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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."
WHY OH WHY do these folks have to RESTRICT access to these sites to people ONLY running IE? Yes, I know that I can't really use their site like they want me to, but what I just want to explore it to see what they offer. They just lost a potential customer...
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
One strike was enough, but three?
Gimme Mozilla, XMMS and MP3s or Ogg.
Boxed in dead ends? No way.
In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.
I mean, does it hurt to at least let me know what restrictions / term of use you have on your music? THAT does not take f'kn IE, does it?
You can count me out, buy.com. I will patiently wait for Apple.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I say "good". No, I probably won't use it - I can't play the WMV files, and I own an iPod anyway. Yes, I use the Apple iTunes store - and I've spent more money there than I have in years on music (though, if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have gotten the Steve Martin CD for my long drive).
But this is good because of competition. I expect it will do fairly well - people will check it out and buy some stuff, some won't check "between the lines" about the CD burning and such. Will it do as well as the iTunes store? Maybe - maybe not.
But if starts making money at all, it's competition. Apple will be spurred to work faster to get iTunes for Windows out, and to work harder with other MP3 companies to include AAC codecs. Which will spur Buy to change it's licensing (or its negotiations with companies holding the music licenses), and maybe later on, all music will be burnable to your own CD. (I'm not sure how many handhelds you can put it on - my assumption is "infinite", but I haven't seen the small print - I don't run Internet Explorer). Which will perhaps prompt Apple to cut prices, maybe rise the computer amount you can license your songs on from 3 to 5.
And round and round the competition game goes.
CDBaby is about to become a front end for independent musicians (where's spell check when I need it) who want to get onto iTunes - $40 to start, then CDBaby takes 9% of the profit, the musicians get the rest.
Which, if that takes off in any way, may change some of the dynamics of the music business. Oh, hardly a lot - most people still get their music in the stores so big music companies doing the promotion/advertising/distributing will hold most of the cards, but if it changes by as much as 10%, that's huge - and could lead to better contracts for musicians. Which might make the music companies compete for more fair, balanced contracts.
And around and around goes the wheel of competition.
It's all about competition. I love that word. "Compete". Makes things better through a struggle. "Compete fairly" are better words, of course, which is why there are governments about to smack things down when they get to monopoly status, because at that point, competition is lost.
And who knows? In a year, we could have tons of online music. People will discover what contracts work and what don't, and things may change for the better.
Or - I could be wrong. But I hope not.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
While it doesn't look to be too shabby a system, I think the rather extreme limits on many of the licenses will be a turn off. Also, I think that a web interface is the wrong way to go. Web browsers are instruments of frustration, not slick customer experience. I think apple's strategy of embedding the interface in another app is superior, and likely to go over better. Also, I don't see one click mentioned on buymusic, and that has been a way to bring in impulse buys for apple. It could be there, but I didn't see it. And while they have a lower minimum price, it seems most of the prices are about the same as or higher than apple's prices. Pros: some low prices, a good selection, and available to more people (unfortunately not including me). Cons: web interface, limiting (and complicated, since it varies from song to song, which may upset people who expect consistency) DRM, not going to be the only kid on the block for long.
For to end yet again.
Granted I usually buy stuff that is not RIAA affiliated thanks to the RIAA Radar, but I prefer the CD because it looks nice and it's a great way to ensure that my investment is safe. I just rip the CD as some oggs and add them to my playlist.
There's no DRM, no media player lockin, nothing of the kind. Get off your asses and search for the album online if you think it's too expensive in the stores in your area. I've found albums on cduniverse.com for $10.75 that go for $18 at tower records and sam goody.
With the CD it really is "CD quality." You won't get that with a 128k AAC or WMA download. You also won't get the ability to mix and match your stuff on a mix CD at the same quality as the original, the ability to use whatever format you choose and use any mp3 player you want. I plan to buy an iPod eventually, when I get one I won't have to worry about the format my music collection is in and how to make mp3s from it for my iPod because I have the CDs.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I'm not going to be using any digitial music service until they offer my a lossless version of the song. On any high-end audio system the loss through any compression is noticeable. Don't get me wrong, I use mp3s on my laptop and my palm, but on my stereo... that's another story. Audiophiles unite, we need a lossless digital music service!
