New Online Music Service For Australia

Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by miknight · 2003-12-15 20:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

...or want files in .wma format?

Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 20:32 · Score: 1, Insightful

just go back to stealing music, like you're used to
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by caston · 2003-12-15 20:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

"Tought shit" we don't have to use their music service either.
I don't believe the business model of the future is selling tracks online although the licenses will be sold (ie for commercial broadcast or public playback such as in clubs) for artists that decide to charge for commercial use.

Most music will be free for most people and the artists will make money through sponsorship, merchdising and concerts.

--
Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by FrostedWheat · 2003-12-15 20:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

...or want files in .wma format?

Sample the music from existing P2P services, order the CD's you like from online store and rip to high quality Ogg/MP3/etc... Just as quick, they profit, you get better sound quality and no silly DRM.

There is the matter of intentionally corrupted discs, but so far I've not met one yet that one of my CD-ROM's could not read.
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by Sp4c3+C4d3t · 2003-12-15 21:03 · Score: 1

I wonder the same thing. Why choose .wma, a proprietary format that is controlled by Microsoft and costs money to implement, when superior things exist? It can't be too hard to DRM an ogg, or something.

--
Happy New Year, it's 1984!
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by hype7 · 2003-12-15 21:39 · Score: 4, Informative

...or want files in .wma format?

then do what everyone else does when offered WMA files.

Just say no.

The first to take on Apple was BuyMusic.com in July. It expected 1 million daily song downloads. "We're not achieving that at all," says BuyMusic CEO Scott Blum. "I've spoken with my competitors, and we're nowhere near (Apple's) numbers."

-- james
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by ziggyboy · 2003-12-15 22:15 · Score: 1

Well....

Was Apple thinking about non-Mac users when they first released the ITMS? Don't think so...

Let's give it some time...
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 22:50 · Score: 0

What if I don't have a cd player/cdrom?
I don't buy cds...
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by Simon+Lyngshede · 2003-12-15 23:22 · Score: 1

Adding DRM to an ogg is not hard, but it won't work. With an open source player DRM becomes useless. It would be much to easy to do what DVD-Jon did with Apple AAC filformat. Providing any real security in line with DRM is impossible if the source code for the players are made avaible. Steve Jobs even said that DRM doesn't provide any real protection.

We don't need an open DRM enabled filformat, we need the music industri to drop their demand for DRM. DRM is not only taking away our freedom, it flawed by design as well.
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by EvilTwinSkippy · 2003-12-15 23:38 · Score: 1

Well Xine plays WMA files, and so does XMMS (use the AVI plugin.)
All that and it doesn't give a rat's ass about any "copy bit" that's turned on.

--
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by skizrule · 2003-12-16 00:26 · Score: 1

There's one problem with this model. Currently, the record labels "sponsor" artists because of the financial rewards should they become successful. With free music, this incentive is gone, so an artist will arguably need to publicize himself or hire a publicist.
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by Technician · 2003-12-16 00:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

My living room DVD player does play MP3's, and doesn't run Windows or play WMA DRM files. My portable Panasonic CD/MP3 jogger does not play WMA DRM files. My in-dash stereo does not play WMA DRM files.

The industry is still stuck on pushing a new standard that is incompatible with everything except a few select portable players and a Windows PC. Too bad they are not listening to their consumers. That's another music service I can't use. It's full price for much reduced functionality. I don't do the in-car CD shuffle. That's why I RIP, MIX, BURN MP3 CD's. Incompatible formats are not supported. (or purchased)

Get a clue. How about some high quality unencumbered music files. Evan and Dasani can sell water in bottles even though most people have water plumbed into their houses.

You can sell quality music tracks even though most people have lower quality free radio directly broadcast into their homes.

What most people do not want is high priced limited use DRM files.

--
The truth shall set you free!
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by blowdart · 2003-12-16 01:06 · Score: 1

"costs money to implement"
Actually the DRM cost for a Microsoft house is minimal. The SDK is available free (assuming you already have a code signing key), you don't have to host the files for download on any Microsoft kit, any HTTP server will do, the only requirements will be an IIS server to serve out licenses, and a windows box somewhere to package the content. Of course it's an SDK, so you do need to code a little, but it's not that difficult.
Now compare this to Real's offering. Last time I looked the costs it was around $500,000 to get their SDK. Once you had it you had to write plugins for the player, as well as write a packager. And of course you need to make your plugin cross platform.
Finally we have Apple's DRM. The cost of that is, well, you give up control. Apple won't share the iTunes DRM, you cannot produce 3rd party licenses, protect your own content, set your own license rules or sell it outside the iTunes store (and hence the US). (As much as I get marked as a troll or flame every time I point out that to content owners Apple is way more restrictive that Microsoft, it still remains true).
As an added bonus there's the penetration of Windows on the desktop, and the fact that Media Player is already there.
All that is why content providers and stores are choosing WM DRM.
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by shark72 · 2003-12-16 02:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

"DRM is not only taking away our freedom, it flawed by design as well."

Not to be trollish, but the ugly fact is that when one says "DRM takes away my freedom," it means "DRM takes away my freedom to violate somebody else's rights." "Rights" being the "R" in "DRM."

Unfortunately, today's laws say that only the rightsholders of a book, piece of software, or a piece of music have the right to say how it can be distributed. If a record company or an artist will only release their wares in a rights-managed format to protect their investment, that is, until the laws are changed, their prerogative.

Can DRM be inconvenient? Hell yes. But if it comes down to the creator's right to control how their work is distributed, vs. your "freedom" to ignore those rights, the law will usually fall on the side of the creator.

Anyway, what would change the music industry's stance on DRM is the success of a legal download service that offers DRM-less content. Launching such a service would require a huge leap of faith from the rightsholders, and it would also require that a significant portion of the subscribers to such a service follow the honor system and redistribute said content illegally. Unfortunately, the record industry has plenty of evidence (the widespread piracy on the P2P networks, for example) that the honor system does not often work well on the Internet.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by cayenne8 · 2003-12-16 04:03 · Score: 1

But it does take away MY freedom of fair use. If I buy a song/album...I should be able to rip it to ogg vorbis or whatever format I want, and put on my portable player for use at the gym...or on a CD to play in my car (using the compressed version to squeeze more music for the road).
DRM prevents me from doing these things. In the long run, they would like me to have to purchase a licensed version for every use I wish...one for car, one for portable, one for home...etc.

--
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by scott_evil · 2003-12-16 04:25 · Score: 1

I'll be very surprised if many consumers will put up with the extremely limited usability of DRM files. To me, it's as simple as this, if you've paid for it, you should get fair use of it. That means burning 20 copies if you like, just so you can have 20. Not being limited to just 3 copies because that's what they say you can have.
What DRM is doing is assuming everyone is a hardcore criminal. Imagine if all shops adopted a behaviour like that and clothing stores insisted on stripsearching everyone who both entered and exited the store. Of course they'd also have to sell you a licence with any article of clothing that you bought stating that you were only allowed to wear it a certain amount of times and only if you also had on the correct matching apparel. You wouldn't be allowed to share clotes with your friends until they had also paid the full purchase price... and I could go on and on and on...
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by cayenne8 · 2003-12-16 04:55 · Score: 1

Frankly, I'm not interested till they offer the .wav file.....I'd rather pay to have this version of a song I want...
I can easily rip it to whatever format I want...ogg vorbis or mp3 for car/portable. Lossless version for home use....

