Slashdot Mirror
New Napster Off To A Solid Start
Anonymous Superhero writes "From Wired magazine Napster 2.0 has a sleek design and makes exploring new music a pleasure. The most nagging problem? The confusing licensing issues. A review by Katie Dean." I haven't tried it yet - still using the iTunes store.
Ban MP3s!
Ban Music!
Ban the Internet!
Ban Electricity!
Still using piracy. Arrrr, matey.
What I want to know is if you can freely (and easily) move purchased MP3s from computer to computer as well as burning them to CD using any 3rd party software (iTunes req. their software I believe)
"I haven't tried it yet - still using the iTunes store. "
that somebody has an advertising deal?
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
My main concern about the new napster service is that they do charge 1$ per song making it not much cheeper than a normal cd, and i have heard rumor that the monthly service does not allow cd burning if anyone knows if this is true please email me @ penguinpower_2@yahoo.com.
I haven't tried it yet - still using the iTunes store.
No kidding. iTunes is great, but I don't use it for music - I use it for the audiobooks. These are not available by *ahem* cheaper means, so I love having iTunes for them.
At $10 a month, the Napster premium service allows customers to stream an unlimited number of songs and listen to Napster's preprogrammed radio stations. For as long as you shell out the fee, you can download tracks and listen to them either online or offline. Stop paying the fee, and you don't get to keep the downloads.
;-)
Sounds like a nice way to get all the stuff you like for 10 bucks a month - given that you have the right tools to get the audio stream into a mp3 - can't be too difficult.
Of course, this would be illegal, so I won't try it (no, really!)
Uh huh...
We're sorry, Napster is not currently compatible with your operating system.
Napster is currently compatible with Windows XP/2000.
Windows 95, Windows NT and the Mac OS are not supported at this time.
If you are planning on using Napster on this computer, the service will not be compatible and you should discontinue registration. If you will use Napster on a different computer, with a compatible operating system, please continue.
No thanks, buddy...
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
I say the most nagging problem is those commercials they put out with the napster cat dancing around. So annoying. I'm sure part of Napster's new success is due to these, though.
Anyways, it's good to see that this is some REAL competition for iTunes. Hopefully we'll see a price war soon.
Kazaa lite ;^)
When the Apple Music Store for Windows went live, half the xp users on the internet had downloaded iTunes within 24 hours, it was the most talked-about event on the internet for days, and Apple had almost immediate statistics showing they'd sold millions and millions of songs in the first weekend.
Where are Napster2's such statistics? If they're remaining silent on that, what does that say about how much of a "success" they are so far?
Now that Napster 2.0 is out... I mean, it's out already? The only way I knew was those ads on the Onion. But that made it seem like a "coming soon" thing. Heck, it's barely made a ripple. You'd think if it were worthwhile, it would get more press than the press they merely recieve because of their famous name.
So are all the people complaining that you can't run your iTunes Music Store purchases on more than 3 computers going to overlook the seemingly worse flaws in Napster2, or whine all the louder?
As soon as my lawyer finishes reviewing the licensing agreements and terms of use. It should only take about 5 days and cost me $10,000.
Jeez. It was so much easier in the old days. At least then it was obvious that you were breaking the law. Now you just don't know...
For as long as you shell out the fee, you can download tracks and listen to them either online or offline. Stop paying the fee, and you don't get to keep the downloads.
Right there is why I don't think it will catch on. People don't like the idea of paying until the end of time for something they have bought. Also, what happens when Napster 2.0 goes out of business, do your downloaded songs dissapear as well?
I, for one, welcome our new kitty-cat-with-headphones overlords. In all seriousness though, I'll stick to kaz^H^H^HiTunes until Napster offers me something that my other service can't. Such is the problem with being second-in-line, everyone uses the first. That's why Windows is popular, that's why AOL is popular, that's why Napster WAS so popular, and that's why 45$/month porn sites are popular.
A black box on the right side of the application displays the current playlist and album cover.
Black box? Looks like the reviewer was listening to Metallica or Spinal Tap
.I mean, if you download music without paying through the nose for it, the RIAA get PO-ed.
Simple equation. 'Complex licencing issues' my butt! They hate all file-share services. There will never be a P2P worth using, as long as the biggest powers in the world are still functioning under a capitalist economy based on greed. In my opinion, that's the bottom line. I prefer not to place myself in line to be sued. So I ignore all P2P services. The megacorps make life hard enough, what with wanting to ban all free software, and directly controll my PC, so why give 'em an opening to blast me by using these things. I mean P2P to the RIAA is like a red rag to a bull. Vive freedom! Down with corporations. but until that glorious day, I'll steer clear of P2P.
-- Soluzar
Sign the FSF's Anti-DMCA petit
From the article: I look forward to an even better digital music experience as the licensing hitches are resolved.
And that's the beauty of the Apple solution: all of the licensing hitches have already been worked out. Consumers want predictability, and iTunes is the only one that provides it now.
Seriously, Napster and all clones such as Itunes (we can debate who cloned who later) who are trying to sell music online are ultimately doomed to failure. P2P is the new radio; free music, and will always be considered so from here on out. No P2P service will ever be as successful as Kazaa or oldschool Napster until they realize that the lure of their product is its freedom. Pay for it though voluntary subscription (such as slashdot) and/or ads like cable television and be done with it. Music et al will never be as ridiculously profitable as it once was. The days when we pay per album and/or song have rapidly come to a close and I'll be damned if I ever see them come back.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
The big problem with Napster (and BuyMusic for that matter), and the reason iTunes surpasses both of them: Ease of Use. I don't want to have to read the fine print on every single song. I just want to find it and grab it:
"Despite its flexibility, the service can also be confusing. Some songs in the Napster library can only be streamed, while others are only available for a 99-cent download, even if you're paying for the streaming service. Which songs fall into each category isn't clearly spelled out. Some users are liable to think they are signing up for unlimited access to the Napster library, only to find out that some tracks must be purchased separately."
" I was listening to Lucinda Williams' album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road when I ran into a glitch. I could hear all of "Lake Charles," but only 30 seconds of "I Lost It," a song from the same album. It turns out "I Lost It" was only available if I opted for the a la carte feature. I either had to buy the track for 99 cents or be content hearing just 30 seconds of it. What a pain."
The Napster kinks in licenses and stuff like that are only a sign of how the record industry still hasn't embraced this age of electronic media.
You'd think they'd be all into it, with the cost reduction for distrobution.
I would think I'm not the only person in the world who clicks OK whenever I see a contract or license. To me, that long-winded drivel has no hold on my time. If Napster is saying they will require my first born child as future payment for the services, then they'll have to come through me to get it, contract or not.
But that's not really what this is about. It's about record execs who haven't got the slightest idea how to integrate properly into a culture.
We are the culture... The people.
They (RIAA et al) are too busy trying to tell us that they are the culture, they are in control, when in fact that very notion of them having to tell people of this, is their undoing.
Each artist or group might have certain wishes to deal with Napster. Napster likely had to make concessions to appease the powers that be.
It's a side effect of a greater disorder. But does it make Napster bad? Prolly not.
That is my biggest complaint. I decided to sign up for their premium service for a few months, since I was quitting eMusic anyway so the net cost was negligible. Once you join, many songs' icons change from "Buy song" to "Buy only", which means you can't stream or download them without paying $1. OTOH, there is a bunch of stuff that is streaming only. (For example, the Pet Sounds Sessions by the Beach Boys.) I don't think this is made sufficiently clear before you sign up, although I'm sure they would argue it's in the fine print somewhere.
Also, just some more info on the tracks you can download on the $9.99 unlimited plan. If you view the file info in Windows Media Player, they are tagged in the DRM as "no transfer to portable", "no burn to CD", and with 6 week play expirations. Presumably that is renewed automatically if you keep up the subscription.
About a month ago, /. posted a story similar to this, and someone recommended software that, in essence, becomes the sound subsystem, and all audio went through it, so you could record even "protected" content. Anyone have the link to the software?
I did not test Napster's answer to the iPod, the Samsung Napster player. I only checked out the music service.
Here are a few:
click
click
click
When will these companies realize, that in order for paid downloads to catch on, they must provide a BETTER service than the free stuff. This is still more restrictive than any of the P2P. If I download a song from P2P, I can do whatever the !@#% I want with it. Although this is much better than some of the other services, they still have a long way to go. Also, the library needs to be about 10 times that size.
While I understand the reason, I would find it extremely disappointing to hear a bunch of songs streamed and then stop subscribing and realize all that money had been in vain....
I haven't downloaded music probably for over a year. Perhaps it says something about me, but as I age (28) I like less and less of whats out there and don't even have a desire to download it for free let alone for $.99.
The only time any more that I will download music probably is for a song I remember from my teens or some classical music.
I suppose the radio feature is useful (to get you hooked on new music and to get you to buy new songs).
.99 cents per song is just THAT MUCH cheaper. sheesh.
