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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
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
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
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.
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.