apple users constitute about 3 percent of the personal computer market, BuyMusic is targeting the 97 percent of people with PCs.
BuyMusic, which is based in Aliso Viejo, Calif., will vie for a share of that market with a handful of online music subscription services, including pressplay, Rhapsody, MusicNow and MusicNet, which have not managed to cull substantial customer traffic from the free file-sharing networks.
The service has about 100,000 more songs than iTunes but comparable to pressplay, which was acquired by Roxio and is expected to undergo a relaunch later this year under the Napster brand.
BuyMusic is charging 70 cents for individual song downloads -- 9 cents lower than MusicNow, which previously had the lowest per song price. It's also undercutting competitors' price for a full album download at $7.95. The iTunes' service charges $9.99 for most full albums.
BuyMusic downloads are in Microsoft's Windows Media format.
Still, BuyMusic suffers from some of the same licensing drawbacks that the other PC-based digital music retailers have.
Jobs secured uniform licensing deals from all the record companies that allow all iTunes songs to be burned onto CD an unlimited amount of times, save for a restriction for making multiple CDs with the exact song lists. All songs on iTunes can also be transferred to up to three different computers and to the iPod, a portable digital music player.
Blum was not able to obtain uniform licensing rights from the record labels and artists. As a result, different songs on BuyMusic have different restrictions for how often, if at all, they may be burned onto CDs or copied to other PCs or portable music devices.
By year's end, BuyMusic and the other PC-based digital music retailers are expected to face a competing PC version of iTunes, which has had more than 6.5 million songs downloaded to date.
Just turn of JavaScript ... then you can use any browser.
Why is this site overlooked?
-mp3 format
-no DRM
-unlimited downloads for $10-$15/month
-large catalog
-first 50 mp3's are free
Pretty cool. I just downloaded the entire Pavement and Pixies catalogs plus some Noam Chomsky "spoken word". I signed up for 3 months @ $45.
And here is their reply
Hello,
Thank you for writing to us.
We are responding to your request for information about browser
compatibility.
We apologize for any inconvenience, but unfortunately, our music
downloads are only compatible with Internet Explorer. Your browser must
be Internet Explorer. If you browse the site with Netscape, or any
browser other than Internet Explorer, you cannot purchase and download
music. The reason is that your music files are wrapped in SDMI
encryption, which is unencrypted by the license that you download when
you download the music file. The license download requires an Active-X
control, which is only compatible with Internet Explorer. Without it you
cannot download your license and your music stays encrypted and
unusable.
Again, we apologize for any inconvenience.
If you have further questions, please contact us at
support@customerservice.buymusic.com.
We appreciate your business.
Sincerely,
BuyMusic.com
www.BuyMusic.com
Original Message Follows:
This is such a load. Why has everybody that's reporting on this story giving out so much misinformation?
The tracks are STARTING at $0.79 with many over $0.99. There a Missy Elliot track that goes for $1.79 for Gods sake!!!
The albums are STARTING at $7.95 with many over $11.99.
Are all reporters suffering from the NY Times syndrome or what?!?!?!?!?!?
Although online retailer BuyMusic.com will offer a catalog of more than 300,000 songs from the five major record labels, users of the service will not necessarily have the freedom afforded customers of Apple Inc.'s iTunes service to transfer the music purchased to multiple computers and portable devices, or to burn it to compact discs.
Ok...so they state right there that "pay for it and use it only here". And they compare directly with iTunes Music Service. Anyone who reads this will go "umm...it's a no-brainer".
Jobs secured uniform licensing deals from all the record companies that allow all iTunes songs to be burned onto CD an unlimited amount of times, save for a restriction for making multiple CDs with the exact song lists. All songs on iTunes can also be transferred to up to three different computers and to the iPod, a portable digital music player.
Oh look...just eight paragraphs down and they mention it again. Do they REALLY expect people to jump up and down with this?
Don't get me wrong...competition is good. But this really isn't competition in my eyes.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang