Audio Lunchbox: Music with no DRM

An anonymous reader writes "MacCentral just posted an article on Audio Lunchbox, an online music store dedicated to music by independent artists and labels. ALB offers all of its music in DRM free MP3 (192 kbps) and Ogg Vorbis (Q6) formats with iTunes style pricing and a completely web based and platform independent delivery system."

Comments

$0.99 ??

[strictnein]

Am I the only one not busting a nut at the chance of paying $0.99 to download one song? Or $9.99 to download an album? To me this is hardly an improvement over current pricing. Maybe it's just that the stuff I listen to isn't typically available (live trance sets) but I really can't see paying much more than $0.25 for a single downloadble track. Maybe $0.50 if I really enjoyed the artist.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like it's the attack of the idiot moderators again. A story about a online store that, along with not using DRM, sells tracks for $1 and full CDs for $10 comes onto slashdot. Someone comments on how he (she?) finds those prices too high. The post is then marked as offtopic. This is very strange.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Shakrai]

Am I the only one not busting a nut at the chance of paying $0.99 to download one song? Or $9.99 to download an album?

Am I the only one who doesn't bitch about 99 cent pricing? Bitch about the DMA all you want (I'll be right there with you) but don't bitch about the pricing.

How much work do you think goes into writing the average book? A new hard cover typically goes about $20-$40.

I'm not suggesting that it's as hard to make an album as it is to write a book but there's at least as much creative talent at work here. That sort of talent deserves to be fairly compensated. Could you or I do it?

If you want to bitch about something bitch about RIAA taking 90% of that $0.99 when all they did is market the artist in question. The $0.99 itself isn't the problem.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Krondor]

I don't know.. I'm not a fan of iTunes in the least, but I do like the idea of DRM free MP3s 192 Kbps and Ogg Vorbis Q6. I would like to see more of the money actually go to the artists though, instead of apple's piddly couple of cents per download. I mean that just encourages the rape of musicians (I'm not talking about pop musicians that sell millions of songs, but smaller bands that barely make do).

Re:$0.99 ??

[syphax]

If you want non-brand-name music for $0.25 a song, try http://www.emusic.com, which offers 40 songs for $10 a month. It used to be unlimited, but they cut back awhile ago.

You have to hunt for the good stuff, but overall, Emusic isn't bad. No DRM, either.

Re:$0.99 ??

[smonner]

The problem is that the credit card fees make $0.99 just about the minimum you could charge for a single song and not lose money. Their lunch card idea is pretty good (pay one flat fee and get free songs), and does bring the cost per song down, but you end up having to commit to a certain number of songs. I'm thinking that might be a bit of a tough sell. They might have been better off going with only lunch cards and really pushing the fact that, though you have to pay $10 up front, you are getting songs for $0.50 each (or whatever it works out to).

Re:$0.99 ??

[Rick Zeman]

Am I the only one not busting a nut at the chance of paying $0.99 to download one song? Or $9.99 to download an album? To me this is hardly an improvement over current pricing. Maybe it's just that the stuff I listen to isn't typically available (live trance sets)

Get yerself in enough of a trance and you won't notice....;-)

Re:$0.99 ??

[Nick_dm]

I'm with you here, especially for a lossy format (not worried about the quality, more about being able to move it to different formats in the future). I don't think droping prices would really hurt profits that much.

When I used to buy quite a lot of music (I don't anymore because I'm a student and I don't have much spare cash, though I download less too) there would always be lots of stuff I wanted but couldn't afford. I'd mainly buy during sales so I was paying at 60/70% normal retail price but I still didn't have enough money to get every album I wanted. If the prices dropped more I would have spent pretty much the same amount of money but with more CDs to show for it.

Now there is an argument against this with CDs that have production and transport costs (a weak argument though as it is still a fraction of a CD's price) but I doubt bandwidth/server load is expensive enough to make a difference here.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Krondor]

I'm not suggesting that it's as hard to make an album as it is to write a book but there's at least as much creative talent at work here

.99 cent song downloads aren't an album it's a song. It's like 99 cents for a chapter of a book. I won't argue the crateive talent at work (except by pop stars that don't do their own work, oh those unsung studio musicians), but I do think that 99 cents is a bit high. Although if it is actually good I would pay that. I do like how single song downloads would make artists more prone to focus on making a few good songs then a lot of bad ones.

...bitch about RIAA taking 90% of that $0.99 when all they did is market the artist in question.

Hmm suspiciously similar to my post that got modded flamebait, but anyways I totally agree with this. However, it's not the RIAA it's the record labels that are members of the RIAA just a small distinction. Anyways, here's a great site for information about how iTunes abuses artists just as badly as the old distribution systems. I wonder if the new one will work more fairly. I certainly hope so.

Re:$0.99 ??

[orthogonal]

Am I the only one not busting a nut at the chance of paying $0.99 to download one song?

Precisely!

The problem is the same one that kept me -- a fan of classical music -- from ever making many impulse buys of classical music in record stores.

It's difficult to tell a good CD from a bad CD without first listening to it.

With Indie music, the problem is compounded: a bad recording of Bach's The Goldberg Variations is still a recording of Bach's The Goldberg Variations. A bad recording of a bad Indie composition called "Crumpetty Crumpetty Bug-a Lug-a Bomf" is an irredeemable waste of 99 cents.

Back when eMusic.com allowed unlimited downloads, this wasn't a problem: I could try out an artist I'd never heard of, and if on listening I didn't like his work, I was out nothing more than the time to download that album. Now that eMusic.com limits me to 40 tracks per month, I'm stuck with the same problem as in the record store: how do I apportion my limited resources without getting burnt?

The safe answer to this quandary is to only purchase music that you know well, or is popular, to some definition of popular. "Popular among listeners of folk music" doesn't result in my getting pablum as bad as "popular among 15 year-old girls", but using either definition of popular means that newer, less knowm and Indie artists won't even be considered for purchase.

The other answer is to spend a lot of time reading reviews, asking advice of other listeners, and otherwise doing research; the problem is that that's costly, in terms of time, too. How much, exactly, is getting good Indie music supposed to be worth to me?

So when I see stuff like Audio Lunchbox or MagnaTunes, well, I like the idea but I'm inclined not to part with my money, for fear of buying bad music. Since I already know that anything by Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger or Wilhelm Furtwangler will be good, my inclination is to spend my money on CDs by these well-known artists.

As a consequence, I'll avoid the bad Indie music but I'll also miss the good Indie music.

But I'd be far more willing, as the parent poster suggests, to take a risk on Indie music if the risk were smaller: at $2.00 per album I'd be able to get five albums for $10.00, as opposed to one for $9.99. If the odds are that one of those five would be good, then I'd have the same number of good albums for the same price: one good album for ten bucks.

And having found a good album, I'd be willing to pay somewhat more for another album by that same artist -- though I still probably wouldn't be willing to pay what I'd pay for Bob Dylan.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Zardoz44]

Please don't bring books and intellectual property into this. Of the $40 for a new hardcover, you're paying about $3-5 for the author. The rest goes to the publisher for actually printing the book with good paper, good ink, etc.., and shipping the books to the bookstores and so forth.

The reason people download music and not books is that it is cheaper and easier to download and burn to a CD. If you buy a hardcover for $40, you're paying $35 for the medium, not the content.

With peer to peer, the medium has been made enormously cheap. Why are we paying $.99 for a track (equivalent to store prices) when their distribution costs are all but eliminated (bandwidth + servers are much cheaper than stores, staff, shipping, and packaging).

Re:$0.99 ??

[mandalayx]

Am I the only one not busting a nut at the chance of paying $0.99 to download one song? Or $9.99 to download an album? To me this is hardly an improvement over current pricing. Maybe it's just that the stuff I listen to isn't typically available (live trance sets) but I really can't see paying much more than $0.25 for a single downloadble track. Maybe $0.50 if I really enjoyed the artist.

But if people will pay $5-15 to eat out when they can have subsistence at home, then what's up here?

Re:$0.99 ??

[rjelks]

Artists need to be compensated, but I agree with the parent poster. The value we get from a single track != $.99. I think what bothers me about it is the mp3 is intangeble. If I went to the used CD store and spent 8 bucks on a CD, I'd have something I could resell if I got sick of it. If I download, say a whole album, for $9.99, I can't transfer ownership to anyone else. It seems like downloading songs is more like a service than purchasing a product. Don't get me wrong, I love the mp3 format, but I think I'll save it for converting my music that is purchased on CD's(used CD's because I'm cheap)

-

Re:$0.99 ??

[Dr_LHA]

Why are you such a cheapskate? 25cents a song, come on!

Albums at $10 is the right price point, you're seriously suggesting that an album should cost less than a magazine or a big mac meal at McDonalds? Less than half of the cost of one ticket to the movies?

Think about it in terms of value, an album can give you many hours, even years of enjoyment. If you can get CD for $10 in the shops then fair enough, do that. Most of us tend to find that CDs are more like $13-17 these days.

If you really care about the plastic case and book so much then you'd be happy to pay the extra. Myself when I realised that I spend most of my time *listening* to music and not admiring the case, I realised that online music stores are an excellent alternative to going to the shop.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Grant_Watson]

The problem is that the credit card fees make $0.99 just about the minimum you could charge for a single song and not lose money.

While this is a good point, hasn't it been said before that RIAA member companies are the limiting factor on how low the prices can go? I don't know where that was said, and this is Slashdot, so take that for what it's worth... but I think there are other factors than credit card fees involved.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not suggesting that it's as hard to make an album as it is to write a book but there's at least as much creative talent at work here. That sort of talent deserves to be fairly compensated. Could you or I do it?

Actually, I do it and I have friends running two different, fairly well known labels (they get play in mags like AP or on the front page of insound.com). And to me, $0.99/track and $9.99 is too much. The last time I ordered CDs, $10 was the average price. All of them were new, I even bought a couple of cartel albums like "The Cars" (why buy the Strokes ripping them off when the original is so much better?) The time before that I bought something like 9 albums and 6 EPs for like $75. So actually $10 an album for lesser audio quality, having to buy my own CD-Rs and putting on my own artwork is really a pretty poor deal. I think artists and labels need to be able to set their pricing as I'm certain many of them would be much more aggressive, just like they are with physical album prices. There's a lot of hope for indie music to gain marketshare through the web but you can't beat the cartel by playing their game the same way they do.

Re:$0.99 ??

[orthogonal]

try http://www.emusic.com, which offers 40 songs for $10 a month.

If you're already an emusic.com customer, and you find emusic.com's "My Collection" page to be a slow, tedious, pain in the ass, and you'd prefer to download to your local harddrive an HTML page showing every album you've downloaded from emusic.com with links back to each album page at emusic.com, get this free program for Windows, Mac, or linux:
Get Collection.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple passes on something like ~70cents per song to the publisher. For those "pop musicians that sell millions of songs", most of that generally gets absorbed by the record company.

However, if the "smaller bands that barely make do" that you claim to be concerned about are with a decent indie label (like CDBaby, or any of the other indie labels on the iTMS), then they can get alot more of that money.

Apple pays the artists plenty, as long as the artists don't sell their souls to RIAA middlemen first.

What exactly do you want Apple to do? Refuse to sell any music from any labels that don't give their artists a big enough cut? (thus assuring that said artists get no money whatsoever from iTunes)

Re:$0.99 ??

[asdf 101]

.. hardly an improvement over current pricing ..

True and actually more like hardly any improvement on the terrestrial retail model at all.

The real revolution in sharing music and retailing content online is coming from some of the smaller and more innovative (although little heard of) companies like Divendo and Mercora.

Re:$0.99 ??

[krunk7]

Unless your downloading your music than sending a couple of dollars to the Artists your just another p2p'r justifying his theft.

How many songs do you currently have on your hard drive? 500? 1000? 5000? At your suggested cost of $0.25 per song you'd owe $250/1000 songs.

I'm personally morally ambiguous towards p2p, but it does irk me when the justifications start flowing.....I'd have more respect for those that just come out and say "I don't care if it was .10 going straight to the artist, I'd still dowload it for free." At least than you'd have honesty if not integrity.

[disclaimer] If you are one of the moral few that actually DO care about the artists and ARE sending them compensation, than I beg your pardon.[/disclaimer]

Re:$0.99 ??

[krunk7]

I did 2 quick searches and found artists that I've had trouble finding at other online stores.....not bad. Thx

Re:$0.99 ??

[William R. Dickson]

Well, there's only about a minute of music in four minutes of trance, so I can understand you wanting to pay less for that.

Re:$0.99 ??

[swcrissman]

So from your numbers I can download new bestsellers for $5? Where, please?

In reality, the situation is barely different than the recording industry. Yes, a higher percent of the cost is invested in the materials, so their margins are probably less, but you're still paying for content, not medium.

Otherwise, you'd be able to download books in compressed plain text format for incredibly cheap. The format would compress much better than music does, so you'd save across the boards as far as bandwidth goes, so your overhead would be even less than it is for the music industry.

The fact that no such service exists tells me that content is still king. True, more people would still buy the book because they -want- the medium more than people who buy songs do, but you're still paying for the content, else we'd have cheaper online book services.

Re:$0.99 ??

[lusid1]

The reason people download music and not books is that it is cheaper and easier to download and burn to a CD. And here I thought it was because most people are too lazy to read.

Re:$0.99 ??

[narkosys]

frankly i would pay the 0.99 per song and for about 10 dollars create an album in which i like EVERY song as opposed to the 15+ bucks i would be paying at the record store for an album with maybe 1 or two tunes that i enjoy

and besides this is supporitng the artist directly which is a good ting

narkosys

Re:$0.99 ??

[mdpye]

I do like how single song downloads would make artists more prone to focus on making a few good songs then a lot of bad ones.

Aargh! This is the worst thing about the whole individual download system, it has the potential to destroy the album as a coherent document.

Thankfully, the musicians I listen to are good enough to be able to put together an album rather than a couple of overplayed singles and some filler, but there is a real danger that artists will have to concentrate on making one song which appeals to the lowest common denominator in order to make the sales. That would be a great loss to those who actually enjoy music as opposed to those who just listen to the odd bit now and again (at whom the individual d/ls are aimed).

If you are annoyed about the amount of filler on your albums then ask yourself why you bought them and if there aren't real artists out there who could make a proper job of it.

MP

Re:$0.99 ??

[the_consumer]

You are a cheap bastard. For fucks sake, it costs at least 50 cents to listen to a song on a jukebox, and you only get to listen to it once! This way, you own the song forever. You can make copies for your different devices, share 'em with your friends if you want, and you can buy whole albums for $9.99, which is a bargain compared to the cost of CDs. Plus, the artists aren't getting screwed.

Re:$0.99 ??

[asdf 101]

Firstly, I'm all for DRM free content too. In all it's entirity, DRM is such a false hope anyway for now.. or for at least as long as we still need to bridge the digital-analog divide in order to render music perceptible to us.

Secondly, on the evils of the record industry and it's plague of the record labels, I think we should do well to ensure that musicians are rightly compensated by making use of services such Divendo and Mercora that are seemingly "non-feudal" and apparentely "more appropriate" in a contemporary context.

Re:$0.99 ??

[strictnein]

Unless your downloading your music than sending a couple of dollars to the Artists your just another p2p'r justifying his theft.