--
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by shark72 · 2003-12-16 05:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

"But it does take away MY freedom of fair use."

Exactly. As I said, it's an issue of their right vs. your freedom, and when both go up against the law, their right will typically win. This is my point. I am aware that it causes inconvenience. And, there are plenty of analogs to this: for example, the right to own property can impede your freedom to go anywhere you like.

Just because copying media for your own personal use (to use on your portable player or in your car, for instance) is legal, if the rightsholder doesn't want you to do this, it's their prerogative.

The good news is that the free market economy tends to take care of folks who put too many restrictions on their copyrighted works. I and many others refuse to buy CDs with copy protection, because they won't even work in one of my car's CD players. Music download services that have easy-to-live-with DRM (such as Apple's) will do better than services that do not.

Ultimately, DRM is a compromise that allows the widespread legal distribution of content. iTMS, Napster, and the rest would likely not exist if they hadn't been able to give a reasonable assurance to the rightsholders that their content would be protected to a certain degree. Sure, we can complain about DRM being inconvenient, but it sure beats the alternative.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by cayenne8 · 2003-12-16 07:50 · Score: 1

"Sure, we can complain about DRM being inconvenient, but it sure beats the alternative."
Can you define this a little better? What is the alternative that DRM is better than? For the consumer I'm assuming...

--
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by shark72 · 2003-12-16 08:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sure thing. That comment was within the context of the record companies only agreeing to participate in the online music stores once they were offered the ability to release their stuff in a DRM-encoded format. If the technology purveyors hadn't developed DRM systems that were to the record companies' liking, the labels probably wouldn't have participated so eagerly, if at all.

So, in short, the recent explosion in legal music download services owes its existence to DRM. I don't think the record companies would have gone for it otherwise. Having to get DRM-encoded files from iTMS may be inconvenient for some, but it's better than no iTMS at all.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by mab · 2003-12-16 14:15 · Score: 1

Unlike in the US. "state-swapping" is illegal in Australia. Only those that own the intellectual property can change a product's physical state, such as turning a CD's tracks into MP3 files.
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by scott_evil · 2003-12-16 17:19 · Score: 1

And the reason nobody has been to court over this is because if it were ever challenged, it would set a precedent in favour of "state swapping". I know for a fact that it's common practice for people who run jukebox companies to have a warehouse full of original cds and use only burned copies in their jukeboxes. Surely this would go against that law...
Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-19 12:02 · Score: 0

No the term digital rights management refers to the fact that they want to manage your rights for you

Napster by jcausey · 2003-12-15 20:15 · Score: 3, Informative

Napster has been doing the voucher thing for a while now. That being said, "a while now" means a few months :)

Re:Napster by anvil+{UK} · 2003-12-15 23:19 · Score: 1

don't you just love "internet time"

RIAA still does not get it. by argonaut · 2003-12-15 20:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yet another nail in the RIAA coffin. When will the RIAA and other organizations realize their outmoded distribution methods and crazed sue little girls and old women tactics will not save their business? How many times must we say this and flex this opinion where it hurts them most, in the wallet?

Re:RIAA still does not get it. by grmb1 · 2003-12-15 20:18 · Score: 1

> crazed sue little girls and old women tactics

Yeah...bad. Just "crazed little girls" sounds better to me.

--
-- grmbl woz heer
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by Green+Monkey · 2003-12-15 21:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

Huh? This service, and others similar ones such as Napster 2.0 and iTunes, are legal services that put money in the hands of the record companies whenever you purchase a track. So I'm not sure why this would be considered a "nail in the RIAA coffin" - the companies that comprise the RIAA are making a pretty penny off Destra Music, iTunes, et al.! People buying music from online vendors certainly isn't going to put the RIAA out of business...

--
Green Monkey
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 22:02 · Score: 0

You could probably post the same message to any slashdot discussion remotely connected to music, and be modded at least +4 insightful for it. Almost makes me want to get an account...
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by AKnightCowboy · 2003-12-15 23:19 · Score: 1, Interesting

When will the RIAA and other organizations realize their outmoded distribution methods and crazed sue little girls and old women tactics will not save their business?
When will you guys quit beating this dead horse? The RIAA isn't going ANYWHERE. If anything they've gotten much stronger in the last 5 years. Personally (and I'm sure I'm joined by many people here in this regard) I had never even heard of the RIAA before they sued Napster. I'm also sick of hearing the "time to find a new business model" people. If you were a shopkeeper and people started breaking in and stealing your stuff every day, wouldn't you want to have the criminals punished who are taking your stuff without paying? Why should you have to find a new business model when your current one is current valid... sell stuff people want in exchange for money. Obviously people WANT music or they wouldn't be downloading it for free... they're just too cheap to pay for it. That's what it comes down to in the end. You know it and I know it.
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by Salsaman · 2003-12-15 23:49 · Score: 1, Insightful

Obviously people WANT music or they wouldn't be downloading it for free... they're just too cheap to pay for it.
Not at all. I am happy to pay for music I like provided it follows these basic rules:
Must be CD quality or better.
No DRM.
Tracks must be 99c or less.
The range of music should be such that I can find the music I am looking for.

Pretty simple. I am still waiting for such a service.
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by Patik · 2003-12-15 23:57 · Score: 1

Are you reading the right Slashdot story? What you said is completely redundant (and karma whoring, since it has garnered an easy +5 insightful in every RIAA story so far) and does not pertain to this article at all. A company is selling music legally online, providing a new way for the recording industry to make money -- i.e., a new business model. Your comment would only be relevant if this story was about the RIAA suing or using strong-arm tactics. Even if you don't RTFA, read the Slashdot blurb at least.
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by shark72 · 2003-12-16 02:10 · Score: 1

As others pointed out, the legitimate music download services are operating in cooperation with, and not counter to, the record companies and artists. They are resellers of the record companies' products, just like Amazon or Tower Records. A sale is a sale.

Moreover, the lawsuits in the USA appear to be working. Europe has surpassed the USA in unauthorized music downloads, a large reason for this being that Kazaa usage in the US has dropped to half of what it once was. And, in case the point isn't already clear, I've spoken to a few people who work for the legitimate music download services, and they think the lawsuits are great. The theory is that they're scaring into buying music legitimately, whether that's via old-fashioned CD, or via a legal download. Traffic on the legal sites is apparently approaching the same order of magnitude as the P2P networks: Apple has announced that they've had 25 million downloads.

All of the above has been said before, so perhaps I can offer something that hasn't been brought up here on /., at least that I've seen: some historical perspective. The shift from CD to online distribution is one of but several media format changes that the recording industry has had to endure. I wasn't around for the move from 78's to LPs or for the explosion of the cassette tape format, but I was around for the transition from LPs to CDs, and if you think the wait for record companies and artists to adopt online distribution has been frustrating, be glad you weren't an early adopter of the CD format back in the early 80's. That, too, took years before everybody on the CD train. It started with CDs occupying just a tiny rack in a store of vinyl, and prices were regularly $16.95 and above -- in 1984 dollars. Even when CDs began to occupy a significant amount of shelf space, it was a regular practice for the record company to put out new releases in vinyl first, and not bother with a CD until months later, presumably after they'd seen whether the LP's sales were strong. For early adopters who couldn't wait to hear their favorite band's latest album, this meant buying the same music twice -- a factor which probably didn't exactly encourage the record companies to end their "release the CD format later" strategy!

