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Wal-Mart Music Download Service Launches
nns6561 writes "Wal-Mart launched their music download service today. They are providing wma files for 88 cents. I was able to download and play the test file with MPlayer and Linux. Finally, a music service for us geeks." While it may be only another online music seller, I'd hazard a guess that Wal-Mart has the name recognition to be the most prevalent music download service, especially among the tech-unsavvy.
I question the validity of this. I am not familiar with WalMart.com's sales but I bet they are dwarfed by Amazon's sales. (WalMart, in general, however I am sure dwarfs that.)
While cheap, it will take more than a few cents savings to convince people to use Walmart's service as opposed to using itunes. Hey, better yet, why not download for free? Seriously though, unlike their globally dominating bricks and mortar brand, I don't see this taking off as well. But maybe I'm wrong; perhaps WalMart's music service will take off. Hey while we are at it, maybe while people are at the site they will buy a bunch of Lindows PCs too. :)
Plus with the selection available at WalMart (or lack therof) I hazard a guess that WalMart will not be the most prevelant music download service...
*
troll blacklist. Please mo
I will gladly save 11 cents to switch!
Or not..
Napster is fulfilling my dreams of musical intimacy. I don't care for DRM, but that is a reality that shall be eternally attached to digital music sales.
Clif
clifgriffin > blog
With Wal Mart entering the fray with music downloading, pretty soon we will have mp3 networks pumping our inboxes with free music if we sign up for these really good offers. It's official. Our economy has now vaporized into the electronic economy; expect a downturn on physical object sales and an upturn on non-tangible sales. Services will replace ownership and the middle class will vanish, and the poor will not own anything while the rich will own everything. All because Wal Mart decided to compete in online mp3 sales. It's the beginning of a standardized, McDonald's style cookie-cutter industry in an intangible form. Without the costs associated with shipping and manufacture, industry can charge more and reap more profit. Soon we will be required to do much more intangible stuff than we do, and there will be industry waiting to take our money to help us (give them money for no reason other than to give them money).
This is nothing new really, and as Marshal Berman said, All that is Solid, Melts into Air. ( BooK: Amazon )
export Products solely to a portable device capable of playing Windows Media (TM) Audio ("WMA") files such as a WMA-compliant MP3 player an unlimited number of times.
:)
Do laptops count?
Well, it passed my test: I tried U2 (a must for any online service that I use :) ) and every major studio track appeared. What I cannot figure out, though, is how WalMart can turn a profit while Apple cannot. Is it volume? Do they have an even more special deal??
128 bit encrypted WMA which they claim is "CD Quality." You can't send them as gifts (which sounds like a cool idea now that they mention it). The says
All rights in the Products are owned by WALMART.COM or its licensors and you have only a limited, nontransferable, nonexclusive, revocable, nonsublicensable right to use the Products for personal use in accordance with the terms of this Agreement.
According to this:s ervlet/ TourServlet?pageIndex=1
e rvlet/ TourServlet?pageIndex=0
http://musicdownloads.walmart.com/catalog/
Macs are out!
Yet this page has a screenshot from a mac!
http://musicdownloads.walmart.com/catalog/s
You do not need to burn to CD and rerecord to remove copyprotection, just open the file up in a sound editor and save as whatever you like.
Their FAQ says:
That would seem to imply that your tunes are limited to one PC only - unless they're referring to casual sharing.I wonder how much attention they're paying to what they are throwing online. Here's a sound effects CD for 88 cents per effect. Bizarre.
According to their license and usage, one can download the music to 1 computer and back up music to up to two additional computers, make 10 burns to a CD and make unlimited transfers to a portable device. That's if you use WMP 9 on a PC. I was able to download the sample song, play it *and* transcode to mp3 with VLC (too lazy to cmd-line it with other tools) on OS X with no troubles. I tried the same with a song I paid for and got nothing. VLC choked on it, MPlayer gave me no sound and WMP for OS X tried to send Safari to a web site (no doubt for the DRM part).
/. effect (it was alot faster earlier today).
I'm looking forward to seeing a thorough comparison of the quality of Wal-Mart's encoded WMA (I couldn't readily find the encoding details) and Apple's iTunes AAC. I doubt that Wal-Mart is the store of choice for audiophiles, so I'm suspecting Apple's downloads are of better quality.
iTunes wins hands down on interface, usability and reliability. I can't see Wal-Mart's web-only interface winning them any converts. And, as I was checking back just a couple seconds ago, it appeared to be just starting to feel some pain from the
The potential "problem" is price. 88 cents is hard to beat, especially when folks are downloading Britney Spears latest pop hits (again, not the audiophile audience). I suspect Wal-Mart *is* making money, if only because they are leveraging their position as the number one retailer. "Want us to carry alot of copies your new album in our store? Then, you'll let us put your song on our online service and let us make money there too!"
