Slashdot Mirror
Digital Music Stores Reviewed
Kozz writes "If you've thought about trying the new Napster 2.0, or perhaps MusicMatch, or even WAL*MART music service, you really need to read this review at BBspot.com. Brian takes a break from his standard satire fare and writes a comprehensive review not only of the previously mentioned stores, but also of BuyMusic.com, eMusic, Apple iTunes, and RealOne Rhapsody. It breaks down the features of each service, the prices, restrictions, general pros and cons, and really gives you an idea of which one(s) you should try depending on your needs."
Why is it not okay to buy CDs, but fine to buy music piecemeal via the internet? I don't want to give the RIAA my money, and distribution via the net doesn't change that at all. I buy the few CDs I want at concerts, in the hope that I'll still get legitimate music and the RIAA will get less money.
Hypocrisy sucks, pick a stance and stick with it.
--
lds
Something in the back of my head is echoing that soft warning that I always hear when I think of wal-mart. Watch, they'll undercut and dominate this market place too.
Wal-Mart is going to be the Microsoft of the general retailer consumer good and grocery markets, I swear.
Is this another joke article?
The only down side in reading the review, is that it's highly windows-centric. The reviewer fails to point out obvious things like the fact that iTunes works seamlessly between Windows and Mac platforms (while most of the other services break completely). Besides that, it was definitely a good read.
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
It's called Kazaa. They have tons of MP3s, games and p0rn all for free! They're just giving it away. It's great.
BTW: Hot Tip! Check out that Metallica band. They have lots of stuff on Kazaa and it all rocks!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
"File Type: Songs bought from Napster were available as protected .wma files ripped at 128 k."
Great, not only is only 128k, it's probably lower quality than OGG, and I'm guessing that if you're computer hard drive were to fail (likely) you would lose every song you 'bought' because the license file is probably tied to your OS in some way.
Maybe paying $10/month and using it like a radio station wouldn't be to bad, but letting people think that they 'bought' the song when you have no ability to make back up copies is stupid. Yes it mentioned burning it to a CD, but that would be an extra step re-encoding it back into the PC, and the quality would be lower.
The idea of actually paying for music online is still regarded as satirical by some?
Ive said it before and ill say it again, cdbaby.com kicks ass. They let you listen to 2 minutes of 5-7 songs off an album to see if you like it, if you do buy it, if not go on to the next one! All their albums are reviewed by the editors to give you description of what the music is like. Plus, after your first purchase, they send you a free cd with each purchase thereafter (usually a mix cd which is pretty good.)
Disclaimer: all though this read like an ad, its not. Im just a satisfied customer.
This is a great alternative to emusic and such pay for play setups where you waste a quota trying to find music you like.
What I find interesting is that some songs are available in one service, but not others. So if you think of downloadable mu$ic as equivalent of a physical music store, it's not quite, becase a CD is a CD, and no matter where you buy it, you can play/rip it anywhere, on anything (capable of playing CD's, that is).
So there's still an insentive to buy CD's. But not as much, not enough to keep CD stores in business, I would not be surprised if they start closing soon. After that happens - what do you do to get a song that's only available from one service, but not the other?
Will there ever be a way to buy once play anywhere?
At least, the music buying world. Most of the 14-25 year olds buying music use computers with Windows, and most people reading that article will be using Windows. The Apple users already know about iTunes, and the linux users don't need a story like this.
Sorry, but anybody that uses these services and feels they're sticking it to the RIAA while rewarding the artist has their head in the sand.
For popular music, I listen to the radio, occasionally buy a CD.
Well I was a big fan of mp3.com, nicely categorized.
Now I'm using iuma.com, but it is a bit more of a mess any other sources?
Until they realise that people don't want to pay for music per listen - but buy the right to listen to a song as many times as they want, whenever they want, in whatever format they want - these online stores are never going to be very successful.
If I have to deal with one more WMA file I think I'll go nuts.
The simple fact is, most people like to have a 'hard' copy of their favourite music, and the only reason that many don't buy them is because of the price.
If it were $5 a CD I would buy every album I liked (and I would buy a hell of a lot). What they really nede to do to increase sales is introduce some sort of 'decent' rewards program, where the more often you buy music, the cheaper it is for you. (not the crappy buy 4 CD's and you can have one of these UNHEARD of bands albums!)
P2P is winning not because people *want* to steal, but because the prices of CD's are too prohibitive for many people, and many find it offensive that the bands get so littl of the profit!
They need a policy change, NOT a retailer change.
This is interesting because I just read on CNN that 2004 is to bring loads of free music Could it be that the business model of the way that music is sold is changing due to all these online stores?
I wanted to buy a book on tape as a Christmas present for my offline mother, but I didn't want to pay for express shipping to receive it in time. Amazon.com referred me to an online download at Audible.com. "Great," I thought, "I'll buy an MP3 file and burn it to CD."
I rushed into the purchase without reading the fine print. I didn't realize I was buying a proprietary "MP3 quality" recording and not an actual MP3 file. I didn't realize I had to download Audible.com software to listen to and manipulate the audio file.
The audio software failed to recognize my CD burner, so I requested and received a refund. I was miffed at not having an MP3 file and the prospect of spending time with a tech support person to route around a problem that wouldn't exist if I had been given an MP3 file to begin with.
As luck would have it, I bought the book on *CD* from the manufacturer for only $2 more, plus $6 standard shipping, and it arrived today.
All the online music stores suck. Nothing has quite the selection of the obscure that you'll want. Pricewise you're probably best streaming songs from MusicMatch. iTunes has the best selection (in the reviewers opininion), but the MusicMatch jukebox was prefered by the reviewer.
Unfortunately not many people know about Ogg Vorbis. If you asked them what it is, you'd get a blank stare.
OV, good it maybe, but its not going to happen.
Secondly, there is no DRM available for O.V, so the MPAA and other music associations will never let online Stores distribute music this way.
No DRM == No distribution.
Online Features? What exactly DO we need in features? Near CD-quality, not very restrictive DRM, a good selection, and a decent price. Searches, reviews, and recommendations would be cool, too. You can get most of that in a record store with a knowledgeable music buff on the other side of the counter.
:)
What you don't get is the rustic appeal of going into a music store and enjoying the crowd and ambience. It's not the same when you're quoting NIN lyrics to a friend while passing by people who are shopping the contemporary christian aisle. Not the same as being able to watch people in goth clothing walk by. Not the same as being able to say "Chris I-Suck" (Chris Isaak) in public.
Shop online for convenience, but it's still an experience. Brick and mortar stores still have something to offer. If nothing else, it makes getting music a social event instead of a personal thing. If you're the type to get the latest Britney Spears album, though...you may want to buy online and save yourself some ridicule.
Penisbread, you aren't forgetting the SJP are you?
Sorry, I dIdn't mean MPAA, thats the motion picture groupie,
I meant the RIAA, of course.
Quoth your sig
"GCS d--(-)@ s: a- C++()@ UL* P--(---) L++ E- W+++(++) N++ o K? w---$ PS+ PE- Y+ PGP++ t+@ 5-- X++@ R- tv++ b DI+ "
Geek-code is so hella lame. It basically says "hey I'm cool, I invented an impractical language with a loosely defined incomplete grammar for which I can strut my importance.
You might as well put "TBL++" in your code too.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
From what I have read, about 45% of the final sales price of a CD is based on retail, manufacturing and distribution costs. If that is so, then the current online offerings actually raise the profit margin to record labels and the RIAA without benefiting the artists at all. Should I be grateful? I think not.
There is tremendous potential here for artists to go directly to consumers. The costs of setting up a digital recording studio are no longer prohibitive, though they are not trivial. It is reasonable to expect that sites will spring up soon enough to provide the infrastructure that independent artists need to distribute their music and collect on the sales with a reasonable overhead. The current online stores seem to be a last ditch attempt to maintain control by the music industry. Nothing surprising there, but we should think very hard about whether we want to support a timid change when the potential for radical change exists.
Go ahead, bust me - I deserve it :-(
Obviously this post was meant for a different thread - The Mars Polar Lander story in the Science section.
You were talking about WMA I think. It sounds better and has better compression. I have no idea what this "Ogg Varbis" thing is.
LOL.
... as spending time reading SlashDot :-)
And you know the language too... TBL++
Of course, you'd never do such sad things...
I also write free software, play way too many video games, attend a crappy college, work freelance and generally exist.
/. is a big part of me day.
Though, yeah
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I baught a coulpe of chart CD's for my kids and a couple of not charters for myself. They were A$17.99 or less. Considering I was shopping at the time for other things, and when I plop them in the the PC for playing, it rips them at whatever bitrate I choose, while playing, I cant see the value or convenience in US$10 128kb albums.
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
apparently some of the online stores aren't exactly doing well
n line_musicsto.html
http://tingilinde.typepad.com/starstuff/2003/12/o
the "legitimate" market is tiny compared with the real CD or pirated market
The Fast Company article is excellent! I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Wal-Mart.
Ugh. So frustrating. So many updates to iTunes, yet I still cannot purchase music. If the retailers aren't careful, they might forget that they are excluding 1/2 the world's market by not permitting EC, UK, Canadian and Asian countries from participating.
Then again, you just cannot trust those crazy beaver loving weirdos to the North. There's trouble brewing up there in Soviet Canuckistan.
Anybody know of a good review of the EULA's of these stores? I think that's a pretty important part, and this reviewer seemed to kind of gloss over that part, perhaps not having read them all (understandable.)
I don't know if you've noticed or not, but everyone and their brother is setting up their own freakin' online music store. If they all offer nearly the same exact content in the same exact form, why should I go with one over another? The online music market is still in its infant form, and it's already becoming saturated with too many stores. Coke setting up their own music store? What the hell?!
I find it laughable that people would actually spend $1 to buy a song. That's insane. For a full CD, you're almost talking $15...for songs I can only listen to on my computer...in a lousy format...and I don't get any case, media, or art with it. Thank you, I'd rather pay the $13 and take my music wherever I want to. Does anyone else find it shocking that these stores are actually able to stay afloat?