It's because of this experience that the "Immediate death of the RIAA predicted, film at 11" type posts, written because the move to legal online distribution isn't happening as quickly as some people would like, don't carry much weight. Some industries simply move slowly and cautiously, and the record industry is one of them.

Lastly, can we finally dispense with that old "they're suing little girls!" straw man? I think we all know what happened: the RIAA named the person who was listed in the phone company records for that address, and for some reason, the mom had used her kid's name when signing up for phone service. This could happen to any of us: if, say, you had a dispute with a local business in your town and it got to the point that you had to take legal action, if the owner had registered the business in their kid's name, then you might be in that same embarrassing situation until things got sorted out.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by cayenne8 · 2003-12-16 05:02 · Score: 1

Yup, and now many of us who rushed to buy CD's as they came out of our fav. albums....are having to buy them again. Many of the first releases of things sounded HORRIBLE. A bunch of the first CD's put out used inferior high generation masters to create the CD's from. Ouch!! As things come out re-mixed, I'm replacing a number of my original buys...
The original release of ELP's Brain Salad Surgery was pathetic...the re-release version is many times better sounding....for one example. I need to replace my other most horrible original CD...The Who- Who are you...the original sounds worse that a 20 year old cassette I found from the album I recorded....

--
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by shark72 · 2003-12-16 05:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

Very good points indeed. Just as it took several years for the recording industry to get the whole CD thing right (good remastering, decent pricing), online music distribution is in that "getting it right" phase. DRM and file format standards still need some tweaking, and I still think there's some room to move in pricing models.

This is exactly why I'm not taking the "sky is falling" approach and shrieking about the imminent death of the recording industry. They survived the CD transition and they'll survive this one. It just takes time.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-16 07:50 · Score: 0

The theory is that, eventually, artists might be able to release their music directly onto such services, bypassing the RIAA.

At least, until someone else gets greedy & starts making the artists pay to list their music on such services...
Re:RIAA still does not get it. by Squozen · 2003-12-16 15:08 · Score: 1

I presume you're not ripping off music while you wait?

Don't believe the advertising by femto · 2003-12-15 20:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

I just visited the site and every track I saw cost $1.99. Presumably there is at least one song on the site that costs 99c, so they can say 'from 99c'.

Re:Don't believe the advertising by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 20:52 · Score: 0

$2 for wma???
WTF!!!
a single cost $5-7 (AUD) and usually contains 3 tracks, not to mention all the benefits of actually owning a CD
Re:Don't believe the advertising by cujo_1111 · 2003-12-15 21:09 · Score: 2, Funny

There is a Fred Astaire track that is $0.99...

--
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Re:Don't believe the advertising by CrystalChronicles · 2003-12-15 21:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

yup, not to mention the bonus content on some singles like videosclips, screen savers etc. It almost seems like RIAA/ARIA wants this to fail just so they can say 'look we offered a music service and nobody bought. we're going to have to sue more p2p software and lock the cd format up even further'
Re:Don't believe the advertising by eclectro · 2003-12-15 21:37 · Score: 4, Informative

For those that are curious, at today's exchange rate; .99 Australian dollar = .74 USD

and

1.99 Australian = 1.48 USD

--
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Re:Don't believe the advertising by cheekyboy · 2003-12-15 22:03 · Score: 1

Why can't they offer full 24bit or at least 96khz AC3 files that are better than 44/16

But we know the other 3 tracks are shit. So online we should get the other mixes at 50% discount if we bought the original. Or get all 3 for $1.99

--
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Re:Don't believe the advertising by netsharc · 2003-12-15 22:05 · Score: 1

Wow, I thought it would be a lot cheaper -- 1 AUD to equal about 0.65-0.70 USD -- but I guess the USD has been weakening for a long time now.

--
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Re:Don't believe the advertising by TDRighteo · 2003-12-15 23:58 · Score: 1

Was not to long ago - this year it dropped below 0.50 USD, but the economy here has been getting better and in the US it must be getting worse (or we'd go up against the Euro too). In Australia though, it always seems that importers think it's 0.50USD every day. There are times when I feel my intelligence is being insulted. And surprise, the worse offenders are the music stores with their AU$35 CDs.
Re:Don't believe the advertising by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-16 00:36 · Score: 0

They are all 1.99. They are dreaming. Why would someone pay more for something that costs less? I would assume that they assume we are idiots when in fact they are. To quote a famouse Australian film 'The Castle' .. 'Tell em they are dreamin'.
Re:Don't believe the advertising by bonhomme_de_neige · 2003-12-16 18:03 · Score: 1

Considering the issues involved with offering a music download service in a country where a horrendously high proportion of the population is still stuck on dialup (or worse), it really wouldn't surprise me if you're right.

--
"Why are you watching the washing machine?"
"I love entertainment, as long as it's clean"

Good idea, but.... by bckrispi · 2003-12-15 20:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

I've always had issues with setting a fixed rate per track. A full movie soundtrack may have 30 tracks on one disk, many of which are brief ( 1 minute) segues. In this case, it would cost you twice what it would do purchase the full disk through retail. OTOH, you could grab some progressive rock concept album that has five 15 minute tracks for five bucks. Albiet, a great deal for the consumer, but perhaps not so for the artist.

--
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno

Re:Good idea, but.... by zem_11 · 2003-12-15 20:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why not offer a whole album option? Say $10-12??

Not a "mix it yourself" selection of songs but the same as you'd get buying a CD. That way both the many * short-tracks and few*long-tracks are covered. That way both the artists and consumer is happy... what you mean the label doesn't make much on the deal? Damn!

In either way its a start for us Aussies ... in a few months other services will be coming on line. Til then I think I'll sit back a bit and watch the catalogues grow and hopefully the prices drop.

BTW, I even saw a couple of free promo tracks, so its not ALL $1.99. Then again City Rules by Daniel Merriweather isn't my thing :^(
Re:Good idea, but.... by Adam9 · 2003-12-15 20:36 · Score: 1

I thought with Apple you could get the album for around $10?
Re:Good idea, but.... by lpret · 2003-12-15 21:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

However, here in the US, we're starting to see new CDs under 10 dollars. I just picked up a Coldplay CD for 9 bucks (US of course). I find I only buy CDs now for the liner notes -- sometimes there are some good bits that are thrown in them.
All that to say, if you're going to offer an album for download, you'll have to do better than 10-12 dollars. Maybe 6-8?

--
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Re:Good idea, but.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 22:46 · Score: 0

Name a movie sound track you like and would purchase EVERY song ...

Hmmmm loved Grease, got the sound track, only like half the songs. There is no other sound track where I like at least half the songs.

I just want one song from the movie "Unfaithfully Yours" as I already have the other songs I like on other CDs. So there you go!
Re:Good idea, but.... by martinX · 2003-12-15 23:20 · Score: 1

Rocky Horror Picture Show. Best soundtrack album.

As for Grease, IIRC only the first half of side one had music that I could actually remember from the movie. The rest was crap. Now that I'm older, I think all of it's crap.

--
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Re:Good idea, but.... by Crypto+Gnome · 2003-12-16 01:40 · Score: 1

Hearts In Atlantis.

Sorry, but it's not so hard a challenge for people with good taste in music.

--
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.