Strange... the music (live trance sets) I download are almost always posted and/or approved by the artists themselves. My other main source was MP3.com (which I bought CDs from) and am still trying to find a nice replacement for that.

I don't use p2p software.

Re:$0.99 ??

[jfengel]

There's even more than paper and bookstores. A lot of other people go into writing a book. My book, which goes for about $40, had an editor, a copy editor, a typesetter, an indexer, an artist for the cover, and a small army of reviewers who received honoraria. The postage alone when we were doing the final phases of reviewing ran into the hundreds of dollars. In the end, yeah, I get about five bucks a copy.

Mind you, this is a technical book from a major reputable publisher (Addison-Wesley), so it got the luxe treatment. Fiction would get a different treatment.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

great... no DRM, ogg support and now, price is the issue?

i guess you won't "buy" anything until it's DRM-free, Ogg supported and costs $0.00, won't you?

Re:$0.99 ??

[starnix]

The point is, they are only knocking about 40% off the price of the song when compared to buying it on a CD. Lets look at the facts. Digital downloads cost them NOTHING to produce. The consumer is getting NOTHING tangible. This is pure profit for them. They would make mad cash selling them for lets say $.45. I know I would buy them. But since they like to price gouge, screw them.

Re:$0.99 ??

[bwy]

If you want to bitch about something bitch about RIAA taking 90% of that $0.99 when all they did is market the artist in question. The $0.99 itself isn't the problem.

So techincally you could give the artist 50 cents of every song, 15 cents to the record label, and 10 cents to Apple and it everyone involved would be making more than they are now (an incredible increase for the artist, who arguably deserves it the most), and sell the songs for 75 cents, giving the guy who is complaining about the price a 25 cent break.

I don't see a problem with those type of numbers. And why should the consumer give a shit why stuff is overpriced? If it is the RIAA's fault, I don't care. I just don't buy the product just like anything else in the store that I think is overpriced. Someone on the other end (Apple, the artist, whoever) needs to work out the numbers. The RIAA is only alive because someone on the other side of the fence embraces them. The fact the Apple is losing money on the songs at 99 cents means something is way off base here.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Shakrai]

Otherwise, you'd be able to download books in compressed plain text format for incredibly cheap. The format would compress much better than music does, so you'd save across the boards as far as bandwidth goes, so your overhead would be even less than it is for the music industry.

Think how much better it would compress if you used a lossy method like MP3 or AAC. I think I'm going to patent such a method for eBooks... I'll call it "Readers Digest Condensed Books." ;)

(Sorry, I agree with what you said but I had to get my sarcasm quota out for the day before I see my girlfriend ;)

Re:$0.99 ??

[Shakrai]

Aargh! This is the worst thing about the whole individual download system, it has the potential to destroy the album as a coherent document.

I don't know about you or John Q. Public average user but I've found that the cheaper price of albums (on iTunes) has encouraged me to buy them more then I ever would have with $14-$20 CDs.

The example that pops into my head is the fairly new Dido song "White Flag". It was played every other hour on the radio station at work for three weeks -- I fell in love with this song.

When I got around to looking it up on iTunes I saw that the Album was only $9.99 I decided to buy that instead. At the risk of losing my /. reputation by being known as a Dido fan I wound up loving just about every song on it.

Point being, that if I like the artist in question and really like one or two songs I'm likely to just buy the album. Perhaps I'm the exception rather then the rule but I find myself buying whole albums much more often since the advent of iTunes then I ever did before.

Why would I have bought one before when it would have entitled a trip to the local evil department store, finding a parking spot, waiting in line, and oh btw spending $20. In those days I would have just downloaded it off P2P and been done with it.

I do agree that it would be a shame if the album concept disappeared. Hopefully this won't happen.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is so full of shit.

Two years ago everybody was screaming about how if they only sold songs for .99c, they'd be making mad cash since you could pick and choose what you wanted to buy without buying "filler."

"Digital downloads cost them NOTHING to produce" - if true, this is only about 30 cents less than the physical manifestation of a massmarket audio cd-rom costs to create. ergo, your point is nil.

You are so full of shit.

At least have the balls to say "I infringe on copyright because it's cheap and easy" instead of this sort of apologetics.

Re:$0.99 ??

[starnix]

On the contrary, I don't infringe on copyright. I however WOULD download music if they charged a fair price for it. What if my computer crashes and my hard drive dies? Are they going to replace the music I lost? No... I will just be shit out of luck. No way I am paying for THAT!!! I will just buy used CD's until the downloadable music business gets its act together.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Blondie-Wan]

At $.25 a track they'd almost certainly be losing money - the bandwidth, infrastructure, etc. all costs money, you know, and the artists have to get something if someone else is going to sell or "sell" their work.

You know, jukeboxes have been at least $.25 to play a song one time for as long as I can remember, back to the '70s, and these days they're often more like $.50 (or $1 for 3 songs, whatever). If it's not outrageous pricing to pay $.25 or more to play a song one time (and plenty of people have been doing just that for decades, since back when a quarter was worth more than it is now), is $.99 for a copy of a song you can keep indefinitely and play as many times as you like really so egregiously overpriced?

Re:$0.99 ??

[Carton132]

$9.99 isn't exactly a bargain compared to the cost of CDs. If I wanted I could go to Best Buy and buy most new releases for that much. However, I buy most of my music directly from the labels (I listen to mostly independent stuff), and most sell albums for 12 bucks. So if I can spend the same amount, or two dollars more, AND get something tangible (I actually look forward to the inserts and artwork) well then I'll stick to CDs. However, I have made a handful of purchases from audiolunchbox in the past, along with many more from www.mordamrecords.com where most cds that are available in mp3 format cost $5.99. Now THAT is a bargain. If it's a band I'm only so-so into and I don't care for the artwork or anything to actually put my hands on, I would gladly shell out 6 bucks to try something new on a whim. That way I can buy two albums that I would have otherwise never heard for the price of one. But otherwise I'll pay the 10 or 12 bucks and get the packaging I actually look forward to.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Alan Cox]

With magnatune you can listen to the whole lot first, or just point your audio player at their streaming 'radio' feeds and see what pops up that you like.

Re:$0.99 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

So... you say you think the artists need to be compensated, but you'll only buy used cds, from wich $0 goes to the artist? brilliant!

Re:$0.99 ??

[algae]

Maybe the distribution medium is cheaper with music than with books, but how about the cost of creation? What does it take to write a book? Anywhere from $20 for a ream of paper and some pencils to $1000 for a computer and word processor. Compare that to the cost of:

Guitars, drums, microphones and mic stands, cables, amplifiers, outboard signal processing, recording gear, and engineering time.

A band's personal equipment can easily be worth up to $25,000. The cost of a good recording studio can be up to $500/hour, or another $10,000 to build your own.

Still think music is cheaper to produce than books?

Re:$0.99 ??

[larry bagina]

I'm not suggesting that it's as hard to make an album as it is to write a book but there's at least as much creative talent at work here. That sort of talent deserves to be fairly compensated. Could you or I do it?

he's talking about trance music. cat /dev/random > /dev/speaker could do it.

Re:$0.99 ??

[larry bagina]

Apple is making virtually no profit with a $0.30-$.35 cut of every song. How would Apple make more money at $.10 a song?

Re:$0.99 ??

[neilio]

>I'm not suggesting that it's as hard to make an album as it is to write a book

This would depend on the book or alblum. Lets compare a Stephen King book to Sgt. Pepper's lonely heart's club. I bet it was harder to make the alblum.

I am working on an alblum now. It sometimes takes over a year of hard work to produce an alblum from concept to finish. Books also can take over a year. (Witness the Oxford English Dictionary)

Anything worth while does. it's not just the recording process that makes the artistic work, it's writing lyrics, then the music, then arranging it, then filling it out with other instruments, producing the song (dealing with all of the people psychologically to get the best out of everyone, and "making it happen"), mixing it, reararranging, pre-master mixing, then mastering. Lets not forget about the risk and monetary investment.

All of this takes time, creativity, other people's time and creativity, and substantial monetary investment.

I think any worthwhile creative work which someone works on for a year and finishes should have both a nominal price, and some sort of copy protection.

It is a tangible good that has value. If a book were a PDF would that make it equally tangible to an MP3? Any more valuable? The MP3 actually has more information in it. Look at the file size! A five minute uncompressed 24/96 wave would undoubtably contain more information than an Oxford Dictionary PDF.

A hardbound book copy costs a lot more to produce than an mp3 copy. There's paper, leather cover, binding, the rent on the machines that printed it, transport, storage, trucking, editing, proofreading, sometimes illustration and font work. $40 for this is justifiable, if the binding is high quality. Charging $10 for the PDF isn't. That PDF costs nothing to produce, in terms of logistics and distribution.

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule about how much work a book or alblum takes. In fact the value doesn't reflect the amount of work put into it. They aren't even related. An idiot could take his entire lifetime to write a book but it wouldn't be more "valuable" than a When the Levee Breaks mp3, at least not to me.

I think .39 per mp3 is a fair deal. Think about bang for the buck. If you listen to it 20 times, that's almost 2 hours of entertainment for $.39.

But it should have some serious copy protection. You have to pay for the bandwidth at both ends, the artist and people that paid for the artist to record also need to get paid.

my 2 cents...

neilio

Re:$0.99 ??

[bwy]

Apple is making virtually no profit with a $0.30-$.35 cut of every song. How would Apple make more money at $.10 a song?

Because they'll sell more songs since the price will be lower? Somewhere there has to be a point when they've covered most of their fixed overhead and their profit margins increase?

Right now Apple spends around 25 cents to distribute each song and they're lucky to make 10 cents per song. So a more practical number might need to give Apple more of a cut. Point is, though, by cutting the RIAA out of the picture, there is room for everyone to be better off financially, including the consumer.

Re:$0.99 ??

[rjelks]

I didn't say that I had to directly compensate the artist. When I buy a used CD, it has already been bought by somebody, so therefore the artist has been payed. Why should they get payed twice for the same product? If nobody bought used CD's anymore, there wouldn't be the same level of demand that you see now for new CD's. People wouldn't be as likely to shell out $17 for a new one. People who are "boycotting" the RIAA by only buying used CD's don't understand boycotting or economics. I don't buy new CD's because I'm over 25 and like my older music, it's not a political statement. For me, pop culture kinda frozen in 1999.

-

Re:$0.99 ??

[jred]

Thanks

This could be a nice change :)

[fizz]

Screw itunes and thier crappy software. This is what we need, i hate DRM.

Re:This could be a nice change :)

[timbloom]

iTunes is nice, but being able to get music from artist willing to sell without DRM, this is exciting. Hopefully I can find artists that i don't see on iTunes here. This is definitely where I will look for song first before resorting to iTunes. Too bad they don't accept pepsi bottle caps.

Re:This could be a nice change :)

[ubrgeek]

This qualifies as "Insightful" how? I hardly think that software that has received rave reviews and awards, works exactly like it's supposed to and changed the way we deal with downloading music qualifies as "crappy." If anything, this comment should have been modded as a troll.

Re:This could be a nice change :)

[Anonymous Coward]

No DRM, Woo-hoo! I can't wait for somebody to get these out on Kazaa so I can download them for free! Wee!

Yay OGG!

[Amiga Lover]

3 cheers for ogg vorbis support!.

I didn't think I'd see it happen. THIS is a service I'll support simply due to that feature alone.

After the clamouring for ogg support that all other stores outright reject, I can see big things for these guys

Re:Yay OGG!

[webtre]

Long live Ogg and all of her open source glory!

Re:Yay OGG!

[Amiga Lover]

heh. see if you still think the same erroneous way when AmigaOS4 is released later this month.

At least one company thinks it's worthwhile enough to shell out some pretty big $$$ for. Headed for big things...

Re:Yay OGG!

[gricholson75]

After the clamouring for ogg support that all other stores outright reject, I can see big things for these guys

Yup, they will capture that huge Ogg Vorbis community. And it's mountains of disposable cash.

Re:Yay OGG!

[Rick Zeman]

After the clamouring for ogg support that all other stores outright reject, I can see big things for these guys

Yup, they will capture that huge Ogg Vorbis community. And it's mountains of disposable cash.

Beautiful use of sarcasm! Remember, music, like software and information, wants to be free....;-)

Re:Yay OGG!

[Anonymous Coward]

God help anyone who writes their own competitive codec and actually promotes it. Because you know, it is far better to sit around on your ass and take whatever Apple or Microsoft hands you and say "thank you sir" when told.

Re:Yay OGG!

[Golias]

Too bad you can't get the files in AAC. I might be interested in buying some of this music if it was.

(Actually, if I wanted a song from this store, it would not be a factor. 192 VBR MP3 sounds just fine on my iPod... but there's at least one of you OGG cheerleaders saying the exact same thing about your favorite codec on Every Single God-Damned iTunes Music Store and/or iPod Thread, so I figured I should return the favor.)

Re:Yay OGG!

[MsGeek]

Ogg sounds better than AAC and it beats the living crap out of MP3. I'm going to be supporting Audio Lunchbox. They have the totally right idea. No DRM+Ogg support=something I can get behind whole-heartedly. Besides, they carry Epitaph Records' catalog. W00t.

Re:Yay OGG!

[sjbrown]

Well, they just got me to buy an album due to that very feature.

And now I have incentive to tell my friends about this site.

They have eliminated barriers to entry for some users. I guess time and money will tell if that is sufficient to keep them in business.

It had to happen sooner or later

[Shakrai]

I wonder how RIAA will take notice (rest assured they will take notice)? Will they view it was a threat and try to buy out these independent artists to close this down, ignore it, or see that it actually works?

I'd like to think they'd know a good thing when they see it but I'm not that optimistic (or naive depending on your viewpoint). I'd lean towards them trying to buy out any independent artists who make it big using this method -- and with the way the current world works (money == good) they'll probably succeed.

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[niko9]

From what I understand, most indie labels have no affiliation with the RIAA.

Not much they can do about it.

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[Shakrai]

Not much they can do about it.

They can buy them out. Money talks after all. That was my main concern. Would you put it past them?

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[niko9]

Here use this link to be sure. RIAA Radar

You can be sure that the music you purcase doesn't support the RIAA efforts.

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

This is about a lot more than just the flow of money. Right now the RIAA speaks for all the major record labels... and that sucks. They present a united front to legislaters when they make demands for DRM and the like. They can fix prices. And they can make claims like "Our industry will die if ... So you need to ...".

Hopefully the people involved in this program understand the politics of what they're doing as well as the monetary aspect. And if they do, I don't think they'd sell out to the RIAA. You never know; some people are just greedy. But I'd hope to see these guys grow to be the advocate for lesser known bands and really make a lot of money for themselves as well as for their bands.

And it would be great to have a member of the record industry who understands what their customers want and are willing to give it to them.

Everybody Wins!!!

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[stratjakt]

If they want to buy, and the artists want to sell, so be it.

The RIAA members are publicly traded companies. They cant just piss away money on a whim without a stockholder revolt. The only reason they'd buy out other labels would be because it's good business. The indies provide ~nil competition to them, anyways.

Your conspiracy theories are not based in reality.

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[Shakrai]

The RIAA members are publicly traded companies. They cant just piss away money on a whim without a stockholder revolt. The only reason they'd buy out other labels would be because it's good business. The indies provide ~nil competition to them, anyways.

