Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Puretracks.com Enters The Online Music Fray

Posted by timothy on from the enjoy-the-long-canadian-winter dept.

Greedo writes "Two articles, one from the CBC and one from The Globe and mail report that puretracks.com has launched, offering 99-cent (Canadian dollars) downloads for music tracks. As a Canadian who wishes Apple would get their iTunes Music Store available to non-US customers, this may be the alternative I've been waiting for. Although I think they only offer .WMV files (boo)." Check out mgoyer's " rough review" of the service.

5 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. .wma on iTunes 5 by jadriaen · · Score: 3, Interesting
    A lot of web sites are speaking of iTunes 5, that should be released tomorrow (Thursdag), for Mac OS X as well as Windows. It also will support WMA-files, even on the Mac. For more info, see Mac OS Rumors:
    iTunes 5 to accompany Apple music announcements Thursday?

    Several rumor sites have suggested this to be so. We have recently seen test builds of iTunes 5, and it does indeed appear to include WMA audio support -- even with the Mac version. The Windows version still has some outstanding bugs -- not something one would expect only days from release, although the build in question was compiled roughly one week ago -- including sometimes completing MP3 CD burns without giving an error even though the disc in question is damaged and will not play.

    There are some features listed in the build notes (self-expiring song downloads to enable free promotional downloads of whole tracks, for one) that are not testable without the corresponding changes being enabled on the server end, and it appeared that under Jaguar there were some problems with the new look-and-feel.

    The big question in the minds of the grapevine appears to be this: will iTunes 5 ship as part of the final Panther package, or will Panther users have to upgrade from iTunes 4 via Software Update, even though version 5 was available before Panther's release? There are not yet clear answers, but we suspect this issue will be addressed as part of Thursday's announcements...which are also rumored to include new iPod accessories and possibly even modest modifications (lower entry-level price, possible new high-end model) to the current lineup itself.

  2. They don't get it... by pdaoust007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How can they compete with mp3's that can be acquired for free, have no restriction AND can play on any platform (Windows, Mac, Unix) or portable device?

    To attract consumers to their service they must have some value added service. All I can see is less value with all the DRM restrictions and the propietary format they chose. I own three portable mp3 players (one is an iPOD) and none of them can play this WMA crap.

    Give me a true alternative to P2P applications, a reasonable price (a lot of their albums are over $10CND) and I will use a paying service for sure(I currently use eMusic but it's only good for indy music).

  3. Canadian CD tax by tessaiga · · Score: 3, Informative
    Why would Canadians need an online music service when Canadians are legally allowed to make copies for personal use? The whole point of the 21-cent CD tax (PDF) over there is to explicitly allow this sort of thing. After all, Canadians are already paying an ever-increasing amount for this very privilage.

    Granted, this currently only applies to sneakernet and the application of this argument to peer-to-peer networks has yet to be tested in court. This is IMHO a very important point that needs to be clarified in Canadian law for the good of the public. Otherwise, everyone there runs the risk of having to double-pay for every song they get online -- once to download the song, and once again to burn it onto CD.

    --
    The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away ...
  4. OS Limitations by elliotj · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ok, I tried buying a song from my tiBook, mainly because I wanted to see if I could convert from WMA to MP3 and put it on my iPod. As a Canadian Apple user I'm a little pissed at ITMS for not being available here.

    When I tried to create an account and proceed to enter my credit card info, I got the following message:
    Sorry, Puretracks only supports the following OS's: Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / 2003 / XP and IE 5+

    It was on an .aspx page. I expect the payment part uses some active-x control that will limit you to those OSs or x86/Linux running IE in Wine. I assume they do OS detection from the browser ID.

    Bummer.

    What's up with people making new web services in this fashion? I mean, how much harder is it to select technology that will work on all platforms and do your development from there?

  5. What a joke.. by jhiltz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a Canadian waiting for a decent music service i'm sorry to see all the limitations outlined in the review..

    It's interesting that while all the RIAA riff-raff has been going on, emblazoned throughout the media - no one has even questioned the fact that Microsoft has managed to somehow collude with all the recording companies to ensure that all the songs on any of these online services are in WMA/DRM wrapped audio format. Pretty unfortunate for all of us Linux and non-Microsoft OS users. These music services will be a success, and quietly behind the scenes I believe the happiest company involved will be Microsoft - now knowing they have yet one more thing to keep you locked to their platform. This note of course doesn't even touch on all the problems with the limitations imposed by the DRM being used for the songs off Puretracks. But anyway, enough said for now...

    Jeff