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Home Stereo Equipment With Online Music Purchasing
nebulous bee writes "Yahoo is reporting on a new piece of home stereo equipment going on sale in Japan that has an ethernet port that can be linked directly to an online music store. You can purchase new music using the unit's built-in LCD display and hear it 'instantly'. No PC required. There are no plans to sell it yet outside of the land of the rising sun."
For some reason, having my stereo hooked up to the net buying songs seems just a little too close to pay-per-use than I'm comfortable with.
There are no plans to sell it yet outside of the land of the rising sun."
Good. I don't want my stereo, or anything else besides my computer, networked and DRM'd to death. I'm starting to not even want my computer networked.
It will be Linux based, and will work with NetMD disks.
I guess this is what we are going to in the near future, all of our appliances will have some sort of computer inside them, a computer that's capable of doing what the appliance needs. /. story about a refrigerator that allows you to buy groceries online, it's just a matter of time.
So later we may read a
The IT section color scheme sucks.
Could this be the next step for Apple? It would make sense to me. A $500 to $700 device that looks good, is linked to your Mac and iTMS account, and looks really, really cool. I give it a year to six months.
OH no! Little Johnny accidentally bought 5,000 songs on the home stereo. There goes his college education.
They have JukeBoxes that do this in the U.S. now. I always request "Kokomo"
machine can do that too. So what is so revolutionary about this? I have been using an old IBM Stinkpad as a stereo system for quite some time now. Sounds great when hooked up to a 600W stereo amplifier with 12 inch woofers and an array of horn tweeters. Stinkpads are good for something after all...
Of course they have no plans to sell it here in the States ... Microsoft would accuse them of being monopolistic for only allowing the songs to be played on that stereo!
topreacher@signature.slashdot.org 1% rm -rf sig
When that rogue nation ICBM hits in a town near you, and the EMP wipes out all your ethernet purchased "eeeemusic" from your "peeceees", I'll be warm in cozy in my bomb shelter with a can of spam and my vinyl records -thank you very much.
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It's called an iPod. Just add a $2 stereo Y cable from any old electronics store and it plugs into every rack system known to man.
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someone might make a copy of the music they purchased for themselves
From the article:
Users will be able to browse, download, store and play song files, record them on a mini-disc or transfer them to other digital music devices, said Any Music CEO Fujio Noguchi.
Even if this came to the States I couldn't use it. Thanks Apple, thanks bunches.
Besides, if they just added IR remote control to the Dock and designed it for racks & cabinets, it would be an even better solution than a stereo with built-in MP3. It would take the place of your CD player on your stereo shelf, plugged in to the amp, pre-amp, or receiver of your choice.
Integrated, does-everything devices are far more popular in Japan than over here. Cheaper land allows us to have bigger houses or apartments, which means we don't mind having a lot of separate components for everything in our home. (This is why a lot of the pre-iMac all-in-one Macintoshes were sold to the Japanese market only. They care a lot more about economy of space over there.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
That would be excellent! I can't wait to install a mod-chip for the refridgerator...
Gives new meaning to "free as in beer"!
There are some interesting differences in Japan's music industry that should be considered.
1) cd prices are fixed, at least for a certain time period after the release. when i lived there it was 3000 yen (US$27) for an album and 1000yen (US$9)for a single.
2) they have a much stronger emphasis on singles over albums. mini-cd singles are sold in huge numbers, for 1000 yen.
3) they have CD rental shops much the way many countries have video/dvd rental shops. I think albums rent for like 400 yen and singles 200 yen? Can't remember.
Therefore, this is a country whose music industry is not as concerned with home copying of the music (otherwise they wouldn't rent them), has people convinced a single is worth 1000 yen and so selling them as downloads for 210 yen can be successful even though this is like twice what apple charges, and has a music buying public that is used to buying songs one at a time instead of buying albums.
Don't bother going to college. In fact, if you're in school drop out now regardless of your grade level. If you have kids, pull them out or don't send them to school to begin with. There is after all, no value in any of the information that will be learned.
All jobs are based on information and experience, even McDonalds' fry cooks. Economies give a society order. If you want to promote your utopia, figure out a logical argument that will pursuade the people. Until them, I will consider your theory illogical and continue purchasing information I consider valuable.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
Unfortunately its playlists can have no more than 40 songs on it at a time and somebody else actually chooses the playlists for you.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Your right, why pay for it when I can simply jump on a p2p network, download a file, realize that it's only half the song, download another file , realize that it's a virus, download another file, verify that it's the correct song, startup my CD Burning software, burn it to a CD and finally play it in my stereo.
OR... just pay the 2 bucks, download it and play it on my stereo.
Three Letter Acronyms. Argh. LCD Display = Liquid Crystal Display Display
The wife threw me out the house so I moved into a small flat and replaced her with a Palm.
You can purchase new music using the unit's built-in LCD display and hear it 'instantly'. No PC required.
It's always amazed me how high tech gadgets are marketed as being "not computers" when that's exactly what they are! Things like the "Earthlink Mailstation" that allows you to "check your e-mail without a computer". I'm pretty sure I've even seen advertizing for TiVo claiming that it wasn't a "computer". Amazingly, Joe Blow consumers seem to not even think of gaming consoles as computing devices! I realize that this is done so as not to scare away the technilogically illiterate, but I still reserve the right to incredulity every time these claims are made! Seriously, without computing technology how do people think these things work? Little men with pointy shoes and long beards reaching to their knees inside the case?
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
I'm not making any argument that file swapping of restricted music doesn't violate copyright law, it almost surely does.
The argument I'm making is that the copyright cartels are hiding behind copyright law, to protect their outdated business models.
You were the one that talked about "compensating the artist". If you truely care about compensating artists, you will do whatever you can to drive the copyright cartels into bankruptcy, even if that involves breaking a few laws.
Inevitably, those who usher in change do things that are illegal. Very few major social changes happen completely within the system. When the public, and the leaders, can no longer rationally defend an intolerable law, that is selectively enforced because so many are breaking it, that's when change happens.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
If you pay good money for a service that ends up not meeting your expectations, complain about it, then continue to subscribe to said service... then you are an idiot. You raise one fist in anger while forking over your cash with the other. Not a very potent message.
Now, I don't agree that you should not be able to download music you've purchased as often as you'd like, but as a consumer, it is not my decision. Nor is it yours. Our choice is simply to give them our money or not. I choose not to, as I prefer to have a little more control over what I do with what I purchase, even if that means making a backup of a CD I bought at the local music shop and burying the original in a nice big hole in the backyard. What's your excuse?
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.