The fundamental flaw... by doublebackslash · 2003-12-15 20:28 · Score: 5, Interesting

There is a chink in their armor, the forced windows useage and new generations of file shargin under development.
Newer file sharing protocols will be fully encrypted (making traffic mnitoring illegal at best),
Be de-centralized to the point of being pure p2(No big intorduction server to take out, or central company to go after),
Use dynamic ports and protocols that disguise their packets,
Use spoofing, so that noone knows who is getting what file exept the sender and the reciver, and the reciever dosn't know where its coming from, and vice versa,
Spoofing is in a round fassion, with multiple hops, and multiple agents seting up different hops, so the packet round trip is HARD to follow (I know, bandwith is precious, but if you distribute the send across multiple agent chains, this ain't so bad),
And Searching won't reveal who has the file (more spoofing) keeping share-ers annonymous.

This is the basis for something that I'm planing right now, long way off, but these are the keys to the next gen P2P network. Once in the wild, there is no way to take it down. =)

I hope such a system sees the light of day.

--
md5sum /boot/vmlinuz
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e /boot/vmlinuz

Re:The fundamental flaw... by rock_climbing_guy · 2003-12-15 21:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

OK, how about this:
I'd just like to point out the fact that using encryption and spoofing addresses and ports are methods for hiding your actions and keeping secrets. Remember how Janet Reno said that they needed to crack down on encryption because it made it "difficult for us [law enforcement] to do out jobs?" Remember the Clinton administration's "Clipper" chip initiative to have the government keep copies of all our encryption keys so that they could snoop on whoever they please?
These methods of hiding what we're doing will not bode any better with the RIAA than they did with Janet Reno's Department of Justice. Face it: the guys and gals over at the RIAA believe that they are entitled to collect money from us for music. They will hate this. I imagine that their push for draconian laws against techniques such as encryption would make their push for the DMCA look like a cakewalk by comparison. However, I hope that as they did in the past derailing the "Clippr" initiative, people will be able to see how this organization wants to restrict our freedoms. I believe that there are far more people who would be concerned if they wanted to outlaw encryption than are concerned about the DMCA.

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Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Re:The fundamental flaw... by marcello_dl · 2003-12-15 21:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is the basis for something that I'm planing right now, long way off, but these are the keys to the next gen P2P network. Once in the wild, there is no way to take it down. =)

To avoid risks of reinventing the wheel, try looking at GNUnet

--
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol

Oxymoron? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 20:30 · Score: 0

How can an *online* service be *for* some specific country? If all they do is send you bits in exchange for your credit card information, then it doesn't matter where you live. Any limitation based on your nationality has to be artificially added to the service.

Re:Oxymoron? by blowdart · 2003-12-15 20:56 · Score: 4, Informative

Well there's limited by IP address (unreliable) or checking the address of the payment card.
A better question is why is music on-line limited to one area? The answer to that lies in the painful way rights are issued to record labels. For example, Capitol in the US own the rights to Beatles recordings, EMI own them in Europe. Setting aside that Capitol really is EMI, Capitol cannot grant the rights to sell "Let it Be" to a company based in Europe, only EMI Europe can.
It gets even more complicated when you start looking at the copyright on lyrics, which may belong to someone else altogether.

sample music by shione · 2003-12-15 20:32 · Score: 2, Informative

Their site still needs some work. I'm downloading a sample song off jbhifi's site http://jbhifi.destramusic.com/player/ and on Mozilla Phoenix its coming down as a html file. I should be able to renamed it as a wma file when its done so it shouldn't be a problem but it still something they need to fix.

I wonder how restirctive the drm is on their wma files. AU99c is only ~US72cents so its cheaper than the US sites but as somebody already mentioned thats how much the prices starts from.

Re:sample music by DNS-and-BIND · 2003-12-15 20:36 · Score: 1

Maybe mozilla is the one that needs fixing. I bet IE downloads the file just fine.
I remember once complaining about www.ff-j.com to Opera developers...the site displays fine in IE but gives an error in Opera. I got a sniffy reply that the site wasn't following some standard exactly. Well bully for Opera, the site works fine, outputs valid HTML, and hurrah for making your browser break if the web server has the nerve to be different.

--
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:sample music by cscx · 2003-12-15 20:47 · Score: 3, Informative

The web server is probably returning an incorrect MIME type in the HTTP header; IE makes a guess at the file's contents regardless of what the header says, while Mozilla variants follow the header exactly.
Re:sample music by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 20:58 · Score: 0

Isn't inconsistent MIME handling one of the things that got IE into trouble with worms early on? Something about it automatically running .exe files, even though they were of a type that was not supposed to be executed???
Re:sample music by shione · 2003-12-15 21:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

ah crap

I renamed the file to wma when it finished downloading and when I right clicked it it said:

Protected Content
Can't play on this computer
Copy to CD not allowed
Copy to portable player not allowed
Copy to an SDMI-compliant portable player not allowed

When I try to play it in Winamp, it loads my browser and takes me to wiredrecords.com

then I fired up WMP and it wants me to 'update my digital rights management installation'

I'm using the version WMP that comes when you update XP with SP1.

oh well so much for trying this 'freebie' out. I'll stick to un-DRMed music thanks
Re:sample music by cscx · 2003-12-15 21:17 · Score: 1

Yeah, never did I say it was a good thing.
Re:sample music by UserGoogol · 2003-12-16 00:30 · Score: 1

Yeah, Mozilla should have a "try again by file extension" feature (or plug-in) for those times when MIME types are wrong.

--
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
Re:sample music by mpcooke3 · 2003-12-16 02:10 · Score: 1

Apparently microsoft will be fixing the mime-type bug in the next service pack. Basically IE will start obeying the mime-type set by the server.

They will also be including pop-up blocking.

Also some usage of the object tag to pass params to flash will start causing a popup dialog to occur to work around some ddogy patent.

IIRC, these are the main changes if.

Matt.
Re:sample music by WWWWolf · 2003-12-16 06:52 · Score: 1

Yeah, Mozilla should have a "try again by file extension" feature (or plug-in) for those times when MIME types are wrong.

Actually, it should have a "fire up E-mail client with webmaster@domain and pre-composed request to Do Something About Those Messed-Up MIME Types" button.
I sometimes send E-mail, and if they're using Apache, I even send them some ideas on how to fix the thing. So far, most admins have been pretty receptive.
Just because the server admins have misconfigured the thing it doesn't mean the browser should misbehave as well... MSIE may violate RFCs, but it doesn't mean that since it does that, everyone else also has to.
Re:sample music by Thunor · 2003-12-16 10:05 · Score: 1

This is normal behaviour, you need to open the file once in windows media player to be able to to activate you license.

Subscription or Per Track ? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 20:35 · Score: 3, Interesting

I would prefer a subscription service where you only pay a monthly fee for unlimitted access to content.

Most people think you can only have a streaming service for subscription systems which is not correct. You can still download DRM enabled tracks since sites could revoke the license if you didnt pay your monthly fee.

This would be much better than paying per download. Companies only have one value to justify, that of the music base as a whole, instead of trying to establish value at each individual trak sale.

Re:Subscription or Per Track ? by lpret · 2003-12-15 21:40 · Score: 1

This won't happen becuase a group of people could all pitch in one cent and get unlimited downloads. There's not much to stop it as long as they don't try to all log in at once.

--
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Re:Subscription or Per Track ? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 22:06 · Score: 0

1. A large amount of the US/world population is still on dialup
2. Most people don't sit around their computer all day. They like to take their music to their car, to the gym, to work/school/whatever

The streaming model really only works for geeks or people who spend excessive amounts of time in front of the computer.
Re:Subscription or Per Track ? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 22:27 · Score: 0

This isnt correct as if mutliple users downloaded the same track under one user account it would force a license reinstall (as aposed to reissue) as the client machines are different.

