Slashdot Mirror
Technical Glitches Plague BuyMusic.com
An anonymous reader submits: "Despite its much larger target market, BuyMusic.com does not seem to be the runaway success that Apple's iTunes Music Store was. USA Today is reporting that customers have experienced technical glitches that prevent them from playing their purchases. Another customer reports that the BuyMusic tech support does little more than say 'Sorry, but that's YOUR problem.' Finally, a musician whose music is for sale at BuyMusic questions the legality of BuyMusic's catalog." Scriptygoddess's account of her unhappy experience is mirrored here.
DRM inconveniences ONLY the people who are paying.
Thank you for visiting BuyMusic.com.
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.
Wasn't there a song called "Money For Nothing" - I think I'll buy it from iTunes once it's released for the PC.
Argh! First the music industry convinces people that info = real, tangible property and copying = theft, and now they've got people unconsciously thinking that like software, data file formats are computer and OS dependent!
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
So, in short, BuyMusic.com has only one viable business plan: get bought out by Microsoft! They'd fit right in...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
So how much laughter do you think is running around the hallways over at Apple right now?
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
Funny, I just got one page :-D
Thank you for visiting BuyMusic.com.
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.
Well, as somebody either here or on one of the links pointed out, the site is called "BuyMusic.com", not "PlayMusic.com".
She was able to buy it, just not play it the way she wanted.
And, yes, for you sarcasm-impaired, that's sarcasm.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Oooh! I know! Call on me! Call on me... BuyMusic wins because the first company to introduce a superior product (Apple) always finishes last in a marketplace where success is driven by saturation advertising, truth is defined by how often something is repeated, and cheap bad products triumph over carefully crafted and groundbreaking solutions!
So Apple is toast.
Do I get a little gold star to put on my name tag?
This is really satisfying to hear about 20 minutes after watching one of their commercials. It was pretty shameless, almost up there with that Gateway one trashing the iMac. It's basically like Honda making a commercial where some guy comes in on a white background and takes a baseball bat to a Toyota. Except in the BM commercial, it's a guy trashing the iTMS ad's electric guitar.
Good to know their services sucks as much as their ads do.
- Sherman
This page works with all web browsers.
iTunes didn't use to have any, but they recently added the album with the Amish rap song on it. Which I will be buying once I get a spare moment at home.
What truer test of iTunes worth to society (and buymusic's worthlessness) can there possibly be?
> Cross platform capable? Talent? Professionals? Let me think for a millisecond...
...)
Oh, that's just PHB-speak. Let me translate:
Term: Cross platform capable
Translation: Supports Windows ME, 2K and XP, provided that you have a recent IE Version installed and haven't screwed up the IE settings too much (cookies, ActiveX,
Term: Talent
Translation: They somehow managed to install IIS
Term: Professionals
Translation: We pay them. Not enough to make a decent living, but we pay them, so they're professionals.
Sentence: BuyServices' goal is to become the premier outsource e-commerce provider
Comment: And my goal is to have sex with five different supermodels seven days a week. Unfortunately for BuyServices, they're as likely to reach their goal as I am to reaching mine.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
"It helps that most of the people Apple has been targeting with their service have at least one of the following qualities: rabid devotion to Apple no matter (so they'll buy it just to make Apple look good), rabid devotion to being as "hip" as possible (so they'll buy it just to make themselves look good)."
I would like to know how you arrived at this incisive, all inclusive, Apple customer demographic. I only buy what I need and can afford (no iPod yet), and I gave up on being hip 25 years ago. I have no interest in making Apple look good, they seem to be quite good at it themselves.
"Frankly, if I were Apple I would make a version of iTunes and the Music Store that are compatible with Microsoft Windows as soon as possible-- BEFORE Microsoft and someone else come along."
I would love to be a fly on the wall during the M$--RIAA negotiations:
M$: How much will it cost for us to buy you?
RIAA: We're not for sale, however we will sell you a limited license to use our product.
M$: Wait a minute, that's our line.
RIAA: And you'd better act fast; we have solid information that college kids are using your o/s to illegally pirate music, and we are just about to sue them.
Realistically, do you expect that a Wintel version of the iTunes store will work as easily and reliably as Apple's. I would reverse your market plan and use iTunes to sell Macs rather than let the bitter taste left by an M$/RIAA hybrid do the job for me.
You really think that M$ would allow iTunes Music Store to work well with their o/s. It's possible, but where's the precedent?
They're called buymusic, not playmusic...
BuyMusic.com is getting bad reviews from multiple sources. So it's pretty obvious it might well fail from its appalling user interface and its smothering restrictions.
Yet, you can bet that next year, all this will be summarized in a nice, Powerpoint presentation to RIAA execs:
"See", an RIAA exec will pontificate, "we pamper 'em ungrateful Internet pirates and they don't want to use legal downloads. Let's just go back to serving them lawsuit papers."
At which point Powerpoint will BSOD promptly, and the discussion will drift on to Britney's navel jewelry and its marketing tie-ins.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
"most "nerds" don't own a Mac either."
:)
True, but they wish they did.