Right now, as a Mac user, I just blew 88 cents on a song I'll never be able to hear. They lost a *potential* customer by locking my platform out. That may be their biggest downfall.
Mind the gap...
You missed one for #5. Wal Mart has a history of screwing around in the courts whenever they get sued for #1, 2, and 3. Some of the stuff they've done:
A judge in Texas found that Wal-Mart gave false answers during discovery in a case involving the abduction and rape of a customer on Wal-Mart property.
A Los Vegas judge accused Wal-Mart of hiding or destroying critical photographs in a falling merchandise case. He also found ''troubling questions about Wal-Mart's litigation tactics generally.''
A Texas judge found that Wal-Mart had ''consistently delayed discovery'' in a personal-injury case involving falling merchandise.
Wal Mart can blow me before I ever buy anything from them. After all, they're already screwing anyone who works for them.
Nickel and Dimed
Has a chapter where she works at Wal-Mart undercover for the book. Very interesting.
Hammer of Truth
I did notice their song collection is pretty sparse. For example look at keb' mo and I see two songs listed for download and the rest marked "not available". Also cant buy any of his complete CDs either just individual songs
many of the songs are edited for content as well. iTunes does this too but offers the originals as well. Also Walmart acknowledges they pull songs they just dont like regardless of specificly "dirty" lyrics (ask sheryl crow).
Is this good or bad for apple. I'd say good. First was wolworth used to say he liked it when the competion moved next door cause it tended to grow the market. At the same time, it completely guts the profit for all the marketers on the windows side of the house. They will be in ruinous competition. Walmart in their usual strategy just drills out the center. That is, they sell all the millions of brittant and justin albums and leave the onesy-twosey sales of nine-inch nails to Napster. Napster eats it on overhead mamanging diversity and wallmart rakes it in. Meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum for people who want a good music store experience there is Apple gobbling up the quality market. Since apple now leads with 80% of online sales people will/should see the light and realize its the better choice for diversity.
Meanwhile MS sits back, takes no risks at all but just lets others front its stores and push WMA. If it succeeds they'll swoop in and seize the market by changing WMA somehow and jacking up the royalties.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
...here, though only as complete albums (and mostly censored ones at that). Still missing a few big-name artists (for example, the Red Hot Chili Peppers), but it'll be interesting to see how the iTunes holdouts fair here.
Wal-Mart makes labels censor their artists works in able to be sold at wal-mart. This is wrong. If you believe in free speech and free expression please don't give a dime to wal-mart.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
Now that Walmart is a distributor of WMA files, you guys are going gonzo with conspiracy theories and anti-Walmart venom. Make up your minds!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Sure they've been found guilty of all kinds of violations and fined several times but no fine, no sanction (to date) has been severe enough to make them notice, let alone think twice. The fact is that Walmart is well on it's way to becoming the poster child for the crusade against monocultures. Microsoft has nothing on Walmart.
"Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"
um...
2 yes...
3 yes...
4 yes..
5 * actually between illeagal aliens cleaning the freaken floors and 4 count them 4 women bitching about being screwed over from working there...the only media coverage I hear about wal-mart is considerably more than any other retailer and it's all bad
* Congress having no power over Wal-Mart? Are you sure? You're reading that wrong anyway...it's Congress that doesn't care to have power over Wal-mart because they are paid to not care.
* not sure about that last bit
1 You really screwed up on #1...
** "Full-Time" (actually 28 hours/week) employees only gross $11,000 a year,
on average.
* Actually at the Wal-Mart I work at everyone gets full 40 hours a week. The only time they cut back are the months Jan-March the slowest months of the year. There are a lot of older people working at wally world that have been with the company a while. 10 years ~= 15/h stocking shelves. Not that I plan on being here more than a few more months though
** Health benefits are available only after two years, but premiums are so high only 38% of employees can afford it.
* Where the hell are you getting your info from? NO! From the day you start you can get a third party health insurance. After 6 months you are qualified for health insurance...38%? Did you pull that out of your ass? It costs me 35 bucks a pay check and 3 bucks for dental...who can't afford that?
** Even discussing working conditions or unionization will result in retaliation and firing.
* I can tell you've never worked there before. No actually working conditions are talked about all the time. In fact me along with 14 other people at the Wal-Mart I'm working at all got $1 raises because we used something called the open door policy stating that other places would be paying us the same amount...it took a while but we got the raise. We talk about unions all the time...but most people agree that paying money for some union is a joke at the rate we get paid. Who will pay the bills if we HAVE to go on strike? And who needs more money taken out of their small pay check for it?
** There is "a harsh, anti-woman culture in which complaints go unanswered and the women who make them are targeted for retaliation." (Quote taken from a national class-action suit against Wal-Mart.)
