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Warp Records Reject DRM, Go Bleep
DJ Phase writes "Warp Records, an independent label for electronic music (featuring artists such as Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Boards of Canada), has made their entire back catalog available thru Bleep, a new digital download service. Individual tracks are $1.35 for those of us in the USA, with EPs and full albums in the $4 to $10 price range. You can download Aphex Twin's rare, groundbreaking Hangable Auto Bulb EP for $4.29. To quote from the FAQ: 'We are at present the only store to offer very high quality MP3 files,' and 'Bleep music has no DRM or copy protection built in. We believe that most people like to be treated as customers and not potential criminals'."
I believe potential criminals should be treated like customers too.
But given the color scheme on their website, they treat all their customers as if they wear sunglasses while using a computer.
www.magnatune.com
This was even a story on here a couple months ago...
Thank goodness it is Warp Records I get to reward for avoiding DRM, and not K-Tel.
They wouldn't regularly be pirated and be resold if they weren't already pirates themselves.
I plan to buy atleast two albums from this place tomorrow when I go to work and can download them faster.
I like the genre already, and I apperciate the token respect.
Been reading about this on the IDM list .. and just when I had written Warp of as a bunch of old-timers.
Although I own most of the Warp CD back-catalog already (yes I'm trying to impress all you spotters out there) I look forward to emptying my wallet of cash on all the old vinyl tunes I never bought.
And I can listen on my Mac, my Zaurus, and my linux machine, no need to do the time-consuming DRMBULLSHIT->MP3 conversions!!!
(PS: I get a kick out of the folks who now refuse to buy MP3s because they aren't as "full sounding" as CDs. Didn't we go through this already with vinyl???? I'm happy to listen to MP3s on my shitty MP3 player and shitty headphones, thanks.)
Unencumbered, high quality digital music. With an explicit 'we choose not to treat customers like slime' policy. This is the sort of service I've been waiting for.
iTunes didn't cut it on either point, but it was moot anyway since I'm forbidden from buying from them in the first place due to geography.
Newer compression schemes may be superior to mp3, but as far as accessibility is concerned, mp3 is hard to beat. Nearly anything will play it with absolutely no hassles, including (most importantly for me) your average linux distribution and the iPod. The only thing that would make this perfect would be if there were an option for downloading the music in a lossless format, so one can recode to one's prefered compression scheme.
Now the only question is, is there anything there that I want to listen to?
You might not have heard of them, but lots of people have. Lots of people who might not be avid Slashdot readers or care much about the issues usually discussed here. And they're artists who -- until now -- haven't generally been available on other download services. For those of thus who like the stuff Warp puts out, this is a good thing.
and especially not on dance/techno/electronica/whatever the heck this stuff is, but I have only heard of two of the 'bout 100 artists they even list.
That would explain why you haven't heard of most of those artists. I couldn't name you any Country Music artists other than Garth Brooks... that doesn't mean a thing.
at least these guys know NOT to bite the hand that feeds 'em.
It was a good MP3
I have been pwned because my
This is closer to a model I can live with. I'm sorry after having lived through the heyday of free downloads it is going to take a new price point for me. I think a subscription model with unlimited downloads and no DRM is more in line with what i would pay for. I am one of those people who feels no guilt with copying. To support artists I'll go to there shows. Props for being DRM free though.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
Was that the last thing the server said after this article got posted on Slashdot?
I subscribe to eMusic.com which has independent artists. The use the subscription method, but you get MP3s and most are high bit rate. I also buy electronica music at WombMusic.com, they have up and coming DJs and artists and sell MP3s by the song. The bitrates range from 192 to 320 (plenty for my ears). If you want to know if you like a DJ you can listen to the song or watch them spin live at TheWomb.com. (Or I just open my office window and listen to them from accross the street.) ;)
For continuing to be groundbreaking in everything you do.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
You mean *you* haven't heard of these artists. I've been listening to experimental electronic music for, hell, more than a decade, and I own most of the CDs that Warp ever put out. Warp is like the grandaddy of the "intelligent electronic listening music" (IDM, EBM, "braindance", whatever) and it's cool to see this. Some of that old vinyl goes for hundred's of $$$.
It would be cool to see this stuff on iTunes too but this is great.
Okay, so you think it's good because you've heard of it? I appreciate that there are certainly some good, popular, major label bands. But I've found lots of great bands on MagnaTune. I see no reason why Bleep can't do something similar. Non-DRM encumbered music, high quality recordings, and good music are a big draw for me. Being able to preview and play through bands and genres that I might otherwise not hear on the radio is an even bigger draw. Surfing around on MagnaTune is a FUN activity for me - it has brought back some of the joy I used to take in music that has really felt dead to me in recent years.
Nobody has ever heard of most of these artists.