Let's give it a year. I'd love to see an "online music store" year in review next December. Who will stand and who will fall?
I just checked 3 online yellow pages, unless he runs an unlisted record store, there's no such place.
Also, he's not listed in the local chamber of commerce, nor did I find any dba's NuClear (nuclear) in my quick search of the entire state. So, I call shenanigans on you.
I bet you are the poster.
Anyone knows why?
For now i put up with Puretrack.com's DRMed WMAs for lack of better service, but it's a pain in the $@@.
-- If you actually say LOL instead of laughing, maybe it's time to go outside! --
I looked at my Itunes bought music folder today.. 113 songs in 7 month... YIKES!!!
Its like music crack. They keep make it easier to find songs too..
apple has a fairly liberal usage/rights policy with their music. but, there is an easy way to overcome this. after downloading an album, burn the album to cd, but choose to burn an audio cd. next, you'll need cdda2wav and bladeenc (or lame, not playing favorites here) easily obtainable at fink, or on any linux box. after you burn the cd, pop it in the computer. from a terminal, simply run cdda2wav dev=/dev/cdrom etc. then when it's done, run bladeenc on each file. (make a perl, bash, applescript, etc, to automate. i'm thinking of writing a cocoa wrapper for it.) you're left with 128kbit mp3's. sounds fine. so, you can use your mp3's wherever you'd like. is it something granny can do. no. is it 37337? hardly. i gotta figure that apple knows this. they can't be that stupid.
i don't know if you can do this with any other service. this alone makes iTMS a great choice. i know with any windows media format you're gonna have lots of restrictions.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
"Who does not want to use iTunes? .wma files. Someone with a digital music player other than an iPod. Someone who wants streaming music"
Someone who wants a player to listen to their
Dammit you mean all that streaming music i have been listening to in iTunes was in my head the whole time. Well at least im a lot more creative than i thought i was:)
If you don't like the RIAA don't buy music. You should note that the record labels pay the RIAA, you don't directly.
Note if you have a song from a band and you didn't pay for it the RIAA isn't getting money, but neither is the band.
The band might only be getting a little bit from the sale, but they signed with an RIAA label and a little is better than 0.
If you like the music support those making it.
hehehheeeee
All for free!!! Whee!!!!!
gimmie gimmie gimmie!!
Forget the 40 song limit -- it used to be 'unlimited', which in practice meant 2000 tracks a month.
At one point the download manager files were an open format, and they encouraged third party download managers...
Then they decided to encrypt the files, and to their credit released download managers for Windows, Mac and Linux at the same time.
Unfortunately all three were riddled with bugs and oversights. To this day the reliability of downloads is decidedly sub-par.
If you do use EMusic, there's a perl script available which will decrypt the files and launch wget for you -- it's far more reliable than the official download manager.
But personally I ended my subscription when the new limits were introduced... more because of their lousy approach to customer service than anything else. (They actually had the audacity to remove the message boards completely when they announced the changes).
...just funny.
.FLAC's and .APE's for free, and the legal alternative is that I pay for crappy 128kb WMA's or AAC?
I can download lossless
And my reward is that I feel better?
The RIAA must think we're a bunch of fucking morons...oh wait....iTunes. New shiny. I like.
These places don't use ogg because ogg doesn't have any DRM.
The issue at the end of the day is this - when I go on Kazaa and download a song - what format is it likely to be in?
If you don't like the RIAA don't buy music
Spoken like a true RIAA propagandaist..
What about indie bands? Oh thats right, they aren't signed with the RIAA and thus don't get any money, so therefore its not music in your world.
The idea of actually playing music online is still regarded as satirical by some?
With the exception that it only runs on Windows and I can't just suck down MP3s.
Otherwise, I've been pretty happy with the quality and amount of music I can get through it.
It's possible to spend hours surfing from artist to artist.
I was wondering if someone with a dynamic ip could post this to http://slashdot.org site as an AC. Only thing I can offer you is my thanks which is worth little to nothing. Thanks
./. The other place is active and still will be supported.
Interesting, I invoke the same sort of thing used by school teachers, television shows, newspapers, and news programs but this time the target was a liberal personality and my posting privileges get banned. It was done in a way to null any effects of the manipulation and with no consequence. The premise of the post was to communicate the the deaf of a certian form of manipulation certain people are doing and the potential consequences (like that's not already known) of they're actions.
It's time to find someplace new. VA software and OSDN eh? I'll remember that. An open statement to M$, there will be a freebie coming your way, it'll be perfect meaning there will be no investment and it'll be something obvious
The idea of freedom of speech does not apply to a few, therfore their actions can only be described as subversive. Republicans can be attacked using whatever method that is available but if somebody replaces republican with liberal it's the same old bullshit.
I guess I should leave an out of place comma or two but why. There will be no more freebie's from me at
The article did have some good information but I found it was not consistent throughout. Some features were listed as pros for certain services, but not mentioned for others that also had that feature. For example: He mentioned that one allows for gift cards, but failed to mention so does itunes. He also said musicmatch offers cover art with the downloads, but failed again to mention itunes also does. I think it would have been better if there would have been some type of chart that listed all the features and simple indicated if that service had them or not.