Your conspiracy theories are not based in reality.

Who said conspiracy theory? Great way to try and label me as a troll though. It would be good business to buy out the other labels if the RIAA members perceive that they are a threat to the RIAA business model -- which they very well could be if they start releasing DMA free digital music and it takes off.

Is it good business for Microsoft to buy out a company losing customers left and right? Why yes it is if they can get rid of a brand name that's a threat to them. Do you picture a shareholder revolt at MSFT if they buy out the AOL division of Time Warner?

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[eddy the lip]

I'm sure we'll see the usual gamut of heavy-handed tactics (as not so long ago seen with 'net radio) from them. From this brief conversation at least some of them seem pretty damned smug. It's a humourous exchange:

Jan: Depending on how you treat your musicians, you may or may not be evil. How do you treat your musicians?

Exec: Well, I think we treat them pretty good.

Jan: Do they make any money?

Exec: Um... well, you know. It varies from contract to contract.

(No affiliation with Magnatune, I just think it's a good idea).

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[Jason Earl]

The problem with this sort of tactic is that it is easily abused. If all it takes to get fat cash from the RIAA is to set up a website that sells music from independent artists then you can bet that there will soon be a landrush to create websites that sell music by independent artists.

If sites thut cut out the RIAA middleman become popular there is very little that the recording industry can do besides lower their profit margins and try to compete on price. There's room for markup in the music promotion business, but there's not as much room as there used to be. Eventually this is going to catch up to the RIAA no matter what they do. The price of promoting and distributing music has gone way down, and if the RIAA doesn't adjust their prices to match, then their competitors will start to see success.

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[Golias]

Look, if the RIAA-affiliated labels cared enough about these artists to buy out a site like this, they would have signed those artists to record deals, and then they would no longer be independent, would they? (In fact, for some of these bands, getting signed by a major label might be one of their goals.)

There will always be an indie music scene, and it will always operate outside the "protection" of the RIAA. When Joe Garage-band-player sells you a tape of his band, the full extent of copy protection he has is to tell you, "please don't bootleg this and pass it around to your friends or put it on the Internet or something. If I found out you have, I'll have to kick your ass." This site ammounts to the same thing. $0.99 per song, no DRM, and the band is basically saying "if you love us, please don't rip us off."

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[Golias]

And they can make claims like "Our industry will die if ... So you need to ...".

What Congress really needs to hear is more people like us saying "their industry dieing is not a bad thing. It's the industry which regularilly promotes the instantly accessable over music which has any chance of enhancing your enjoyment of life. It's the industry which brought you the last half-dozen or so Superbowl Halftime show fiascos. It's the industry which regularilly puts the screws to moderately successful artists in order to afford the cost of constantly signing money-losing pop acts in order to blindly fish for The Next Big Thing. It's the industry which continues to corrupt radio with under-the-table payola schemes in spite of Congress's decades of efforts to prevent the practice. If the music industry as we know it dies, the state of music in Western Culture will probably be better off."

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[Fweeky]

It already happened, but they don't limit to crappy lossy formats; you get those for free :o

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[HiThere]

I might indeed be their goal. If they achieved it, their dream might soon be a nightmare.

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if they're dumb enough to be in it for the money. If they are in it for the groupies, the bigger the tours, the better.

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[shark72]

"I wonder how RIAA will take notice (rest assured they will take notice)? Will they view it was a threat and try to buy out these independent artists to close this down, ignore it, or see that it actually works?"

In case it wasn't clear, the RIAA is a trade group that represents record labels, particularly the majors. However, the RIAA does not have a charter of putting indie labels out of business.

The indie labels have their own trade group, the AFIM. This press release should clarify how the AFIM and the RIAA see each other.

Re:It had to happen sooner or later

[Zaffo]

So why is that this album gets this kind of warning?

All right

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody has some brains.

Seriously, they will get their tunes copied, but they will also have more business. Sharing music hurts all sellers equally, not just thosw without DRM.

Smart move!

[toesate]

Looks decent.

With this, my good friend's band could have a revenue stream finally.

Re:Smart move!

[Anonymous Coward]

Except your good friend's band sucks.

Re:Smart move!

[CreatureComfort]

They might have a chance if instead it is your friend's good band...

Re:Smart move!

[Jacer]

I don't want to be harsh, but most bands don't deserve a revenue stream. The crap they pump out should be stopped immediately.

They need help

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

Of course these are the little guys. They will have a very hard time with the big boys of the music industry trying to squash them. (They view them as a threat... like they view just about everything.)

The only thing that will decide if they can stay in the fight is if their business model pays off. If it does, small, independant producers to nudge out the bastards that run the show right now. Which brings me to my next point...

Buy music from these guys! Find something you like and buy it. If you're not sure what to buy, buy from several bands and try them all. If you don't like any of it... buy a lot anyway! Help them give the boot to the established (bully) companies out there.

Re:They need help

[Shihar]

"If you're not sure what to buy, buy from several bands and try them all. If you don't like any of it... buy a lot anyway! Help them give the boot to the established (bully) companies out there."

And here lies the problem. Some people enjoy gambling, some people don't. It never sat well with me that I could walk into a record store and gamble my money away on some unknown CD I have not heard. I dislike the idea even more now that I have seen the alternative in the former E-Music and peer to peer.

Simply put, I will spend X number of dollars each month. It doesn't matter how much music is out there, I have a set amount of money I am willing to spend. I don't want to gamble one wasting my money on things I don't like. I don't even want to bother researching the music to improve my odds. I simply want to listen on my own time, and if I find something I like, keep it instead of deleting it.

Until someone accomidates me I am simply going to follow the path of least resistance. E-music used to be that path. I happily shelled out my money and downloaded and listened when I had the chance. Since E-music when to their foolish new pricing plan I have simply gone back to peer to peer applications. The advertised service means nothing to me. I simply want to download music at a fixed price and forget about it. I don't ever want to sit there and make a judgement call as to if I am wasting my money by buying one song or another.

Hurray for independent labels and no DRM, but stuff like this is for someone else. I'll stick to stealing.

Re:They need help

[Cplus]

Suggestion:

I noticed that they have 'Death Cab for Cutie' available. If you liked last years acclaimed Postal Service album, you may enjoy this a great deal. I know I did. Cheers.

Re:They need help

[MJOverkill]

Well, quickly checking over the Audio Lunchbox site, I see that they provide samples from each track that you can listen to before buying them. You can listen to samples from each artist to find those that you like. No more gambling.

Re:They need help

[javaxman]

The "Listen" sample clips on this service seem pretty darn generous- the one I checked was 45 seconds long, almost the entire song, and there were clips for every song on the album. So, it's actually *really* easy to know if you'll like something on this service- just check out all of the samples before you buy! Of course, if you'd rather steal, and be a thief, and justify the RIAA and their tactics, that's your call.

Re:They need help

[killmenow]

I wasn't in on the EMusic.com thing when it started up, but I am now. $9.95/month for 40 downloads when I can hear a 30-second preview of every tune on there seems like a pretty good deal to me. Still, I probably won't stay a subscriber for long though simply because I don't like monthly recurring charges and I already have a large library of CDs ripped to ogg files. To me, it's not worth it because I probably won't keep downloading 40 songs a month. There's a point where they run out of music I'm interested in. The pace of new additions I like is not 40 songs a month. Over all, I find their selections wanting; but, thankfully, I have found a few artists I had never heard of that I quite enjoy...and thankfully they've got some Tom Waits. So props to EMusic.com for that.

Anyway, I think a lot of customers are unrealistic. They want unlimited music downloads for US $10-20/month. But that $10-20 may not even cover the cost of the load those users put on the service. I think it's fair to limit it. I think it's too bad they weren't smart enough to get it right to begin with because then they just pissed a bunch of users off...but mostly just the unreasonable ones.

Oh, and FYI: copyright infringement is not theft. It's a different crime covered by a different set of laws. Even though the NET Act uses the word "Theft" in its title, it does not legally describe copyright infringement as theft. It makes it a criminal offense, instead of just a civil one, but it's still not theft. Thank you.

Re:They need help

[Myuu]

Ya, there is something to be said for their selection. Its not bad, its just a nice compliment to iTMS.

I can finally legally get some of my fav. underground rap. They do have anticon, but no rhymesayers :(

Re:They need help

[Golias]

It never sat well with me that I could walk into a record store and gamble my money away on some unknown CD I have not heard.

Just about every time you walk into a movie theater, you gamble about eight bucks on a film you have not seen, because a new experience is what you want. You make the best bet you can based on the reputation of the director & cast, the sales pitch of the previews, and the advice of critics & friends. Sometimes you will end up seeing a movie you don't like.

I feel the same way about albums. Bringing home (or downloading) the latest project from a favorite band is always a thrill. With some bands, it's a real crapshoot, but Yes releases enough albums like "The Ladder" to cause me to forgive them for albums like "Talk."

Okay, you like to have that "first experience" for free (or nearly free), and that's all well and good, but opening-day ticket sales of movies would not be anything like they are if they let you watch the movie before going to the theater.

Re:They need help

[cthrall]

Listen.com is $10 for all the music you want. It's really nice to be able to experiment without getting screwed at the record store...and without going through the pain of using a P2P client.

Quick!

[chia_monkey]

Quick! Somebody re-title this article "Apple iTunes Killer"!!!

Re:Quick!

[berkleyidiot]

no need, apple is already dead

Electronic Music Delivery

[myownkidney]

Music Labels are there to CREATE musicians, not to find true talent. Hopefully, electronic music delivery, getting rid of the middlemen, should enable good artists to come out.

In case you've forgotten, the record Labels are evil, because:

1. They rip you off
2. They rip the musicians off
3. They want to block new technology (eg. P2P)

Re:Electronic Music Delivery

[Rick Zeman]

Music Labels are there to CREATE musicians, not to find true talent.

Errr, they're there to make money for the company and their stockholders....Everything else is ancillary.

Re:Electronic Music Delivery

[uqbar]

I own a small label. We don't create musicians - we find musicians that are good and allow them to focus on what they do best - make music. Many of them don't know or want to focus their time on getting loans, finding engineers, booking studio time, finding graphic artists, booking tours, manufacturing cds, marketing their release, etc., etc. While kudos go out to the "Our Band Could Be Your Life" exceptions that actually manage to pull off a complete DIY business, there is still a need for what we do.

Most of the bands on my label would never see a studio if it weren't for the fact that we took and interest in recording their music and selling it. Our profit margins don't exist - few of our records break even, most lose and I unless I get lucky or sell out I will continue to work long hours at my day job.

All profits at your typical indie label are split 50/50 with the artist. This is hardly a rip off.

As far a new technology goes - well consumers are at least half the problem. Why would you want to lose even more money? That said I always release free songs even though this often irks the bands. I'd rather people hear the recordings I've worked so hard to bring into the world.

Please don't apply your mostly true observations about the majors to the thousands of indy record labels. We need your support to survive and thrive and that means being honest and even taking a few (gasp) risks...

Re:Electronic Music Delivery

[incom]

The o.p. still stands for riaa labels.

Re:Electronic Music Delivery

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you statement about labels not being there to find talent. Except for almost every great act that has ever recorded. Columbia Records, for instance, found Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Simon and Garfunkel. EMI records found the Beatles and the Sex Pistols. I could go on. Granted, the artists were there to be found, but the labels did finance their recordings and you would not have the music to listen to if they hadn't done so. By the way--do you ever wonder why several years after home recording became affordable (and P2P made distribution cost-free) that more acts haven't broken out using those methods alone? BECAUSE IT'S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO BREAK THROUGH WITH OUT BEING MARKETED! And marketing costs money.

Re:Electronic Music Delivery

[shark72]

"Many of them don't know or want to focus their time on getting loans, finding engineers, booking studio time, finding graphic artists, booking tours, manufacturing cds, marketing their release, etc., etc. While kudos go out to the "Our Band Could Be Your Life" exceptions that actually manage to pull off a complete DIY business, there is still a need for what we do."

Hear, hear. Very well put. I hope a lot of people read this and remember it.

Too many Slashdotters see record companies as valueless leeches that will have no place as soon as this whole Internet thing takes off. This may be because your average coder or IT manager simply doesn't understand that many musicians don't want or don't have the skills to be businesspeople. They really would rather do what they're good at -- play music -- and let others help with the rest. Sadly, this makes them liable to be classified by many Slashdotters as talentless sell-outs who deserve to have their stuff pirated -- or (depending on whom you talk to) victims.

Lets see now....

[Kenja]

So a slow web service that charges full price for low bit rate Mp3 files of artists I've never heard of? I tried searching for a few songs and groups and got nothing. I'm all for alternitive groups getting a place to sell music, but I dont think they should be charging as much.

Re:Lets see now....

[Anonymous Coward]

So a slow web service that charges full price for low bit rate Mp3 files of artists I've never heard of?

Be patient, one day they may finally sell some Britney's song. Then you'll get an artist you've heard of, and the low bitrate won't make a difference.

Re:Lets see now....

[GeorgieBoy]

Keep in mind that

a) they are being slashdotted now, slowing down their site
b) They are INDIE artists, you won't be able to search for things that are "mainstream" and expect to find results. The idea is finding new artists here, rather than massively promoted RIAA ones.
c) Music isn't cheap to produce. I think their pricing structure is really quite fair, and they probably can't afford to lower prices. I'm more than willing to pay $1 a song for music I like. Music is music, is doesn't matter to me if it comes from a major label or not, if it's actually good.

Maybe this service isn't for you, but for a lot of /. readers this is a nice place to find new things to listen.

Re:Lets see now....

[Erick the Red]

It seems to me that you are equating "popular" with "better". Just because a band is well known doesn't mean they can't charge a similar price for their music. For example, I would rather pay 99 cents to listen to an unknown group, then to listen to Brittany Spears. Plus, since the credit card companies get a cut of the revenue, the store can't feasibly charge less.

Re:Lets see now....

[javaxman]

I think you've missed a few points.

First- is 192kbps a low bitrate? What music download service gives you a better MP3 bitrate than that? Heck, which one matches that? That's what I rip my own discs at...

Second- "Full Price"?!? Compared _maybe_ to iTunes... which is still probably the cheapest service when you correctly account for subscription prices and real-life buying habits.

And oh, did you notice no DRM at all, not even FairPlay's relatively user-friendly DRM flavor?

Oh, wait... I just noticed you want only artists you've "heard of" i.e. "been spoon-fed by MTV and ClearChannel"... sorry, I didn't realize I was replying to the post of a stupid person.

Seriously, there are some great bands on this service, several of which YOU may be too lame to know about, but *MANY* of which I have heard ( and like ) and would like to see in my local music store or promoted on iTMS. "Death Cab for Cutie"... rockin'!

Wait... now I *know* I've just responded to a troll... seriously, you've never heard of Offspring, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles or any of these other bands I see in the "archives" section on the bottom of the main page?!? What, the Offspring isn't current enough for you? Or not big-name enough? How about Bad Religion? Or is it true that you want Britney and nobody with talent will do?

I'm going to tell all of my iTunes-using friends about this site. I hope it does well. I don't buy much music, but before I buy another CD or download from iTMS, I'll be checking this site.

Re:Lets see now....

[worm eater]

I tried searching for a few songs and groups and got nothing.

I'm all for alternitive groups getting a place to sell music

Ok... so you're all for alternative bands selling their music, but you don't want to buy it unless they have a major ad campaign to make sure you've heard of them. And you don't want to pay full price. Believe me, a lot of the bands on this site are not that obscure. If you are into indie music at all you've probably heard of some of these artists: Iggie Pop & the Stooges, the Modern Lovers, Death Cab for Cutie, Stereolab, NOFX -- these are fairly well-known artists, all featured on this site. And they're just getting started. Not only that, but they stream music through their 'snack bar' so you can sample it as you're browsing the site.

Re:Lets see now....

[Anonymous Coward]

>I'm all for alternitive groups getting a place to sell music, but I dont think they should be charging as much.

Does anyone else find it absurd that, for all other good and services, the more limited to supply or specialized to service, the more it costs, but with music everyone expects just the opposite?

Come on, people! The Big 5 music is the commodity, they have economies of scale, it is/should be cheaper. The independents should be more expensive. You don't hear people make the arguement, "Oh, that import CD has only 10,000 copies available, therefore it should be cheaper than the 2,000,000 copy run of this other top 10 album." Scarcity drives prices up.

Granted, there's no physical goods in the music downloading game, but that just means the economies of scale are shifted from manufacturing the goods the delivery system, support, and human labor.

-AC

Re:Lets see now....

[ZipR]

Is 192k considered a low bit rate by most mp3 listeners?

Re:Lets see now....

[Anonymous Coward]

I would rather pay 99 cents to listen to an unknown group, then to listen to Brittany Spears.

Why does the order matter? What difference does it make if you listen to B. Spears before listening to the unknown group or listening to the unknown group first?

Re:Lets see now....

[Tennguin]

I emailed them about their search feature not working. Within 10 minutes I got this reply:

Thanks for writing! Our servers are getting BURIED because of the slashdot post. Working on getting everything working correctly shortly. Just a HUGE load. Thanks for your patience.

ALB SUPPORT :: http://www.audiolunchbox.com

Give them a break. They have music... we just cant get to it now because we are killing thier servers!

Re:Lets see now....

[Anonymous Coward]

c) Music isn't cheap to produce.

It's amazing how many people believe this. Music is one of the cheapest things you can produce.

Re:Lets see now....

[the_consumer]

The try previewing the tracks, you stupid cocksucker.

Re:Lets see now....

[Milo Fungus]

Maybe this service isn't for you, but for a lot of /. readers this is a nice place to find new things to listen.

Slightly off-topic, but not really: Another place for Slashdot geeks to find new things to listen to is the Open Music Registry. It's not even a store, just a link to free downloads of songs using copyleft licenses (like the EFF Open Audio License and the Creative Commons share-alike license). The listings are not extensive, but they are slowly growing. There's a lot of tunes available in ogg vorbis format, which I prefer, but quite a few artists are still using mp3.

One of my favorite artists that I discovered on the Open Music Registry is Andrew Vavrek.

(Disclaimer: I have a few songs listed there, but I am otherwise unaffiliated with the Registry.)

Re:Lets see now....

[danielsfca2]

> First- is 192kbps a low bitrate? What music download service gives you a better MP3 bitrate than that? Heck, which one matches that?

He's probably a FLAC-head--"Lossiness is not to be accepted! Give us 768kbps! 1Mbps! Only huge files are acceptable!
To bitch about 192kbps...stupid.

And as far as "well-known" artists: Word. There are plenty of good artists that are on independent labels. Grandparent is just a troll.

Re:Lets see now....

[spungebob]

"I'm going to tell all of my iTunes-using friends about this site. I hope it does well. I don't buy much music, but before I buy another CD or download from iTMS, I'll be checking this site."

Then be sure to check out eMusic first! I'm seeing a lot of artists on Audio Lunchbox that are also on eMusic... and eMusic is a LOT cheaper! (22-25 cents a track)

Re:Lets see now....

[SmittyTheBold]

There are a few decent labels on there (Barsuk and Epitaph, to name a couple) that carry some higher-profile artists. It's not the so-indie-it-hurts kind of indie, at least. =)

Re:Lets see now....

[WarmBoota]

One more time for those of you playing at home: Please don't say "banjo-punk-rock" like it's a bad thing. Its time has come.

Non-standard iTunes: no more AAC!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is great, especially compared to iTunes, which uses a crippled non-standard AAC format that requires the kludgey solution of burning to CD and then ripping to OGG or MP3 in order to have useful files that you can listen to.

Re:Non-standard iTunes: no more AAC!

[Slowtreme]

Wait! You mean I can't listen to all those songs I got for free on iTMS? I found a bunch of pepsi caps in the office, and downloaded a bunch of songs. I even bought some while I was browsing the store.

Oh never you mind. I am using and listening to them just splendidly thankyouverymuch, and I didn't even need to get a CD or boil eGGs.

Re:Non-standard iTunes: no more AAC!

[lpp]

QTConvert allows you to fix that problem concerning the DRM issues, without having to burn to CD first. An MP3 export component is available (based on LAME and in early beta, but it does at least produce MP3s) here. Note that you will need to also download the LAME framework there, too. It's all free and sources are available for the component and framework. This is all OS X only though. If someone feels like porting the component to Windows, be my guest.

I'm still in development on these things, but have to spend some time on putting food on the table for awhile. Then I'll get back to these.

Regards,

Lynn

Although I support the idea

[Sheetrock]

Can't they do something like this with FLAC encoded music?

The quality of Ogg and MP3 is pretty good (certainly better than radio) but I want to be able to build an online music collection that is comparable in quality to my offline one; i.e., one that does not suffer from the high-end noise that the lossy formats have.

Otherwise, I might as well go back to vinyl.

Re:Although I support the idea

[justMichael]

I'm sure they could use FLAC.

The problem is that these things are to be downloaded, a full CD in FLAC runs in the ~300M (please correct me if I'm wrong) range, you are going to burn a lot of money on bandwidth like that.

Re:Although I support the idea

[mikec]

Oh, come on. Vog Orbis Q6 is, for all practical purposes, audibly indistinguishable from FLAC. I'd be willing to bet significant amounts of money that you cannot reliably detect the different on any actual musical recording.

Re:Although I support the idea

[flacco]

The problem is that these things are to be downloaded, a full CD in FLAC runs in the ~300M (please correct me if I'm wrong) range

that may be the case but for some people there is no substitute for lossless, full cd-quality recordings. until they offer that, on-line music with or without drm isn't of much interest to me.

it's got to be less expensive to just maintain a big server with fat pipes than to physically pump out and mail cd's.

i'd even be happy with a service that lets you buy a good-quality encoded copy on-line, and then sends the full-quality version on cd via mail or whatever.

i want the immediacy of an on-line transaction (download OGG), plus the comfort of knowing i will always have a full-quality version available (download or mail FLAC or WAV). how they achieve that isn't that important to me.

Re:Although I support the idea

[sydb]

But re-encode it on a new format and you will tell the difference. Anyway, I'm now downloading a FLAC-encoded album from Magnatune; I paid $8.

Re:Although I support the idea

[Fweeky]

Ogg Vorbis has been shown to be non-transparent in a number of situations all the way up to -q10 as a result of issues with preecho and the like (with the standard reference encoder at least). Even MusePack, widely regarded as the most well tuned lossy audio format around, isn't perfect in all situations. As for MP3, well.. if Vorbis and MusePack have to hit 400+kbps to remain transparent on some tracks, MP3 sure as hell can't hope to do so with it's limit of 320kbps; the very format itself is inadeqate.

Even ignoring that, there are plenty of other reasons to go lossless; transcoding and such are *much* better with a lossless source; doing so from a Vorbis or MP3 file is almost certainly going to produce artifacts you can ABX. With a lossless file, I can convert to any format I like as many times as I like, since I effectively have the original.

As for the extra bandwidth consumed; well, not everyone values quality as much as I do - it's not such a big deal if one in 1000 of your users uses a few times more bandwidth, not to mention that those users are likely to be willing to pay a bit extra for it. Even if they're not, bandwidth isn't exactly *that* costly; the difference between downloading a Vorbis file and a FLAC file is going to be a couple of pence at most. If your margins are that slim you might as well give up now.

Re:Although I support the idea

[Jugalator]

that may be the case but for some people there is no substitute for lossless, full cd-quality recordings. until they offer that, on-line music with or without drm isn't of much interest to me.
----
i'd even be happy with a service that lets you buy a good-quality encoded copy on-line, and then sends the full-quality version on cd via mail or whatever.
----
i want the immediacy of an on-line transaction (download OGG), plus the comfort of knowing i will always have a full-quality version available

The solution for you already exist...

Re:Although I support the idea

[Fweeky]

a full CD in FLAC runs in the ~300M (please correct me if I'm wrong) range

About right:

$ du -h Air
379M Air/10,000 Hz Legend
293M Air/Everybody Hertz
267M Air/Moon Safari
189M Air/Premiers Symptomes
268M Air/Talkie Walkie
235M Air/The Virgin Suicides

I think you overestimate the cost of bandwidth though.

Re:Although I support the idea

[bobbuck]

Ogg/Vorbis is just pretty good?! If you're not happy with Ogg at quality 6 you won't be happy with CD quality either, not to mention speakers and amplifiers that cost less than your house. Even with encoded quality set to negative one people can't tell the original from the compressed file. ( If you are alarmed by this statement, go try it right now. )

Good deal

[192939495969798999]

Let me help those of you who may not know... it costs a lot of money to write and get a good recording of a song. If I were to only charge 25 cents for a recording that cost me $500 of my time, it would take me 2000 copies, versus perhaps 500 copies, to get at least to a gross return on my investment. What makes this website cool is that the artist doesn't have to sell as many tracks as they otherwise would, because the artist is getting a bigger payout than pretty much anyone offers. Considering that this is the case, is it worth your 99 cents to get the track? Yes, because that 99 cents goes a lot farther towards helping that artist than it would for say, Britney Spears, who probably gets a tiny fraction of that sale and could really care less. Oh yeah -- she doesn't write her music anyways, so it's kinda moot to discuss her, but you get the point.

Re:Good deal

[sqlrob]

Why don't people think in volume?

If you cut the margin in half and triple your sales because of it, where are you with money in hand?

Plus, cutting the prices would allow you to market with "cheaper than iTunes/Napster"

Re:Good deal

[pqdave]

At 99 cents each, I'm only going to buy songs I really, really like. I'm at least 5 times more likely to buy a song if it only costs me 25 cents. You do the math.

Re:Good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at how much goes into writing hiquality software, and look at how much they sell it for (if any).

Songs, to me, are similar to software in terms of development except for one thing. Limitted platform. It is easier to write a 2 minute song than to write a program because a song has one entrance and one exit and processes in a straight line. Programs are more complex and less abundant so one would think you could make more money off of it (although the amount of time listenneing to music may be more than one spends with a particular program but if you consider the ratio to input$$$/per unit it all evens out).

This isn't true because of the market. The market determines the cost to consumer. In order to make money now a days you are going to have to sell more than just your "program"(song). You will have to sell performances(services) or something of the sort.

The music industry is changing. Pretty soon unless you are performing and getting paid per hour, its gonna be tough to make 0.99 / song)

Re:Good deal

[nosilA]

Lunchbox takes 35 cents from each sale. About two years ago I worked out a business model for this and found out that I would need 25 cents per song to cover my costs (development, bandwidth, maintenance, salaries, advertising, acquiring talent, etc). This was of course based on a more modest estimate of how many sales I would get through (and how many artists I would host) but 25 cents is going to be hard for anyone to do.

If the incremental cost is less than I calculated, say 10 cents/song - you'd need to be 6 times more likely to buy the song for the artist to get the same total amount of money. You can't neglect incremental cost.

-Alison

Re:Good deal

[2nd Post!]

Because maybe the volume isn't there.

You can rephrase your statements to reflect that possibility?

When you cut the margin in half and if you triple your sales because of it, where are you with money in hand?

That leaves an unspoken question, "What if you cut the margin in half and you *don't* triple your sales because of it, where are you with money in hand?

Re:Good deal

[Tyler Eaves]

Wouldn't many of those costs be either constant, or at worst proportional to say, sqrt(songs_sold)?

Re:Good deal

[nosilA]

Some are, some aren't. Bandwidth, hardware, merchant fees, are directly proportional to sales (following a step function, which can really screw you).

Acquiring talent and customers is not directly proportional, but is not exactly constant either.

The maintenance costs and development costs go up as you have to support more complex systems to handle the additional customer load, though again, not directly proportional.

As the site becomes more popular, there are more reasons to upgrade - the calculations I made were based on a fairly bare bones system to start, 1-3 years in the red (based on different projections), and the plans to reinvest nearly all extra revenue beyond the expected in improvements.

Regardless, my point was that I as the site owner would charge a constant 25 cents to the artist and let the artist figure out how much they wanted to get per song.

-Alison

Re:Good deal

[glwtta]

Oh yeah -- she doesn't write her music anyways, so it's kinda moot to discuss her, but you get the point.

Why? She is the one who sells it. Do you really think that whoever writes that idiotic drivel should be getting that money?

Re:Good deal

[pqdave]

I think online music is going to find the most success with extremely low prices and lots of volume. Even doing everything right, most will fail. However, barring improper RIAA actions, I think some will succeed, and it will be the low-cost/high volume methods that have the best chance.

I'm also guessing that a band will have a better chance of long-term success if it sells 10,000 copies at 5 cents band profit each instead of 5,000 copies at 10 cents each.

As much as possible the rights to the song should be seperate from all other costs--Example: For a dime I can legally keep a copy if I can find it on my own. For 20 cents, can keep a copy, and I'll get a semi-official P2P download. For 30 cents, I get a direct HTTP download, 45 cents is a high-bitrate (or low traffic) HTTP, and $12 gets me 12 songs of my choice mailed on CDR, or a standard CD-album with artwork.

Other possibilities: Subscribing to a band, getting rights to all of their music.

Re:Good deal

[jafac]

Because the current dogma of the Market Fundamentalist movement is that cutting supply decreases costs, and increases demand/price/profits.

I read an article in the paper last year about the "disaster" in the grape industry, because of a bumper crop of grapes. Grape farmers were all crying and wringing their hands over what to do about having too many grapes. Some of them were advocating a bill (supported by Republicans) that would force grape farmers to raze half their acrege, and pay them federal money to do so.

It's the new doublespeak. Abundance is bad. Shortages are good.

If you're wondering this summer, why you're paying $3/gal for gasoline after militarily conquering one of the largest oil supplying nations in the world - look no further than the Market Fundamentalists.

Re:Good deal

[sqlrob]

If you aren't willing to take a risk, why are you in the market in the first place?

Re:Good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

OT: If america suddenly had cheap gasoline as a result of conquering an arab nation don't you think that would look just a bit bad?

Re:Good deal

[ibbey]

Because maybe the volume isn't there.

This is a good point. The magic price point for music is that it needs to be cheap enough to get as many people as possible to buy, but no cheaper. You also want to avoid reaching the point of diminishing returns (ie. if you sell 1,000,000 copies at $5, or 1,250,000 at $2.50, you're better off selling it at $5).

So what is that price point? That's the big question. However, I think it's safe to say that it's alot less then $10. $10 is a large enough amount of money that you need to think about whether you are willing to spend it. I personally think that the magic amount is about $4.95. Unfortunately, until some record label is willing to gamble & try selling their records at this price, we'll never know.

Re:Good deal

[Reziac]

Sounds fair to me. That way the artist knows exactly what your cut would be and can figure out for themselves how much they want or need to make per song, whether that's a penny or a buck, which gives the artist a lot of freedom to play their market as they see fit -- be that for a million copies at 5 cents apiece or 5 copies at 5 bucks each.

Re:Good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again, you're likely to buy a soda from the vending machine for $1 and pay $1.75+ for a gallon of gas for your tank, so why should you have to shell out for entertainment, right? Forget that, you already gave at the office!

Re:Good deal

[jafac]

I think that to MOST of the rest of the world, given the excuses that were used, and how none of them panned out, it already looks bad.

Flac

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

i know not everyone has a broadband connection, but i do and i'm not buying ANY online music that is lossy.

Sorry, just not going to happen. i'll listen to free services to choose what artists to buy, but i won't pay for lossy audio.

Re:Flac

[Throtex]

All audio is lossy at some level, unless you prefer to listen to MIDI recorded directly from the instruments. You may provide your own vocals. :)

Re:Flac

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

Well buddy, if you hit Nyquist's 44100, then no, audio is NOT lossy...not to your ears anyway.

You'll find this of interest before you say there is no lossy compression tools out today.

Re:Flac

[maximilln]

Ahhh... the beauty of vinyl...

Re:Flac

[Throtex]

I wasn't referring to the digital conversion. I know you're not going to tell me the methods for recording instrument output (again, other than MIDI) are lossless. It was a joke, laugh. ;)

Re:Flac

[Josh Coalson]

All audio is lossy at some level, unless you prefer to listen to MIDI recorded directly from the instruments.

Lossless does not mean the recording is lossless with respect to the performance; it means that once it is digitized, it has been compressed with no further loss of information. The whole point is that if you have a FLAC version you can convert it to whatever format you want without the transcoding artifacts you would get from lossy to lossy.

Re:Flac

[Anonymous Coward]

So does your music collection consist of a lot of DAT tapes then?

Orchestra in your basement?

Yay! But...

[Anonymous Coward]

As an indie artist, I'd like to be able to set my own prices. The $0.99 per track $9.99 is too expensive and also doesn't accommodate extended works very well (splitting up a single track is really hackie). I think indies should definitely put some effort into undercutting the RIAA in the online world, like many of them do in the real world.

Opening my Audio Lunchbox

[The I Shing]

I'm opening my audio lunchbox right now...

Awww... ham and cheese again?

Re:Opening my Audio Lunchbox

[cliveholloway]

As long as it's Richard Cheese you'll be OK :)

cLive ;-)

Re:Opening my Audio Lunchbox

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll trade you a rama-lama-ding-dong.

no VBR?

[MoFoQ]

no 32-320Kbps (q0, Lame 3.9x) VBR mp3's?

Re:no VBR?

[FoogyFoo]

from the article:
each file on AudioLunchbox.com can be downloaded in either 192Kbps variable bit rate-encoded (VBR) MP3 files or in Ogg Vorbis Q6

Re:no VBR?

[MoFoQ]

but not 32-320Kbps VBR, the only VBR that counts in my book (and in most audiophile's books)

Let me be the first to proclaim

[Tibor the Hun]

Let me be the first to say that this company is dead!

Magnatune

[cain]

Here is another service along the same lines and even less evil: Magnatune, "we are not evil." Pay as much as you want (within reason, natch'). There is not a huge selection yet, but maybe if more peeps start buying from them....

Re:Magnatune

[Mprx]

Magnatune is great. Unlike most online music stores, they sell lossless CD quality audio (in FLAC format, or WAV if you want to waste everyone's bandwidth). The selection is steadily growing, and there is some excellent music there. All their music can be previewed in 128kbps MP3, and it's only $5 (or more if you are feeling generous) an album if you want higher quality.

Re:Magnatune

[jejones]

Pay as much as you want (within reason, natch').

Not only that, but the artists get half of what you pay, not some miniscule percentage cut down by phony deductions such as for "lacquer breakage."

There is not a huge selection yet...

Agreed, but--in the field that I have a major interest in and a little knowledge of (early music), I can say that what they do have is damned good stuff.

Re:Magnatune

[datasetgo]

I spoke to 'Mrs. Magnatune' at sxsw last weekend. Really great guys/gals trying to fight the good fight - supporting artists along the way. Sure, they don't do a lot of promotion but it's still *some* exposure to small bands - 50% beats nothing at all. I have a stack of their compilation CDs here - it's *all* good stuff.

According to their blog, they are negotiating to get their catalog on itms as well as emusic soon.

Re:Magnatune

[Anonymous Coward]

yawn. hey do next-to nothing for their artists. How revololutionary.......
If artists are happy to stay underground, then magnatune is fine. Major labels exist for artists who want to become stars, which magnatune will not be able to do. That's why the big cut they take is justified.

Re:Magnatune

[sydb]

Nice! Flac is good! Magnatune is good!

Just bought my first album. Recommend it for those who like techno with an edge. "Processor: Insomnia".

Audio Lunchbox looks good too, but their streaming is a bit broken (perhaps slashdotted) and I couldn't find much music I liked.

Thanks for the heads up.

Re:Magnatune

[Brian Puccio]

Ah, a lossless music store. Finally. Why would I pay the same for music of lesser quality? Never made sense. Time to go look at it, thanks!

Re:Magnatune

[lannocc]

Thanks! I just went to Magnatune for the first time because of your post and I'm hooked! Just the first couple bands I started listening to I like better than most music I've heard. And the option of lossless quality, who could ask for more? Thanks again for the great recommendation!

Come on, $0.99 is nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

These days with $0.99 you can't even buy a meal.
For $0.99 you get a song for a lifetime.
Sounds like a bargain to me.

Re:Come on, $0.99 is nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Meals want to be free!

Shoots self in foot

[Anonymous Coward]

How to broaden your market:

The company has eschewed a custom application interface for a Web browser. "We did it that way so it's cross-platform," Harris told MacCentral.

How to limit your market:

Harris said that the service will soon migrate to a Macromedia Flash-based content system

Re:Shoots self in foot

[Anonymous Coward]

Limit it to what?

Flash is even available on lunix last time I checked.

Re:Shoots self in foot

[Anonymous Coward]

How about to eliminate people who hate slow, unscalable web sites with useless flashing lights and spinning logos? My monitor runs a massive resolution and those stupid macromedia flash sites are ALWAYS the ones that I cannot even read because there is no way to change the font size. With Mozilla, a simple key press can change the font size, but ONLY for straight html.

HearsayMusic.ca (indie) shameless self promotion

[warren69]

Well, we only have 12 indie artists so far. Canadian indie stuff... anyway www.hearsaymusic.ca! mp3s 1 dollar Canadian (192kps)... 30 second samples (128kps). And in contrast to what indiepool (Canadian puretracks' indie thing) does, we do not charge anything to get onto the site, and encoding. We take a share of the sales.

Cheers,
Daniel

Pricing problems with all services

[azpcox]

The only ones who really win are the VISA and MASTERCARDs who get a cut of EVERY sale anytime one of them is used. Why else does Apple bunch up all of your purchases made throughout the day to a single transaction at night???

If they could implement a credit style system, pre-pay if you will, they will be able to avoid the 30 cent (or more) per transaction overhead and lower prices. Maybe if when you set up an account, you buy a $20 credit or so, similar to how iTunes does it with their gift certificates (which only makes Apple MORE money since they don't have to pay the transaction fees on gift certificate purchases -- and they don't pass the "savings" on to you....)

More options are always a good thing, especially with DRM-free formats.

Re:Pricing problems with all services

[lotsofno]

They DO have a pre-pay system, implemented through their "Lunch Card" service:

Lunch cards are a way to prepay for the music you listen to. You put money on the card and then use it instead of a credit card when it's time to check out. Lunch cards have two huge benefits:

1. You don't have to search for your credit card when you check out. When you put money on your lunch card, you can speed through the check out.

2. For a limited time we are going to throw in some free tracks to sweeten the deal. By using a lunch card you are saving money. Now that's smart.

Re:Pricing problems with all services

[madgeorge]

ALB sells lunchcards that get around the per song CC transaction fees nicely. Seriously, this service is great. I don't like stealing, and I don't like RIAA extortion. I do like supporting artists over corporations. I don't mind $.99 per song one bit. My favorite recent buys are Muggs (of Cypress Hill fame, or for the truly old school 7A3) and The Black Keys. Seriously, give these a listen; one is dark downtempo, the other is outstandingly gritty blues.

Works great. Very happy.

[DdJ]

I've already purchased two albums from them, pict.soul and Error. What's interesting is that both are available from the iTunes Music Store as well as from Audio Lunchbox, at exactly the same price (here and here). I buy plenty of music from the iTunes Music Store, but I am willing to go a little bit out of my way to avoid the DRM if I can get the same price without it.

They take PayPal too, so I didn't have to enter credit card info into... anything at all.

But can non-DRM work when P2P reigns?

[turnstyle]

I won't buy DRM'd audio tracks either -- but the real question is whether services like this can ever make it if unrestricted P2P keeps chugging along.

Re:But can non-DRM work when P2P reigns?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>if unrestricted P2P keeps chugging along

phatboy and co. seem to be handling that issue just fine.

i've already warned friends, associates, and family: "if your computer is owned, tough petuties!"

you try fixing 100 or more computers every 3 months...outside of your real job.

i already have no life. but in the last 12 months, the people who used to go nuts over kazaa and the like, have now realized that within MINUTES sometimes, of using kazaa, winmx etc...their system is FUCKED.

"jee, i can't access the net anymore"

"jee, nothings happening, but my cable modem is blinking like mad"

"jee, why is my mouse cursor moving..on it's own?"

to all the aforementioned people i know:

YOU FAIL IT

Re:But can non-DRM work when P2P reigns?

[FLEB]

Instead of DRM, how about fingerprinting? Match each MP3 that goes out with a username. It wouldn't restrict the files, but it would make a decent deterrent, and would allow action against people who share.

Even a stupid little tag (some nonstandard tag in the M3U, perhaps?) would catch the dumber ones, and the company could still say "better not share, we CAN track you" and make sharers nervous.

Magnatune.com is better

[kwelndar]

Open music is what Magnatune.com sells. From the site: "All songs are available in MP3, CD-quality WAV, OGG, FLAC and MP3-VBR: download whichever formats you like." The best part is you can download and audition the music, then decide what you want to pay, if anything. "Magnatune lets you choose how much you want to pay for your downloaded album. The more you choose to pay, the more the artist makes, because at Magnatune, half goes directly to the artist, while the other half supports Magnatune." They are also members of the Creative Commons.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way with Magnatune.com. This is just a really cool idea whose time has come.

Re:Magnatune.com is better

[Josh Coalson]

These Audio Lunchbox guys may be open to FLAC too. Their FAQ doesn't say anything about it (nothing like "we don't offer FLAC because of bandwidth"). Maybe they just don't know about it.

Re:Magnatune.com is better

[sirReal.83.]

When they have some reggae, I'm so in.

Re:Magnatune.com is better

[Ogerman]

From what I've seen, Magnatune is by far the closest yet to doing things "right" when it comes to indie music. The total crap stuff is filtered and you're left with unknown but still professional musicians. (ie. no high-school garage band wannabe musicians) DRM-free + FLAC is the only reasonable choice for quality and compatibility. (yes, I'm an audiophile and quite picky.. If I pay for music, I want full CD quality, not 90%) And as for previewing albums, their streamed 128kbps MP3 is fine.

That being said, one big thing is missing: popularity. It's one thing to find music that I myself like, but there's still a missing link of how to get the best artists onto national tours where they can make a career-level income. So the question becomes this: will the indie music pay download sites enable sufficient popularity to make this possible? I have my doubts.

Radio + bootleg P2P is a powerful marketing machine for major label music, even if the RIAA has not yet acknowledged this. (which is the real reason you shouldn't share RIAA music!!) Always remember that the real money is made in concert. Whether somebody buys a CD or downloads via P2P, the only thing that matters is popularity. Popularity breeds concert ticket sales. So how can indie music compete with this?

It's a catch-22. On one hand, the musicians want income now -- so they try selling the music itself. On the other hand, they want to eventually become popular enough to go on tour and make a real living doing shows larger than bars and clubs. I'm not saying there's one answer for everyone, but I'm not aware of any bands yet who have fully embraced the marketing potential of unrestricted P2P and "Here's some free CD's.. Please make all your friends copies" Don't get me wrong, this would only work for top-notch bands in mainstream genres, but it seems the only way to compete with the major label marketing machine. For the less popular styles or for non-career musicians with no desire to tour, sites like Magnatune are probably the way to go. Hopefully an increase in independent (and online) radio popularity will help as well.

Re:Magnatune.com is better

[ibbey]

Magnatune may be better in some ways, but it's a completely different beast. Magnatune is a record label. AudioLunchbox.com is more like a record store-- they offer music from many different labels. Magnatune is a great idea, and I hope to see more companies like them in the future, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a place for AudioLunchbox.

Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself.

[Darth23]

$0.99 PLUS you're paying for electricity, computer, bandwidth, AND you to put your time in downloading each track.

For a buck a track I want some nice artwork, maybe some printed lyrics a piece of plastic that I can out into a player. That way I can rip the songs myself and CHOOSE what bitrate to use.

Some occasional free posters and stickers would be nice too. Music buying has sucked since the death of the 12" vinyl album. Consumers are getting less and less while paying more and more, and record companies (and even indies) are keeping all the benefits and savings that result from new technologies fro themselves.

Archive.org

[Petronius]

has a great selection of FREE music (live and studio). Look under Archive.org -> Audio -> Net Labels.

Crap!

[r00zky]

All MP3s are encoded at 192 kbps variable bit rate (VBR). Ogg Vorbis files are encoded at a variable bit rate (VBR) "quality 6"

4. Can my cousin in Italy buy songs from you?
Yes. Anyone in the world can download tracks from us.

Damn I'm running out of excuses for not paying for music :'(

Re:Crap!

[Anonymous Coward]

two excuses:

-I'm cheap and don't really give a damn (harsh but true)

-I won't download ogg vorbis until the quality goes to 11.

Slashdot Patent Violated ?

[Anonymous Coward]

AudioLunchbox.com plans the addition of a "Karma"-style rating system.

At first I thought this might be a Slashdot patent violation, but then I remembered that the Slashdot patent was for "A Karma-style rating system moderated by The 3 Stooges".

1 dollar Canadian

[Darth23]

...that's like a buck fifty American now?

KILLER TUNES

[lotsofno]

It might not be an iTunes killer, but it still sure as hell is a lot better service in terms of selection (quality > quantity) and weighing you down with DRM.

Now if only they could get Polyvinyl Records on there..

Streaming broken?

[gosand]

I couldn't preview any songs by clicking on the "Listen" buttons for an artist. Winamp was giving me a "synch error with mpeg".

If you have the same problem, save the m3u file, copy-n-paste the contents into your browser. It would then launch winamp and I could preview the songs. I don't know if it was Winamp's problem or not, but what a PITA. Instead of streaming it, why not just link to the partial mp3 itself? Sheesh.