2.0 little.
2.0 late.
2.0 bad.
Here is a recent review from John Fried who compared the different sites head-to-head
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
... Napster sucks because it's missing quite a few songs from even common groups like Led Zeppelin.
My biggest complaint about any music store such as Napster, MusicMatch and iTunes is why are the id3 tags locked down? So if some jackass decides to label The Who's "We Won't Be Fooled Again" as Classic Rock, I am stuck with that labeling? Gawd forbid they fuck around and misspell the artist, album or song title.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
Why does this make story here on slashdot? Napster is dead and buried. This is nothing more than a company that bought the name and turned napster in RIAA's wet dream. It's a pay for service that is DRM saturated, and thus no more noteworthy than any other DRM saturated service. Napster is dead, nothing more to say here.
Here's my review, which I attempted to post as a new topic but got denied....
:) I also like the notion that my purchased music are simply DRM-protected local files and I can play/manage them along with my local files.
Below is a short review I have done of the three legit online music services I have tried - Rhapsody, iTunes, and Napster 2.
Rhapsody
As a s/w developer who sits in front of his computer all day, I'm a big fan of the online streaming services and a huge Rhapsody advocate. I consider it the best $10 that I spend a month and use it for at least 6 hrs a day M-F. I've also ripped my entire CD collection to a FireWire drive connected to a fileserver I have setup in my home network. In total, I have about 7000 mp3s
ripped at 192kbps VBR which take up about 37GB of storage.
But Rhapsody has it's shortcomings.....
- no portable support
- no way to play local media files
- purchased music can be burned to a CD once and then it's gone
- no one click album purchase
I live with most of these by simply ripping the CDs I burn from Rhapsody which allows me to mix them with my local tracks and upload them to my Samsung YP-30SH MP3 player. I have also purchased the licensed version of RealOne (w/o all the subscription crap) to manage my local files. I'm not a big fan of Real the company but RealOne has great ID3 and file management capabilities. I've tried all of the others (e.g. MusicMatch) and I simply can't find another media player which does what RealOne does for me. I should mention that most of these capabilities came from RealJukebox which has then merged with RealPlayer to form RealOne. Unfortunately, it is now bordering on considerable bloatware and I fear that since Real has purchased listen.com (i.e. Rhapsody) they are planning on merging the Rhapsopdy client into it which will likely result in both clients becoming less usable.
iTunes
When iTunes for Windows launched, I checked it out from a curiosity perspective. The U/I is very well done as one would expect from Apple and the purchase process is seamless. Apple has made it very easy for people to spend money
But iTunes has it's shortcomings......
- iPod-only support
- no streaming service
- AAC format which has very limited industry support
I have seen so many messages blasting M$oft and WMA and DRM, and the same people giving accolades to Apple and iTunes. But from my perspective, iTunes/AAC is 10x more proprietary than WMA and Apple has not been anywhere near as forthcoming with developers as M$oft has been over WMA. There are at least a dozen MP3 players on the market supporting WMA and only one supporting AAC. It seems that since Apple is "cool", it's OK for them to be signicantly more proprietary than the "uncool" Microsoft.
As far as DRM is concerned - yes, it's a pain, but get over it - it's not going away.
Napster 2
So given my views on Rhapsody and iTunes, I was eagerly awaiting the launch of Napster 2. The advance information available seemed to indicate that it had everything I like about Rhapsody and more (e.g. portable support). I had decided that if it actually was what it's PR made it out to be, I'd bite the bullet and get a WMA-capable MP3 player.
But boy was I wrong......
I downloaded the Napster 2 client first thing yesterday morning and immediately felt a sense of deja-iTunes-vu. They seemed to have attempted to replicate the iTunes interface in almost every way but in a way that seems much more "scattered-brained". At this time, I'd like to say a word about these services' U/Is. Perhaps it's my old way of thinking, but I really like Rhapsody's album and artist-orientated U/I. Everything is laid out very logically and navigation among artists, albums, genres, related artists,
etc. is v
Although I like the idea of having yet another music store available to me, I kinda wish this was done differently however.
For one thing. I like P2P. I like it because I dont have to listen to what Roxio wants me to hear. I listen to what the fans want to hear. Now that this napster is no longer P2P it seems to me that this would limit what Music I can find on the service to what the RIAA is pimping in the stores currently rather than anything under the sun like Napster used to be.
All I want it a P2P app thats Legal and allowes me to do whatever the hell I please with the music I download. Maybe it's time to RIAA stop suing everyone under the sun and just selling some sort of monthly fee "P2P Licence" that allows me to download whatever I want, however I want as long as I download and upload it with a valid licence. Either that or a P2P app that allows me to download whatever I want for $1 and anything that is uploaded from me gives me $0.10 for the bandwidth used.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
CHA-CHING , I'm a millionaire. Y-E-S!
F the RIAA
I bet I can get at least .50cents/ song at the Flea Market.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
PC Mag likes Napster too. But the user comments (at the bottom of the page) seem to disagree. PC Mag also has reviews of ITunes and MusicMatch.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
If this discussion had anything to do with "P2P" (i.e., "pirate-to-pirate") then you might have a point.
It doesn't, though. Napster has nothing to do with "P2P."
So I quote an enthusiastic customer commenting on Napster 2.0's payment scheme, "F### THAT." He called his credit card and issued a charge-back on the service for false advertising.
I won't even consider it until it's ($CURRENT_PRICE/2) and until the files are ($CURRENT_BITRATE*2). And until it's in (!($CURRENT_MEDIA_FORMAT)). Plus it only is going to have bands $BAD_BANDS[1]..$BAD_BANDS[134], which I don't listen too anyway.
And they should have thought of this ($DATE-(rand())) ago.
...in name only.
An industry leader has already emerged in the digital music business -- Apple's iTunes. They've set the bar and I'm not sure how that bar can be raised.
Does this new Napster service offer anything better than iTunes? The article claims more songs are available using Napster, but then goes on to say that some are only available as streamed audio, and then only to those who pay the $10/month. Of the 500,000 songs, how many are truly available as downloadable tracks?
iTunes, without requiring any purchases, comes with a few hundred radio stations, all of them free. Napster radio stations are only available to those who pay the $10/month (according to the article).
So where's the innovation? The industry is struggling to catch up to Apple, and Apple has a huge lead. I can't think of any feature I'd like to see in iTunes that isn't already there, and what is there is done really well.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
So what's their selection? Yes, I realize you have to download the iTunes program to browse the iTMS, but I can run iTMS on this computer and check. I can't run napster on this computer.
Anyone else notice that there is VERY little information on this site? If you look around a lot, you can find the statistic that they have "500,000 songs" and that this includes "Eminem and Miles Davis". 500,000 songs, how'd they do that so quickly? iTunes Music Store only has 400,000 and it's been up months. Hm.
They don't even give any PRICING INFORMATION if you can't download the program. Wow.
Price war? How can there be a price war if the majority of the revenues (ie royalties) go to the same place?
The RIAA labels win BIG time - they get distribution, advertising, promotion and steady revenue through their middle distributors. iTMS, Napster or whoever will have to live on slim margins.
The thing I don't like about it is you have to create an account just to browse the store ... ? It's not like I can steal anything, but good grief, why do they need my digits just to look around? I hope that doesn't become the stardard anytime soon.
First off, doesn't MusicMatch stream all kinds of content FOR FREE? I listen to the alternative radio station they have all day at work and it rocks.
As far as iTunes goes, I'm a little less than enthused about the music selection. It's probably just luck, but the first two bands I searched for (Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins) were nowhere to be found. I'm hopeful that within a few months more and more deals will be worked out to make more stuff available.
New Napster sounds like crap to me. I want to BUY my music, not RENT it. I have radio (and now MusicMatch) for stuff I just listen to occasionally.
For as long as you shell out the fee, you can download tracks and listen to them either online or offline. Stop paying the fee, and you don't get to keep the downloads. ... Some songs in the Napster library can only be streamed, while others are only available for a 99-cent download, even if you're paying for the streaming service.
If you pay the 99 cents, can you keep that song forever?
What happens if napster's drm servers go down or whatever? Can you still listen to the music you've bought? What are the restrictions, can you move bought songs between computers like with iTMS?
You think Wired is a big fan of Napster2 because Napster and Roxio are both huge sponsers of the website as well as the mag?
Well hey, I can see your point; do you see mine. On closer inspection, I can see a difference between Napster and oh, say KaZaA, for example, but I'm not entirely sure that the record companies see that difference. For the record, I'm not sure I find it a convincing difference myself. People are already talking about how to use Napster for purposes of piracy, are they not? In my view it's just another way of trying to get what you did not pay for, and while I do NOT make a value judgement about the rights and wrongs of that issue, the RIAA sure as hell do. Come on, don't tell me that you don't get where I'm coming from.
Napster, and the internet == The Great Satan to the RIAA, and that will never change, as far as I can see. Your views may differ, but surely you can see my point, even if you don't agree?
