New Online Music Service For Australia

arb writes "Destra Music is the first online music retailer to open its doors in Australia. Currently their catalogue offers over 100,000 tracks priced from 99c (Australian) and they hope to have half a million tracks available by mid next year. Purchasers will be able to burn the songs to CD and copy them to portable devices. The tracks are available for purchase through online partners, such as JB Hi-Fi and Sanity Online. 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." Sounds like competition for Bigpond Music's download service, and also dealing with DRM'd .wma files.

Comments

Yes but what if we don't run Windows....

[miknight]

...or want files in .wma format?

Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows....

[Anonymous Coward]

just go back to stealing music, like you're used to

Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows....

[FrostedWheat]

...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....

[Technician]

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.

Re:Yes but what if we don't run Windows....

[shark72]

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.

RIAA still does not get it.

[argonaut]

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.

[Green Monkey]

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...

Re:RIAA still does not get it.

[Salsaman]

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.

Good idea, but....

[bckrispi]

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.

Re:Good idea, but....

[zem_11]

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....

[lpret]

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?

The Cutting Room

[CrystalChronicles]

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:$? Re:Bah, that's nothing

[mantera]

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...

Re:sample music

[shione]

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:The fundamental flaw...

[rock_climbing_guy]

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.

Re:Don't believe the advertising

[CrystalChronicles]

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:Will these services be the end of lossless musi

[Zog The Undeniable]

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.

Re:The fundamental flaw...

[marcello_dl]

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

Brilliant

[dracvl]

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

[Green Monkey]

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!

DRM Ogg?

[AmVidia HQ]

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?

Whay pay for music when you can get it for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

Nohopester

[SgtChaireBourne]

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.

DRM

[HalfFlat]

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.

Hack the DRM.

[Trejkaz]

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