Some of the readers of this site still fail to realize this is not the Borg hive-mind.
SOME people are boycotting the RIAA. SOME people aren't. We all post on slashdot.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
The problem with all the online music stores is
Don't think that the RIAA doesn't "get it". They do. They just don't want you to "get it". "It" being music at a reasonable price in the format you want without restrictions on how you can use it.
The RIAA's (their members', actually) business is based on control. They want to control what you hear and how you hear it. Without this control, their entire business model breaks. If any old artist can self-publish online (or be published online by a 3rd party for a reasonable fee) with world-wide exposure
Everyone knows what the public wants:
- Roach
Yea, its called .mp3
You should note that the record labels pay the RIAA, you don't directly.
Generally, when we talk about the RIAA, we're talking about the RIAA's members, i.e. the labels.
You obviously want to buy your music through eMusic, which is one of the services covered in the article. They work with independent artists, which should be obvious when you see that they distribute the music as unrestricted VBR MP3s.
Their service also allows non-US users and explicitly supports Linux.
One of the indie music directors from the online college radio station linked below in my sig has bought tons of music from eMusic. If you've ever known someone in that position, I don't think I need to say anything else.
You shouldn't "hope" you're not buying RIAA-backed CDs. It's pretty easy to tell at many concerts; if the band is good and their CD is between $5 and $10 (or even $15), it's not from the RIAA because they wouldn't be allowed to charge that little.
(I read the article earlier today and emailed some corrections, but I read BBspot every day).
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Let's play a new game here on Slashdot. Anytime someone who is obviously a Microsoft employee/marketing droid makes a post, we should respond to their comment with the subject line "Where's Waldo?" Whoever collects the most "Where's Waldo?"s within six months wins a prize!
"It's not the consumer's responsibility to make sure the artist gets enough money."
I agree. That's what makes the record labels plea of "you're stealing from the artist" so bogus.
That's not my responsibility; my responsibility is simply to get my music for the most inexpensive way possible.
Ok, first off - let me say I'm totally lost as to why some idiot labeled your post as a "troll"?! I guess they're just gung-ho about seeing the local record stores die, in favor of virtual online shops....
Ultimately, I think the entire landscape of music sales is changing. That means, retail music stores need to rethink how they sell their music, and online stores will do so too. (Does anyone really believe we need as many online music stores as we have popping up all over the place? It's just a "Quick! Hop on the bandwagon!" fad, which will soon end with only a few survivors.) The good part is, the survivors will truly be "best of breed" and ready for the "real world" of day to day retail sales.
To me, the core issue is much like sales of books. Amazon.com does a pretty good job of handling online book sales, yet it doesn't replace all of the local bookstores. In fact, we saw some merging of the real and the virtual (EG. Barnes & Noble) - which is arguably the most sensible thing for a business to do.
There's MUCH to be said for "instant gratification". Used properly, this concept can benefit either a web site or a real "brick and mortar" store. For online stores, this means realizing you'll ALWAYS lose a certain percentage of sales because people don't like waiting to receive product in the mail. They want it *immediately* after paying for it. It also means it's smart to make as many things available as "instant downloads" as possible (but even then, a percentage of folks won't be impressed, if they don't have the bandwidth to make a nearly instant download practical/possible). For the real stores, this means keeping a really good inventory of product in stock at all times. If the best you can tell a person is "We can order it for you!", it's little more than a nice way of saying "Nope! We don't carry it, and you may as well go elsewhere for it."
Retail stores have the potential advantage of winning almost all of those "instant gratification" purchases - but only if they have the selection *and* provide the pleasant experience that beats the online shopping experience.
So no, I don't think the "record store" has any reason to become extinct -- but it needs to understand the competition and what areas they're better/worse in.
... hope you don't have a scene like this in your house on xmas morning ;) (sorry, just had to slip this link in somewhere! it's none of my business what you spend your money on, and i agree with you on the value thing).
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
"I support my favorite artists by seeing them live."
Yea...nothing better than seeing lazy-ass bands that play for 75 minutes and want $50. And then you have to put up with the parking, the rude workers, and nazis that get all upset because you're doing a little bit of bootlegging.
Sheesh... The bands are stealing from their fans with an attitude like this.
I see a lot of people complaining in this story about restricted formats, money still going to the RIAA, and Windows-only. None of you read the article.
eMusic gives you unrestricted VBR MP3s at well under a dollar per song. They deal largely with independent artists who are not beholden to the RIAA, which is a big part of why they can offer these distribution terms. They also explicitly support Linux, as well as Windows and Mac OS.
"But I don't like that music!" Well, you _should_
Yeah, it takes more effort to find music, but I've been on both sides of the fence and I've found the indie side to be far more rewarding. Bands like Enon, Quasi, El Guapo, Freezepop, Call and Response, Stereo Total...they will probably never hit mainstream radio, and there's absolutely no good reason why.
With a band like Freezepop, you don't even need an eMusic! Their CDs are cheap, and you can download full MP3s of many of their songs from their own site for free. Lifestyle, a side project of one of their members, has an entire album's worth of tracks that basically fall in between the first and upcoming second album. All for free.