-- Soluzar
Sign the FSF's Anti-DMCA petit
It just seems so obvious (to me anyway) that the first company to allow downloands of portable mp3s will be a winner. I would happily pay $1.00 for each mp3 downloaded, as long as I can take it anywhere. I really think that it would be easier to just pay $1.00 for an mp3 than to try to find someone who has it already and copy it. Sure, people are going to get mp3s without paying, but people will dot that no matter what. If its easier to pay than to "steal" it, I think most people will simply pay the minimal fee. Why is this such a hard idea to grasp and why isn't anyone doing it?
As it stands, why in the world would I want music that I can only play on one computer. Sure, I can burn a CD, but who cares about that? I don't want to have to lug a bunch of CDs around.
[FromTheMorning]
What about ...Aussies Do It Right: E-Voting ... seems more important to me.
Isn't this news that matters.
Too bad the DRM problem only permits burning to CD or the Samsung player for music portability. Being stuck with the DRM problem kills it for an option for me. The burn, rip, mix, burn to MP3 uses way too many CDR's to make a full CDR of MP3's for my car.
Maybe someday, MP3's will be avaliable for download again. Then I can download, make playlists, and burn to MP3 CD's for the car.
I wonder if they are going to cry "PIRACY" for all the CDR's that are going to be burnt to RIP MIX BURN.
To burn one full MP3 CDR, It will need about a dozen music CDR's burnt to rip. What a hastle, what a waste. Too much hastle... No Sale this time. Try again.
The truth shall set you free!
Seriously ....
... and have the artists living in semi-luxuray instead of in their plush castles!
They are using the identity of what used to represent freedom from the RIAA to make money, and basically, supporting the RIAA!!!
This is a disgrace!
I know that the musicians have a right to make moeny (although I still think it is a crock how the RIAA has blackmailed everyone and even more so how the musicians have basically turned their backs on their fans), but using the Napster name to support the RIAA is NOT RIGHT!!!
Hell, just on the fact that Napster has also sold out to the RIAA would be enough for me to NEVER visit their site. As it is, I am (as I am sure many others are) boycotting music by not purchasing CDs or subscribing to any pay-for music site. The people need to speak out by boycotting this kind of thing.
In addition, (if I was buying CDs) now you have to pay to download music, whether or not you have purchased the CD! (If you want to have the music "legally") That is also a crock!
Don't support the sellous at Napster!
Don't use their service!!!
Don't support the RIAA!!!
Let those music producers go out of business and starve! If you want to support your bands, go to their live shows, but don't allow the RIAA to exploit people with these insane rules on music. Yes, the artists deserve to make a good living, but these kind of costs provide MUCH more than a good living. Force the music execs to take a pay cut
It just frosts me that the folks at Napster, the people that are supposed to represent what is good in music, are now selling out to the evil RIAA! I would rather have the name go down (as a marter) than to sell out like this!
And to the people at Napster: Please stop with all of the annoying TV commericals!
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
No kidding. iTunes is great, but I don't use it for music - I use it for the audiobooks. These are not available by *ahem* cheaper means, so I love having iTunes for them.
sure they are. try your local library. that's what you get from your taxes at work!
I'm sorry, I'm not even an audiophile and I can hear a difference between a 128Kbps AAC and a FLAC. Yeah you can buy one song at a time. But that's only good for those pop singles.
So for $10/album I get no media, no notes, and less quality. Or I can get a used CD for the same price/cheaper and rip to 256Kbps myself.
Yeah I guess it saves me the trip into the hated sun world, but are people really finding this worth it?
In other news iTunes is a great program. Some flaws, and it eats RAM, but still fun to use.
-- taking over the world, we are.
Isn't that what (www.)last.fm is for?
btw, please be kind to their server.
One thing no review has touched on is the fact that there is a Napster 2 version for Media Center PCs. Now, put aside all the M$oft/OGG/DRM crap for a minute and think about having a Media Center set top box attached to your TV and stereo. For $10/month you have a completely programmable internet jukebox w/ half a million tracks available for on deman streaming.
I've come real close to buying a Prismiq media player because some people have come up with a way to run Rhapsody thru Shoutcast and get it play this way. But the Napster/MC combo looks like the real deal.
Flat-fee streaming is what I really wish iTunes had. I use Rhapsody because it lets me listen to anything they have through my computer for a flat monthly fee. Since my PC is hooked up to my stereo and I have a DSL connection, it's basically indistinguishable from playing local ripped tracks or CDs. But it won't rip tracks directly to MP3s (it requires you to burn a CD directly), won't play any local files, and is very Windows-only. If iTunes let me do the same streaming thing, I would not only sign up, but it would be one of the last reasons for me to give up my Windows desktop and get a Mac.
Napster 2.0 seems to have something similar, but I don't like the fact that some songs are download-only. Perhaps I'll check it out though.
They are pressuring, cajoling and enticing labels to release music in WMA with the promise of it being pirate-proof. At that same time, they hope this will marginalize Mac OS and Linux (which also doesn't have a WMA 9 port).
Very few (very very few) artists actually make money from cd sales through a major label. Giving the recordings away isn't going to make much of a change in their bank accounts.
I can't witness Napster's sleek new design, because it's a Windows-only client. That leaves me with these choices: Buy outrageously-priced CDs (haven't for two years and don't plan to until I see competitive pricing), "steal" music off of P2P (not my cup of tea), or use a competing distributor like Magnatune. I guess since Magnatune has streaming for previewing, competitive pricing, works with Linux (or any OS with a decent media player), and has no DRM, I will put up with their limited selection and they will get my money.
It's pretty obvious that the major music industry distributors have one shared brain cell. The more they lobby, prosecute and price-fix, the less money they make off of potential buyers like me, who aren't "pirating", but are sick of taking collateral damage from the battle. It doesn't take an economics genius to realize that $10 is better than $0 (because I'm not paying $20 thankyouverymuch). This is how it works RIAA: You don't call the shots, the consumer does. If you want my money, deliver what I want or get nothing.
BTW, does customs allow CDRWs to be shipped from Canada? I'd like to not fund the ongoing RIAA battle, because I have nothing to do with it. I figure it's time now to actively avoid funding this nonsense. I've bought the thousands of dollars worth of CDs in the past. What did I get for it? A 100% increase in music prices, only top 40 garbage to choose from, DRM controls, a tax on an unrelated item (I burn data CDs, not illegal copies of songs), ISP witch hunts, and legal maneuvering to stamp out viable competitive pricing through better technology.
I think from now on, whenever I spent $20 on entertainment other than on RIAA's partners in crime, I'll send them a nice e-mail telling them that they just lost out on profit because their products are not a good value, and they refuse to bargain with consumers. They may laugh at it now, but in three years, when their sales have dropped off 25 per cent, it won't be so funny anymore.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Quote: "Such is the problem with being second-in-line, everyone uses the first." Windows came after Mac OS. AOL came after Prodigy and CompuServe. Super NES came after Sega Genesis PlayStation came after 3D0 and Philips PS2 came after Sega Dreamcast etc, etc, ad nauseum....
Spekkio Master of War
I can't get the mantra out of my head:
...
Napster Bad!
Napster Bad!
Napster Bad!
Napster Bad!
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Doesn't sound like you used it at all. Why not download it and browse the selection?
There is a survey on osViews that shows the choices people are making when buying music from the various services that have popped up.
The results are very interesting.
Remember though, that the iTMS only exists to sell iPods, at least that's how Apple's executives are looking at it. It doesn't have to be profitable, just drive sales of the highly profitable iPod.
I'd say the biggest nagging problem would be that its not free anymore. Thats a pretty major thing right there.
To everyone who says that Napster should just pack up and leave since iTunes already does everything they do and better, get educated. I'd rather a market in which music distribution systems like iTunes and Napster compete because guess what, competition is what keeps these companys developing. If iTunes becomes the sole provider of legal music over the internet, no one has won except Apple since they would no longer have to put as much effort into R&D, which is both expensive and time consuming. Lack of competition often leads to stagnation in the realm of technology, just look at IE as of late.
This argument is ignoring either one of their merits as companies/products, but the point is, don't attack Napster or any other company in this market just because they aren't iTunes and do not attach your pride and ego to iTunes as its just a product designed to be sold, just like Napster.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Let's say, hypothetically, you had instead spent that $10 at Wendy's, eaten a bunch of food and then stopped eating.
Once all that food was gone, would you feel the same way? Would you realize the money had been in vain because you were no longer able to eat the food?
What if you'd spent the $10 on a movie ticket? Or on a single month's subscription to XM Satellite Radio service? You cannot keep the songs from XM Radio either.
I wish they would get a clue from the bottled water folks. I want a good source of high quality MP3's that could be put into a playlist for the PC in Winamp and burnt into a MP3 CD for the car. There are a few tracks I would like to get. So far all I have been promised is a high price for low usability.