Don't you mean YOU have never heard of any of these artists? Warp Records is, by far, the most influential and important electronic music label on earth. Autechre, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Plaid, Tortoise, Oval, Nightmares on Wax, are all on the top of the pile as far as really good electronic music is concerned. Just because YOU have never heard of them doesn't mean nobody else has... walk through the halls of the school I go to and you're just as likely to hear an Autechre track as you are Britney Spears.
sig.
Uhm, not exactly.
Warp was (and to some degree still is) THE pioneering label for experimental electronic music. Aphex Twin, who you might not have heard of, is definitely a major influence in a lot of music today. With the increasing use of synths in modern music, you can even hear Warp's influence in music that isn't strictly electronic.
I think it would be fair to say that Warp is the "Blue Note" of jazz music, but I admit that I don't know much at all about jazz, so that might be a dumb thing to say.
Warp records (and Brian Behlendorf, head of the Apache project!) are even responsible for the name of the genre on the label. It's called "IDM" which is short for "Intelligent Dance Music", a name that sounds incredibly stupid and pompous now, especially since much of the music categorized in that genre isn't danceable. But in a post to his new "idm" mailing list back in 1993, brian said he made up the name because of Warp's "Artificial Intelligence" compilations.
Anyway, Warp isn't a major label, but it's defintiely one of the huge, influential indies, so it's nothing to sneeze at.
Well, why bother commenting if this doesnt affect you? As an avid fan of Squarepusher, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin and the like, I am overjoyed to hear that I am able to hear some of the rare tracks.
To say that this isn't a major breakthrough is wrong. It's a record label, maybe not a HUGE record label that wants to rake in all the money it can get its grubby hands on, but a record label none the less. They are opening up the audio archives and allowing people to hear songs that probably only a few have heard.
And on that note, this is the perfect chance for people to preview these artists. Who knows, maybe they will start to like Intelligent Dance Music?
Yeah I'm heartbroken that I can't download Brittany Spears from the service. Instead I can buy the really cool bands that I listened to as a young teenager. I can't help you if you haven't got taste. Maybe you should invest in some of the files offered on the service.
The point is that this is the way that songs should be sold on the internet - whole back catalogues offered by the labels themselves. Maybe one day we can have some API that will let companies offer many labels' music from one site, but right now the lowest-common-denominator approach taken by Apple and others will not promote competition and better deals for customers.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
Simple as that. They're trying to do everything we've wanted to see in online music. Support them, and show that it CAN work.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
All of there music is on every P2P service. I don't see what the point is of DRM because all music and movies are always on all P2P services. The only people they hurt with DRM are the honest ones.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
Wow, their bands run the gamut from A to... well, B.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
I really gotta hand it to the folks at Warp for knowing better... the material on their label is not pop. No, you're not going to know every act on their label, and that's the point. They release the best and most diverse electronic type music of any label.
... but Warp is one of those rare labels you can probably randomly buy something out of their catalogue and appreciate it... of course, if you like that kind of music.
Some of their acts may be more well known, like Aphex Twin and The Black Dog (The latter also makes up Plaid with two members out of Black Dog)
Wildly experimental... electronic, blips, bleeps, some dance, some not, highly remixable, highly unsual, not your typical pop formulaic stuff that is structured perfectly into a verse, chorus, verse, chorus, break, chorus to fade type list of things to include in a song. Dare I say... a lot of stuff probably would be considered the electronic equivilent of jazz music.
Highly recommended for those who actually don't mind listening to the atypical electronic stuff.
But hey... I'm excited now, Warp has shown that they're aware of who their buyers are and will treat them like they should be treated: Customers, not criminals. KUDOS!
There are people who are acting badly and there are those who aren't.
Many of the RIAA/MPAA actions hurt both groups indiscriminently.
I'm not pirating or reselling their music but their aggravating "copy control" measures means I can't use CDs I buy with my Network Walkman.
I'm not pirating or reselling their movies but their irritating red dots spoil (to some extent) my enjoyment of their movies.
It is unnacceptable for them to be damaging legitimate users in this way. Not to mention the insanity of devalueing their own product in the process. I am not a criminal and won't be treated like one. I therefore do not buy any such product except in rare situations (eg LotR, I'm seeing Radiohead in concert later in the year so actually listening to the CD first is a pretty good idea). I used to buy about 4-6 CDs a month. Since this "copy controlled" stuff started showing up in Australia I have bought precicely three and only the Radiohead one has DRM.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
OS/2 Warp has been around forever (or like 8 years) and IBM still supports it. They even came out with OS/2 Warp Server for eBusiness not too long ago.
It's too bad OS/2 didn't get more play in it's day. If an 8 year old OS can still hang tight in today's market of 'new OS every 18 months,' it must be an extremely well-designed OS in the first place.
In a digital world there can be only one..
The one, the only, MrDigital.