There's plenty of crap in indie too, of course. Here, I'll have to give a blatant plug to the site linked in my sig, wmbc.umbc.edu. We are currently on hiatus until the spring, but you can listen to the automated music stream that usually fills in between live DJs. You can also look at our Top 30 chart, which is actually a representation of the 30 albums the DJs chose to play the most, not a pre-mandated playlist. And hey, we use Debian! And our music database software is available on freshmeat!
See, you can discover independent music the same way you used to discover mainstream. There are many other stations like ours (and I'll admit that some are probably better). You could also take eMusic up on their 50 free tracks offer, or check out cmj.com, where most college stations report their top 30. I'm almost positive you'll find something you like, and you don't have to feel bad for buying it.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Everyone knows that linux users are pirates and terorrists. :)
It is reasonable to expect that sites will spring up soon enough to provide the infrastructure that independent artists need to distribute their music and collect on the sales with a reasonable overhead.
Wouldn't such infrastructure have to include a way to pay the songwriter? And if a service allows artists to claim that they wrote their own songs, then wouldn't it have to include access to musicology services so that artists can be sure that they aren't making the same mistake that George Harrison made?
I just realized that I might have implied that my own radio station was crap
What I meant to say was that independent music also has radio stations, distributors, labels, reviewers, etc. to sort out the wheat from the chaff. And yes, there's a lot of chaff, but the wheat is oh so good.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Makes no sense to pay good money for low-bitrate compressed material that you can't even move easily across your playback devices. Until the downloads are either uncompressed or lossless-compressed and DRM-free, there's simply no deal to be made - what you gain by not having to buy the whole album is greatly offset by what you miss out on by not having the uncompressed, DRM-free high quality version.
I'm starting to think that these people must be trying really hard to convince themselves and everyone else that online distribution doesn't work, because if it did and caught on, their brick-and-mortar distribution cartel would lose its significance, and any band with name recognition that's not bound by a lifetime contract would be seriously tempted to opt out of it.
Perhaps before I realized that Coke and others were selling tap water for prices higher than gasoline. Ok, I may be a little pissed that I didn't think of it, but still. I believe there will be money made by someone before people wake up.
President Bush to Liberate Alaska
Okay, cool. I think these new music stores are a good idea. But wait, the music comes in encrypted wma format! Is there any linux app that can play that, or are we still stuck with windows for playing legal music?
yes, support them by going to a concert and buying a shirt, this will give the music makers as much $ as buying about 30 CD's
I don't know about U.S. bands, but Australian bands tend to make more money from concert tours than from "average" selling records.
That's not true -- with Wal-Mart's music downloads, you can only listen on one computer. I downloaded a song on my laptop, then when I copied it to my desktop and tried to play it there, I got this "License Acquisition" dialog box:
So it's pretty clear to me that I'm only allowed to play a song I downloaded on one PC (although I'm allowed, according to the download page, to back it up to a couple other computers, whatever they mean by that).
The author could have either tried to make a more apples-to-apples comparison by measuring the service against that other other sites on their first week out, or at least summarized at the end of the walmart review making the callout and saying "I should review it again in a few months".
Personally, I'm taking a wait and see approach -- I suspect their catalog and feature set will both grow substantially over the next few months. Yeah, sure, the explicit lyrics will still be edited out, but since I don't listen to much music like that it won't really affect me much.
You can buy some music that is RIAA free. The site RIAA Radar helps you avoid paying indirectly to the RIAA.
RIAA Radar
Or you can pay to download Music with no DRM that is RIAA free from MagnaTune.
MagnaTune
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
Many Thanks,
Luke
Just wanted to point out another option if Clear Channel pop isn't your thing. Audio Lunchbox carries an interesting line up of indie label music, the file format is unencumbered, and songs are $.99. The have "bulk" rates, too, if you purchase a "lunch card".
http://audiolunchbox.com
I haven't bought anything yet (and I have no relation to the company), but I'm keeping my eye on it.
-h3
examples of band selling CDs without the RIAA. Whats cool is that you can listen to free samples/tracks to see if you like before buying. Steve was right, the internet was made to distribute music!
Darediablo
Andrew Kerr
Anti Jazz Ray Gun
The fighting idols
I've been using Rhapsody for over a year. I love it.
First, you can do all the normal stuff you'd expect from an on-demand streaming service; make playlists of songs, add entire albums to your library, listen to pre-programmed channels, or create your own channels by selecting a list of artists, etc.
The sound quality is high and the connections reliable. It's not for dial-up users. You need broadband.
In addition to streaming the songs most can be burned to CD for 79 cents/each. I seldom use this feature. I use this gadget to get the audio from my PC to the stereo while streaming.
Here's what really makes Rhapsody valuable to me: The Rhapsody desktop app integrates the Muze database, the same database you'll find at music store kiosks for doing searches. With this you can do searches by artist, album, and song title. Also, for each artist you see similar artists, influencers, and followers, all hyperlinked together. I can spend hours just following links among artists, finding music new to me that I'm more likely to like.
