The New MP3.com: 3rd Time a Charm?

macdaddypunk writes "Two weeks ago, CNET unveiled Download.com Music (mistaken by some for the new MP3.com). A week ago, they told the press that the real MP3.com was open for business, yet the site itself still said "coming soon." Today, MP3.com is finally live, and off to a sputtering start. It's a combination of tech articles and a meta-search for major-label downloads. For example, with a single search you can find that 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles is not available for legal download at iTunes, Napster, or anywhere else. The tech content includes such gems as 'how to copy your old vinyl records onto CDs.' The real news is what it does NOT include: no free downloads, and no indie artist community. (As reported earlier, the former MP3.com archive of 1.7 million songs was instead resurrected by another independent music community). The new MP3.com's search results don't even include the 3,500 indie artists from Download.com Music."

Comments

All we need is Netcraft's confirmation.

[grub]

For example, with a single search you can find that 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles is not available for legal download at iTunes, Napster, or anywhere else. [...] The real news is what it does NOT include: no free downloads, and no indie artist community.

This submission sounds less like a news item and more like a proactive obituary. It's "mp3.com" in name only.

Ummmm

[MikeXpop]

..But this doesn't change the fact that CDs last a lot longer [than vinyl]

Excuse me while I hit the article writer with my jazz records from the 40's. Sheesh.

Re:Ummmm

[ax10m5]

Sorry to say, but while your vinyl record may be durable, if your record player broke down you would be screwed. Vinyl record players are really expensive and difficult to find anymore.

My father has a huge collection of vinyl records that he accumulated in his youth. They sat in storage for years until around 1996 when I bought him a brand new record player. I had a hell of a time finding one and I think it cost me $400.

It would probably be much harder now to find such a setup for that price.

Re:Ummmm

[Mwongozi]

$400?!

Re:Ummmm

[ajs318]

You don't need to be able to run the turntable at 78rpm. Just play the record at 45rpm and correct the speed digitally. sox is your friend. However, you really need a special stylus to track the fatter grooves of 78rpm records properly; the ones designed for microgroove {45 / 33 rpm} records do not touch both walls, but instead tend to dance about in the bottom of the groove and produce extra noise. On the other hand, the bottom of the groove is more likely to be undamaged {fat needles ride high}, so try it first and see what works.

You will require a sound card with a line input, and a preamplifier with the appropriate equalisation characteristic {for a magnetic pick-up cartridge} or a very high input impedance {for a ceramic cartridge}. Don't even think about using the mic input, even though in this case it doesn't matter about being mono: the equalisation is wrong for magnetic, and the impedance is too low for ceramic. To go from 45 to 78rpm use sox song_at_45.wav song_at_78.wav speed 1.733. Alternatively, if you have a very good sound card which lets you set the sample rate precisely, recording at 25442Hz will give the correct speed when played back at 44100Hz. The cut-off frequency will only be about 12.5kHz this way, but in practice this isn't such a problem as the old recording equipment had less bandwidth anyway.

Note you will almost certainly have to perform some additional low-pass filtering. Read the sox manpage and experiment. A spectrum analyser {hardware or software} will enable you to determine the bandwidth of the signal; anything outside there should be discarded.

indie artists

[Shakrai]

Perhaps this is more properly a subject for a JE but does anyone have any forums/websites with a list of Indie artists that aren't signed to a RIAA member (and not just the RIAA members that aren't on the board -- i.e: the big 5)?

I don't think I (or most people) can cut RIAA completely out of my life because I do like a few of the artists (though I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a DRM'ed file from any online source -- used cds rock) but it would be nice to expand the horizons and check out some indie artists in the genres that I and my family/friends like.

Re:indie artists

[Shakrai]

-1 Redundant for you.

Actually I think that refers to a redundant post not a redundant statement within a post but your point is taken. But hey I worded it the best I could with the boss walking past my desk every five minutes ;)

I agree with the second part of what you wrote. I like the bands I like, RIAA affiliated or not. Used CDs do indeed rock.

Well I do agree that RIAA puts out a lot of noise pollution. I also agree that Clearchannel has ruined radio by playing "for the masses" playlists that never change (I can set my clock by the playlist of the local Clearchannel station that we play at the office) -- I suppose any large organization is going to stagnate overtime.

That said there are a few genuinely good artists that happen to be signed to RIAA labels. So whatta do? Download the music on P2P? Get a crappy (albeit free) copy compressed with lossful compression? I'd rather wait two weeks and pick up a used cd at my favorite local store. It's cheaper then buying a whole album off even ITMS (and for all my complaints about iTunes price isn't one of them --- I refuse to do business for other reasons) and I sleep better at night knowing that my money is going back into the local economy instead of some fat cat RIAA executive that could care less about me or my community.

Too many cooks in the kitchen

[ax10m5]

Why are so many hopping onto this downloaded music craze. I thought Apple Itunes, which looks like the field leader, was not making any profit at all, and was just using it as a tool to boost thier ipod sales. Does Walmart and mp3.com really think they fare much better?

Re:Too many cooks in the kitchen

[twofidyKidd]

You haven't looked at the site, nor have you read the article submission. MP3.com's sole purpose is NOT to sell legal downloads, just like everyone else. They are a multi-purpose site. Digital music news, user guides, compatibility guides, etc. I, for one, like the site. I think it's got a lot of useful info, it acts as sort of a catch-all for user discussion, and it even looks good. I hope they succeed in at least becoming a good, central source for digital entertainment.

I thought Apple Itunes, which looks like the field leader, was not making any profit at all, and was just using it as a tool to boost thier ipod sales.

I feel I have to address this since it seems to keep coming up. Apple might not be making any direct profit from download sales, and maybe neither is anyone else, but someone is, and that "someone" are labels. Given the notion that the business-end of the labels appear to be the least tech-savvy people on the planet, consider iTunes and the rest as the outsourced end of the labels' distribution methods. What I'm getting at is that the services probably aren't going to ever make the money they should in volume, but probably just enough to keep them around as another marketing tool for the labels'. It's like web-banners. You may never click on one, but if you see them enough, you're bound to become familiar with the service/product/etc. that the banner advertises.

Anyhow, wasn't one of the aims of the "downloaded music craze" to improve the quality of the product from the consumer point of view? Consider this: There's about seven or eight legal download services that I consider to be the "primary" services. Together, they make up a fairly large music catalog, and not of just pop music. I can buy a whole album's worth of music for considerably less than what I'd pay at a retail outlet, like a Sam Goody (nearly half the cost if you consider tax on a $17.99 album.) In nearly all the cases, I can burn a CD of the music, which means I can pretty much do anything with it after that. And for those of you that are running Linux, let me ask you this: would it kill you to go out and get a generic windows box, and set it up so that it specifically handles music only? I mean if you are that adamant about not using windows, then don't, but for christ's sake don't act like you have no other option. In most cases, if you don't like anything that iTunes or the like carries, then you won't be needing windows anyhow. Case in point: Audio Lunchbox. 192 Kbps .mp3 format downloads, accessible through a web browser on nearly any platform, and 100% free of DRM and other nonsense.

You have options, and it has gotten better. You still can't walk into a store and preview the music before you buy it, but you can with most of the legal download services. It's a pain in the ass nowadays to use P2P apps for downloads because it takes too damn long, even on my cable modem, mostly because I have to find it first, then I have to try and find a decent sound quality, and then there's the viruses, and what have you...99 cents, you have what you're looking for, right from the get go, it downloads fast, it sounds GOOD ENOUGH (I'm not an audiophile, nor do I care to be one, that's too much work for too little enjoyment)...it's basically a whole lot less of a pain in the ass.

I'm just trying to be optimistic about the whole "downloaded music craze" and hope that it only gets better as time progresses, because everything can stand to improve. If you ask me, we are at a much better place than we were 3 or 4 years ago. Granted we could have all gone without the bullshit lawsuits and the DRM/DMCA crap, but as history will tell you, if you can't learn from your mistakes, then you won't be around long enough to keep making them.

Screw pay-to-download mp3s

[TerminalInsanity]

If you insist on paying for what you can get for free, cut the middle-man and just send the 50 cents directly to the artist that made the music, because thats about all they get from that 15 bucks you would spend at the store

Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s

[Paulrothrock]

Yes, let's start a check-writing campaign so that J Lo and Britney know how much they're loved.

Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s

[Kenja]

Dont forget to send money to the sound engineers, the studio managers, the musicians, pre press engineer, factory workers and everyone else involved. Or do you think that Madona just grunts and craps out a pile of CDs?

Wow....

[phaetonic]

I haven't even bothered to use iTunes or any other service that sells music online. I thought I'd play with mp3.com, since they have a pretty nice section of eletronic music. It turns out they give you an option to download the music file from various sources, in various formats, including ogg! On top of this, they tell you if the file is DRM'd or not. I might actually be a customer once the "coming soon..." is replaced with an actual link for purchasing.

You mean...

[arrow]

The new www.mp3.com.com.com.com...

(if you don't get it, visit other C|NET sites.)

Excellent!

[patrixmyth]

~For example, with a single search you can find that 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles is not available for legal download at iTunes, Napster, or anywhere else.

Just what I always wanted, a search engine that would tell me where I couldn't find what I was looking for...