Oh come one! They've got "Meat Beat Manifesto"!!! They were on the freakin original Matrix soundtrack! Have you been living under a rock? How about Nine Inch Nails? You've heard of them right? They've been on MTV and Much Music!!! (I admit, NiN isn't quite up to the same standards as some of the other artists here, but you must have heard of him!) They've got Philip Glass, who has written tonnes of music including an alternate operatic score for Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast". (which owns Disney's version BTW) He also scored the Qatsi trilogy, but those are art films. Well out of your baliwick obviously.
Electronica isn't everyone's cup o' tea, but it is one of the few musical genres that is currently exploring new possibilities at an explosive rate. (Unlike Rock, Pop, Metal, Country, Rap, etc. which each have a little going on in the fringes, but have mostly stagnated.) Electronica is also one of the genre's that most music stores neglect to a shameless degree. Even when you can find the CD's you want, Electronica is often priced well above most other genre's. The prices on this site are simply fantastic by comparison!
Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) is... unique. Some of his stuff is simply amazing. He creates truly original music that's pushing out frontiers left right and center. Then, every once and a while, he gets the urge to actually sing some lyrics... Ye gods!
I wish the milkman would deliver my milk, in the morning.
I wish the milkman would deliver my milk, when I'm yawning.
I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits.
I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits.
I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits.
.
.
.
(He goes on for a while. You get the picture.)
Let's just say it's a good thing that he usually keeps his yap shut and leave it at that. It just goes to show that musical and poetic genious don't always go hand and hand.
Auterche is another great electronica band that was, coincidentally on the Pi soundtrack with Aphex Twin and a few others. (Great movie despite the bad math.) There is a tonne of stuff here that I'd love to be able to buy legitimately. Frankly, if this service offered music in a lossless format I'd be blowing a wad on it. Perhaps in the future...
At first glance, I guess the reason Wrap Records (and most electronic music (EM) companies/artists I imagine) and artists do not complain too much about music piracy and some what embraces it, lays on the nature of the music itself. I believe most EM artists earn their salary through live shows at clubs, festivals, radio appearances, etc, rather than cd sales. By allowing the public to get to know the artist's music, if the fans like it, the more popular this artist gets, the more people at EM events, the more money for the artists. Because EM is not as big as most other genres, in most cases there is not enough budget to manufacture an image for these artists, so talent and popularity, based on the quality of the music itself is what determines the artist's success. Unlike most mainstream music, electronic music focuses on the music itself rather than the artist's image.
:D
Then again, it might just be because most EM comes from Europe (specially Holland, Germany) which well is very open about the whole music piracy issue
[alk]
I actually know at least one song they're selling (since it's on the Pi soundtrack), and would actually be interested in buying the album it's from (to start with), and I've bought high quality mp3s without DRM online (from Magnatune.com) previously. However, the site immediately required resizing my browser and clicking randomly to do anything. And the thing to play a song is flash. I suspect the site is also somewhat slashdotted at this point.
I'm their target market, so far as I can tell, but their site design is too much of a pain to deal with.
I agree with the choice Warp records have made. There will always be people who would buy the records because they really like the group. Sharing music/art is the best way to increase the popularity of an artist.
Its too bad that a lot people tend to look at the money instead of the art. Fame and respect I think are more important than money to an artist, if they have those they will have power to change the world.
I personally respect artists/singers/thespians/.../programmers that do it for the art and not from the money. The Internet is the best thing that has happened to them as it gives them a low cost way of broadcasting their talent and get themselves known and respected by their peers.
But money has its purpose too, here are somethings I would do to make money.
What warp is doing is also respecting the people. Sure some of them may be sending them out to P2P networks, but Warp save money on dealing with legal costs.
This money can be better utilized in advertising themselves.
If I was Warp, I would work with radio stations to add a blurb at the end of music radio stations use to go to their website.
Some of the lower end or archived music that is not making too much money I would put on P2P networks as long as they will provide some advertising spaces on their clients. Or the name of the song. With authorization from the artist of course. But I will not give any money to the artist at that point since its not really something that I can make profit on, but at least it will give the artist more exposure for little cost, because we'll just be putting it up on a low end, low bandwidth server probably on a home DSL line and let P2P do its work. We'll just add the ed2k hashes on the website. We would tack in information about how to go to the website within the file names and the ID3 tag.
I would work as the middle man between an artist and concert halls or restaurant gigs. Basically add an extranet for smaller concert halls and restaurants to request artists and artists can put their availabilities on the system, kinda like a scheduler.
I will also partner with an auction site such as eBay to sell products related to the artists.
I would also provide a utility that would provide the creation of custom made CDs which contain songs for an artist or maybe more. Perhaps release it as a Java WebStart program so I do not have to deal with a lot of bandwidth costs for running a webapp.
We would put in information about the song on moodlogic as well, its best to have the correct information from the source.
Its Artists "on demand"
Archie - CIO-for-hire
If anyone's intrigued by this idea but hasn't heard enough Warp tracks to know what's good, I would strongly recommend checking out "Come to Daddy" by Aphex Twin. It's only 8 tracks, so it should be pretty cheap.