Please SOMEBODY... Provide a Quality product? Choice of high quality MP3 or OGG files would be nice.
Stuff guaranteed to be broken need not apply.
The truth shall set you free!
Many more audio books are available at Audible.com. They use a monthly fee of $15 for any one book and one periodical or $20 for any two books plus discounts on purchases outside of your subscription plan. You can also purchase books without a monthly subscription at prices comparable to iTunes. If you ditch your subscription, you still keep your purchased books and can even redownload them. The DRM is the same as, and playable through, iTunes; 3 computers authorized at any one time, iPod-able, and CD burnable. There are also other MP3 players that support Audible books including Rios, Palms, and Pocket PCs. (I read in their newsletter that their own Audible Mobile Player is in the Smithsonian as one of the first Internet-based spoken audio system) ;-)
--if you get a subscription, reference "bizzarobot" and I'll get a free book.
The songs I downloaded from iTunes are .m4p (If I remember correctly - some kind of Apple propriatery format). They are stored on my windows box.
I have several questions I hope someone can answer:
If I buy a mac do you think I can copy the iTunes song files from my PC to the mac? Or Re-Download them at no cost or something. point is I want to get the songs I bought on my windows box to the mac.
I also bought songs from MusicMatch which stores them as Windows Media files (bummer). These files don't play on an iPod. I'm thinking of getting an iPod. is there any way I can convert the Windows media files to another format that will play on the iPod?
Last question: I haven't looked at Napster service yet. What format do these download in and If I get a Mac later will I be able to transfer the files to it?
Thanks people.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
Isn't this really the third rev of Napster? If I remember correctly the version from the "golden days of P2P" that everyone knows was actually Napster 2.0. It wasn't written by Shawn Fanning but by a group of developers who actually took his nearly beta work and turned it into a full-fledged app (I'll leave it up to everyone else and the Rotten Library to debate how important Fanning was at all).
But I guess this is just a marketing ploy. Like CPU G/Mhz: the actual benchmark doesn't matter, just some arbitrary number that is bigger than another arbitrary number.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I haven't tried it yet - still using the iTunes store.
Thanks for sharing, Hemos. Could you please STFU?
Who gives a shit? If you don't have any experience with it just post the story and leave your worthless comments out.
"I searched on the Posies and clicked on "Dream All Day," and the same thing happened: It played Vince Guaraldi's "Skating." Odd, and likely an inconvenience for those Posies fans."
Yeah, I talked to him and he's mighty pissed.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
I still use the library to check it out (they have even the latest DVDs). And if I like it, I go to half.com or some place like that and find a USED cd for a few bucks. It's cheaper and no DRM (digit restrictions management....though it's more like digital rage and madness) issues.
Then I can use LAME 3.9x to encode it the way I want, HQ VBR for my ipod (or use ogg for archiving). Who KNOWS how these non-audiophiles encoded it. They could've used the shittiest encoder known to man; Xing or FhG.
Plus, no monthly fees and my feedback on ebay goes up.
I'm not paying a buck per song for the 'privilege' of downloading a CD (minus the CD, the case, the cool packaging etc). And I'm CERTAINLY not going to pay a buck a song to get the music on a non Mp3 format. I'd rather go down to the locally owned used record store, buy some used CD's and rip them myself - in whatever format I want.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
I *like* buying CDS.
I download music via Kazaa as well - BUT - when I think about it - for some things, Kazaa, and the old napster, are/were really great. Even though it's free, you have to put a great deal of effort into searching for the songs, downloading them, sequencing them, burning them. And now, charging money for it? Now it's inconvient and costs money.
Lately I have liked Jazz alot. Online music sharing has been a great tool for sampling different artists, hearing standards interperted different ways, and soforth. But when I find something I like - I go to the used record store and buy it. There's no point in buying a NEW copy of a 40 year old recording. But, have the used version (I pay about $8 a cd), gets me the tunes, and cool liner notes, and the ability to bring it along to friend's houses where they don't have a computer, and play it!
Online music is great to sample, and to get #1 hits that come on otherwise a sucky album. For jazz it is great to find some rare stuff, too. But to pay for it? Maybe if you listen to pop songs, which are short and heavily traded songs. But for lots of other kinds of music, taking one song off an album takes it out of context, and it's worth buying the album.
Who would listen to just one song from Dark Side of the Moon by pink floyd, or just one section of Motzarts 5th? Just one section of Miles Davis's bitches brew?
Easy guys, I put my pants on one leg at a time. The difference is after I put on my pants I make gold records!
I have been a Pressplay/Napster user now for several months and I must say that it is a good solution for me - but it definitely won't be for everyone.
75% or more of my music listening is done at home, so I really don't have a need to rely on burns or a portable music device. I have a WinXP box with WMP 9, so Napster's integrated WMP plugin works fine for me.
The reality is that for $10/month, I get unlimited downloads and streams (if I want a song, I just download it), plus Napster's selection of radio stations and Billboard charts, which I've found to be pretty useful. I have downloaded hundreds of songs already, and only paid probably $50-$60 worth of monthly fees, so for my needs it's much cheaper than iTunes or paying for the rights through Napster.
Napster's song selection is very good and they seem to get new albums (or at least the popular singles) up fairly quickly.
If you're looking for portability and the ability to burn tracks, I really can't speak to that - since that's not how I use Napster. If you want a service to use on your computer and to check out new albums before you buy the hard copy, I would highly recommend Napster. Their WMP plugin is pretty well integrated and you can use WMP's built-in library functions to manage your songs and create playlists.
Five Dolla Moddy-Moddy?
THey don't even mention *nix.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
I've subscribed to Napster Premium ($10/month) and I just love it. I've got broadband at work and at home. So basically I can listen to it all the time. It really changes my listening habits. I listen to a lot of bands I wouldn't really buy a CD from. I also try out a lot of new music (hey, you can choose from almost 500000 songs). It's the perfect service for me. 120$ a year might seem quite expensive. But for me, the ease of use and conveniency make it definitely worth it.
I don't have a portable player, so for me it's not a big deal, that the subscription doesn't allow me to put the music onto a portable device.
To be honest, I think the subscription based service might be the future of the music business. With the next generation of mobile phones (i.e. 4th not 3rd generation), there'll be enough bandwidth to stream music to your/every cell phone. This way you also don't need a portable player anymore. You *always* stream the music! I would totally go for it...
What do other people think?
haven't tried it yet - still using the iTunes store
And I haven't used it yet because it's still not available outside the US. When are these things going to work outside the US?
2 is better than 1, 3 is better than 2, etc. etc. etc.
Frankly, I don't mind paying so long as quality is good and the selection doesn't suck.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Is it illigal to share a file that you bought off iTunes/Napster etc? Assuming that you dont modify it in any way? I ask because when these systems get cracked this will happen.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Well, they let you burn to CD, which is an inherently unprotected format. So you *could* burn to CD and turn right around and rip back to an unprotected format like MP3 (not that I would do something so blatantly illegal as this) ;)
BUT -- if I *WERE* to do something so blatantly illegal as that, I would consider it a huge waste of CD blanks. Which brings me to my question:
Most of us are familiar with programs like Daemon Tools that tricks your computer into seeing an ISO image as an extra CD drive. Has ANYONE seen a program/driver that does this process in reverse?
For example, it could be a program that tricks your computer into seeing an extra CD-R drive which is in reality just an ISO file creator. Nero and several other programs provide this kind of functionality, but only from within their application. Since Napster (and iTunes for that matter) only allows you to burn from their program, I figure such a program would have to work at the ATAPI level, not as a separate application.
I've scoured the net and haven't found any such program yet. I would love to code this sort of thing myself, but unfortunately I'm woefully ignorant of the particular Windows functions one would have to interface with to emulate a drive.
I figure there's enough open source gurus that mill around this site that SOMEONE might see this post and take it upon themself to code this sort of tool. Anyone with any thoughts/suggestions/flames can AIM me at SoyFeo408.
Sure, competition is great in an emerging market, but at some point you'll reach that high water mark where adding more stuff just degrades the product. Honestly, I can't think of a single feature relating to digital music that I'd like to see in iTunes that isn't already there.
It's like MS Word. Most people are still using a pre-2000 version of Office because it does everything they could ask of it.
The only thing competition will do is drive price. At 0.99 per track, there's very little profit in there for digital downloads (most is eaten up by credit card fees and licensing). Competition will ensure that price doesn't go up in the near future, but I don't think it will see it go down at all.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Fine. Repeal Copyright then. Watch the economy go into a depression for 100 years. Put hundreds of millions of people out of work. Then we can save our $1.
How about a compromise: limiting the maximum copyright term to twenty-eight years. Such a revision to copyright law would get oldies onto P2P legitimately, but would it really have such a deleterious effect on the proprietary software industry and the entertainment industries as you describe?