Music is also categorized by genre, with a playlist of typical songs for the genre and a list of albums and artists considered important to the genre.
A small negative: I'd like to see the ability to search by genre and include boolean expressions in the search.
Price: $10/month ($8 if paid quarterly). Not bad.
I remember that iTunes *had* support for additional models of MP3 players. I say *had* because my question is does it still have similar support for 3rd party devices?
Or is that a feature that was only in iTunes 2 or 3?
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
I remember that iTunes *had* support for additional models of MP3 players. I say *had* because my question is does it still have similar support for 3rd party devices?
Or is that a feature that was only in iTunes 2 or 3?
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
How can anyone possibly consider Musicmatch to be a decent MP3 app?
Musicmatch came pre-installed on my XP system. I was stunned at how clunky and buggy it was...it lasted a few weeks before I tossed it for Winamp, which was subsequently tossed for iTunes.
I don't know how the slashdot crowd has slept on this one so long but there is a service called Audiolunchbox that has DRM free music available for download. It's all web based so it is platform independent and the files are available in OGG or MP3 formats (192k variable mp3 and level 6 variable OGG i do believe) and the kicker is that all the labels are independent...i hope everyone picks up on this and soon
bwahaha, insightful
I prefer club.mp3search.ru.
Russian site, I haven't seen any evidence that it's illegit, pay per song, approx $.01/meg, and you get a non-DRM mp3 file-- You can do whatever you want with it. No limits on burns or anything like that. I've had good success with it, they've got a good selection (not everything, though, but I think they're pretty new, so I'm hopeful for a lot of new additions in the coming days/months).
When you get tired of your eBook being locked in a propretary DRM, you can just burn to CD and re-rip (with iTunes). That's why I like iTunes and the ITMS, because I know even if Apple folded tomorrow I would still be able to convert songs to whatever format I liked at my leisure without worrying about music expiration. Wait until some of these services start folding... sure MP3 books would be nice but ITMS gets, as the engineer in the classic joke would say, "close enough".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I dropped them when the limit changed. They had sooo much esoteric stuff.
A zillion George Carlin CD's
Oodles of old jazz (Monk, Mingus, etc)
old blues (Lightnin Hopkins)
The Windows client seemed to work OK, until they announced the limit change. Then...all of a sudden downloading an entire album was problematic. Lots of people grabbing all they could before they cut off? Maybe. I know I did. Took me about a week to get all of a 15 CD set of T. Monk.
The new owners are fools. I wonder how many people dropped them last month...
Canadian Independent Artists
www.hearsaymusic.ca
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Daniel
http://people.cinn.ca/daniel/
I didn't expect this review to be very good, and it's not, IMHO. My take is that it's more of a description of the services, and not a terribly thorough one at that. The first example which jumped out at me was the note about iTunes radio stations - this guy doesn't mention that the radio stations are not supplied by Apple and have nothing to do with the music store - iTunes is an audio-stream player with some third-party stations preprogrammed - you can delete them or add more as you please.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Music is not something you measure by the gigabyte... unless you really don't have a concept of what quality is.
I bet you're one of those guys that downloads that screechy crap just so you can try to impress SOMEONE (hint: no one is impressed) about the QUANTITY of DATA that you downloaded.
Most people actually look for QUALITY, not quantity. Most people, when they actually ENJOY what they're listening to talk about the WHAT they're listening to, not the DATA that they've downloaded.
And, sorry fella, quality isn't a bit-rate.
The idiot in this thread sure isn't someone who actually knows what they enjoy, and is smart enough to buy exactly what they're looking for (as opposed to someone who enjoys downloading a lot of crap).
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
It strikes me that amid all the hype about legal music download services, one of the oldest and cheapest ones is often forgotten: Weblisten.com has been in existence since december 1997, and offers about 150,000 songs in MP3 (and sometimes WMA) format at the lowest prices I have seen.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Had a minor teething problem with their Linux service. The MIME type thing is straightforward enough if you know what a MIME type is. In Konqueror, you also need to enable "run in terminal" to get the download manager to display. I didn't have a working NSCD on my laptop. However, I do have BIND on my firewall box which pulgs into the broadband cable.
/usr, as opposed to /usr/local. If you're running Slackware, LFS or Gentoo that's not likely to be a problem, but I can see problems creeping in on systems with a militant package management system.
;-)
Problem I noticed so far: the supplied installer wants to put files in
Also, I can't seem to apt-get the missing NSCD package. This may be totally unrelated to the eMusic installation, of course.
Still, it's nice to see someone making a brave effort to support Linux; their hearts are in the right place, and I'll be giving them plenty of feedback. Anyone know if you can get barred for editing cookies
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
You suck!
Oh common, play nice with the other /. or you won't get your milk and cookies.
Now go sit in the corner and think about what you have said.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
There's a new site, opened this fall, called Zonk Music. They sell CDs to download on-line, with 192Kbps MP3 files so the sound quality is very high. Founded by Bjorn Lynne, and slowing growing an interesting collection of artists. It's worth a look.
Waiting in breadlines?
Nah. They have robots for that too.
Pst. That's not bread. IT'S PEOPLE!!