"Selected Ambient Works" is also quite good, especially for those times when you want to listen to something subtle but your brother in law has borrowed your whale music CD. Seriously, this guy is very talented. And he drives a tank (no, it's not a joke link - just a strange domain).
Finally, I'm still waiting for the Bleep page to load up, so does anyone know if their artist's videos are alsofor sale? Squarepusher's "Come On My Selector" is my favourite video of all time.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
The catalog is a bit light on the options but there's definitely some tasty aphex twin in there and some prefuse73 and others. The sections currently are:
The check out and download was quite simple: Most of the detail below...
1. Registration was quite easy. just name email address and password.
2. they're taking paypal and mc/visa and SMS text message.
3. They report as you put things in your cart. "Total download size" of my purchase in XX.XX MB and Estimated download time (via 512K DSL/Cable)in MM:SS. The 512k DSL measure is actually accurate for my connection so I'm not sure if they are sniffing or if that is just a metric they decided to standardize on.
4. With my purchases, (indeed the old Aphex Twin stuff (good stuff BTW)) I tried to use paypal and got a " Waiting for a paypal payment report..." in the checkout pane and it kept refreshing but reporting nothing.
5. So I bit my lip and hit the back button (I'm using Mozilla 1.6b). and amazingly enough was actually back at my Paypal Credit/Debit Card option.
6. Checkout was pretty standard and very straightforward with a few unusual options I wasn't used to (I'm from the U.S. so maybe some of this stuff is normal in the U.K./Europe)
7. Interestingly theres the follow card descriptions in the dropdown. Electron Eurocard Mastercard Visa Visa Debit
8. Expiry date are xx Month and xxxx year which is nice unlike the annoying (to me anyway) spelling of the month option
9. There is also a "For Switch and Solo cards only:" Section with "Start Date:" "Issue Number:" fields
10. Strangely you then only have the option to add this information you've filled out to your profile.
11. You then loop through a more normal check out where you can select the card you want to use from a dropdown or add a new card (presumably you'd loop through what I just went through)
12. and you get "When you select 'Process Order' below your card will be debited with the total amount of $X.XX" info and are given a process order button.
13. The frame refreshes and you get "ORDER CONFIRMATION" message and "Your order has been processed succesfully." and a "DOWNLOAD YOUR ORDER" option.
14. It chugged a bit then spit back my dowloads as one big zip or as each track. with the following info below. "Click on the links above to download your tracks. PC users: You will be presented with a 'Save As...' dialog box, use this to choose the location on your local hard drive you wish to save the file too. MAC users: By default tracks will download to your Desktop, unless you have specified otherwise in your browser preferences."
15. I selected the ZIP option and the frame reloads with a bit of chugging then
"ZIPPING YOUR ORDER" "Your order is zipped and ready for download..." "Once your order has started downloading then you may continue browsing the site."and a "DOWNLOADS" button to click.
16: the Download time was respectable even with the site getting slashdotted and every IDM geek, all of which are plugged into computers incessantly (ahem... unlike myself. That's why I'm so tan... or something...), checking it out at the same time.
17: oh also, across the top nav you get the following options: LOGGED IN AS emailuser@emailaddress.tld - LOG OUT - YOUR ORDER - DOWNLOADS - PREFERENCES - FAQ - HELP - That's pretty much it. Damn well done I'd say.
Heil Sig! -Rob
that they succeed, because if they fail, DRM really will be unstoppable (not technically, of course).
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
...but here it goes again. there is a digital download service featuring independent artists called audiolunchbox that offers DRM free decently high quality mp3 and ogg downloads, it's great and is comparable in price to all the other services so far available. the slashdot crowd needs to pick up on this and fast, we can show the recording industry that this is what we want.
taken from the bleep.com faq section...
Q: WHY MP3 ?
A: MP3 is the most popular and universal format for digital music. It is the format that people most want, that is the easiest to play freely without any restrictions. We are also considering selling other files formats such as the second generation of lossy formats such as AAC or ogg or even lossless compressed formats such as FLAC or Monkeysaudio. If people are willing to pay a premium for the bandwidth cost they incur, then even 24bit versions of files could be sold.
I clicked on the Add to Cart link for the set (ignoring the preview streams, since honestly, I would buy it anyways), and after checking the privacy policy (nothing will be sold, bartered, sent to you, etc for any reason) I tried to create a new account. I was told my email was already in use, and found out that the old regular warprecords.com accounts were conveniently auto-generated for bleep.com, so I just signed in, passed through the normal checkout stuff, entered in my credit card, and two clicks later I had the option of downloading individual tracks or a ZIP of all the music.