Almost all DRM systems only allow a limitted number of reinstalls i.e 3.
Re:Subscription or Per Track ? by Crypto+Gnome · 2003-12-16 01:19 · Score: 1

Nice try, except you're forgetting one small thing:

Anywhere you pay for bits consumed (eg ISP with a 'cap' and per-bit charges after) means that You're getting screwed twice and NO LUBE.

Anyhow, right now I purchase a permanent license (well, as long as the physical medium lasts) when I buy a CD. Now account for that across the life of the medium. You'd need to make it something like $1/month for unlimited music downloads, at full-CD quality (eg lossless encoding), and no restrictions on what physical medium I can transfer it to for playback, for it to be equivalent value.

Remember, you're currently selling me X of value, so don't go thinking you can screw me for X-Y at the same price.

And any suggestion that includes Sure, but you need XYZ new media player for SECURE playback is ONLY valid if it includes which we'll give you for free (or almost) as a crossgrade from your existing.

I've already bought one expensive MP3 player, why do I want to pay you hand-over-fist for poor quality (bitrate wise) music, which I then need to buy new expensive hardware for.

This is a Commercial Transaction People! If you want more money from me, then you need to give me more value.

Fucking me with a piece of barbed wire, and then promising to stop if I pay you LotsOfCash is Just Not Acceptable.

And one more thing that people forget when it comes to Digital Content Downloads.
DRM is all nice and good, except that there's no 'standards' involved. At any point in time they could change their content formats and revoke your licenses (of course, they'd stop billing you), and suddenly ALL your music is no longer valid. You'd need to buy new hardware, and pay LARGER license fees, to continue hearing music. What will you do? Stop listening to music altogether, forever? or pay their new higher fees?

It's called Bait and Switch .

--
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Re:Subscription or Per Track ? by YrWrstNtmr · 2003-12-16 03:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

emusic.com was like this. (Almost) all you can eat, $10/month, straight mp3 (no DRM).

Sadly, they got bought and the new overlords downgraded it to same price, 40 tracks per month. I expect a LOT of people jumped ship. I know I did.
Re:Subscription or Per Track ? by bonhomme_de_neige · 2003-12-16 18:13 · Score: 1

This won't happen becuase a group of people could all pitch in one cent and get unlimited downloads
No. Remember this is Australia. All they would get is a 3 gig cap.

--
"Why are you watching the washing machine?"
"I love entertainment, as long as it's clean"

This is like Usenet. by Malcontent · 2003-12-15 20:35 · Score: 1, Funny

Remember all the "me too!" posts on usenet? It's just like that.

BTW MS is also planning one.

--

War is necrophilia.

itunes downunder? by narkotix · 2003-12-15 20:37 · Score: 0

Isnt it rumoured that iTunes is going to be offered in Australia?
I guess all they would need is a credit authentication/transaction system that works in oz which wouldnt be too hard to find.

--
We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf

Re:itunes downunder? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 20:56 · Score: 0

None of these online music services are gonna take of when the most popular cable providers' most popular plan is only offering 3gigs/month (at $70 per month as well!)
No wonder Estonia has a higher broadband subscription rate! (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/11/20502 22&mode=thread&tid=126)
Re:itunes downunder? by narkotix · 2003-12-15 21:01 · Score: 1

aha!
but read this for a miracle that has happened in the last week or so! I nearly choked on my coffee when i first read this! Broadband has been given hope in oz!
btw be sure to read the other stories on that website as another provider has started to act accordingly!

--
We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf

You can't compete with free! by Zog+The+Undeniable · 2003-12-15 20:40 · Score: 1, Interesting

Where's the added value? At least they could offer you a "buy 5 get 1 free" deal, or maybe unreleased tracks.

--
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.

Re:You can't compete with free! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 22:00 · Score: 0

"buy 5 get 1 free" deals are for morons. They can always reduce the price by 16.7% instead. But they don't, because of stupid people like you. You're the kind of guy who'd never buy item x for $5, but if you see a big sign "item x for $6, buy 5 get 1 free" you're suddenly going to take advantage of the "added value" and buy 6 for $30. I think it's time you stop eating marketing crap for breakfast.

The Cutting Room by CrystalChronicles · 2003-12-15 20:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

If online music stores really take off, I hope this isn't going to encourage artists to make shorter length songs... On the other hand this could encourage artists to pack more songs on their albums, eg instead of having 30 minutes of music, they're make it the full 72 minutes, filling the rest with tracks they wouldnt have deemed worthy but would make the fans happy. It doesnt mean these songs are bad, for example, the Smashing Pumpkins had lots of songs written which didnt make it on their albums until many years later and it made their fans very happy. I'm sure other bands would have songs of their own which didnt make the cutting floor but they weren't popular enough to release them later on.

Re:The Cutting Room by bckrispi · 2003-12-15 20:51 · Score: 1

Another problem we may see is that artists on a pay-per-track basis may not produce the same number of tracks as they would normally. It's often the "filler" material on cd's that are the real gems.

--
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno

Australian Dollar value... by WIAKywbfatw · 2003-12-15 20:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

1 USD = 1.35 AUD
1 GBP = 2.35 AUD (1 GBP = 1.75 USD)
1 EUR = 1.65 AUD (1 EUR = 1.23 USD)

(Currency values taken from http://www.x-rates.com/.)

So those 0.99 AUD downloads are equivalent to getting 0.73 USD downloads from the US iTunes music store. Not bad at all.

The 0.99 xxx artificial price point is good news for Aussies, but I can't help but think Brits (and, to a lesser extent, continental Europeans) are going to get shafted when similar stores appear for us - 0.99 GBP is 1.62 USD (and 0.99 EUR = 1.22 USD).

--

"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg

Re:Australian Dollar value... by zem_11 · 2003-12-15 20:50 · Score: 1

What you missed is its FROM $0.99. Most - as femto posted earlier are $1.99! So my average 10 track CD costs $20, AND I have to burn it myself... not good value for money. Getting access to Apple Itunes in the USA would be better value even on the current exchange rate.
Re:Australian Dollar value... by femto · 2003-12-15 21:18 · Score: 2, Funny

afraid that one costs $1.99 too:

Do Wah Diddy Diddy by Los Mustang 2min 18sec
Cost $1.99
Re:Australian Dollar value... by netsharc · 2003-12-15 22:28 · Score: 1

Man if you think that's a bad song, Backstreet Boys and NSync would be Vogon poetry.

--
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!

Will these services be the end of lossless music? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 20:44 · Score: 5, Interesting

Am I the only one who has issues with paying for approximations? If I'm going to burn it to a cd, there's no reason it should be lossily compressed just so I can decompress it and have a lower quality recording than if I had bought the cd. If all of these services offering lossy music catch on, the uncompressed cd you can buy in the store now may become a distant memory. You would think that the RIAA would love this just as the MPAA liked MPEG2 for dvd.

Folks, the whole point of digitizing music is to prevent errors from creeping in!

Re:$? Re:Bah, that's nothing by mantera · 2003-12-15 21:00 · Score: 1, Insightful

thanks to everyone, now i hate music....

and all the nonstop nonsense by people who make it sound so essential...

if you guys have too much disposable income why not give it to some charity organizations that provide food, water and basic healthcare to the poor or the deprived in 4th world nations...

no by powlow · 2003-12-15 21:01 · Score: 1

got to say that this seems silly to me and don't think i would ever buy music this way : one song at a time...music should come in man sized packets...lots of it.

does seem they are getting a good deal but most definately Uk and europe will get shafted with .99 whatever prices...