Now on the service, I wish it were a little cheaper, but I might check them out. I have been mass downloading songs from MP3.com, burning them to a CD, and listening to them in my car. (MP3 capable car CD player - best thing EVER) It is kind of cool to hear indie artists, but you do get a lot of garbage in there too, just guys in their basement. But it is still interesting.

Re:Streaming broken?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of streaming it, why not just link to the partial mp3 itself? Sheesh.

Probably to stop automatic download bots from scraping every mp3 off the site, and hammering their servers into oblivion.

Re:Streaming broken?

[gosand]

Instead of streaming it, why not just link to the partial mp3 itself? Sheesh.

Probably to stop automatic download bots from scraping every mp3 off the site, and hammering their servers into oblivion.

Ummm, I think you missed the word "partial". The clips are only about 30 seconds long. If those get downloaded by bots - free advertising - what a terrible thing.

Royalties upon Purchase

[stecoop]

It wouldn't be so bad if you owed royalties when you bought the music. I mean when you buy a song then its your to put on any media. Let's say right now CDs are popular. Tomorrow it's going to be, say, Memory Sticks.

Now if the vendors could figure out how to make money and when you buy the music you can listen to it however you like and not a simple one time download but its your to move to various media, always own, sell, etc.

I went though many tapes because the tapes failed over time. It seems I should own the rights to listen to the music upon purchase.

Re:HearsayMusic.ca (indie) shameless self promotio

[Malc]

Please get Neil Leyton on board.

Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself.

[Shakrai]

$0.99 PLUS you're paying for electricity, computer, bandwidth, AND you to put your time in downloading each track.

Are you serious? Even with dialup you should be able to download most songs in under 30 minutes. How much are you paying for electric that 30 minutes of computer usage is an issue?

For a buck a track I want some nice artwork, maybe some printed lyrics a piece of plastic that I can out into a player. That way I can rip the songs myself and CHOOSE what bitrate to use.

Then your going to have a nice fat middleman like RIAA sucking up the money. I'd rather get digital music direct from the artists and have them get the money thank you very much. You do have a point on lossless downloads though. I'd happily wait the hour or so it would take to download a 700 meg image. Not really an option without broadband though -- unless you are really patient.

A dollar a pop to listen to a bunch of nobodies

[stratjakt]

Seriously, get over it.

Free downloads make so much more sense for a band trying to reach a wider audience.

Most people will only pay for music that's already "made it". They like that song thats always on the radio, "who are those guys? Im gonna get that CD."

Re:A dollar a pop to listen to a bunch of nobodies

[prockcore]

Most people will only pay for music that's already "made it". They like that song thats always on the radio, "who are those guys? Im gonna get that CD."

Most people are stupid. Luckily I am not most people.

Re:A dollar a pop to listen to a bunch of nobodies

[Wolfbone]

The Kinks, Billie Holiday, Patsy Cline, Ray Charles, Gustav Mahler, Ludwig Beethoven, Franz Liszt,...

They may be nobodies now but from the samples I listened to I think some of these artists may make it big one day. ;)

more legal alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

www.furthernet.org

live recordings from artists who allow taping at their concerts, all free, all legal, & theres *some* big names in there too

www.magnatune.com

indie record label. their motto is "we're not evil" you can download music, or pay for it (you determine the price to a degree) and if i recall properly i first heard about it on slashdot

Re:more legal alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean www.furthurnet.org?

CDbaby.com

[funny-jack]

I think now would be an appropriate time to mention that if you're into independent artists, and you like physical media, check out CDbaby.com. Tons of great independent artists, good prices, and a good portion of the money actually goes to the artist.

Plus, their shipping notice email is cool. :^)

Re:CDbaby.com

[elykyllek]

It might also be appropriate to mention that if your favorite cdbaby artist has signed up for digital distribution they are most likely available to buy at audiolunchbox. So if you like the band, but hate the wait for the cd, there's your solution.

Instant gratification ....

[binaryDigit]

Why the hell would I wanna pay $10 for an MP3 download when I can buy the real thing (including postate) for $11-$12, or used on Ebay for $7-$9.

You go to the site, look around, sample some tunes, and download/purchase the ones you want. Cuts out the whole, "go to amazon/ebay, purchase, wait for delivery" phase. Perfect for todays instant gratification based society.

Re:Crap, 40% off!

[WiKKeSH]

And they don't even offer thirty second previews or an "internet radio" stream so you can find out if any of this stuff is any good.

yes they do.
I'd tell you to look harder, but it seems you havent looked at all.

Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself.

[BHearsum]

Uhm. Audio Lunchbox gives you that when you buy an album. The MP3s + Oggs, artwork, and lyrics.

But don't believe me, see for yourself

Re:Crap, 40% off!

[nick_urbanik]

For $9.99 I can buy 10-song downloads by unknown bands that mostly suck. 40% cheaper than the RIAA. Wow.

And they don't even offer thirty second previews or an "internet radio" stream so you can find out if any of this stuff is any good.

Why are you so negative? I just listened to a thirty second preview of a song. It's wonderful there's no DRM. It's wonderful there's ogg. If I can find music I like, then I will buy it. I wish all music were available like this--I'd spend a lot of money in a few minutes!

Quality donflict, and other options

[fatwreckfan]

From http://audiolunchbox.com...

192 kbps VBR MP3 Audio Files

I'm confused...which is it? 192Kbps or VBR? And if it's VBR, what quality?

I'm somewhat disapointed that out-of-print stuff isn't available through here though. They distribute albums on Epitaph Records, but none of the albums no longer produced are available. I think this would be a great way to let people get ahold of those old albums they can't buy any more, since it involves 0 cost for the label to provide the mp3s.

Emusic on the other hand offers at least some of the out of print albums in DRM-free mp3 form. Unfortunately, I tried their service once and found the quality of mp3s sorely lacking...one album I downloaded crackled audibly through the whole thing.

Re:Quality donflict, and other options

[Anonymous Coward]

It's VBR, the length of the resulting file averages 192kbps.

Quit trying to sound smart or clever, you're neither.

Re:Quality donflict, and other options

[Anonymous Coward]

Well excuse me for being curious. If it's VBR, say VBR. The story made it sound like they were encoded at 192Kbps CBR.

I happen to encode my mp3s with LAME using the --alt-preset standard, which produces file sizes just slightly bigger than 192CBR, but a much better average bit rate.

And I'm sure I'm smarter and cleverer than you asshat.

Re:Quality donflict, and other options

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're just a dingleberry. It was clear to me and the previous anonymous coward (and probably everybody else out there except you).

If anybody is wearing their ass for a hat...

Re:Quality donflict, and other options

[Anonymous Coward]

which is it? 192Kbps or VBR?

You can set minimum and maximum bitrates that VBR encoding will use. Some encoders (iTunes for example) suck and don't let you specify min and max - only average VBR. However, you're right about it being ambiguous. For example, with a decent encoder - it could be 32Kbps to 192Kbps VBR. Or it could be 192Kbps to 320Kbps VBR.

Personally, I use 32Kbps to 256Kbps VBR with a medium quality setting if I am able to.

Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then your going to have a nice fat middleman like RIAA sucking up the money. I'd rather get digital music direct from the artists and have them get the money thank you very much.

Are you sure you don't have a fat middleman with online downloads?

Re:1 dollar Canadian (you got that backwards)

[warren69]

1 Canadian Dollar = 0.75324 US Dollar

based on http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic

Artists get 65% of revenue.

[Aaron England]

Sounds like Audio Lunchbox is a lot more fair to the artists than iTunes and other online music stores are.

Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself.

[Shakrai]

Are you sure you don't have a fat middleman with online downloads?

What part of "I'd rather get digital music direct from the artists" was so hard to understand? Did I say anything about Wally-World or iTunes?

Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

My computer is an ENIAC replica, you insensitive clod. It's current draw is 1500 Amps, and it costs me a thousand bucks to download an MP3!

I mean, geez, have some thoughtfulness!

Nice.

[U.I.D 754625]

This music store comes through where Apple failed for me. I download iTunes, and I wanted to like it, I wanted to possibly save for an iPod, but the store interface was crap. I don't feel I'm alone on this, but here's why: There weren't enough categories. There were no ties between like bands.

Audio lunchbox divides the music up so much better. It has hardcore, four metal subcategories, a bunch of rock categories and even a seperate punk category (these are just my tastes). iTunes, from the searching I did, would label all this "alternative/rock". By doing this, it was hard to find bands that don't have radio exposure and thus hard for me to buy music unless I wanted the radio top 40 garbage.

Re:Nice.

[vonFinkelstien]

I almost never listen to rock. I listen to Classical, Jazz, Blue and Folk

iTunes's organization of Classical music is wonderful. It could be better, but there are plenty of subgenres for me to easily find what I'm looking for.

It wasn't always like that. I added a suggestion on how to organize their Classical selections and was surprised to see that they followed up on it (probably due to many others with the same suggestion).

If you want more categories, then click on that that little button that allows you to give Apple feedback.

Re:Nice.

[U.I.D 754625]

Wait, waste my time just to make it easier to give my money to Apple? I think it's their job and other people got it right first, so that's where my dollar will go. Apple won't support my platform either (Linux), so I had to run it on my friend's PC to even check it out. And on top of that, the music is DRM protected. Maybe I'll give it a chance after it matures some, but first impressions count the most.

As usual...

[Bananas]

everyone jumps up and down saying:

1. "I can't hear a preview!" 2. "I don't want to hear this stuff, I want artist XYZ!" 3. "This concept sux, why should I get it when I can get it for free?"

Well, 1. You can hear a preview of the album and tracks. You're not looking hard enough. There's a link that will load a m3u file into insert mp3 player here and will have a single entry for each track. Don't like a track? Press the next button to skip to the next track. Can't do that with iTunes.

2. If you can't find artist XYZ, well, tough shit, you need to go elsewhere. Better yet, write artist XYZ and tell them to get their ass over to the office and sign up for distrobution.

3. If you want free, there's internet radio, or what's left of it after the RIAA lobbied the LoC and had the CARP ruling...

Re:$0.99 and Emusic

[mrondello]

To add to the emusic idea.

After looking at the Punk and Rock sections of the audio lunchbox offering. Emusic has a very large number of those releases that are being offered at cheaper rates. Not to mention the site design and features are much better. I don't think the audio lunchbox people even started to look at an effcient site design. So far browsing it has been akin to pulling teeth.

Emusic also does not use DRM. Their files are "alt-preset standard" LAME encoded mp3s.

For anyone looking for independent label releases online I would stress Emusic as an excellent place to start.

AudioLunchBox is Dying!

[Anonymous Coward]

Far too expensive.

Re:Crap, 40% off!

[NiceGeek]

So, since you were unable to find the preview buttons that are clearly labled when you click on an album (yep 30 second preview) how do you know they mostly suck? Or are you just bitching for the hell of it?

Try Mperia.

[Dan Crash]

Mperia gives a higher percentage back to the artist and uses Bitpass, which is already the most popular micropayment system out there. By supporting Mperia and Bitpass, you're helping not just musicians but webcomics artists, photographers, and others create a market for their works, too. Something worth thinking about.

also good with lunch, no registration required

[Anonymous Coward]

strange brew that's good for you.

Reviewed on Breakdown

[image]

I reviewed this music service (among many others) at Breakdown Industries and it stacked up very favorably. Note that the reviews are biased toward independent artists (i.e., RIAA-free).

Read the review here..

Yes, see Magnatune

[jocknerd]

Magnatune offers a multitude of formats including Ogg, MP3, WAV, and FLAC.

Looks like MySQL just ate their "lunch"

[ravic]

After trying the site's search...

Warning: mysql_connect(): Lost connection to MySQL server during query in /home/includes/include_functions.php on line 892

Warning: mysql_select_db(): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2) in /home/includes/include_functions.php on line 894

Warning: mysql_select_db(): A link to the server could not be established in /home/includes/include_functions.php on line 894

Warning: mysql_query(): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2) in /home/includes/include_functions.php on line 895

Warning: mysql_query(): A link to the server could not be established in /home/includes/include_functions.php on line 895
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2): 2002

...I guess they should have actually BOUGHT their software :D

Who are these guys?

[Call Me Black Cloud]

I looked at the audiolunchbox site and the only band I recognized was "Various Artists".

Have you tried Magnatune?

[J. T. MacLeod]

You may be interested in Magnatune.

Try before you buy. Low prices. Seems worthwhile to me.

Re:HearsayMusic.ca (indie) shameless self promotio

[warren69]

Doing some research on Neil Layton, some interesting information that I came across:

http://zed.cbc.ca/go.ZeD?CONTENT_ID=105428&page= co ntent

Apparently he wants to use a "Creative Commons" license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/ where you can copy, distrobute, and perform, but not use his works for commercial purposes. Though I don't see anything immedialtly on this subject at the website http://www.fadingwaysmusic.com

This guy seems really forward thinking for an artist, nice to see!

Daniel

Needs to be cheaper

[polyp2000]

I dont seem to get this, not sure what price CD's are in the States but Im guessing they probably average out at about 10-15 dollars, per album.

So why pay 99cents per track , when if you want the whole album 12-15 tracks, you could end up paying more for a lossy format audio track that you might accidentally delete(unless you habitually burn CD's)

Me ? I'd rather buy an Actual CD , in a box with nice printed disc and inlays for about the same price. Great thing about having the actual CD is that I can rip it to as many different formats as i like, at whatever quality satisfies me. But then we all know this dont we ?

I like mp3's and the versatilty but I prefer to have a non-lossy copy around. I have a good chunk of my CD collection ripped to my hard drive and I use Juk to browse and look after them all. My CD's ? I like to look at them in their dewey-decimal organised glory on my shelf. Its good for me because i like to have a physical product, but Im hopeless at looking after CD's, I used have many scratched and cracked cases.

I do have a few hard to find MP3's I have aquired off p2p , but really only a handful.
I can't see myself paying for mp3's when most of the osbcure tunes I might be looking for are not available through the "Legal" mp3 channels.

nick

Re:Needs to be cheaper

[mtnharo]

I dont seem to get this, not sure what price CD's are in the States but Im guessing they probably average out at about 10-15 dollars, per album.

At most record stores it tends to be more like $15-$20 when they aren't on sale.

So why pay 99cents per track , when if you want the whole album 12-15 tracks, you could end up paying more for a lossy format audio track that you might accidentally delete(unless you habitually burn CD's)

The whole albums are always $9.99, so an album with more than 10 tracks is cheaper. They also sell pre-paid cards that give you extra free tracks, making it less than $.99 each.

Most of the stuff you can find on Lunchbox or Magnatune are obscure, since they deal with all independent artists. Quality wise, Magnatune wins, since they offer direct ripped .wavs of the stuff they sell. FLAC would save a bit of bandwidth in that case, but it's a start.

Re:Needs to be cheaper

[sydb]

Actually, Magnatune do flac.

Re:Needs to be cheaper

[cens0r]

I hear this spouted off all the time. What record stores do you shop at? At most I pay $15 for an album, and that's rate. It probably averages to about $12. Sometimes (like the Rapture) I find an album for $7.99.

Re:Needs to be cheaper

[mtnharo]

Ahh, cool. Haven't been there in a while. When they started it was just MP3 or WAV.

Re:Needs to be cheaper

[mtnharo]

Granted that's mostly for big stores (FYE etc). There aren't very many smaller shops that have reasonable pricing near me. FYE really goes for the jugular with their pricing. $14.99 is a sale price there.