Supporting Independent Music

[lotsofno]

really, the best route for anyone wanting to listen to music is to stick to more independent material--there's enough good stuff out there to last you several lifetimes.

that way, when you buy a song from Magnatune, Bleep, or Audiolunchbox, you WON'T be:

1.) sending your cash to the RIAA
2.) attributing to the success of a service that fronts the RIAA, supporting the operation of tyrannous record labels with your cash
3.) supporting propietary DRM
4.) locking yourself into using iTunes or an iPod as your portable player

by opting for other services that aren't iTunes/Walmart/Sony/Rhapsody/etc.., you WILL be:

1.) sending more cash to the musicians you like
2.) attributing to the success of a service that better represents and compensates the musicians you like, without restricting how you listen to your music
3.) free to listen to your music however you want, whether it be with winamp or foobar, linux or whatever OS you use, ipod or rio karma

CSS Based Layout

[colinramsay]

I found it interesting that MP3.com is the third large site to relaunch recently with a CSS-based layout. Fileshack and Blogger (with Blogger being an education for all web designers) have also used CSS in their new layout.

The point? Interesting to see that MP3.com are forward thinking - in their web side anyway.

1.7 million songs? What does that tell us?

[phr1]

I read recently that there are around 30,000 CD's released in the US every year. At ten songs (average) per CD, that's 300,000 songs/year released on CD. I don't know how long the original mp3.com was around but it was probably less than 5 years, and it probably put up mp3's at a faster rate near the end than near the beginning. But even at a uniform rate over the whole 5 years, it sounds like one web site was distributing more songs per year all by itself, than the entire CD industry released put together. Add to that the number of musicians who distribute their stuff through their own sites, and it's clear there's a heck of a lot more music being released as gratis downloads than as proprietary CD's.

Some people blame diminishing CD sales on unauthorized CD copying; others blame it on technological obsolescence (people buy DVD's instead of CD's now); still others say it's because poor artistic decisions by record labels result in releasing uninteresting music that people don't want to buy. I haven't yet seen a connection made with authorized, freely downloadable music, that people can listen to instead of buying proprietary CD's, just like they can run GNU/Linux instead of buying Windows, Apache instead of IIS, etc. Sure, a lot of mp3.com downloads are crap, but lots of commercial CD's are crap too.

Another really good site, by the way, is Magnatunes. They publish entire CD's under a Creative Commons license and you can download the complete CD's in mp3 format and pass around copies noncommercially. You can also pay to download in FLAC or Ogg Vorbis format, or buy commercial licenses (e.g. if you want to use one of the CD's as a movie soundtrack) through a simple web interface. There is some really excellent music there too.

MusicVine

[Dracolytch]

Well, OK, so the site is disapointing.

One good thing that it DOES have is the musicvine. Shows the relationship between artists in a (not horrible, not great) flash interface.

This sure beats using Amazon to help me find the relationships between artists, and scouting out new sounds for my "distinct" tastes.

~D

What's the point?

[DynaSoar]

Why bother to use a name that ends up being misleading? MP3.com == downloads. Garageband has picked up the old playlists and music.download.com is growing into what MP3.com was. About the only thing it could be is a come-on for pay-per-song portals, and it'd take the peculiar thinking of a dedicated marketoid to think that'll go over.

The artist is paying all of these people

[reptilicus]

Maybe you're not aware of how major label contracts work, but the artist has to pay the costs of recording, marketing, etc., out of their royalties. The only thing the label gives them is essentially a loan, with an extremely high cost (loss of ownership of their creation, and serious doubt as to whether they'll ever get paid what they're owed). Some relevant links: Steve Albini's rant on how contracts work: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html A recent decision showing the RIAA owed $50 million in unpaid royalties to artists "they couldn't track down", like Dolly Parton: http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2004-05-04 -music-royalties_x.htm And most importantly, the recent story of Marillion, who proved that you absolutely do not need a record company in this day and age: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/28/marillion_ comeback/

then you don't need it...

[xedd]

When I bought my car the dealership tossed me the keys for a test drive. Not being able to test drive a damn 2 dollar song is beyond reason.

[beyond reason]? Not really.
The car in question cost quite a few thousands of dollars. It makes sense to accomodate test drives, and show rooms, etc.
Do you really insist on getting a free test of anything before you spend 2 dollars on it?
For a $20,000 ITEM, hell yes.
But for a $2 item? Personally, I don't waste 5 seconds deliberating over such trivia. If I need to 'test' a $2 item before I am convinced I want to buy it, I DON'T FREAKIN NEED IT!

Meanwhile, I agree with the sentiment that what the music industry has let itself evolve into deserves to die a painful death, since technology has made them little more than unnecessary middlemen, and they should go the way of the buggywhip.

But your logic is faulty.

Ever wonder why gasoline costs so much now? Take a look at all the SUVs.

Still Trying to Figure Out...

[MacWiz]

...how Universal was able to sell the licenses of 1.7 million songs it did not own to Trusonic, who was then able to sell them again to GarageBand.

Universal made $31 million selling the independent library, that they CHARGED musicians to post.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum...