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Comparing Online Music Offerings
hype7 writes "The Wall Street Journal has just posted a comparison of the three main legal music download services: Apple's iTunes Music Store, MusicMatch and Napster v2. The review covers the pros and cons of each of the services, and concludes with: "I'm sure all three services will evolve and get better, and others will enter the fray. But, for now, iTunes is the best choice on Windows.""
To my mind this is by far the superior service. I get to listen to anything I want as often as I want for ten bucks a month ('cept for the Beatles, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Elton John's Blue Moves.)
The only downside appearas to be that I can't take the music on the go, unless I pay 70(?) cents to burn a track, but since I'm a shut-in who's always sitting in front of his computer anyways, what's the diff?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Yet this discussion completely sidesteps one of the aspects of Napster (1) and the like -- that they were international. From almost anywhere in the world (assuming internet access) you could get music, that was itself from all over the world.
Yes, I know the restrictions can be gotten around by burning, and then ripping that, but that's not the point. It's a matter of principle. Companies everywhere keep trying to put restrictions on what we do with things we *own*, and that's just not right - economically, morally, or socially. It saddens me so many people are willing to accept the situation without question.
But in the meantime, I'll stick with services like Magnatune which don't try to control the content once it leaves their hands.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
I was under the impression that iTunes let you burn unlimited CD's? They claim the number is 10 in the article. Which is correct?
Go away, or I will replace you with a very small shell script.
I really don't dig those wonky formats. Makes it impossible for my pitiful Sony mp3 CD player to cooperate. And when you burn it to disc, and then re-rip to get it into mp3, hooboy. The sound quality is shittastic. (And while I'd very much like to buy one of those swank iPods - A geek I am, but moreso, a broke student geek)
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Honestly, maybe you are excited about this BUT this is just reaffirmation of the fact that there is very little interesting going on in the current popular music scene. It's nice that they're selling music online - now someone just has to start making some music worthy of being bought.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
It's open or nothing. If you want the roughly $1k per year that I spend on music, then they way to get it is to sell me standard CDs, FLAC files, wav files, aiff files, or very high bitrate Vorbis files.
This little piece of the market has spoken. Don't complain about lost revenue, if you're not selling.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What does this really do? A "special encrypted format"? This is significant limitation. Again, I understand the issues, but is it really necessary to force people to (1) install some special software in the first place (2) use this special software to make purchases (3) use this special software to play music on their computers (4) use this special software to actually burn the music to a CD?
A great deal of the music I have on CD (all 800 of them) is ripped to MP3 and sitting on my Archos jukebox. I guess these online music solutions care not about people like me.
Not to be a big baby, but I also hate the idea of having to use some catch-all piece of software, rather than choosing my own applications to browse/purchase (web browser), listen (xmms, winamp), and burn CDs (groaster) etc. Never mind that I run a Linux desktop too of course. I could understand if this was the only way they could think of to prevent unlawful activities. But once the music's on the CD, couldn't it just be ripped to MP3? So is their system not putting up secure walls but rather presenting annoying hurdles?
Please someone smack me down if I'm not thinking clearly (it wouldn't be the first time).
None of them are as good as just buying the damn(hopefully non-copy protected) CD's and ripping them yourself. (Hopefully with the good, sweet, cleanness of Ogg Vorbis). Fuck DRM
Yeah because I love having to buy a whole CD when I just want one song for $12! I don't know about you but I'd prefer to spend that money on 12 individual songs that I actually want and burn those songs to a CD then buy 12 separate CD.
Use your microphone to hum a bit of the song, then upload the resulting wav file, and have the computer return a set of songs that contain that melodic line.
I'd pay good money for that.
Except you just paid $17 for 1 or 2 good tracks, a couple that are so-so and nine that are garbage.
Yes, you are showing the man that as long as the artists are defending their rights to have copyrighted material, you will continue to steal music from them. I don't agree with the RIAA tactics, but they have to try something to defend their rights. Maybe if the online music stores do well, then the RIAA will see that there are ways to use the Internet successfully, and therefore stop such aggresive measures. By refusing to buy music from any source, you are simply fueling their fire.
Just so you all know I'm not an Apple hater, I own a 30GB iPod and I love it. I also use iTunes for Windows and I've already bought a couple of albums. I agree with the article that iTunes is the best jukebox and music store for Windows, but isn't this the same author that gives every single Apple product a favorable review? It would be nice to see reviews from an unbiased source.