Um, bullshit..

[msimm]

A) Most of the independent artists that will be available through sites like this are NOT RIAA artists.

B) While $.99 may be necessary to cover the cost of Marketing Blitzes, Big Budget Studio time, Advertising, Printing and Distributing an album to your local record store, I think its feasible that independent artist spend considerably less on promotion and 'the machine'. If everyone adopts prices that don't reflect the actual costs involved in bringing the music to market we just end up with a new version of the old system. A lot of artist still are focused on GETTING THEIR MUSIC HEARD so this whole money argument is marketing talk as far as I'm concerned.

Industry music may be a different story, but I love and am VERY familiar with independent music and artists. I've got no trouble with sending 10 bucks off to support an artist I like, but I usually get a fancy printed album and what-not that added a little more value. If a download (of a 192 bit track?) is going to cost some money, fine, just don't charge me as much as you would for a CD, after all, its not the same thing.

Re:Um, bullshit..

[blamblamblam]

That's damn straight, bro. Ten bucks is already plenty for a physical album you can hold and admire; the digital version ought to be a bit less, don't you think?

Re:Um, bullshit..

[msimm]

As I said, I do. Think of it this way, everything these days is digital, at least with music and movies. So what I get for 10 bucks at a record store is digital music (which I'll move around to my computer and mp3 player when I get home) and archival media (hey, its like they backed it up for me!) at a much higher bitrate then usual. AND they included artwork!

So this whole argument that each 10 dollar album (be it itune or your local record store) is just reflecting cost is bullshit. You give me lossy, compressed tracks with *maybe* a (comparatively low-res) JPEG to stand in for physical cover art and somehow expect me to believe its worth the same amount as a packaged and presses compact disk? Give me a break.

Who is a nobody?

[colanut]

Why are they nobodies?

Just because they are independent doesn't mean they are nobodies. Many have huge communities where they work and play and within their individual scenes.

But maybe its just that you are so tuned into the L.A. entertainment machine that you can't imagine anything else. The world is bigger and much more diverse than you think.

Re:Who is a nobody?

[Have Blue]

It's all a tradeoff- If you shun commercial radio and music with significant promotion behind it (i.e. label music) and prefer to experiment and check out independent music you've never heard before, then it's your time and money that you're going to spend to separate the wheat from the chaff. Which do you think is worse, spending $15 on a chart-topping pop CD with 1 good song out of 10 on it, or spending $15 on ITMS or Audio Lunchbox and ending up with 1 song out of 15 you can stand listening to more than once? Don't forget that music taste is extremely subjective- there are tons of rappers with huge followings that I wouldn't buy or listen to in a million years. I personally am not willing to spend hours hunting around for great independent music; that's my choice and I'm not unhappy with my collection, pattern of expanding that collection, or listening habits. (fortunately there are still plenty of free and legal methods of hearing an entire song before buying it, even if what you're looking for is pretty esoteric (and I'm not talking about Kazaa)).

I agree that "nobody" is not a good term to use here, but off-label music is not a vast utopia of excellent tunes ripe for the picking either.

Re:Who is a nobody?

[colanut]

I'm not sure what you are getting at. These fans already exists. It has very little to do with experimenting. There are lots of magazines, radio stations, web sites and stores that serve people whom these bands fall under. There are entire communities who report, play and filter the "wheat from the chaff."

Its about perspective. The parent I replied to was dismissing a huge untapped marked simply because he prefers not to know who these bands are. The parent of this thread was being very subjective. To call these people nobodies is a terrible disservice to the fans and scenes they belong to. The bands on AudioLunchBox are already established even if the poster or you don't care to acknowledge it.

Off-label music is a vast utopia of excellent tunes ripe for the picking. If you don't care that's fine, but don't dismiss those who already do.

Getting your money's worth?

[Fratz]

Let me preface by saying I haven't looked into other online music downloads because they tend to have DRM, so maybe this is a problem with those other services, too.

I looked at a couple of albums, and I see a trend for the song lengths to be very short, and the song counts to be on the long side. I suppose the ideal album for the artist would feature 3600 tracks of 1-second lengths, whereas the ideal album for the consumer would be a single 60-minute track.

Obviously, as time goes by, track counts and lengths with normalize somewhat, but are we not getting the same value as we would if we bought 70-minute albums from BMG for $8 apiece?

So...

[autechre]

You really can't tell if you'll like the music by listening to the free previews that pretty much everyone gives you? eMusic does 30 seconds, and I think iTunes does too. I'm not sure about the others, but I think Magnatune even lets you listen to the whole song, or listen to a big streaming audio feed of everything they have.

You could also listen to radio stations which play those sorts of music. Blatant plug: WMBC radio, in my sig, plays a good deal of it. We also have shows that suck, of course, but you're not going to like everything our DJs do, and vice-versa. See, indie artists have radio stations and review sites too; you just have to look a bit harder. That goes along with it being less expensive and restricted.

Indie CDs are generally less than those by major label artists, and the indie musicians get to keep more of the money. But $2 is pretty ridiculous; it's not as though these artists don't work as hard on their songs as major-label ones, or as though the songs aren't as good. Many of these artists will let you download a song or two from each album in unrestricted MP3 format; The Archenemy Record Company is pretty generous with this.

Some URLs to get started:

http://wmbc.umbc.edu/ (shameless plug)
http://www.cmj.com/
http://www.allmusic.co m/
http://www.archenemy.com/
http://www.warpreco rds.com/
http://www.tgrec.com/
http://www.fueled byramen.com/
http://www.luakabop.com/

Monkey's Audio or FLAC?

[Frohan]

So when umm.. can I get this stuff in something not lossy... like FLAC or Monkey's Audio (in all honestly though I think use Monkey's Audio because it has the cool .ape tag)

Re:Monkey's Audio or FLAC?

[kylector]

You know it's so funny to see people whine and complain about how music stores, like the iTMS, use an "inferior" and "closed" format that "has DRM." Then, a music store comes along that sells music in Ogg Vorbis--a format that the OS community rants and raves about because it's "better" and "open" and "lacks DRM"--and people still post crap like this, essentially saying, "That's not good enough." Well if it's not good enough even after what you're whining for comes about, you have three options:

1. Go somewhere else! Or better yet,

2. Start your own store if you feel your format is so superior and you're so much better. Or finally,...

3. STFU.

A transcoding question...

[DLWormwood]

I am actually in the possession of that rare beast, an non-Apple AAC player.

When transcoding to 128kbps AAC, which source material suffers less degredation, 192kbps MP3 or Q6 Vorbis? This music site has decently high quality originals for a change, but not in formats suited to my player.

Re:A transcoding question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't that AAC player also support at least either MP3 or OGG?

Re:A transcoding question...

[DLWormwood]

Yes, it supports MP3, but it only has a 210 Meg capacity. I can get an additional hour out of it if I use 128kbps AAC instead of 192kbps MP3. I'm just curious if either Vorbis or MP3 suffer more from transcoding to AAC than the other.

Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself.

[asdf 101]

Couldn't agree with you any more.

But still, if you truly want to be able to recoup all those "costs" and make some money over and above the cost of the music you purchase by sharing it.. try Divendo

Also check out Magnatune

[DaveJay]

Magnatune has been mentioned before, and it offers entire albums from $4-$18 (it's up to you how much you want to pay), free access to streams of the music you want to preview, and you end up purchasing two downloadable .zip files: one with pre-compressed .mp3s, and one with WAV files(!) -- and no DRM whatsoever.

I've bought two albums to date (mrEpic and Brad Sucks) and recommend them both highly. Enjoy!

Re:Also check out Magnatune

[DaveJay]

I guess I need to go there more often -- it's $5 minimum, not $4, and they offer a LOT more download options than mp3 and WAV. Sorry!

Audiophiles

[Anonymous Coward]

Audiophiles HATE MP3. You're just an idiot.

Re:Audiophiles

[MoFoQ]

that's not true at all, and posting as an AC makes it more so.
VBR (32-320) MP3's are liked among audiophiles (maybe not all but then again, not all people are smart). I would like to fully use Ogg but my iPod and car cd deck don't do ogg (though I plan to make a linux based mini-ITX car computer for that). And, legit mp3's are easier to find, sadly. Just like how I would like to ride vehicles that run on anti-matter/matter as it's power source, I can't as they don't make them (yet).

Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself.

[nolife]

You want this and that and so on..
I listen to and enjoy music, I don't care to sit around and look at a PR poster of the people that made the music.
I do agree about the bitrate and/or ripping method but only on something recorded REALLY well like some of Telarcs releases like this one (and I do not like the real Beach Boys at all). 95% of non independant music and even a higher % of independant music is recorded with "average" quality that encoding to MP3 at 192 would not make much of a difference to the overall quality. Even less for someone that is used to listening to 12in vinyl (unless you've spent 10000's on your turntable, planer speakers, and your tube amplifiers and I've yet to see a vinyl setup that you could listen to while driving or jogging)

Audio Lunchbox = gateway drug

[larsoncc]

Consider Audio Lunchbox your "gateway drug" to a cooler music scene. Mixed in with all the indie music are some more mainstream artists like Sponge and Pennywise. Soon, you'll be clicking away at all the "extra" bands they have - the real meat of the service.

I allowed Audio Lunchbox a few weeks worth of free banners at my site a little while back(they used to have an orange theme!), because I knew these guys were fighting the good fight.

What is surprising to me is the amount of new bands that they've got using the service. Since the last time I was on their site, they've literally added hundreds of bands.

So what you're saying...

[Kjella]

If you buy a hardcover for $40, you're paying $35 for the medium, not the content ...is that an E-book of a new (hardcover) book should cost maybe $5 bucks? + 2 cents for 100k of bandwidth? Well, let me know when you find that offered...

Kjella

FACT

[proj_2501]

You're a fucking ninny.

New SCO music service

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you heard of the new SCO music service? Each track only costs $699, and they are personally delivered to your door by Jack Valenti.

more free music here...

[SkyMunky]

...another plug for etree.org, which offers free lossless (Shorten / .shn format) downloads of live shows from bands which allow recording

Repeat after me

[gidds]

iTunes != the iTunes Music Store

iTunes is an app. It's a good way to organise and play your music. You may or may not like it, but you can use it without going near the iTMS. (I do -- the latter isn't even available here...) You can use it to manage MP3 downloaded from Magnatune or anywhere else.

Sorry to go on about this, but this misunderstanding seems to be spreading...

Re:Repeat after me

[U.I.D 754625]

You are right, this is a common misconception. I think it is intentional on Apple's part though. They love the seamless transition between products that they do so well. My previous comment was a quasi-review of the iTMS, not iTunes itself.

Re: Repeat after me

[gidds]

Yeah, it's strange of Apple to let people confuse them to this degree. Especially as it doesn't always work for them, as the post above shows!

(And of course it's bound to fail anywhere outside the US. (And yes, I'm going to keep having a grump about this :) )

Close but...

[Seanasy]

These are the kinds of bands I like but it's still too much, to me, for compressed audio. Or, rather, I'd pay that much for uncompressed audio.

'Id like someone to sell me the actual CD online but, while waiting for the CD to ship, give me access to MP3s or AACs of the album.

emo bands

[Anonymous Coward]

I like this simply for the fact that they've listed at least 2 emo-type albums right on the front page: The Get Up Kids and Death Cab for Cutie. I am an iPod owner, and love iTunes, but they don't ALWAYS have some of the lesser known bands. (they do have an exclusive album of TGUK and do have Death Cab albums, but this site seems to be promoting this type of music more)

Archive.org and DRM free lossless music.

[mp3phish]

Also, for those of you who want lossless music, and for no cost, check out archive.org

These people go and solicit permission from bands to post their recorded live content. There are tons of bands listed, and everyone should find people they like in there. It's not britney spears or michael jackson, but instead, its quality music.

You have to click on the Live Music Archive link to find what I'm talking about. Here is a list of the bands and links to all their content online.

Go check it out. FLAC and SHN songs everywhere. I keep them on my local hard drive, and any time i need to burn it to a CD, or MP3 CD, or to my portable mp3 player, I have automatic scripts which convert it and transferrs the data. LAME 128kbps ABR mp3 for my portable flash player, LAME Recommended VBR mp3 settings for CD-R MP3 disks for my in dash car player, and translation to .wav for audio CD creation. Someone could write a python program with drag n drop functions i'm sure, one probably already exists for this purpose. It could all be by the click of a button. Then any mixed CD you can imagine are at your fingertips at the quality you preferr depending on the media you want to carry it on. Lossless music archives are the way to go.

For those phish phans out there, archive.org decided to not post their content. But I would recommend to go to LivePhish for
$12.99 soundboard and mastered recordings of their live shows in MP3 or FLAC lossless downloads. No DRM included :)

There are other sites with lossless non-DRM music. But these are my favorites. Everyone should check this shit out ASAP!

RIAA Will Fix This

[red floyd]

They will lobby the FCC to find AudioLunchbox to be profane and have it shut down.

Music for Film? (slightly OT)

[Occam's Hammer]

I am a filmmaker and I have been shooting some low/low budget shorts. Does anyone know if there is a similar clearinghouse for indie music that i can license for my short films

Integrate into OSS projects ala iTunes?

[OmniVector]

I'm surprised no one suggested this, but i figured i would. Since many in the OSS crowd are anti RIAA, why don't we try integrating these indie music stores into apps like Rhythmbox and Juk like iTunes? I'm sure the indie companies would be more than willing for such an effort, and I think it would go a long way towards showing the general public that it's possible to accomplish such a feat without the RIAA and DRM.

Well, except...

[The Queen]

emusic won't offer tunes from unsigned bands.

That leaves me out. I will certainly look into Audio Lunchbox and Magnatune...

AllofMp3 is way Better, 1cent / 1mb

[handmedowns]

http://www.allofmp3.com offers DRM free at 1cent a megabyte and appears to be perfectly legal as well. They also support multiple bitrates for mp3, ogg, wma and other formats. I can purchase anywhere from 15 - 20 full albums for $10. I don't see any music service beating that anytime soon.

Re:AllofMp3 is way Better, 1cent / 1mb

[jonathan_95060]

there are other russian music sites (mp3search.ru) but allofmp3.com is the best!

They have a much larger selection than iTunes + Napster put together (or so it seems to me) and, as previously mentioned, %80 (or more) of the songs allow you to select what format and bitrate you want to download them in.

+4 Informative

[Anonymous Coward]

Music without DRM

[bgeer]

...is like a dog without a brick tied to its head.

Make it FLAC

[Lord Kestrel]

And I'll buy. That's the nice thing about Metallica's new concert store. All the songs they offer are in FLAC or MP3 format, so you can get a high quality recording.

Plus, FLAC doesn't have any DRM, so I can listen to it on any computer I own.

depends...

[poptones]

No way will I pay a buck a track to download music from an RIAA org or one of their offshore, affiliated orgs. No matter how many times I listen to Pink or Alicia Keyes or Outkast, my feeling is they have enough money and I'll miss it a hell of a lot more than they will.

That said, if Outkast were not on a major label, and if they had a place where I could buy merchandise - whether it be cds or other "stuff" - I probably would throw some bucks their way. Maybe so with Pink as well, although probably not with Alicia unless they offered a $3.95 hat pin or something.