I opened this ZIP and found that they were named "01.mp3; 02.mp3" and so on. Sort of annoying, that. The quality is standard 128-320 kb/sec VBR MP3. Winamp gave the MP3s the following properties:
MPEG 1.0 layer 3 (VBR)
44100Hz Joint Stereo
CRCs: No
Copyrighted: No
Original: Yes
Emphasis: None
The ID3v1+2 tags were entered in fully, and included the following description in "encoded by":
LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard
AFAIK, LAME is the best encoder out there, so Warp apparently knows what they're doing. The MP3s sound great. One caveat--when you buy a song or album, you are buying *that download*. Downloads did not remain in any way accessible after the initial post-purchase links were accessed, so you had better hope the download doesn't get broken or lost.
The Good
--Quality encoding, even if it is VBR.
--No DRM (obviously)
--Fast download
--Easy to use store and site navigation
--ID3 Tags fully filled out
--Album prices are great
The Bad
--Generic filenames
--Downloads aren't held as permissions on the site for redownload later
--Single download prices could be better (blame UK conversion)
All in all, I liked Warp before and that might influence how useful this site is to me, but I was satisfied with only a few very small problems, and am looking forward to more downloads.
Just because you've never heard of Warp doesn't mean they aren't significant. Warp has Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, and many other influential electronic bands. They are by no means a two bit operation.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...perhaps the fact that a lot of people share the entire Warp collection on Soulseek was an instigating factor for the launch of this service?
That's very impressive, as long as they don't insist on gouging customers for bandwidth. It shouldn't cost more than $2 tops to transfer a full 24-bit album uncompressed.
This is the future of digital music downloads, at least for real music enthusiasts and hardcore fans: get the original masters, higher quality than CDs. I can't stress enough that this is a good thing.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
I'm not a big electronic music fan and I really like Aphex Twin. They did the soundtrack for the movie Pi and helped make the movie trippy and great.
-B
What I want to see, (and if any of you venture capitalists out there want to pump some money into it, contact me through slashdot) is [story follows]:
When I lived in Indonesia a few years ago (well, about 20) we used to go to the [pirate] tape shop. We (that's the entire family, mum, dad, me and definately baby brother) would spend hours in the Delta tape shop listening to music at a table on headphones, deciding what of that music we wanted to buy, and then buying what we liked (prices were cheap). I was 10. I bought Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, the Chipmunks, Hall and Oates (I am ashamed of that one), Hooked on Classics (a bit embarassed about that), Queen, the Police, The Who, and more music than the average 10 year old would find difficult to imagine, both in terms of quantity and quality. It was a nice social event, and I have very fond memories of it.
Now. I have recently fixed up my old CDs to live on a new 30gb hard drive and a dedicated ogg player - old p100 laptop with the jukebox running as root so that ogg123 can run nice -20 or whatever, so I'm sold on digital formats for music rather than having to rely on one piece of removable media per artist or compilation. However downloads do not cut it for me. Me, and most of the rest of the global population are stuck on dialup or no convenient internet access whatsoever. But, we would benifit from the digital revolution.
So: what I want to see is a shop with a load of tables and a load of headphones [you can see where this is going], in a real bricks and mortar shop where you can listen to potential purchases burn CDs, save to removal media, save to hard drive, your iPod and so on. You sell your tracks or albums at a reasonable price, you turn your shop into a social hub, and you can carry an enormous back catalogue, beyond the wildest dreams of music stores as they currently exist. More by using tools like debian's apt-proxy. As far as I can see, this would be like a licence to print money once you get the labels or the artists on board.
So, what would it take. A few terabytes of storage. Cooperation from a critical mass of music distributors. A couple to a few months of time for a small team of programmers.
So, who's going to do it. I'm available as a consultant.
"...we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that." B.Spears 2003
...why is Drukqs a corrupt "copy protected" CD in Germany? Was it re-mastered by another company beyond Warp's control or something?
Have you ever heard ogg comapred to mp3 at the same bitrate? It is fairly superior and my hearing isnt even all that good. As a matter of fact I can't hear all that well and I can still tell the difference. I'm not deaf or anything, but my hearing isn't superb like most crazy audio codec people claim. Linux wasn't popular in '91, but we pushed it and its hitting mainstream now. Ogg may not be popular now but its made alot of progress especially considering that it is compatible with some portable players. If we push it hard enough then maybe we can let Ogg be the standard for DRM-free music.
Regards,
Steve
P.S. And its community is far larger then 1056. Where did you get this number from?
Shameless promotion...more or less.
c d.html
:)
If you want to support good record labels you can also check out rewind-records.com which is owned by Soundmurderer, who is also signed to Rephlex (Aphex Twin's label). In the Rewind Single's section there are all decent quality mp3s you can download.
Soundmurderer & SK1 have their CD out here: http://www.rephlex.com/2001releases/rew001/rew001
and I just got the go-ahead to update their website with tracks on their singles at www.rewind-records.com, so check it out if you like Ragga jungle.
Vinyl cost $5 when I was growing up
In what year were you "growing up," and what was the median wage then?
and there's no good reason music should cost any more than that now. It costs less to produce now
What makes you think that? Production (not reproduction) of copyrighted works is a process of research and development, and historically, R&D has been labor-bound. Promotion is also labor-bound. The price in dollars of labor will tend to rise over time; see "cost-push inflation" in any economics book for the details.