(For this discussion, please disregard the Berne Convention's guarantee of life plus 50, which sounds to me more like a prison term for double murder than an appropriate copyright term.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
I signed up early to be "notified" when Napster was released, being promised 5 "free downloads". I got my email, followed its link and directions, and downloaded my 5 songs.
And noticed a nice credit card charge for the songs appeared in my statement.
Thanks, Napster. Goodbye, Napster.
MORTAR COMBAT!
If you only sign up for Napster's a la carte service, you don't have to read nearly as much fine print, as pretty much every song offered to such customers comes with approximately the same permissions that iTMS purchased songs come with.
Will I retire or break 10K?
DO NOT FUCK OTHER MEN UP THE ASS. DO NOT LET OTHER MEN FUCK YOU UP THE ASS.
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Kicks the pft's goatse sites.
from all their marketing dollars and it's also quite easy to grab a bit of free publicity since the issue is a hot topic in large part because of the RIAA's audacity. So, no surprise the early numbers look good.
But the longer tern is another story. Are these paid services really offering a good value? That depends how you look at it.
Personally, I don't believe a dollar a song is a good deal at all. I'd say the few cents that are supposed to go to the artists in royalties are a fair deal, but anything more than that is simply corporate charity that I don't care to contribute to.
There are still countries in this world where non commercial exchange of data is beyond the realm of copyright and in time the advance of the lifestyles of those people beyond those countries that enslave themselves to corporate masters under the bondage of copyright will make the point clear. How amusing it will be if Russia returns to the Soviet system, but this time it is the West that looks longingly towards the untold luxuries that even the common citizen might enjoy.
I'd be happy to give it a shot, if it supported the MacOS. If they are wanting to compete with iTunes, they'll need to start supporting it. Just like the iPod, Apple trumped them before they even got it off the ground...
And come-on, at LEAST put up a decent "We don't support your operating system" page....May as well be a 404 for what is thee...
My
I'm in Canada, seems that they don't like non-Americans...
Also, what do these pay-for services offer musical-range-wise? Do they have lesser known stuff? I've been trying to find close to 100 different bands/artists on the sinternet for months still with no results, and if I'm going to pay, in purely economic terms here people, I would expect to be able to get stuff that I want to a greater degree than what I can get for free.
If I could pay $10 a month for streaming, I could just internal source record it to mp3 using CEP or whatever, that would be great(seeing as it would be reliable), if I could get what I wanted.
Uh, yeah it does. Click the radio link below your library. Hundreds of FREE streaming radio stations.
Look, I can appreciate how thrilling it must be to all the nouveau-Appleians to finally have a computer that does what you want, but by now I've gotten fairly fed up with the non-stop gushing on Slashdot. It's gotten to the point that I'm waiting for the headline "Steve Jobs Takes Shit, Finds Gold Nugget".
To some of us, none of this stuff is new, you see. We've always chosen our computers based on our needs and interests of the moment, rather than going by some company or market diktat, and as a result our computers have always done pretty much what we want, seamlessly and flawlessly. Back in the day we have all had our love affairs with Sinclairs, Tandys, Macs, Acorns, Amigas, Ataris, BeBoxes -- until one day the man with the axe came and obliterated our dreams. So we moved on.
So I know what it's like to be in love. The sky seems a little bit bluer, the sun a little bit brighter, and the hormonal imbalance makes that you don't even notice when you stub your toe on the table leg. And its okay to bore your friends to death with tales about how pretty she is, and flawless, and how her shit doesn't stink. That's what friends are for.
But please. Guys. I really just don't want to see you get hurt when she dumps you for some other target demographic.
Perhaps, but I was speaking of the quality of mp3ed audio made from the stream.
Line out to line in on Napster has a definite advantage over line out to line in on commercial FM radio, namely that the user isn't limited to whatever the major labels are advertising at the moment. You see, quality of audio involves more than the fidelity of reproduction; it also involves the quality of songwriting and the quality of performance. For instance, Nine Inch Nails at a distortion typical of 32 kbps .ogg sounds better to me than Britney Spears at a distortion typical of 160 kbps .ogg.
Will I retire or break 10K?
...why MS was railing against iTunes.
It effectively removes their potential monopoly over music distribution. Which explains why Apple has better licensing terms on iTunes than anyone else.
The record companies may be dumb, but they're not *stupid*.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Screw you guys. I'm going home.
It's nice to click and download something from iTunes and get the complete song and know it's the song I wanted. Worth a buck to me anyway, if I like the song.
I won't hop on board this 'paying for music downloading' until they offer lossless quality (shn or something like that).
Furthermore, I feel with more DVD-burners and more 5.1/6.1/7.1 speaker setups for computers, these companies should also start looking into AC3 audio. Are there any known lossless codecs for compressing AC3 5.1 audio yet?
iTunes/AAC is 10x more proprietary than WMA
Wrong. AAC is documented in detail as part of the ISO MPEG-4 standard and is no more "proprietary" than MP3. The AAC and MP3 patent holders sell patent-only licenses that allow use of independent encoder implementations; does Microsoft?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I think it's a great plan. They have many bands I like (no these aren't top 20 bands I'm talking about either) and I have already discovered many new bands and albums that I will purchase soon. I tried iTunes but they just didn't have quite the same selection (very close though).
It's obvious that I'll be purchasing my next albums online and burning rather than going to Best Buy (who doesn't cary most of what I want anyways).
-IOVAR Web Dev Platform
It doesnt work on a MAC so why are we talking about it? To me it has zero features. In fact its completely worthless. I have a PC but why would I want two different players/stores /encoders ?
My karma is getting better everyday.
Steve Wozniak ever anticipated his brainchild would become a music distributor...
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
hmmm....good thing I have some good sound cards and some spare time on my hand. Running my soundcard's output into another soundcard's input and recording it to MP3 sounds enticing, that is if there is no other way. If these napster mp3s are supposedly better quality then those Kazaa Mp3s then this will help improve the Kazaa quality:) Oh wait only one problem... I refuse to give my money to this "great" Napster 2.0.
-Steve
P.S. Just out of curiousity, is it possible to loop a soundcard's output back into its input and record and play at the same time. Would it work? Any tools for doing this on either platform?
Dolby licensing for MPEG-4 AAC:
- MPEG-4 AAC licensing
Reading the FAQ, you realise that you still have to pay something, due to Dolby's patents.
AAC implementations:
- FAAC
- XMMS AAC plugin
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I know Napster is trying to build their own music community....
But Apple's already got one. Look at DailyTunes.com - an iTunes community site for song recommendations.
What Napster builds, Apple gets for free.
I wonder iF sTeve wozniak ever anticipated His brainchild would bEcome a music distRIbutor... i still remember plAying zork and cAstle wolfenstein with killer midi music.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
On closer inspection, I can see a difference between Napster and oh, say KaZaA, for example, but I'm not entirely sure that the record companies see that difference.
1. They do.
2. You're an idiot.
People are already talking about how to use Napster for purposes of piracy, are they not?
No, they are not.
while I do NOT make a value judgement about the rights and wrongs of that issue
Then you are an idiot.
Come on, don't tell me that you don't get where I'm coming from.
I get precisely where you are coming from. I get that you are coming from a position of being an idiot.
Napster, and the internet == The Great Satan to the RIAA
Nope. Never true.
that will never change, as far as I can see.
You are a blind idiot, then.
surely you can see my point
I most certainly do see your point. I see quite clearly that you are an idiot.
The rule of thumb is that if you're not listening to it in the format it came in, you're breaking the law, at least according to "the industry."
Yes, I'm familiar with fair use, but I don't think the industry thinks it applies.
I swear, every time I see that cat logo, I think of Sinistar. To this day, that face (and the associated "Beware, I live" voice) still gives me the heebie-jeebies. Brrr.
I personally thought it looked horrible and was very unfunctional. The lists aren't in any particular order when you browse by genre. The interface is pretty much a nightmare. It looks like it was put together by a bunch of monkeys on typewriters. I'm glad that Microsoft is so worried about the consumer's having options but for some reason it just seems like Microsoft really doesn't care. I know that is hard to believe, but I don't think there are any plans for Napster to be on MacOSX ever. Strange huh?
"I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days..."
Maybe, but not today.
Classic musicians know that artists can always depend on 1) live shows and 2) teaching music.
Pop music eventually will arrive to the same business model as classic music has now. You don't see any classic artist getting very rich on CD sales, do you?
Since the 1950's, the media industry has created an impossible business model, where a few "artists" get huge fortunes in order to sell more music. Those artists aren't selected for their musical abitlity, but for an image, a certain charisma, where being rich is part of the overall scheme: "Wow, that song must be good, if that guy got ten million dollars for singing it!"
$0.99 / song is an impossible price. Lower it to $0.0001 / song and the ISPs would pay the price and incorporate it into the service fee. The artist would get $100 per million downloads. Have songs appear to be "free" and "everyone" will download them. The artist wouldn't get $10 million, but getting $100 thousand / billion downloads does nicely to feed a starving artist.