I feel obliged to share - period. If that means sharing "intangible" assets because I'm broke, so be it. If it means sharing my income with the lady who does my laundry for $30 a week when I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself, that'll work too. I have a whole stack of Linda's CDs here I bought for $6 each from a Russian retail outlet. Do I think Linda got ANY money from my purchase? No - but I really wanted the music and $6 a pop is cheap enough it doesn't hurt my bottom line so if I should find a LEGITIMATE contact where I can make sure Linda gets paid, she'll be getting some cash from me - and it definitely will be more than $6 for each of the 8 discs I have.

Meanwhile, because I'm all but certain the CDs I purchased were pirated, I have no reservations about ripping them to 320kbps mp3 and plastering them all over usenet (in fact, many of them are probably still on your favorite nntp server).

I really think price is irrelevant when it comes to such things. I downloaded a CD of MP3s from usenet a couple of weeks back that quickly became some of my favorite new tracks. When I went online to search for the artist, I was pleasantly surprised when the trail led me right back to the GPL community. So now I can choose how much I wish to reward the artist and download essentially perfect copies (FLAC, WAV, etc) of every track. I can even license the work for my own commercial use with a few mouse clicks.

Linda... and Pink... and Neil (as in Young) are you listening? That $18 selection has your names on it - just give us the chance.

Like bleep?

[bigberk]

I guess this is like the approach taken by bleep (Warp Records DRM-free music downloads)... seems like a good approach in general, because instead of limiting your users to those using Windows Media (or whatever 'compliant' player) suddenly every computer user becomes a potential customer.

Magnatunes still better

[creideiki]

Granted, they don't have artists I'd heard elsewhere such as Nickle Creek and Sponge that audiolunchbox has, but they have at least four niceties:

• You can get lossless FLAC-encoded mp3s or wav files. 99 cents per track is too much for compressed audio.
• You can preview an entire album at 128kbs, no crappy 30 second clips. I've pulled things off onto my hard drive from Magnatunes to listen to more easily and paid for the things I've kept. A lot of times the context of lyrics or movements in a song is important and a 30 second preview doesn't cut it.
• You can set your own price (between 5 and 18 dollars with half going to the artist). Some albums are not worth 99 cents per track, some are worth more. The listener should decide. Music cannot be based on production value - it's true value is determined by how much listeners esteem it.
• No flash ads... yeah, yeah, I know, flash click to play...

Re:Magnatunes still better

[WarmBoota]

So you're the other person who likes punk AND bluegrass. I figured that there had to be at least one other human. I'm waiting for the eventual combination of the two genres, although the image of a peirced, tatooed 5-string banjo player seems a bit frightening.

With that said, I just purchased and downloaded Sponge's "All the drugs in the world" from Audio Lunchbox. Definitely a speedy process, I had all of the MP3s inside of 3 minutes on a cable modem and I also downloaded a zipped collection of Oggs (for comparison's sake) in about the same time.

why ogg q6?

[Anonymous Coward]

am I the only ogg geek here? why are these guys and magnitude offering ogg q6? q4 makes files about the same size (sometimes a little smaller) as an 128k mp3 and sounds thousands of times better. This way, our collections will stay about the same size.

OT

[Christ-on-a-bike]

Trip Wamsley is the bomb!

Magnatune include FLAC

[Alan Cox]

Magnatune have a whole collection of non-mainstream music, with a particular emphasis on classical stuff (which suprised me a little initially). They offer FLAC encoded audio providing you actually pay up (the mp3/ogg are try before you buy too).

Perhaps audiolunchbox can be persuaded to go the same way. Its certainly nice being able to burn full quality CDs of the music I bought online.

http://www.magnatune.com

Grammar nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

"Magnatune have a whole...."

That's "Magnatune HAS".

Here is why...

[uqbar]

Yes, but you still need to record, mix and master the music. This requires the use of expensive equipment and spaces.

While some of you probably think the mastering stuff that comes with protools is swell (even though you are mastering in your bedroom over cheapo Genelec monitors) and even though you think you can use SM57's and built in preamps for recording everything, generally consumers like music that is recorded in a sonically well-architected environment by a talented engineer, mixed in a equally good room with a good mixing engineer with some good outboard gear, and mastered in a sonically perfect room with some very specialized tools.

All this costs money. And if you are laying out that kind of cash, you need to move lots of volume, and the only way to move volume is by doing publicity which also costs... money.

Lower prices - well you get what you pay for. I can make a cheap recording of a great song on my $400 multitrack and a few $70 SM57's. But you ain't gonna want it even if it's free (unless you are my grandma or someone equally unobjective).

We aren't living in a 100% virtual world just yet.

Indy Artists

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot of indy hideouts on the net. I know my band was getting some play on Independent Music Network on TV and on the net. If you're an independent artist, they basically show your videos and stream it on the net for free. Our fans were stoked to see our video online so I guess people are catching on to the streaming thang.

http://www.imntv.com

Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

absolutely superb troll. I really mean it. Very subtle.. Bravo. 10/10.

Well if you really want to know ....

[Alan Cox]

It depends on the friction of the transaction and also on the elasticity of the demand. There is actually an optimum price for a piece of music, finding it is fun 8)

Not so fast there...

[poptones]

When I went to that page the first thing that caught my eye was the Stereolab Radio 1 sessions. "Cool" I thought - "they have Stereolab!" So I clicked - only to find out it's really only HALF the album (cd1 of 2) and it's $9.99 to buy a collection of 192kbps mp3 files or some Q6 ogg files. Given that I MIGHT download 192kbps or Q7 files if they were given to me in newsgroups, I don't consider that much of a choice. And, while that CD set might cost 30 bucks if you live in the UK, right at the top of that page it says "this is only for sale to people in the US and Canada."

So how is that cheaper than CDs?

Re:Not so fast there...

[the_consumer]

Well, if you're not buying that album on audiophile grade vinyl your a bit of a wanker anyway, aren't you? ;)

Magnatune has this same concept already.

[Anonymous Coward]

Magnatune has this same concept but you can elect to pay as much as you want for an album. They offer WAV, mp3, vorbis, and I think FLAC files.

www.magnatune.com

Half the money goes to the artist.

Kicks Ass !!!

[burdicda]

Very well worth it!
Been said already but
MP3's...Ogg Vorbis....Cover Art....and Lyrics
the quality is great...192+ on every song

I Downloaded The Get Up Kids .. Guilt Show
wow Martyr Me....was worth the album price...
kicks ass.....

I'll be going back....

ten bux a month

[poptones]

Will get you 6GB of downloads from easynews. that's WITH a giant clickable web interface that supports whatever download manager you want to use (they'll even help you configure it) because these people are smart enough to realize download managers SAVE them money on bandwidth.

Take the weekly poll (how's our service?) and you'll get another 500MB a week - that's at least three CDs of high quality MP3 tracks in addition to the 50 or so CDs worth of bandwidth you get with the basic $9.98 subscription fee.

emusic is just more of the same. That "downhill battle" webpage needs to add another about emusic, since it, like napster and itunes, is just more of the same. No DRM? So what? It's still an overpriced slushbox funneling money into the RIAA "sue da bastards" fund.

So when I see stuff like Audio Lunchbox or MagnaTunes, well, I like the idea but I'm inclined not to part with my money, for fear of buying bad music.

Then don't buy it. You can listen to any CD on MagnaTunes for free. You can even choose low bandwidth (as I, being on a modem, must do) or you can have the entire thing streamed through your winamp player at a "glorious" 128kbps. In fact, you can download every single track for free at that bitrate and listen to them as many times as you like. You can also just let their "radio stations" stream to your desktop and pick up the stuff you like as it plays.

In other words: the new way is just like the old way - except you get to choose who gets your money, and you know how much of it they get.

You listen to what they offer, you buy what you like. And you don't have to listen to idiotic jocks screaming at you to shop at crazy eddie's. So where is the "risk" in all that?

Who cares about price?

[poptones]

check out the releases on this site. Siouxsie and Budgie have been doing things their own way for years, and they seem to be doing quite OK. They do regular international tours (in the US even now) and you'll be hard pressed to find a release on their site that is NOT SOLD OUT.

Go on... see for yourself.

You'll also be hard pressed to find their music being traded on usenet or other p2p services. Not because no one likes it (obviously many of us do, lest it not sell out) but because they have created a "brand" of intimacy and respect. Even years ago, when my buddy brian was selling their unofficial "Janet and the Icebergs" compilation (a DIY CD box set of every single Siouxsie and the Banshees track he could collect, all perfectly processed in Cool Edit), most of the members seemed perfectly fine with it. Reason being, it wasn't done "for profit" and it never escaped the bounds of "the community" (this was years before Napster was even a Hershey bar in young Mr. Fanning's back pocket).

On the other hand, if I really want a release that's sold out, it's not too hard for me to find someone "in the community" with an extra copy to sell. Will I pay more than "retail?" Quite likely; such is the price of exclusivity.

So... do some quick math. Each of those releases is limited to 1000 (very exclusive, usually limited to fan club members) to 30,000 copies (for a really hyped, popular release). At $20 a pop and 6 releases a year, what's that? Maybe $200,000.00 or so a year? Plus the money (and lifestyle perks) from touring? And I wonder: just how much do they still get from the "Batman" and "Lost In Space" soundtracks?

Rather vulgar to talk of money like this in LaSioux's absence, but the point needs to be made: artists don't need to sell a 100,000 copies of a CD in order to make good money - only record companies need to sell 100,000 copies in order to make money. Strip la machine out of the venue, and talented artists can do quite well on just a few percent of the volume demanded by the men in the shark skin suits.

.99 is totally reasonable for niche market music

[Anonymous Coward]

The operational costs for running a site like this entail far more than just bandwidth & servers. In case you didn't know, you don't just pop in a CD and start ripping away to sell independent or small label content. None of this stuff comes with CDDB info. All that content has to be acquired, entered into a database and then organized to be somehow useful to a user. On top of that there are also the costs related to developing and maintaining label relationships in order to keep getting that fresh content. Add on the administrative, legal, accounting, sales, marketing and the IT staff needed to maintain and improve the site and you've got to sell alot of downloads at .99 to break even, labor ain't cheap. And let's not forget that all these mp3 distributors have to pay out a fee to Thomson for each and every download.

What makes me an expert? I'm the head geek for a music download site for DJs that sells dance and electronic music (house,techno, trance etc...). www.beatport.com

After all the $$ Apple has spent on marketing iTunes they aren't making much money on the downloads (if any), only the iPods sales make up for it.

This was done over 4 years ago!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lunchbox seems very cool, but almost the exact same thing was done over 4 years ago by www.hypermusic.net in Sweden. They also have a lot of free live QuickTime videos, mostly with Swedish indie bands but also with some US and UK bands like Stereolab and Songs:Ohia.

I think they were mentioned in Financial Times at some point, I know they also got a lot of media attention in Scandinavia at the time.
I don't know what happened later (the bad guys cut off their funding?), but they still keep the site up and there are hundreds of bands on there.

not to troll but

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm afraid (and really, this is not trolling) the solution to this (and it's a very real problem) is to pirate the music and then buy what you like. i have to listen to an album all the way through, often several times, to know when i like something. i seriously can't tell straight away, and i'm constantly surprised by what new music i like. if i can't borrow that album off someone, i'll download it, have a good listen and only then consider buying it.

so there's ya solution :)

Every Song Should Have its own URL

[fizzygug]

It is difficult to promote anything on the Internet by word of mouth, unless it has its own URL, as explained at Unsigned Artists: How to Promote Your Songs using RSS. Both MagnaTune and Audio Lunchbox are deficient in this respect. You can make the world's greatest web site, with the greatest navigation features, but we are entering an age where content and navigation are being separated. The most important thing is not that users can navigate around your web-site -- it's that they can navigate around someone else's web-site (or RSS or whatever) to get to the desired destination on your web site.

Lunchbox Audio Buying Experiences

[radoni]

Post below.

mine goes, i recently threw 5 bucks in my (new) paypal account to see how that process works. ALB supports payment using paypal, and there's an interesting album for $(2.99). i purchased it, as the site is easy to navigate and payement is made easy using paypal. the preview in particular works much better than other similar sites i've used. xmms loaded with the preview link and gave no trouble.

www.magnatune.com

[Listen Up]

The website located at http://www.magnatune.com is also another example of a website created by artists for artists. 50% of the profits from the music sold through the website goes directly to the artists. You can even stream the music directly to your HDD if you want to listen to it before buying it. They only ask that if you do like it, please support the artists.

Sampling the CD is a good thing

[BobSutan]

I love the ability to sample the entire album. I wonder if more online distributers will incorporate this? My only beef is that the samples are too brief to get an idea of what the whole song may sound like.

"No nonsense licensing" and music for Linux

[nimblebrain]

I'm glad to see some DRM-free alternatives, especially for the purposes of buying music and playing it on a Linux box.

I asked the question in #linux on FreeNode a while back as to where I could go buy and download legitimate music through Linux, without owning an iPod (or using the DRM "crack"), or needing Windows Media Player 7.1 (or 9.0) on a Windows machine, or having to burn to CD under one OS so that I could have it on Linux. Not much in the way of answers, and one heart-felt "if it's only one track, you're just as well to use P2P". I'd still rather buy it if I could - I like some songs and can afford them - I'm not out for a free lunch.

For commodities like this, I want a no-nonsense license. I'd like e-music vendors to say,

"Buy it, listen to it, throw it on your machine at work, put it into a compilation for your significant other - anything reasonable you'd do with a live CD in your mitts. We trust you that far, we know that by coming here, you're not likely to be a P2P weenie with an entitlement attitude. We figure you'll be happy with your music, and come back and buy more and tell your friends. We're working on some forums and rating/comment systems to help you sort through the overwhelming amount of music to find what you'll probably like a lot faster. And thanks."

This, MagnaTunes and a few others, even if the selection may not be that great for someone with some mainstream or retro music tastes, is a good step in that direction.

It feels pretty strange in this connected day and age not to be able to track down music I'd like in record time. It's certainly not the lack of willingness to purchase :)

Looks like I am too old :-(

[Zilch]

>FAQ
>3. How old do I have to be to use Audio Lunchbox?
>
>13 years old.

Damn!

Zilch.

Totally Free Music:

[torpor]

Here, also.

http://www.ampfea.org/files

13?

[kraker]

From their FAQ:
3. How old do I have to be to use Audio Lunchbox?
13 years old.

Well, I guess I'm too old then (31 != 13).

On the bright side:
4. Can my cousin in Italy buy songs from you?
Yes. Anyone in the world can download tracks from us.

They sure beat Apple here: available worldwide! :)

It did happen, over 4 years ago!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lunchbox seems very cool, but almost the exact same thing was done over 4 years ago by www.hypermusic.net in Sweden. They let the artists sell both music and videos, with 50 % of the price going directly to the artist.
I think they were mentioned in Financial Times at some point, I know they also got a lot of media attention in Scandinavia at the time.
I don't know what happened later (the bad guys cut off their funding?), but they still keep the site up and there are hundreds of bands on there.

They also have a lot of free live QuickTime videos, mostly with Swedish indie bands but also with some US and UK bands like Stereolab and Songs:Ohia.

I really hope some time one of these efforts will work, but they'll have a hard time dealing with pressure from the music industry.