I like Apple products quite a bit and I'll probably buy a 15" G4 PowerBook in the next couple of weeks, but something that really bothers me about the Apple culture and the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field is that it seems like the Apple zealots love any product that Apple releases, regardless of how good or bad it is. Steve Jobs could shit in his hand and sell it as the iShit for $999 and Mac fanatics would be lining up around the block to buy it.
Appreciation of a good or well thought out product is one thing. Blind zealotry is quite another and I see entirely too much of that in the Apple world.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Although [Emusic.com] just got bought out and is significantly reducing the # of songs one can download, it has been an amazing value for lovers of non-pop genres, as well as contemporary indie pop stuff. I've been using it for 5-6 months and have mined their amazing jazz/blues/world catalog to my great satisfaction. I would guess I've paid a nickel a song at most, and that's about the right price. At their new rates, it is up to 30-40 cents per song, so you need to be pickier, but I'd still rather have a timeless gem for that price than a tune that will soon seem like last weeks news for a buck.
Don't hate the playa, hate the game.
You must look at this from a realistic perspective.
1. The major record labels - meaning the people who control the content - will never release their "property" without DRM. If Apple wants to provide music online, it must do so at the whim of the content "owners". Hence, DRM. Otherwise iTMS is Napster v1, and we all know how that turned out.
As a matter of opinion, I find 'Fairplay' or whatever it is Apple calls its DRM method to be quite fair, to me. I can play all my music on my computers (laptop, desktop, work desktop) and devices (rev1 iPod), burn CDs, and so forth. I've been using iTMS since its inception, and have no complaints.
2. Apple has to balance their costs and resources, and the resources of their paying customers. Sure we all want uber-high-bitrate encodings. Remember that Apple has to push out all that data, and ensure the highest-possible success rate. I also assume they pay for their bandwidth, like everyone else. Moreover, many of their customers are probably still on dialup. In order to work, the experience has to be as close to instant as technologically possible. Like all things in technology, it's a balance. Until your uber-bitrate song fits in under a meg, it went with what it had that fit its requirements and needs.
Again, as a matter of opinion: P2P blows, people lie, allow bad rips, disconnect halfway through (mom's coming! quick, disconnect!), whatever.
3. The notion that one day this will all go away is a very fair criticism. So do the smart thing: burn to audio CD. You aren't prohibited (provided you don't try to turn that shiny G5 into a duplication studio). And getting around the DRM by re-encoding isn't all that hard (google it). iTunes enforces no DRM on user-ripped material, as WMP did at one point (could be turned off, IIRC). DRM applies only to content it re-sells.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
I love having to buy a whole CD when I just want one song for $12!
Just to make sure, does every one know why this is a problem?
The big record lables, in conjunction with the RIAA, MTV, Clear Channel, et. al. etc, market a product which DOES NOT EXIST!
They market the one or two good songs on the CD. However, they make no product by which you can purchase the one or two good songs. It's like marketing a wheel and requiring you to purchase a car in order to get it.
I know that, technically, there are CD singles, but they're hard as crap to find, they're still $5, and most of them are import bootlegs.
~Will
sig?
Until the next Microsoft monthly patch which will intentionally break it in some manner.
OK, maybe it will take a couple of months.
To the astroturfing moderator that marked this troll the first time...
This was not a troll. It's a fact. So waste some more mod points again. Go ahead, make my day.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
"What do you do in in the year 2030 when nobody makes players for your multi-gigabyte collection of AAC files?"
Hmm - 27 years in the future. All the 45s I had from 27 years ago, I could play them if I still had them, and if I still had a record player, oh and if I still listened to the same music.
What was your point again?
Right now most new releases at Best Buy are $9.99. Most if not all of these CD's have at least 10 songs on them. So for .99 (or less) a song I get a full CD with a jewel case and album art work etc. & I can rip it to my hard drive or MP3 or Ogg or IPod.
.99 for a song that has worse sound quality, will only play where they tell it to, comes with no liner notes or art and can not be converted to use on most of the audio devices I have?
.50
So why would I pay
Let me know when I can download the CD Audio file for
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Excellant point, but as the author smartly pointed out what's better .01 per song for the artist or .00 because they downloaded from Kazaa? You can't expect a consumer to buy their music from some other means say CD's so that the artist makes more.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
1) You can buy the one track you like for $.99; saves you $8.99!
... it's been mentioned here a million times.
2) AAC at 128 sounds great to me.
3) You do get the cover art.
4) Of course you can convert the AAC to MP3