So I was playing this song... you know... when my computer starts going "bleep bleep bleep"...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
OK say you have 400 CD's.
Keep good enough record and you can buy them back from the insurance when some shite steals them.
What if the bugger steals you computer with 400 CD's worth on your hard drive?
Thats like 4-6 grand worth to get your collection back (assuming 10 song per CD on average)
With the insurance I have I'm SOL.
What about yours?
Quack, quack.
Doesn't really matter who their bands are, they are still doing stuff for the best interest of us (they dont really need to). Artists do need to start somewhere, and MP3's are the best way, the RIAA tries to punish smaller artists. If all the smaller companies do something like this, the amount of variety on our radio's once again will be massive, instead of the same 20 songs being played over and over again, the ones being pushed by the big companies. So, no matter how small the music distributor, this is great for us and all musicians, because maybe for once we wont need to put up fully with the teeny boppers choice of music on the radio, because everyones choice of music will become broad enough that we wont just be listening to what the major music companies shove down our throats
I now have yet another site to show to people so they can see how not to integrate Flash with a site.
Hover-scrolling arrows for text? Navigation elements mysterious and small? Strange layouts that are hard to read, regardless of how big or small your browser window is?
As much as I thought DR was cool in high school, they have not changed one whit since 1997. They are just too cool for you.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
That should have read "Richard D. James". He uses several aliases including Caustic Window and Polygon Window which are also featured on Warp Records.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
As a long-time Warp/SKAM fan, I couldn't be happier to see something like this both for them and for us. Also, it looks like if you're running IE on Windows (and presumably at least some other browser/OS configuration) you can also stream every one of the audio files, so the whole thing is even "listen before you buy".
As an avid mp3 trader, I can see myself using this a lot. Stuff I could only find before @128k bitrate (not good enough), or wasn't able to find, etc.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
for non-commercial use, and non-commercial sharing.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
I will even - and lean in close here, peckerheads - pay for stuff that I already downloaded for free just to get the aforementioned nice ID tags and bitrate quality I want, not to mention knowing the artists get their due. Yup. And seeing as I would have paid for those tracks I'm not about to go throwing them on a P2P - they're mine.
Also, I'm not in the continental United States but last time I checked my currency converts into USD just fine but you won't take it (I'm talking to you, iTunes). So here I've been, out in the cold, clutching a fistful of dollars, my nose pressed up against the glass of Apple's spiffy new online music store unable to get in. Then along comes Bleep. Not only do they have stuff I couldn't find on iTunes (Boards Of Canada) but - get this - they will actually sell it to me. So I bought, and I'll keep on buying. I bought songs I had already downloaded for free. While looking for those songs I found more stuff I didn't even know I wanted and I bought those too. Hell, while downloading the big-ass zipfile I went back, had another look and now I have TWO big-ass zipfiles to download.
So in closing let me sum up: treat P2P like what it really is - free advertising and marketing info - embrace it then make the damned music available to buy at high quality and DRM free. Do you really think the success of iTunes is because it has DRM?? Do you know what would happen to sales if the tracks on iTunes suddenly went DRM free? Sales would remain constant, and would even pick up as the word got out to ornery pricks like me who just won't touch anything with DRM in it.
But you won't do any of it and Apple and other non-luddites will eat your lunch.
Bite my balls Dinosaurs,
Angry of Sydney
I wish all the CDs I bought were like that.
Bleep doesn't. Follow the link in the OP and check out their FAQ.
I've not tried it out myself yet, but I'm guessing the web-based nature means that it will also work under any OS with an up-to-date browser.
TiggsTiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
In many cases, the criminals are better off than the customers. Of course, in these cases the criminals are also known as "executives"
I guess that artists are more than happy with such a system.
Want to know how much iTunes gives ?
Let's overcome our weakness.
Okay, I just went there for the first time. Now, their artist selection is small. Probably too small to go anywhere. However, from a technical standpoint, they are *spot* on. Besides offering music in the format folks want, they even provide a free Internet radio station that you can listen to. If you hear something that you like, you can zip over to their web site and buy it. That's a damned intelligent system.
If I were them, I'd put out a patch for Shoutcast/Icecast in xmms and talk to the Nullsoft folks about doing the same for WinAMP to stream a "buy it" (or at least "for more information on this song") link along with each song. When a song's getting streamed, the user can just click to bring up a page in their web browser to let them buy the song (or album containing the song, or whatnot). That'd make it ideal for folks who want to sell these things. I think you'd see a lot more try-before-you-buy Internet radio stations.
May we never see th
I believe potential criminals should be treated like customers too.
While your line sounds funny, it's actually true, since a potential criminal is not a criminal, ie. innocent until proven guilty.