Later,
Phil
Oh well. I suppose that imitation is the finest form of flattery.
1) I do not want to drive to a store and browse their horrific layout, surrounded with Nelly-wanna-be's and teeny-boppers.
2) I do not want to obtain an OBSOLETE medium for my music. CD's are out. Why should I be restricted to one artist, one albumn, per medium? CD = 8-track-tape in my mind. I want all my music in one place (think iPod).
3) I do not want to pay $16-$20 when all I want is one song from the Artist I would be willing to buy (yeah, that's what CD's go for around here. Here = New York City/Long Island). And many times the one song I want is not the "single" which is released at close to $8 regardless!
4) I do not want to be unable to backup my music. New CD's are starting to disallow reading in a computers CD drive. Pathetic.
5) I do not want to listen to one artist at a time! I only listen to my music via the playlists I have made. "Party Mix", "Smooth Mix", "Drunk Mix", "Stoned Mix", "Desert Combat Mod v0.38 Mix", etc.
Oh, I see
You'd rather have DRM restricted non-standard audio files with a service that works on 5% of computers (AAC+iTunes+Macs) than DRM restricted non-standard audio files with a service that works on 94% of computers (WMA+WMP9+IE5)?
Oh, right, this is Apple we're talking about.
I took a look at Emusic. What's the catch? 2000 VBR MP3s per month for $10? They use LAME, so I can expect decent quality. There's no DRM.
Maybe they don't have all the current pop hits, but that's a good thing on the whole.
There's gotta be a catch! Well, there's the 12-month subscription, but still, 24,000 MP3s...
MPEG-4 is non-standard?
iTunes lets you transcode into MP3. Does WMP?
iTunes is out for Windows later this year. Is MS porting full WMP to MacOS?
Does the fact you were modded up as insightful prove that slashdotters are idiots?
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
It get's uncompressed and burned to a real live audio cd, which you can then re-rip if you want. However, since you're starting with 128K audio, expanding it and then re-ripping it, you won't get the best quality. That's probably the reason they (or Apple) offer anything higher than 128K downloads (along with bandwidth costs).
Dan
I know there are plenty of people complaining about the IE and WM9 requirement but the fact is it is not nearly as limiting as having to buy a computer from Apple and use a service that is only compatible with an Apple portable. The fact is both services are at fault for using DRM, picking a non-standard file format and restricting service to a particular platform. There is simply no reason a music service needs to restrict itself to one particular platform. I know Apple apologists will talk about "tight integration" till the cows go home but the fact is that the itunes music store basically amounts to a web page that is restricted to one browser.
Here is a partial list of requirements for a decent music service:
Apple restricts their service to 5%~ of all computerdom, and it's a 'cool service'.
The iPod, likewise, was Mac-only for the better part of a year before a Windows version came out. Initially it required FireWire as well, not a common interface on Windows machines, but now that the third generation iPod is out it supports Windows *and* USB 2.0 with nothing more than an extra connector. This was all done gradually, and only after Apple knew that (a) the iPod worked as well as they wanted it to, and (b) there was enough demand for PC compatability for Apple to even spend the time on it.
iTMS is the same way. Apple's got legal issues preventing it from offering songs for sale outside of the USA, but that's being resolved already. Meanwhile, a Windows version of iTunes/iTMS was promised by the end of the year the very same day it was available for the Mac.
Apple's not being snooty and refusing to make iTMS available to non-Macheads. Some things take more time than others, that's all.
In other words...if you do not use Windows and Internet Explorer, you are a communist loving, Linux/Mac user that does not deserve our business
No, if you do not use Windows and Internet Explorer, you are part of a market segment so small that it is not worth our time to cater to you. Face it. Its true.
So it's lossy-compressed, encrypted and watermarked?
So it's absolutely NOWHERE near CD quality?
Remind me again why it's worth standard music industry prices then?
The license download requires an Active-X
control, which is only compatible with Internet Explorer.
This is garbage -- licenses don't need to be pre-delivered. They can be sent to the player after the download -- there is absolutely NO valid reason to require a particular browser for download. This is just laziness by Buymusic's development staff, who clearly rushed this product.
(Score:-1, Wrong)