There simply doesn't seem to exist a market for music at the prices they are trying to charge. The media industry's obsession with "piracy" only clouds the issue, but if there existed an absolutely perfect way to eliminate illegal copying people would be in the same situation as if all copyrights were eliminated. We would still have music made by amateurs and music whose copyright has expired. Probably not much to some, but I would rather listen to Beethoven and talented amateurs than to Britney et caterva.
Despite any ethical pressure, most people will not pay for what they can get for free, be it completely legal or not. It's still too simple and easy to get music for free, and furthermore most downloaders fail to appriciate what, if any harm is being done to the artists.
To add to the confusion, newer bands ENCOURAGE their fans to download and enjoy their music for free. When Metallica first started there were thousands of underground audio tapes circulating the metal music scene. They were thrilled that people loved their stuff. What changed? Is it less important that people love the music and want to see the band play?
Yes, its not good to violate legal copyrights because it could,hypothetically cause financial harm to the copyright holder. The extent of the harm certainly mediates the decision to violate the copyright. Hence why most people wouldn't plagiarize a novel, but they'll download a song they didnt pay for.
One nice thing that iTunes does when buring CD's is also burn ID3 information - so when you burn purchased AAC's you can re-rip them to MP3's and much of the information is retained. So if you do have another portable you can just do burns of stuff you buy and then use them as MP3's after.
Yes, I know the quality degrades somewhat through this process but if they're meant for a portable the utlimate in quality is not generally nessicary.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Personally, I am a fan of Eugene's Half arsed Napster 2.0 rundown over at the Apple Insider message board.
From Blogzine.net...
[Note: The following article does not address the subscription side of Napster. Only the features it shares with iTunes]
Two weeks ago, about this time I was ecstatic. I was telling everyone I knew about this wonderful phenomenon of the 21st century....*trumpet sounds* iTunes!
Ever since I realized that buying 10 songs to listen to 1 song was not only silly but foolhearty, I've detested the RIAA's efforts to thwart legal digital music transfer. Why? Because I knew in my heart if such a service existed I would use it...even excessively. I love music. I hate CDs. I hate the RIAA.
iTunes was going to answer that need, and in many ways it did. In fact, I was content with its drawbacks...legal music was all I ever wanted. Getting rid of Kazaa Lite was all I ever wanted.
iTunes was liberating. I downloaded the 20MB of software from Apple.com the first day it was released....at 340 KB/s, a speed I rarely reach with my cable service. I loved it immediately. It had my artists, the songs were 99 cents cheap, the download was nearly instant, and the quality superb considering the bit rate was only 128k.
More than that, Apple, as always, had a snazzy ad and uber sexy hype about it. And perhaps deservedly so. "Hell froze over." read the home page "The best Windows application ever written." Great stuff.
Yes, iTunes was the answer, and I was spreading the word. "Woe to ye, sinners, pirates forsake thy evil theivery and embrace the salvation of iTunes!"
But in the back of my mind there were several problems, problems I was willing to brush aside at the time, or perhaps fix. In an IM dated, oh, I don't know...sometime last week I said something like this:
The problem was realized, it was out in the open now. Apple supported portable music, but only with their elite iPod. I would love to own an iPod, but I cannot afford one and won't be spending such a large amount of money on one. With apple, there was no alternative. I couldn't port music to my Pocket PC. Impooossssible. I also couldn't easily convert the songs to MP3s or WMAs. (Let's see, 1. Burn a CD 2. Rip the CD into the format of my choosing. 3. Type in all of vital information such as artist name. 3 easy steps!) This was a huge hurdle, one that I wasn't sure if I could surrmount. After toying with different audio codecs and attempting to find away to defeat the blasted DRM, I gave up...it was for all intents and purposes, impossible.
It was about this time last week I checked out the Napster home page. It wasn't available yet, and I didn't really like the looks of this new software. But one thing did catch my eye. Napster was going to use the WMA format. This could spell "Liberation". Liberation beyond iTunes, true liberation.
Fast forward to yesterday, I checked out the Napster site again, but this time I was greeted with a big "Download Now" button. I immediately downloaded it.
The interface is what I would call "iTunesian". It's basically a shameless clone, though not quite as sexy. It's a clone in a annoying sort of way. It was the "Bizzaro iTunes"....the same but different and very annoying. But I can learn to love that. I started out my adventure with Napster by searching for the Don McLean ode to Rock n' Roll, American Pie. It quickly appeared in the list, and in 30 seconds I was listening to its goodness. This brings us to our first benefit Napster has over iTunes.
Numero 1. Apple wouldn't let me have the song.
You see, I tried to download American Pie from iTunes l
clifgriffin > blog
Napster 2.0's subscription plan sounds great. They have over 500K songs, and for $9.95/month or so you can download as many as you want, as well as share purchased music and play lists with other subscribers. This comes as a direct shot to emusic for their recent announcement that they would start limiting the number of downloads/month on their subscription service. I will not be signing up however. Napster sells their music in the Micro$oft proprietary WMA format. I don't like the format or the idea behind it, and so I will not be purchasing any WMA music. Apple's iTunes Music Store sells a version of AAC which is based on an open standard, but the codec for which is only available (hardware wise) on the iPod. Since the iPod is, by far, the best hard drive based compressed music player in existence, this is a good thing for Apple. And conversely, since the aforementioned iPod does not support WMA, it does not bode well for Napster.
Common sense isn't.
I read another post elsewhere that someone took a look at a napster file and it said 6-weeks expiration. So it's only after that time you would need a new licence - so if Napster folded you'd want to burn all the songs off ASAP (or do that anyway as a backup).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ummm Katie, those aren't licensing hitches... those are the licenses. Don't expect them to change anytime soon.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
Or he and Apple are giving the labels a lion's-share of the profit, and running the operation as a loss-leader for iPods and Macintoshes.
===========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Copying of music for personal use is legal in Canada. You're not doing anything wrong (neither am I). Those taxes we pay are for a reason.
Note: This sig contains nine S's, nine I's and five O's which... means absolutely nothing.
After spending the last two years going over like a Lead Balloon, Pressplay just rebranded itself with the Napster name.
The corporate overlords may want to buy into the customer goodwill that surrounds the Napster brand name instead of the apathy that surrounds the Pressplay brand name, but they're just polishing a turd. People didn't want to rent their music then, and they won't want to rent it now.
The emperor has a little kittyface mask on, but he's still naked.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
I'm not a big fan of this idea. Personally I have used iTunes on my Powerbook since it came out and to me for my needs it is the most flexible system.
I can purchase a song, it downloads to my machine, and it syncs up to my iPod. Sure this is an all one vendor solution, but it all works and I like it.
I can burn CDs that then fit in my CD player in my car and I've listened to several repeatedly and it works just fine for my needs. Now that it's on Windows I've been showing people iTunes at work, including the folks I know that 'trade' mp3s in an effort to educate them on the somewhat easy way to do it.
I don't like the subscription 'try all you want' models because as past experiences have shown when someone changes that model for some reason, you're hosed. Right now I believe Apple will hang on to this for a long time because it's been too successfull for it to fail unless the licensing is changed.
I've already seen songs I've purchased disappear off iTunes but I can still play them. (Good Charlotte, the Click being one of them)
Don't know, I'm just happy with iTunes now, and have no desire to try something differently.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
And they should have thought of this ($DATE-(rand())) ago.
Today is November 3...say for instance that $DATE-rand() results in October 1. You would then be saying "And they should have thought of this October 1 ago."
What you want to say is either "And they should have thought of this RAND() $RANDSTR('DAYS', 'MONTHS', 'YEARS') ago" or perhaps "And they should have thought of this by $DATE-rand()".
Good idea on CD-RW, btw, from the other poster.
sulli
RTFJ.
Any SDMI-compliant WMA player should play the bought Napster tunes.
I have tried it personally on a 2-3 year old Nike PSA Play 60 (which is really a Rio 600) and it worked perfectly. I did have to use Windows Media Player to do the transfer, but I have to use that to transfer MP3's anyway, since the Nike software sucks.
How did the artist afford a studio?
How did step 5, Artist becomes popular, translate into money in step 6? Are you saying she sold advertising? Who listened to the ads in this model, and when did they listen to those ads? On TV, if that's your example, there are commercial breaks. In a P2P, song-by-song model, there are no such breaks. What, product placements? In the form of lyrics about Frosted Flakes?
Are you saying artists themselves are going to be able to make decent deals with advertisers? Where was the step where the artist boned up on contract law?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
hey, i've been using this service for a while, solid download speeds, nice selection and price cant be beat, seems to be 100% legal too. :)
http://www.allofmp3.com, check it out, i'm not representing them btw
There's a lot of unsupported assertions and questionable conclusions in the parent post. For example:
> You don't see any classic artist getting very rich on CD sales, do you?