Qantity... quality... by wrexsoul · 2003-12-15 21:01 · Score: 1, Funny

Only 100,000 tracks? I have that much on my computer!

--
- WrexSoul
\/. vvv

Re:Qantity... quality... by Crypto+Gnome · 2003-12-16 01:28 · Score: 1

Lemme see, I know (for example) people with about 2600ish tracks, for a total of ~15GB. That means that 100 thousand tracks, at a reasonable quality (certainly not the highest) would fit on 600GB.

A WD 250GB SATA drive is ~$225US (checked it on pricewatch.com) , so a terabyte would cost under $1000.

Seems to me that they're not exactly expending anything like a serious amount of time, effort, thought or money on this.

Tell me again why I want to pay for this?

--
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.

I'll wait for iTMS.au by rogerbo · 2003-12-15 21:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

lemme see,

* butt ugly interface
* three pages of dance/electronic music with a grand total of 27 albums to choose from!
* WMA only
* no support for MacOS or Linux
* no indie music

And why would I be interested again?

Rather than just stocking the stuff you can buy in any mall why don't online music retailers specialise in stuff that is hard to find? Eg set up international music store per genre eg a psytrance store that sells globally. I can't walk into a record store and buy this stuff cause no one in Sydney stocks it so I either have to steal it off soulseek or order physical CD's from overseas retailers and wait. I would think it would be much easier to obtain international distribution rights from more obscure independant labels as well.

Re:I'll wait for iTMS.au by Hatta · 2003-12-15 23:50 · Score: 1

Try emusic. They have a great catalog of experimental electronic stuff, indie rock, back catalog jazz, etc. Problem is its a subscription service $15 a month for 65 tracks. It's not a bad price, but if you want more than 65 tracks you're out of luck. It's sad, before last month you could download up to 2000 tracks in a month before they cut you off. But they got sold and reorganized. It's still a worthwhile service, the mp3s are well encoded (lame aps) and DRM free.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:I'll wait for iTMS.au by jred · 2003-12-16 10:00 · Score: 1

That's my stock reply. I've got the 40 songs for $9.99us plan. I figure that's a quarter a pop, still better than iTMS. Plus, they have what I want, all the old punk rock stuff I currently have on cassette.

A couple of days ago I noticed they've picked up one of my all time favorite labels, Kill Rock Stars :)

And "real soon now" they're supposed to have a plan to let you pay as you go for overages...

--

jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...

Prices by keplon · 2003-12-15 21:15 · Score: 1

This is pretty much the only thing stopping online music vendors from huge success. $11.99 for a CD sounds great on paper, but your credit card rate raises it to that same price of around $13. However, the vendor making a sort of 'locked rate' deal with MasterCard, Visa, etc. should easily solve this problem...

Re:Will these services be the end of lossless musi by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 21:15 · Score: 0

You cannot make analog-digital conversion without losing quality! CD format is compressed too, it just has a higher amount of data.

w00t by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 21:31 · Score: 0

On a related note, Winamp 5 Final has been released.

Winamp 5 Full

Re:w00t by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 21:35 · Score: 0

and lite

Re:Will these services be the end of lossless musi by Zog+The+Undeniable · 2003-12-15 21:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

Because even people with 512K broadband (OK, you may have an l33t 2 MBit pipe) may balk at the prospect of 50MB per song. Granted, 256k and 384k MP3s are becoming more popular with faster connections.

--
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.

Re:Will these services be the end of lossless musi by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 21:50 · Score: 0

The point of the OP was that if I'm going to burn 6 billion bits to represent some music on a CD, I want to have the best reproduction of the music that those 6 billion bits can offer. Anything less feels like I'm buying soap bars full of air bubbles inside.

Brilliant by dracvl · 2003-12-15 21:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

In what is believed to be a first for online music retailers, vouchers will be available in stores so you will not need a credit card to purchase online.

Cool. So now I can actually go to a real store to buy music too? Why hasn't anybody thought of this before?

Re:Brilliant by Green+Monkey · 2003-12-15 22:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

Well, there are a lot of tracks available on online retailers that may not be available in the stores. Most of the big online music retailers have some exclusive tracks and similar material - iTunes certainly does. Plus, people often use online music shops to buy B-sides or music from less popular artists, which you aren't necessarily going to be find in stores. So buying a voucher in a store allows you to go home and buy any music that Destra offers, even if that music wasn't in the store!

--
Green Monkey

DRM Ogg? by AmVidia+HQ · 2003-12-15 21:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

DRM is not a word most of us want to hear, but let's face it, it's coming whether you want it or not. So, besides the fact that "nothing is uncrackable", why not "embrace and extend" DRM?

I, for one, would welcome our open sourced DRM overlords, than the MS "trusted computing" counterpart. Besides, we all know Ogg is superior to WMA, right?

--
VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.

Re:DRM Ogg? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 23:13 · Score: 0

Besides, we all know Ogg is superior to WMA, right?
The trouble with Ogg is the name. No self respecting metro-sexual man would use Ogg... it just sounds too primitive. It's almost like something you'd expect Ugg the Caveman to use on his mp3 player. "Ugg use Ogg sound on firebox."
Re:DRM Ogg? by AmVidia+HQ · 2003-12-16 12:43 · Score: 1

well, what matters is the technology and its development philosophy. A 3l33t name change isn't impossible.

--
VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.
Re:DRM Ogg? by yourmom16 · 2003-12-19 12:06 · Score: 1

I, for one, would welcome our open sourced DRM overlords, than the MS "trusted computing" counterpart. Besides, we all know Ogg is superior to WMA, right?
Security through obscurity is pathetic enough for closed source software. With open source software it won't stop anyone. That would kind of render DRM useless.

--
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park

Just paid for and downloaded a song... by rixon · 2003-12-15 21:58 · Score: 4, Informative

For the record:
- it was easy to find the song
- easy to sign up
- easy to pay
- easy to download
- easy to play (after media player updated itself with the DRM stuff)
- easy to burn to audio CD

The web site's HTML needs work, though.

Overall I enjoyed the experience. It gave me the "hey that's cool" smile.

Oh and yes I know I'm supposed to hate it 'cos it's DRM WMA. Know what? If I can burn it to a red book CD then I'm happy.

--
360**2 + 262**2

Whay pay for music when you can get it for free? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 22:02 · Score: 1, Insightful

If musicians want to earn money they should play live concerts.

Record companies are a thing of the past, get used to it!

Re:Will these services be the end of lossless musi by femto · 2003-12-15 22:07 · Score: 1

A lossy compression scheme does offer better reproduction than a lossless compresion scheme for the same number of bits.

The real issue is you are getting less than 1/10th the number of bits for your money, compared to a CD.

Ugh! by mallie_mcg · 2003-12-15 22:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

1) WMA only, which means no iTunes compatability, and no iPod which I desperately want.

2) $2 AUD a pop, screw that, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to expensive.

3) No mention of bit-rate used and source. (yes I read the "info" section and was unable to find it)

4) The web page looks shit, which does not bode well for the future!

--

Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!

Re:$? Re:Bah, that's nothing by ziggyboy · 2003-12-15 22:18 · Score: 1

Hear hear!! Just save up for a new hard drive...