However, while the label deserves credit for not blindly following the myopic behaviour of the big labels and not supporting the police-state behaviour of the RIAA, the system they operate is at heart still wrong. Artists have no business passing ownership of their work to a third party for all eternity, as this just feeds that greed machine and is the real root of all this evil.
There once was a need for placing oneself into perpetual slavery in some circumstances, but that no longer holds in these days of inexpensive small-batch pressing and easy online presence and distribution. Studios and labels nowadays need be no more than technical and promotional subcontractors, not feudal barons squeezing their serfs dry as in previous decades.
The arithmetic of musical serfdom is just plain scary.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
That's strange, I some of the early Pulp L.P's were on Warp Records, but I can't find them on this site. They were the rare classics that I couldn't afford when I was really into them at Sheffield Uni in the early 90's.
As one of the most famous bands to have recorded for Warp, it is a bit surprising that they don't sell Pulp. Come on Warp, sort it out, I'm ready to buy.
Okay, I just signed up and downloaded EP7 by Autechre. Very cheap (as a full album purchase), very fast, certainly good enough quality for me and my iPod. I'll be using this service a lot and I hope they really clean up.
For information, payment is either standard cards or Paypal, and after purchase your tracks are made available for a standard browser-based download, either individually or in a zip file. Transfer is very fast (depending on your own connection, natch.)
There are a few oddities with prices - Sabres of Paradise's Wilmot EP is 2.99 complete, which is 1 more than the two tracks bought individually. There are also a lot of small tracks (such as the 'bolts' on Black Dog's Spanners album) that cost 99p for 20 seconds or so. But those kind of tracks you'd only really want as part of the full album, where the average price per track would be far less...
However, given that the selection of tracks and albums is very comprehensive, a few glitches are to be expected, and are easily worked around.
I urge anyone who's interested in online music and hasn't heard of Warp to give the site a try - all the files are available as previews (with fade-outs) and you'll find some wonderful stuff there. Warp's an electronica label, but a very eclectic one. If you don't get on with Aphex Twin, try Mira Calix. If you can't gel with Autechre, check out Sabres of Paradise. If Boards of Canada don't blow your kilt up, listen to The Gentle People. All unique, all worthwhile, all available.
Audiophiles note (because the 'what-no-Ogg' crowd are already in effect, I see) that the FAQ states that Warp are considering offering other codecs, including FLAC, and maybe offering higher bitrates for a higher price. Early days, though - the first thing they need is support. And here's someone who really, truly deserves it for a change.
Magnatune is a social experiment of sorts which may or may not have good music. I don't know. However, the fact I don't know whether they have any good music does say something.
Warp Records, meanwhile, was for quite awhile the most important and progressive group in electronic music, and while I haven't been paying enough attention as of late to know if they still hold this label, I know for certain they continue to push the boundaries of the art.
Perhaps they are not "first" at this particular thing, but they have been offering significant amounts of downloads as samples of parts of their albums for years.
And if you do want to get into a pissing contest of which label "got it" first, my nomination would be Astralwerks. They had, in like 1995 or some shit, I don't even remember, back around the time Dig Your Own Hole was released, before MPEG Layer III even *EXISTED* and when MPEG Layer II was a format almost no one used, realaudio offerings of absolutely huge swaths of their catalog. For most of their releases about that time, you could listen to about half the album without buying it. They also ran a web newsletter letting people know when they'd put up more music, and they'd periodically do one day events where you could listen streaming to entire albums on the day they were released. This was essentially my introduction to electronic music, and I seriously think it helped them-- it led to me buying a decent amount of Astralwerks stuff even though I had to do a decent amount of searching for it at the time...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Without getting into a comparison between their music ( being a subjective matter I'm sure most of you would rather we not waste each others time on that argument ), I think it should be pointed out that warp and magnatunes have significant differences.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but magnatune is a record label created around an internet business model. From day one it's goal has been to create a successful online music label.
Warp Records is an existing and highly successful independent music label that has chosen to embrace an honourable approach to online music sales. This is very significant the the differences between warp and magnatunes on this are very important. They could have very easily submitted their catalogue to an existing online music service, and complied with their restrictive terms and technologies. Instead they have chosen to implement their own system ( using lame encoder is a serious bonus for me ) that does not have pointless drm etc.
Warp Records has been an active an innovative label for about a decade. They were the first record label that I purchased music from directly on the internet ( around 1996/7 iirc ) and today I have just downloaded a rare AFX EP that I have been trying to get hold of for years.
Europe has a vibrant independent music culture and I hope that warp become an example to the entire scene. I wish them the best of luck with it, and I hope others follow in their footsteps.
-- hjw http://puzl.info/
Between this and a couple of other companies mentioned in posts, it sounds like a couple of companies have learned something:
Customer service is the difference between low piracy at a reasonable price and high piracy at any price.
You can acquire music anywhere. You can easy use P2P or copy a friend's CD - the latter has good value as a promotional tool.