Yo Yo Ma's done pretty well for himself - his cello alone is worth $2.5 million.
> $0.99 / song is an impossible price.
20 million iTunes sales say you're wrong.
> There simply doesn't seem to exist a market for
> music at the prices they are trying to charge.
Reality seems to disagree with you - people are still buying millions of CDs.
> getting $100 thousand / billion downloads does
> nicely to feed a starving artist.
How many artists do you honestly think would get a billion downloads? That's 10,000,000 people listening to the artist's songs 100 times each. There's only so many people to listen to songs - how many artists do you really think could receive support from a system like this? Or have you even thought about that at all?
Well, I'll think for you: if we assume every person (even babies) in the US listens to music for 1 hour/day, and that a song averages 3 minutes, then the average person in the US will spend $0.73 on music over the course of a year.
If we assume that half of artists will have a family to feed and will need about $30,000/yr in income, it will take 41,100 people to support an artist, or about 20,000 if we assume half of their income will come from touring. In other words, the US will be able to support 14,000 musicians - about 4000 bands - _at most_. If any one group is more popular than the others, that group will earn extra money, reducing the total number of musicians who can make a living.
If the top 100 bands account for 90% of music downloads - probably similar to today's sales figures, and hence probably likely - you'll only be able to support another 1400 musicians, or about 600 bands in total. Do you really want to destroy the selection of music like that?
> I would rather listen to Beethoven and talented
> amateurs than to Britney et caterva.
And you already can, so why are you complaining? It sounds like you're just whining that "more people should be like meeeeeee!"
Reality check. Lots of people like Britney and NSYNC (for whatever reason). Lots of people are _always_ going to like music you think is crap, meaning that there is always going to be lots of music you think is crap. You seem to be under the delusion that killing the RIAA will suddenly unleash a flood of music that's exactly your cup of tea. Well, guess again - you'd still not like most of the music out there - and if that's what you're against the RIAA for, you're a fool.
BBC reports: "Music fans in the US are buying almost twice as many singles in digital form over the internet as they are on CDs from stores."
More geeks than I thought :)
> Notice the lack of a ??? step?
No - I just noticed that you didn't label them.
For example, #2 - "make music without a producer." Technology may be cheap, but talent is not, and there's a lot more to studio fees than the building costs. As a general rule of thumb, discs made in a garage studio _sound_ like discs made in a garage studio. Sometimes that's good, but it lowers the quality of most genres of music.
Similarly, #4 - "artist gets on the radio." How, exactly, do you propose that an artist does that? What's to stop big companies with big money from controlling the airwaves, just like they do now?
With #2 and without #4, it's very, very unlikely that an artist will become popular, whether he's good or not. There are plenty of artists _right now_ who are talented, who have promotional websites, who are on P2P services, who made their music without a producer...and who are unknown. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find any counter-examples. The fact that your theory has already been tested and found to fail means it's not likely to work any better in the near future.
Finally, even if it somehow does work, let's look at #6: "Artist makes money because of his popularity through advertising."
You're probably thinking of things like Britney's Pepsi deal, yes? How, exactly, are _thousands_ of artists supposed to earn their money through incredibly rare sponsorship deals like those? Or is your grand plan happy with the idea of only 50 musicians who actually make money?
Except for Dire Straits, The Smiths, Ma$e, and Barenakedladies. Those are groups whose CDs I'll actually buy.
I see no reason for anyone to get excited over the second coming of Napster. Fact is, everyone knows the first one was all about making music trading easy and FREE. Now, mention Napster 2 and almost everyone either says "Huh? Did they win a court case and manage to come back again, offering free music?" or "Oh yeah, the guys that got busted over piracy the first time around, so now they're trying to sell music, cashing in on their old name."
Meanwhile, Napster's founder is on to other projects (most notably, Ryze - the business contact network).
Apple has clout and respect with the masses, because when they offer a music store, people simply think "Cool, online music purchasing brought to us by the guys that gave us the way cool iPod portable music player!" There's no negative "baggage" like a Napster has.
BTW - has anyone used www.ryze.com and found it useful/worthwhile? I gave it a shot, and personally, I found it mostly annoying. The concept was great.... but it seems to draw "wanna-bes", "psychics/mystics/religious zealots" and loads of hucksters trying to sell you their self-help or getting-started type books/videos. I was hoping to do some serious business networking with people, like myself, doing computer consulting/upgrading/etc. Instead, I got invites to join message forums run by people doing motivational seminars and selling insurance.
I used to use iTunes for Windows, but when I checked out Napster 2 I realized what I had been missing all this time! So I've switched. You should too.
It's bad enough when stories get duped, but this is the second "+5,Funny" comment I've seen in this story that is duped from a comment in the last story on this subject.
IE 5.x and higher only. With annoying popup preventing proper 'back' behavior. I'm enthralled.
There is a very big difference between tracking what is going on on your server, and tracking what is going on an end user's program. Essentially, the web server at company XYZ is the property of company XYZ. They are tracking usage on their computer, for their use. XYZ pays for the computer, bandwidth, etc..
Spyware puts tracking software on a machine that they do not own. They use someone else's resources to gather information about a person's personal habits with the intention of manipulating that person.
The free market doesn't care about what songs people listen to...it cares about what they purchase. The transaction provides enough information for the seller. The company who sold you your mattress has no business tracking what you do on said mattress.
I have a Powerbook already, and am going to do what you contemplate in reverese - copy all of my purchased (and ripped) files from my powerbook to my PC so I can listen to them at work.
This is no problem - the licence you have is for any three computers you choose, any mix of PC or Mac. If you don't want to use the files on your PC anymore you can de-authorize it to free up a licence. The iTunes music store does not support re-downloading, so you'll have to copy them over some other way. It's easy enough to mount a Windows shared drive from the Mac, if they are both on a network, that's what I'd try.
Now the WMA files, that could be trickier. You can either burn them to CD and rip them in iTunes (simplist) or, if you cannot burn them (not sure if MusicMatch lets you burn purchased music or not) you can find programs that let you record outgoing audio. If you have a lot of songs that could be really annoying though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I downloaded Napster 2.0, but before I even think about buying, I want to know how you can tell which tracks are stream-only, which tracks are buy-only, and which are both. Anyone figured this out?
----
"Those who quote others are more likely to one day be quoted" -Tom Planter
There are still countries in this world where non commercial exchange of data is beyond the realm of copyright and in time the advance of the lifestyles of those people beyond those countries that enslave themselves to corporate masters under the bondage of copyright will make the point clear. How amusing it will be if Russia returns to the Soviet system, but this time it is the West that looks longingly towards the untold luxuries that even the common citizen might enjoy.
The difference of course is that if that ever happens, I perfectly free to move to this happier land - Russians I believe found it a great deal harder to leave old Russia!
It would be pretty ironic though, and not even all that unlikley given that Russians are going to be more reluctant to abdicate any freedoms having suffered through a lot to get where they are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've been getting spams telling me to try out Napster 2 for weeks now. 'Nuff said.
... early in the morning ;) And I deserved it.
As I pointed out earlier, calling AAC "proprietary" was WAY off base. And I should've differentiated iTunes vs. iTMS. My comments were all aimed at iTMS, nit iTunes as a player.
By streaming, I should've clarified about the ability to stream online content (which you haven't purchased), not your local content as the iTunes player can within a LAN.
And as far as portables go.... you can use Windows Media Player to upload Napster-purchased content to any SDMI-compliant MP3 player, not just the Samsung Napster player. The Samsung device is the only one supported directly by the Napster client at the moment. I'm curious about the one poster's comment that he could upload AAC to the Nomad since it only supports MP3 and WMA.
This isn't unique to iTunes, the audiobooks of her work are always very expensive.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
AAC is open and free to implement, but Apple has a patent on the DRM stuff they added on top. So that won't be free and they aren't licensing it to anybody. So YOU CAN'T PLAY ITUNES FILES ON ANYTHING OTHER THAN IPOD.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
we don't have cheap CDs here, either.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
It will do everyone more good if musician stop trying to be multimillionaires and just have to go back to being fairly well paid people. I am sorry but J-lo doesn't need a thirty thousand dollar toe ring.
Fuck the money grubbing musicians, the good musicians will make their money at concerts anyhow.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
This may be true with plain vanilla WMA, but I have yet to see a portable player (except the Napster one) that plays WMA9 (completely different codec, proprietry, not backwards compatible) with DRM. Yes, many players can decode the old and unencrypted WMA, but that's not what you're downloading on these services.
Everywhere I'm reading says that at 128k/bit AAC sounds better than WMA/WMA9 (and I can't imagine iTMS employees sitting around an iMac feeding it CD's all day long, they would use a professional grade encoder/ripper) and unlike WMA it's also an open standard. (part of the MPEG-4 specification) I also recall seeing a link some time ago which explained that even their encryption method was the MPEG-4 approved one and not some in-house proprietary thing.