* I have 2 store managers that are women and about 7 other women above me in the chain of command. Your quote is from 4 women out of how many that work at Wal-Mart? How many of the Waltons (you know the owners of Wal-Mart...there are 5 of them) are women? `
Yes Wal-Mart damages the local community and exploits labor in third world countries. However, I really doubt half the stuff you hear in the NEWS/MEDIA is in any way acurate about the realities of working there. It's a sucky job...yes. It pays crap yes. And I'm sure it will not be here more than another decade given how many people like you seam to hate it with such a passion. But despite everything that is bad about it...nah you know what there's nothing I can say good about the place...I just wanted to correct the mis-stated facts you made.
Take it from someone that works there...Wal-Mart is EVIL!!!! But it's no different from the thousands of other retailers...Cosco? K-Mart? and the job is a McJob...but what do you expect? We have to work somewhere. I suppose if places like Wal-Mart where outlawed (which they would have to be in order to prevent another one from doing the same thing) the only places left would be small mall stores...I doubt they would pay much better...it would still be another McJob.
Oh...by the way. I'm one of those CS majors from college that was a Junior before he had to take a job at Wal-Mart stocking shelves because everyone hiring required 5+ years experience.
AFAIK, Devils Lake, ND has no music dealers (using qwestdex.com searching for category:music). They do have a Wally World. That example was also very easy to find, I typed a random ZIP code into walmart.com and looked up the city that came up. I have no doubt that I could find others.
Thats your example? Okay, let's see..
1. Public Library - Free.
2. Two radio stations (locally, in that one town). 103.5 FM and 97.6 FM.
3. K MART, located 701 5th Ave S-Devils Lake, ND
and of course:
4. The Internet: iTunes, Napster, P2P, Amazon.com - Devils Lake has two dial up ISPs, plus Earthlink local access and DSL in some areas. Fully served by USPS and UPS.
Would you like to try again?
#1 is void because the contracts between Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart employees are engaged voluntarily.
#3 is void because the contracts between Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart suppliers are engaged voluntarily.
#4 is void because it is a matter of personal opinion. Quite obviously, the millions of people who shop at Wal-Mart don't agree with you.
#5 is vague. Please elaborate.
WalMart may just have to find a way to support DRM'd WMA on Linux, or just ditch WMA all together, if their own music store wont work on their own cheap Linux PCs.
Imagine bing a WalMart customer, buying a WalMart Licoris PC- and not being able to buy music from WalMart's own online music store.
I noticed they had an edited (censored) album for download. Are they going to sell only censored albums like they do in their stores? I just did a bit of browsing around and many albums are "edited."
If this is the case, this music service is going to be useless for a lot of music.
#!/
It is unfortunate and my heart bleeds for them
n capitalism you apparently espouse (along with most Republicans I know) is the reason we make so little progress toward attainable ends like eradicating world hunger, fighting AIDS in Africa, ensuring gender and racial equality, ending extreme poverty, and maybe even paying people a little more than so-called minimum wage.
What exactly does it bleed? It would seem from the rest of your post that you are a hardline, anything-not-illegal-goes cheap-labor Republican hell-bent on defending the rights of us priveledged folks to cash in on the misery and lack of rights of others in the world. Does the fact that people can't fucking eat on those wages while continuing to live indoors have no effect on you?
We could go further and point out how the unquestioning, God-gave-me-the-fucking-right-because-I'm-America
And just for the record, I have a friend who has worked at WalMart for 10 years, and is just now working up the guts to leave. He's a manager there, and they pay him less than $28,000/yr, and take $230 from each of his checks for health insurance. They also actively promote the idea that there are no other solid jobs out there, and that if you leave WalMart, you'll just have to come back because you'll be laid off within a year anyway. So fuck the apolegetics for WalMart. This is one of the hardest-working guys I know, and because he doesn't bitch and whine, throw tantrums and threaten to quit, he has associates working under him who make more.
The point of all this is that it does make a difference whether we pay attention to human misery! Other people in the world deserve fair pay for their work, just as much as you do, and our consumerist culture has grown the idea that what happens on the other side of the world doesn't matter, as long as I can get my new toaster for $10 less than that guy down the street is selling them. My wife and I seek out and buy fair-trade goods, because even if we pay a couple dollars more for them, we're supporting the producer, and that makes a difference on a worldwide scale. Get your head out of your wallet and try to think about how your actions effect other people on the planet.
So I return to my opening question? What exactly does your heart bleed? Likely not something I want anywhere near me...
To reign is to serve.
I don't see how that could be legal. In my state sales tax covers "transaction(s) by which the ownership of tangible personal property is transferred for consideration." MCL 205.51(1)(b)
First, when you buy music online you do not own it. Second, it is not tangible property. Thus, it should not be taxed.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
iTMS doesn't charge sales tax? You're mistaken. I get charged for sales tax every time I purchase a song from iTMS. It's been that way since it launched.