Personally I prefer Barnes and Noble bookstore over both B&N online or Amazon.com. In fact I am biased against Amazon.com ever since they pulled the "one-click shopping" patent move. I prefer paper books to electronic...what can I say? Anyhow, insightful post.
Cheers
I can't afford a sig!
This time next year, there will be half as many services available. Of course everybody is jumping on the bandwagon now, but with confusing restrictions like buymusic.com, most of these services will not last. I think musicmatch, napster and iTunes have it going right with minimal restrictions and wider usage of the files. I too would like to see a combination of the best parts of each of these services.
My biggest gripe about MusicMatch is that if your library is large it can take minutes from the time you start it to the time that you can do anything (like select a song). Its database is very slow on large databases. iTunes, on the other hand loads almost instantly regardless of how many files spanning however many hard drives thrown at it.
And every time you do, you are helping the RIAA do their job, because they are seeking to be a lightning rod for criticism that rightly belongs to media companies like Sony and Viacom.
Expecting the RIAA-backed services to give you unprotected files in the format you want is a bit unreasonable.
Unreasonable? Sure. That's because we're all thieves (yeah, yeah, it's not theft it's that copyright thingie, I know). We can't be trusted. Even better: it would be unreasonable to trust us.
Cool. Why stop at not giving the customers what they want, add insult to injury and call us unreasonable too!
.sigs - is there anything they can't do?
I did the eMusic thing for about 8 months, mostly hitting their classic jazz selections on the Prestige, Riverside, and Verve labels--all RIAA members. I was a fan, but I never got the Linux client to work, and I got no response from technical support. I wouldn't have said that eMusic "explicitly supports" Linux; my experience was more along the lines of "download available" for Linux.
I forget if they actually stated somewhere that Linux support was (extremely) limited, or if they just flat-out ignored my e-mail to tech support, because at the time I was too angry about the change in terms from unlimited downloads to 65/month. Around that time the actual operation of the service was pathetic; queued downloads just wouldn't start, I'd have to manually cancel and restart a download, and then maybe it work. This was with the Windows download manager. Perhaps all their users were hitting the service hard (like I was) in order to get their final tracks from eMusic before terminating the service (like I did).
I see today that their site has suggestions for my Linux problem ("can't connect" errors and the NCSD thing). Too little, too late, it was the change in terms that killed it for me.
Buying a CD at Wal-Mart is supporting the RIAA with more than just cash; you're participating in and contributing to the fundament of their existence. RIAA is a cartel of marketer-distributors. In buying the physical CD, and its packaging, you are upholding their raison d'etre.
When you buy a CD from MusicMatch or iTunes, you're supporting RIAA by default only. You are not participating in their distribution or packaging schemes, or supporting those. You are paying them because they are the ones who currently control those copy rights and nothing more.
RIAA cannot continue to exist indefinitely if its member companies have no reason to exist or nothing to distribute. They can maintain copy rights currently held, but the reason artists sign over those rights in the first place to the member companies is because they have (or had) the most effective means of widespread distribution. Getting it yet? If Napster 2 and iTunes become the most effective means of widespread distribution, it won't matter if RIAA is making a short-term profit on them. In the long term, this will open the way for artists to broker deals directly with the services when their current contracts expire or when they come up with new material, excluding RIAA member companies in large part or, eventually, entirely.
I will gladly give my coins to RIAA member companies via iTunes, just as Yussupov gladly served Grigory his wine.
You would think, that the RIAA, instead of spending zillions of dollars, and man hours trying to track down every 80 year old grandma who's grandaughter/grandson ripped a few MP3's from a P2P site, would spend a few hundred dollars setting up a 99 cent download server of it's own. Heck, with the catalog selection they would be privy to, there would be an endless stream (no pun intended) of people downloading music.
... for me is that I can use it from Canada!
Same thing goes for Rhapsody, which is a kick-ass subscription service (if you're into that sort of thing).
I've downloaded a lot of songs from iTunes. The quality is quite good actually. I have also burned my entire CD collection to AAC with 192bit rate. I can't tell the difference. In fact, I think some of the downloads from iTunes sound better. It might have something to do with them creating the AAC files from master recordings.
It now makes me wonder how much quality is in the CD's we buy. I'm still trying to determine if some of my older CD's from the 80's have begun to sound worse over time. Or were some just not recorded very well to start.
I took issue with the reviewer about iTunes and streaming... he said that iTunes sufffers here, but really, iTunes can stream any MP3 stream as long as you have the URL, it's just that their built-in radio station picks are mostly from Live 365.
Also, I don't know if the other players have this feature, but iTunes will stream YOUR music to other iTunes listeners on your LAN, and it has a discovery feature so that you aren't typing in IP addresses. Very cool. I didn't think much about this until I actually got other people on the network to stream their music... it's fun to explore other people's musical tastes.
I don't buy albums. If I want an album, I buy the CD. But I do buy individual songs from artists that I would never buy their album.