Install pieces of Palladium by SgtChaireBourne · 2003-12-15 22:23 · Score: 3, Informative

Yes, despite the "strong dollar" policy the bad shape of the economy meant using tricks like cutting the interest rate. However, the interest rate is already as low as it can go so that can't be cut further. There have already been several recessions recently, but just now deflation is the problem. The recent "growth" seems to result from the change in the value of the dollar, jobs are still getting cut, rather than an increase in trade. Maybe economic depression can be avoided maybe not. Hiding deflation by devaluing the dollar relative to other currencies is only cosmetic and irresponsible.

It's a shame that in the last three years the U.S. looks now in a position where two or three large countries could make it cry "Uncle"

Anyway, strong or weak US vs Australian dollar, the service is misleading. 99 cents my ass. It's just another gimmick to get kids to install pieces of Palladium/DRM on their parents machines.

--
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.

Re:Install pieces of Palladium by EvilTwinSkippy · 2003-12-15 23:51 · Score: 1

I've actually seen a pickup in jobs around Philadelphia. All of them, though, seem to be 3 positions crammed into one description with requiring a degree, 10 years experience with Linux in enterprise computing settings, and be willing to work for $50k. And did I mention they are also looking for tons of experience with special purpose software to boot?
My guess: Jobs are opening up because people are retiring, quitting, or burning out. I'm also seeing the same job listed 4 and 5 times; Once by the company, and then by 3 different recruiting firms, and a rewrite as a third party contractor.
I'm laughing because the HR folks are thinking "hell in this economy we can replace Jimmy lickety split." They have no clue how impossible it is going to be to find someone who has that much experience with that quirky a system. And certainly not for less than Jimmy was making.

--
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming

Unfortunately ... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-15 22:30 · Score: 0

Currently their catalogue offers over 100,000 tracks ...

Unfortunately, 50,000 of these are variations of "Waltzuing Mathilda".

Yet another excuse to RAPE the customer by Crypto+Gnome · 2003-12-15 22:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

(a) most/all tracks are $1.99 ie basically TWO DOLLARS
(b) for example, BT has ONE I repeat ONE SINGLE track listed

So this "new service" works out to be about the same cost as a NEW CD, only

You PAY for the CD media yourself (assuming you burn-your own)
You have no original physical copy for the digital you just downloaded (can anyone say Drive Crash?)
In this country, most ISPs charge you for bits downloaded (though often after passing a 'cap') - so you're paying EXTRA for those CDs of music
Sweet Fuck All for music selection

This is a "service" in the same sense as what stud horses do to mares when they're in season.

--
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.

Re:Yet another excuse to RAPE the customer by dot-magnon · 2003-12-15 23:32 · Score: 1

Not to mention the quality loss. I havent checked what quality they deliver at, but I cant possibly imagine that it isnt noticeable with a pair of quality headphones.

It takes me just as long to go get the real CD as it would take me to download and burn. Ive never believed in DRM music.

Anyway, I cant see how these suppliers dont see that the protection will fail to work pretty quickly. In the end, with a good digital interface on a soundcard, you can export a protected mp3 to whatever you want with a cable and no more hassle. As an artist myself, I would hate to see my music used as this.
Re:Yet another excuse to RAPE the customer by ffrinch · 2003-12-16 04:48 · Score: 1

In case of drive failure or whatever you can re-download tracks for free. Read the FAQ.
Re:Yet another excuse to RAPE the customer by Crypto+Gnome · 2003-12-17 00:22 · Score: 1

Free as long as you ignore the bit-consumption cap from my ISP, after which I have to pay extra.

Like I said earlier, this is Yet Another Way to Get Screwed by Big Business.

--
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.

Nohopester by SgtChaireBourne · 2003-12-15 23:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Look, none of these WMA-only sites are going to survive. Not only are there formats with better sound quality, but ones with less cumbersome overhead and available on more platforms. iTunes can play on both Macintosh and Windows so far.

No matter the relative market shares of the two platforms, Mac + Windows > Windows Only.

See also Metcalfe's Law in other contexts.

--
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.

DRM by HalfFlat · 2003-12-15 23:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

I dislike DRM, but I dislike it a whole lot more when its proponents just straight out lie. Quoting the DestraMusic site,

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is the process in which digital content (audio, video or documents) is securely delivered to consumers over the Internet.

Bullocks.

Of course as others have said, the service itself is insulting: $2AU per track for lossily compressed (128mbps!) music that I can't play on my non-Windows computer, or use on my iPod. Thrilling.

Re:DRM by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-16 14:27 · Score: 0

I think you meant to say "bollocks", otherwise you are using the name of a cow-like animal as an expletive.
Re:DRM by HalfFlat · 2003-12-16 15:32 · Score: 1

I think you are right.

Righteous indignation makes for very bad/highly inappropriate spelling.

That said, you have to watch out for those cows. They're just biding their time. What do you think they spend all their time ruminating on?

Re:Will these services be the end of lossless musi by Hatta · 2003-12-15 23:40 · Score: 1

Phish already sells flacs of their concerts on their website. So do several other jam bands. The live music trading community has been using shorten for a long time. Don't worry, the market is there, someone will service it.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Hack the DRM. by Trejkaz · 2003-12-15 23:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why the hell not, reverse engineering is legal in Australia... ;-)

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Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!

Re:Whay pay for music when you can get it for free by ex-songwriter · 2003-12-15 23:50 · Score: 0

What about songwriters who aren't recording artists? How are they supposed to get paid?

128mbps? by Trejkaz · 2003-12-15 23:52 · Score: 1

When you say 128mbps, do you mean 128 millibits per second (really bloody bad), or 128 megabits per second (really bloody good)?

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Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!

Re:128mbps? by HalfFlat · 2003-12-16 00:16 · Score: 1

I mean 128 kilobits per second; how one is supposed to figure out what I mean when I use the wrong abbreviation is um, a different issue ...

I'll just go and get a new brain now.

DRM problems - freeme not working? by Rob+from+RPI · 2003-12-16 00:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yes, to start with, I'm an aussie, so this is kinda cool for me, being that it's local. Not cheaper, I point out (US$.99 is still less than AU$1.99, I couldn't find *any* songs for $0.99) but coolier.

So, I downloaded the demo one, and it came up with all the WMA DRM crap. I bit the bullet and installed all the DRM stuff that WPM9 wants to throw in, and played it. Woo. two weeks of listening to this demo thing. Lets see how hard it is to remove the DRM.

Hard. Very hard.

Freeme just doesn't work - it's getting a totally bogus content key, roughly 85 bytes long, as opposed to the usual 7. This is the first time that I've *used* freeme, being that I try to avoid non-open stuff, but it seems to be borked. I've compiled from source to ensure it wasn't a compiler error (Well, it still could be, ms vc6) and read the Technical of freeme, but it doesn't seem to work.

