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.

Comments

What are they trying to prevent?

[seanadams.com]

DRM inconveniences ONLY the people who are paying.

Re:What are they trying to prevent?

[Tackhead]

> What's the problem? When he gets back to the hotel at night, he wants to watch a movie. Big deal.

I'll tell you what the big deal is! The big deal is that watching movies is STEALING!

If the hotel's TV offers a chance to pay $7.95 to see Dirty Harry, and you bring in your own DVD of Dirty Harry, and your own laptop, so that you can watch the movie without paying the hotel, you're STEALING MONEY RIGHT OUT OF THE INNKEEPER'S WALLET!

And don't even think about buying a six-pack of Coke at the corner store for $2.99 when you're supposed to be paying $4.50 for a 6-oz bottle out of the minibar! (To say nothing of having the unmitigated gall to chill your six-pack with hotel-supplied ice!)

The Next Step for BuyMusic.com

[Nova Express]

Let's review, shall we? BuyMusic.com's problems are:

• They offer a shoddy, blatent ripoff of a manifestly superior Apple product.
  
• Their system is buggy and crashes frequently.
  
• They're hamstrung by a user-hostile DRM scheme.
  
• Their technical support's response to complaints about the company's incompetence is to blame the user.

So, in short, BuyMusic.com has only one viable business plan: get bought out by Microsoft! They'd fit right in...

Wow, the record industry did something half assed

[KU_Fletch]

So how much laughter do you think is running around the hallways over at Apple right now?

Re:For a good laugh...

[CyberSlugGump]

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.

From the BuyServices site.

[Melibeus]

About Buy Services Founded in January of 2002, BuyServices is privately held and funded by Buy.com founder Scott Blum. The company develops and operates a cross platform capable, fully hosted e-commerce solution for media, retail and e-tail companies. With the combined talent of experienced e-commerce professionals, BuyServices? goal is to become the premier outsource e-commerce provider

Cross platform capable? Talent? Professionals? Let me think for a millisecond...

Re:Surprise, surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

Result: left as an exercise for the reader.

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?

A true test of iTunes vs. BuyMusic

[imadork]

Buy Music has no Weird Al (at least when I looked on my work PC this morning).

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?

Re:It is your problem not ours...

[majorflaw]

"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?

only buying please

[rimsky]

They're called buymusic, not playmusic...

And music studio execs will conclude that...

[SysKoll]

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:

• BuyMusic.com opened July 2003
• Huge choice: 300,000+ songs generously offered
• Supported Windows (90% of PCs)
• Service folded in [insert date not too far in future]
• Accumulated losses of $[insert scary amount]
• Conclusion: The Market Does Not Want Music Download.

"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.

-- SysKoll