I still can't understand why people are thinking about big music sites when there are perfectly good small sites. dmusic This is the best free download music site I've seen. Irate Radio , a music discovery program. gods of music music review site . sharethemusicday.com My essay on more ways to share music legally. Don't forget to tip your favorite musicians! Musician's Guide to Online Tipping
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
I am a big fan of iTunes. I would much rather buy there than in a store (yes it is my CHOICE). I like the selection of songs that they have and I like that there is uncensored music there. However, some of that music is not appropriate for my 12 year old. Some added controls for me would be nice. I know he would get a kick out of having a monthly allowance.
Yes you know it really pains me to think that by downloading an Eminem album off the net that he might not be able to afford his thrid gold plated Escalade... man that would just suck!!! I feel bad for him...
@--==SkruD==--@
You're a loser.
is hardly a solution, except to get low quality music.
Therefore, CDs are still the only sane choice, if you want to be sure that you can still play the music on whatever equipment you happen to own a few years from now, much less 20 years from now.
Buying data in proprietary formats, is just plain dumb and short-sighted, especially when the older format is standardized. This is a technological step backwards. I won't be using any of these low-value services, unless the formats get cracked (like what happened with DVDs, when DeCSS made DVDs transition from risky investment, to safe investment).
My dollars continue to vote for Red Book compact disks. Anyone who wants to usurp that vote and direct those dollars to themselves, should go see Xiph about a codec and file format, and don't even think about adding a DRM wrapper.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
regarding his statement Radio stations are worth what they cost, nothing. Obviously he has not spent much time going through them. KEXP, for example, is an excellent and very popular alt/rock station out of Seattle. I know many people who have discovered it through the iTunes preset. There are several other gems in there too, but that is the only one I listen to daily.
When the audio is converted from a raw PCM format (the way it's stored on the CD) to AAC, a lot of quality is lost.
But the iTunes store tracks are not converted from the CD edition tracks, but from the master tapes themselves. This makes it perfectly possible that the AAC tracks are better quality than the CD versions.
We could also debate whether "a lot" of quailty would be lost in the step that is not performed, but I'll leave that for now.
The reason many people, including myself, will not buy music online until it is offered in a lossless format is because we want the music as it was on the CD with nothing removed!
Just like milk does not come from the grocery store, music does not come from CDs. The CD format is perfectly good for pretty much any purpose, but it's certainly not perfectly lossless, and has audible defects compared to the sound it's trying to replicate.
A lot of people are asserting that the Original->AAC->CD->MP3 conversion produces crappy resutls, since all steps are somewhat lossy. But unless we know how lossy, that philosophical point is really meaningless.
Obviously, it would be much better have the music go through 3 steps that each make the sound 0.1% worse than one that takes out 5%. So the number of steps really doesn't say anything about real sound quality.
Has anyone done a serious measurment of how much worse sound gets in the different steps? Or is everyone just talking about stuff they have no real knowledge about? Surely that couldn't happen at Slashdot??
Like you said, Hypocrisy sucks, take a stance and stick with it.
They recently installed these at the Kroger supermarket near where I work - replaced five lines with two and 4 self-checkout machines. They didn't lower their prices, and if you have a reasonable number of items the machines suck. If you want an actual person, you now get to wait five times as long. Meanwhile, one of our other supermarkets went bankrupt - the execs who engineered the bankruptcy got off with large (> $1M) bonuses while their employees (who didn't cause the bankruptcy in the first place) got...screwed. I see no compelling reason to go to a store to be charged prices as high or higher than others while doing work myself that other stores do for me, particularly when it only serves to screw their workers and me for the benefit of their inept executives.
It's like self-serve gas - it doesn't lower prices (at least not in OH - NJ is full-serve only with lower gas prices) but only guarantees more work and less convenience for me. I don't see any reason to screw people making not much to my detriment, particularly when I know that the execs that did it to them will do it to me if they ever get the chance.
I've come to the realization that what I said ROCKS, and that you still suck.
It's a misnomer to say you are "buying downloads" from these sites. You are renting music from these places, because you cannot resell it to another party - therefore it is a rental - for some time frame - perhaps forever, but only to you. If you BUY a CD, you can resell it to someone else because you own it, but you never own these downloads, they are rented to you for use in specified ways only. There are never restrictions on things that you own.
SO, this again proves why these sites are overcharging by at least 50% for this SERVICE - you get a lower quality product (compressed) compared to a CD, you get no package, no cover, no liner notes, no artist details and thanks, no artwork, nothing to display on your shelf with other media. If you were to sell a CD you own, you might get back half the cost you paid - but you can never resell these downloads, so this shows how they are overpriced.
The great thing however, will be when major artists begin to dump the "labels" and sign up with Apple direct for distribution - then things will start to get interesting - not the least of which will be the Beatles which already own a music company called Apple.
brad
Why waste time reviewing any RIAA DRM infected crap?
DRM == Doesn't Resemble Music.
mp3 is the only way to go. No "fingerprints", no AAC, certainly no WMF.
Besides, 60 million people have already decided. That's why I put all of my band's new music on Kazaa and LimeWire.
Good idea. I would think making a book available for download immediately after the customer purchases a book, will let them get started reading while waiting for the hard copy to arrive in the mail.
I can't afford a sig!