But when you treat someone as though they are already a criminal - that they need to protect their music from activities that the end user typically considers legal - the value of music at any price drops. No one can argue that iTunes is unsucessful, but they have a tricky balance - enough DRM to protect against illegal use while allowing quite a bit of fair use. Sadly, this will not last forever. A new tool will come out, or record companies will change terms, or something. Enjoy it while it lasts.
I now respect Warp Records. I'm a sucker for customer respect (part of why I'm satisfied with working at Wal-mart while I'm in college - because they too show genuine concern, at least at 2597 (my store)). I don't even think I had heard of them, but now I'll check out their site. Maybe buy a tune or two.
I noticed they only carry Warp's catalog in MP3 form, although the Warp Mart online CD/vinyl service also carries SKAM, Rephlex, and many others. Too bad, I was hoping to pick up the tracks that weren't on the Caustic Window compilation due to copyright or some other nonsense.
:)
It will be interesting to see if they release the unreleased Aphex stuff, like Analog Bubblebath 5, or Melodies from Mars, both of which I have on mp3, but poor quality. I would most definatly buy high quality VBR versions.
I own most of the Warp catalog in analog, record form. I think the tracks sound harsh and thin on CD. Autechre's albums in particular, sound nice, full and meaty on vinyl, come out with messy treble and anemic bass on digital. I belive one of Autechre's releases even says "Incomplete without record pops and clicks."
I most definatly WILL use the service to download the rare albums I don't own. Hangable Auto Bulb is almost impossible to find in the states, and the second version is even more rare.
I wonder if they would sell T-shirts digitally? Still looking for an AFX one
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Even though we, the technological cognoscenti, consider any form of DRM to be an encroachment on our rights and furthermore a "broken" product, we need to realize that non-independent music will NEVER EVER be legally released to the wild in a totally unencumbered form. Never.
Indie music will be and often already is freely purchasable, but anything from the major labels will simply have to include some form of DRM. You..oops, 'we'...bitch about iTunes as a "good idea but totally unacceptable [because of DRM]"; did you not listen to what Steve said about the copy protection, that without it, there would be virtually no large-label music for sale online? That the RIAA et al. will simply not allow 'free' mp3s to be sold? Dystopian perhaps, but reality for the time being.
I do understand the arguments against DRM, and I would LOVE high-quality unencumbered mp3s, but at least for the forseeable future, you/we're simply going to have to compromise a bit. (If you have any interest in owning major-label music, that is.) Hell, maybe even SUPPORT iTMS - would you rather have that DRM scheme, which is arguably the best middle ground, or WMA's total-lockdown?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
I'm glad they finally launched this baby but some of the songs I wanted the most aren't on there (Sweet Exorcist: Test Tone 1-3, Wooden Spoon "Souf Souf"). Hopefully it's just a matter of time before the complete back catalog is up.
"Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space..."
Not to start any trouble here but... Have you ever used Ogg or looked at the codec and/or source? It is superior and compresses better while retaining the same quality as mp3. The developers are extremely intelligent and ogg is being used in many places because of its benefits. EA Games used ogg in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, ogg was used in Soul Rever 2, and in Unreal Tournament 2003. Many developers are starting to realize that it is superior. Linux is arguably superior to windows (and please no comments on GUIs) and Microsoft hired thousands of people to develop that. Just because its free doesnt mean its bad, that is a common misconception. Microsoft can hire whoever they want but they can't compete with brilliant minds across the globe collaborating to produce something better for free. Microsoft uses a ton of free source code for various things and government agencies, like the NSA, have shown that Linux and BSD are more secure and reliable. It's fairly simple to prove that Ogg is of superior quality when you put the codecs side by side.Its one thing to argue about someone's opinion on whether or not something sounds better, but you can't argue anything when comparing codecs. Its clear which is the best, and it just also happens to be free.
Regards,
Steve
Listen for yourself
Or heres the documentation proving it.
This is cool, and definitely a step in the right direction. But for $9.99 I can buy a used copy of most any album, and get full quality sound and the cover art package (which is important to me, although my tastes aren't primarily in electronic music, which seems to often have pretty sparse packaging). If they were selling MP3/ogg singles for, say, 50 cents or less, I would probably buy a bunch as a replacement for things like Kazaa, which are mostly try-before-you-buy mechanisms for me. Still, way to go Warp.
Now, when Relapse Records gets on board with this, I'll be all over it. Those old 7" splits are fucking hard to find.
Just trying to open someone's head! I mean "mind!" Open someone's mind, um, to the possibilities! With explosives!
Ok I just spend 100 Euros on the store...
LFO
Boards of Canada
GAK
F.U.S.E.
Aphex Twin
Jimi Tenor
It's great, for my part - I love it!
Mute, another UK based electronica record label, is doing this. It wasn't there whole selection, just "net-realeases."
I actually tried to submit it as a story a few months ago, but whatever.