Not that any of this concerns me because I'm silly enough to live in Australia where it's not available and where our Government has the opinion that broadband is only useful for games and porn...sigh..
I poked at it with some mild interest when I got the CD... then opened iTunes and my PowerBook played and ripped it without complaint. So yeah, it works fine. :)
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
That should be 'Steve Jobs Shits Pants, Finds Gold Nugget'
I agree with you in that the attitude towards Apple stuff in the recent months has changed dramatically.. its been a groundswell ever since OS X shipped. But I gotta ask: what's the problem?
So these guys love their new Macs. That's a common Mac thing; they love their computers. This is rare, you see. Most of the working world hates their computer. They love their computer no more than their pencil sharpner. So when you say this:
We've always chosen our computers based on our needs and interests of the moment, rather than going by some company or market diktat, and as a result our computers have always done pretty much what we want, seamlessly and flawlessly. Back in the day we have all had our love affairs with Sinclairs, Tandys, Macs, Acorns, Amigas, Ataris, BeBoxes -- until one day the man with the axe came and obliterated our dreams. So we moved on.
I call bitterness. Its very sad that your Amiga went bankrupt, your Atari vanished, your BeBox went kaput. I had an Amiga and a BeBox myself. But spare us the cynicism. What exactly is the problem? A bunch of guys on Slashdot love their new Macs and you have a problem. I say: get over it. We're nerds.
And BTW: we're talking about the new Napster vs. other services like iTunes. That is NOT something you've 'been doing all along' because these services are NEW.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
There is a monthly fee of $10. Presumably, you didn't cancel your service before the 30-day free trial was up, so you got charged for the next month. Therefore, the charge wasn't a scam. However, since you lose the songs if you stop subscribing, the 5 free songs is essentially a scam; you can only keep listening to them for a month without paying.
Apple just leaves songs out of albums. Is that better than offering different licensing on them?
lol. how does this happen?
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
On the Mac side, the files are kept in a folder called "iTunes" under a "Music" directory in your home directory - I think it structures the music the same, so just copying that one file over should do it (have yet to have tried it yet, but that's it!).
The way the protection works is that the player itself knows not to play the files that are protected. So after the copy when you launch iTunes and try to play one of the protected files, it asks you to authorize that computer for playing the files by your email address (which is stored in the files you buy). The apple server knows how many licences you have handed out, and will not give you another after you have used three - until you give back one of the ones you have out already. I'm sure I've gotten a few aspects of the scheme a bit wrong, but generally that's how it works.
Sharing wise iTunes is nice as up to five other people can stream things from the iTunes you have running a single computer, so you can only have three licences but you are able to serve more computers than that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you want to buy a song for $0.99, they either have it or not. If they have it and you buy it, the DRM restrictions are exactly the same as the one's Apple has.
The confusion is only when you sign up for the unlimited service. And how did Apple get around this problem? That's right, they don't have one.
Ya,
they're right...you're bitter.
...it's terribly inefficient, I just wanted to note you at least didn't have to re-type the ID3 stuff (which would be HORRIBLE) like you do with audio interceptors.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They ALL suck!!! Use KaZaA Lite people! It's free as in air not free as in beer!
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Look, apple zealot sir, napster streaming is different than iTMS streaming... Yes there are radio stations you can "tune in to", but with napster you can CREATE YOUR OWN FLIPPIN' RADIO. This is what makes it unique. You are not force fed what some dipshit in North Dakota says you should listen to. You make your own playlists and stream that. How about you try the product, or atleast read up on it a bit, before slamming it?
Joseph?
I can hear a difference between a 128Kbps AAC and a FLAC
Yah, we're talking about napster here. AAC is iTunes. And actually WMA (what napster uses) is pretty damn nice quality, I think it's much better than AAC at the same KBPS. Try listening to the same song at a loud volume on a decent system from both itunes and napster. I can hear the difference clear as night and day -- WMA wins hands down and is almost as crystal clear as CD audio.
In other news iTunes is a great program.
I just thought you said AAC was crappy and you didnt get media or liner notes?
Joseph?
If there were something for OS X (beyond iTunes) or for GNU + Linux then this would be news. It looks to me like just another drive to get the gullible to install DRM.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I have heard it repeatedly stated that the Windows version of iTunes only supports the iPod. That hasn't been the case on the Mac version. While the iPod is the only player that supports AAC it's certainly not the only player that iTunes can sync with (on the Mac). Is this not so on the windows version?
One of the really great things about iTunes is it ability to be expanded and enhanced. The mac version has a script menu that executes applescripts that can carry out utilitarian actions. The script list goes on and on. But, by far my most favorite add on has got to be Find Art. Just select a track or tracks. select Find Art from the script menu and an application pops up and searches Amazon.com for your selected tracks. If it finds them, it downloads the album front cover art and lets you preview the images in a list before adding them to iTunes. Be warned. The image is embedded right into the mp3 id tags and the file size of each mp3 will increase.
I currently have 12 Visualizer plug-ins installed in addition to the standard visualizer that iTunes comes with. Will these 3rd party Plug-ins work on the windows version?
As for streaming. The iTunes player for Mac does support mp3 streams and comes with a nice list of default streams from 16 kbps up to 128 kbps. Streaming is one of the things iTunes asks you about when you install it. 3rd party streams work just fine.
As for the iTunes music store having streaming. Thats another matter. With all the additions Apple has been making to the store, It's certainly possible that they could add some music channels to the store. If they are that important to you. Suggest it to Apple. They may well add it when the next version comes out (Rumored to be in January)
Some people have griped that AAC is the only format available from the music store. Have any of them considered why Apple chose this format? Yes, Apple had to find a format that provided some basic level of rights management. But, AAC has one other thing to offer. As part of its roll in the MP4 standard. It had to offer Multi-channel support. All the way up to Dolby 5.1 In my opinion, I think it has been somewhat short sighted of the Mp3 player manufacturers to not support AAC in their devices. Yes, WMA offers the manufacturers a canned solution. But, the complacency created by such a standard doesn't necessarily make a better product for the consumer. Microsoft is counting on that complacency. Great products are not created by lazy developers.
You say that as if it's a bad thing.
That's the devil's advocate's job.
Why should I pay more to hear certain tracks
If some labels have imposed a sales moratorium on certain tracks, as (possibly) with Vault Di$ney soundtracks, then iTunes can't offer them, but a jukebox service can.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I hope you realise what a mess you're making of the audio by re-encoding it.
You're taking a compressed format (such as AAC) with approx. 10 to 1 size reduction (due, in simple terms, to psychoacoustic masking which strips as much data as possible out of the sound while keeping the sound characteristics that the encoder thinks you'll most notice), then burning it to an uncompressed format (44.1KHz 16bit PCM - a normal CD). Fair enough, you CD will have the same quality as the compressed format, which is an acceptable compromise.
BUT to then re-encode this into another approx. 10 to 1 compressed format will murder what's left of the audio: it'll screw up the carefully-saved sound characteristics from the first encoding process and try to use data that is no longer there due to the first encoding to do its own psychoacoustic masking. It really wouldn't surprise me if you got better results from recording a track from a standard FM radio station using a decent cassette tape.
This is why I still buy CDs, because I get:
- A 16bit 44.1KHz uncompressed format which is about as good as my 20-20 ears can handle once it's gone through my stereo.
- If I want to I can rip this via CDex or iTunes to an unprotected compressed format of MY choosing in under 5 minutes.
- I get a fairly durable medium with nice artwork which is easy to archive and lasts well over ten years before degradation occurs (unlike CD-Rs, which can become unusable after a mere 2 years).
- I can make an identical backup of it to CD-R in under 5 minutes, and us this one as my regular copy till it's scratched beyond use or I lose it.
Why the hell would I want to pay for 10 to 15 heavily compressed rights-restricted digital tracks when I can buy a BETTER UNPROTECTED PHYSICAL medium for practically the same money? Convenience? Really? If I like the few tracks of an artist that I hear then I WANT to buy their album, not just those two tracks. Are people honestly now so lazy and apathetic that they just want to buy the tracks that are force-fed to them via ClearChannel, the tied-up mainstream radio stations and MTV, so they can then listen to them over and over once they've been replaced by the next latest-and-greatest bland single? Fuck that!Once again it seems as though customers are being screwed by record companies trying to "protect their artists" through digital rights management. And it looks like people aren't even noticing...
Since you post as an anonymous coward, sir, your estimation of my intelligence has little effect upon me. I am perfectly well aware of the results of my last IQ test, and of the fruits of my labour in many challenging fields. I have read books, I have even understood many of them.
However, when you choose to deny that people IN THIS VERY THREAD are discussing the best method to use Napster for the purposes of obtaining copyrighted material without paying for it, whatever the rights and wrongs of this action, then it is you who are blind, and your intelligence which should be called into question.
The comments are right there on the page. Read it? Good... try paying attention next time, and then some of it might sink in.
--
Soluzar
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