Could someone possibly clue me up on what's going on?
--snippy--
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\freewma\Debug>freewma -v c:\daniel.wma
Found DRMv1 header object.
Found DRMv1 header object.
Found DRMv2 header object.
Found KID (eO34+zbpuEm1e08JBtl1Ug==)
Starting to look for license.
License file full path: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\drmv2.lic
BlackBox library to use: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\IndivBox.key
Keystore to use: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\v2ksndv.bla
Created BlackBox instance - extracting key pairs

Public key 1 x: 309b232d07c8760d393524e4ce4f21eecc6c3a10
Public key 1 y: 08d86239f8d892cd54ffedee368387c1869d2a1d
Private key 1: a7e9d6e62fc3921e8fd22a58fbeff849e678baef

Checking license with PUBKEY 309b232d07c8760d393524e4ce4f21eecc6c3a10
Matched public key! Proceeding...
Bytelen is 20
Bytelen is 20
x.d[0] is 85
Decrypted content key is too big! - I would usually die here.
Content key: e1 11 e2 e5 82 d7 58 b2 9a f8 63 8d 90 32 ff a8 6f 35 83 fe 96 89 9
7 9c ef 18 fc 7a f7 18 4b b5 bf 58 92 0d 12 bb 24 00 00 00 00 94 fc 12 00 0d 4c
40 00 28 25 43 00 28 68 88 00 30 69 88 00 a0 fd 12 00 a0 fc 12 00 00 f0 fd 7f cc
cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc
Opened output file
Starting to process data packets
644 packets of length 5976
|The 'Lameness' filter decided that a row of hashes here is bad| 100%
--snippy--

Note how the content key ends in a whole pile of cc's? I've got a sneaking suspicion that MS have updated something to break freeme, but, it a subtle way. The found public key and calculated public key are the same, which makes me think the private key is correct, but..?

Hopefully someone with more crypto knowledge than I may be able to offer some assistance.

--
Schlock Mercenary.

Re:DRM problems - freeme not working? by blowdart · 2003-12-16 01:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

Freeme just doesn't work - it's getting a totally bogus content key, roughly 85 bytes long, as opposed to the usual 7. This is the first time that I've *used* freeme, being that I try to avoid non-open stuff, but it seems to be borked.
You're about 2 years too late. Microsoft's reaction to freeme took about 2 weeks, and one simple update to a Windows DRM server. When you play a DRM track for the first time and get that "individualisation update", it's also an update to the bug that allowed freeme to work

Re:Will these services be the end of lossless musi by freeweed · 2003-12-16 04:30 · Score: 1

Digital audio by definition is lossy.

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Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.

Napster has vouchers in stores. by danejasper · 2003-12-16 04:38 · Score: 1

... and in gas stations, as a matter of fact. I was quite surprised to find yesterday when filling the tank that the local Cheveron station had a $14.95 Napster card, good for downloading, unlocking and burning 15 songs. Of course, you can do the same thing online, but this allows for payment with cash instead of credit. This makes the new AUS service not the first to offer in-store vouchers for music downloads.

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-- Dane Jasper Sonic.net, Inc.

Re:correct matching apparel. by Technician · 2003-12-16 04:46 · Score: 1

Of course they'd also have to sell you a licence with any article of clothing that you bought stating that you were only allowed to wear it a certain amount of times and only if you also had on the correct matching apparel.

Actualy the way some geeks dress, it wouldn't be a bad idea. ;-)

--
The truth shall set you free!

I'll give em' one thing... by switcha · 2003-12-16 05:26 · Score: 1

at least they carry:

Tie Me Kangaroo Down (Live At The Sydney Opera House) by Rolf Harris
and
Tie Me Kangaroo Sport by Rolf Harris

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You know what? ... A little club soda *did* get that out!

Australia again!? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-16 07:20 · Score: 0

Why are there so many news postings related to Australia?! Is Slashdot based there or something? Like, who really cares what goes on in that little ass-backwards country?

Their FAQ by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-16 09:51 · Score: 0

Q1. What can I buy here?
A1. You can purchase digital music files for download. Once downloaded you can play your music files on your personal computer, burn them to CD or transfer them to a compatible portable player, depending on the usage rules.

Q2. Can I buy music here if I live outside of Australia?
A2. If the Territory specified in the License allows for purchase outside of Australia then Yes, you can. However, at the moment, the content we have for sale is available to Australia only.

Q3. Can I share the music files I purchase with my friends?
A3. Yes. You can give your music files to your friends. Your friends will need to download the required software as mentioned above. Once they begin to play the track they will be given the option to visit a DestraMusic.com retail partner to complete the purchase. Once purchased, your friends can start listening to the music without needing to download the content file.

Q4. How many downloads am I allowed?
A4. As many as you purchase.

Q5. Will music be available online before the CD is in the shops?
A5. From time to time, special releases may be available to purchase online before the physical release date, but in general, the download will be available on the same day as the CD.

Q6. How many tracks are available?
A6. We hope to have over 500,000 tracks available by mid 2004.

Q7. When will payment be taken from the credit card?
A7. As soon as you submit your credit card details in the payment form, the amount will be deducted from your card.

Q8. How do I stop payment for a particular track?
A8. Email support@DestraMusic.com.

Q9. How do I pay for the music online?
A9. Customers can currently pay for individual tracks online via their credit card and from early next year will also be able to purchase any amount of credit through a prepaid voucher system, available in over 10,000 outlets around Australia.

Q10. What are the prices for individual tracks sold in Australia?
A10. Tracks are currently available at $1.99 & $0.99, with an additional price of $1.49 to be introduced in early 2004.

Q11. Which portable players are supported?
A11. Any player that supports Windows Media with Digital Rights Management can be used.
For a list of compatible players visit Microsoft's Windows Media Site. Or contact your player's manufacturer.

Q12. What format does the music I buy come in?
A12. The music you purchase comes in Microsoft's secure Windows Media (.wma), 128 kbit (DRM wrapped).

Q13. What software do I need to play the music I buy?
A13. The music is in Windows Media Audio (WMA) format which requires any Windows Media capable player - Including Windows Media Player 9, Earjam, sonique, Winamp, RioPort, and MusicMatch, We recommend downloading the Latest Windows Media Player.

cheers
Sara
a geek in a land down under

Re:Their FAQ by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-17 23:12 · Score: 0

you should register so you can collect karma

Why not let them know how much they suck? by jayegirl · 2003-12-16 14:27 · Score: 1

Hey everyone,

Whilst talking amongst ourselves is fine, why not email support@destra.com, and describe, in detail, not only the flaws in their current system, but what you'd like to see in an online music shop.

They may simply be clueless marketing types just following the standard industry line without thinking.

Here's an example:

I've just looked over the service provided by one of your online music vendors, specifically HMV. I must say, I was completely disappointed.

Why on earth would I want to pay AU$2 per track for terrible sounding low-quality compressed music that doesn't play in anything but a Windows PC? For the same amount per track I can go and buy the CD itself, and then play it wherever and whenever I like, as often as I like.

Your service needs to radically change its pricing policy, and offer a variety of quality levels of audio when a track is downloaded. If it doesn't sound as good as a CD, what's the point, unless it's *much*, indeed proportionally, cheaper?

I get higher quality music than your site offers, just by turning on my radio. And it works everywhere. :)

Jaye.

50 downloads by laemas · 2003-12-16 15:47 · Score: 1

they had 50 downloads in the first day. They only have 2 supplyers, and only one will let you download. It dosent work right in firbird. Itunes is gonna shit all over it....

Pay by Snap by collinl · 2003-12-16 16:41 · Score: 1

Get a Snap account and pay online for amounts as small as these.
Why waste time going to a store to get as voucher?

Re: GnuNet by doublebackslash · 2003-12-18 05:23 · Score: 1

Thanks for the link, I'll see what I can do to help their project.

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md5sum /boot/vmlinuz
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e /boot/vmlinuz

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New Online Music Service For Australia

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