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Napster Canada Launched
PunchMonkey writes "Just days after the Napster UK launch, Napster Canada is now online. Tracks start at CDN$1.19 and albums at CDN$9.95. Interactive streaming is also available for the first time in Canada for CDN$9.95 a month. Napster is the the third online music service to be launched in Canada (following PureTracks and ArchambaultZik), not including the branded Puretracks sites Sympatico Music Store and PureTracks from Telus." (Be prepared for a trio of rejection notices if you're neither running nor spoofing IE under Windows.)
Why would you start a new music service with higher prices than the existing competition? A lot of PureTracks' songs (though admittedly not all) are CDN$0.99. They must really be relying on name-brand recognition, though I doubt they are going to get much beyond "but, but, songs were free on Napster!" Still, nice to see competition, even if only of the inept kind. Now if they would just let me have my songs on both my home and work computers at the same time...
Napster used to be so cool, but now it hangs out with the plastics and makes fun of regular people.
What happened, Napster, what happened?
$1.19 Can works out to 0.86 USD. Cheaper than the US non-subscriber version. Still not cheap enuff if you ask me.
Now IANAL and IANAC, but I thought that music downloading (though not sharing) was legal in Canada.
English is easier said than done.
And I can get a physical copy with pretty linear notes to go with it.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
I'm going to start my own music service selling songs downloaded off napster. I'll switch back and forth buying them from the US and Canada depending on the exchange rates. Here's how it will go:
1. Buy songs from canada or us
2. Sell to american's or canadians for a penny less
3. Profit!
Well, at least they only sue you for about $.72 on the dollar...
Come on iTunes get it in gear! I'm still waiting for mac iTunes.
The leader in online music sales can't seem to sell internationally.
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I support spreading santorum
Who would someone pay to "rent" a song. If you cancel the service you loose the song. Unless they got a better license than any of the other services (besides iTMS)
Evolution or ID?
It is interesting to note that the Canadians have it cheaper than the US. According to this currency converter, 1.19 CAD is .87 USD and 9.99 CAD is 7.23 USD. Perhaps a lack of litigation is to blame?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
As the poster mentions, non-ie browsers get rejected by the Telus service.
"Thank you for visiting Puretracks from TELUS" Currently our website supports Internet Explorer 5.0 and above on the Windows operating system (Win 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP / 2003), and is available to Canadian residents only."
"We value our Mac audience, however the Windows Media player for the Mac platform is not currently compatible with Microsoft protected audio content."
No mention of other OS users. It still really bothers me that companies are too stupid to write websites that are standards-compliant and work on all platforms.
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
Anne Murray
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Gordon Lightfoot
Rush
Celine Dion
Why do I need this again?
Canadians are currently permitted to borrow a friend's CD and make copies for personal, non-commercial use. However they are not allowed to make a copy for someone else. It is widely believed that this allows downloading but not uploading.
The CRIA has launched John Doe lawsuits against uploaders but recently suffered a legal setback when a judge ruled that they had failed to provide sufficient evidence of a copyright violation to subpoena the identities of some anonymous uploaders. However, members of the federal government have promised new legislation to close what they call "legal loopholes". That may just have been election year pandering. We'll have to wait and see.
In any case there are many Canadians who would willingly pay a reasonable amount per song to purchase music via download in order to get known quality, selection, and lack of liability. I would be one of them except that I refuse to pay money for DRM-encumbered files -- if I pay to buy something, I expect to own it.
I'm sorry, my wallet is not currently compatible with your store.
Napster is currently compatible with MS's flag OS's.
Other OS's are not supported at this time and never will.
If you are planning on getting me to spend my money on this store, the service will not be compatible and you should discontinue trying to do any business with me. If you will support *my* computer and *my* operating system, please continue.
Ah, and MS will eat you for lunch, good luck.
0.99 USD = $1.37 CDN
...so technically Napster Canada is cheaper than iTunes. But this is assuming you only listen to music on your computer. They charge extra to transfer the song, unlike iTunes, where it's the same price whether you burn it to a CD, transfer it to your iPod, or whatever.
Napster and the others need to deal with the fact that they've been beaten by Apple.
Forget Napster, iTunes, et al.
The Russian equivalent to iTunes - allofmp3.com - is the way forward for all your music needs!!
You pay 1 cent a megabyte so $10 gets you a gigabyte of mp3 download - and you can pay using Paypal in case you're worried about your Credit Card getting stolen by a shady Russkie...
Cheap, cheerful and legal (at least in the eyes of Russian law) and they have a great selection (better than iTunes as it includes European chart music also).
Adrian
Recently (May 12) the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage issued a report on proposed changes to the Copyright Act, whose relevant recommendation is as follows:
If you overlook the last vague line, the proposed changes to Copyright Act seem harmless to those who do not download, but those who do, may become customers of Napster et al.The Act would force ISPs to cut off access for uploaders after they have been identified by the CIRA. But the report does not specifically address the disclosure of customers' information (to the CIRA), nor does it address the download v.s. upload meme.
The vagueness of the report is replicated by media reports which further mention WIPO treaties, P2P and anti-circumvention devices, all of which are not specifically addressed in the report.The EFC has not, AFAIK, commented on the report and the Toronto member of Parliament who chaired the committee, hasn't yet responded to my inquiries (will P2P or anti-circumvention be left legal?).
Obligatory joke question maybe?
All the downloads are DRMed WMA files. You can play them in Winamp in a playlist along with your Ogg files if you want to. That's about as far as Ogg 'support' goes. To convert the WMA files to Ogg, you would have to circumvent the DRM. Most likely by burning a CD then ripping it and encoding to Ogg. The sound quality would suffer.
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
Uploading and downloading of mp3's via p2p is legal in canada, see:
. ht ml
http://www.canadiancontent.net/commtr/itemid172
Why pay for something when it's already free? They aren't going to sell ice to this Inuit.
At about $0.05 ($0.01/mb) per 192Kbps (OGG,MP3,WMA) or less for 128Kbps encodes per song, Allofmp3.com is still better than any of the pay-to-download music services. And also, no OS restrictions or browser restrictions, although the auto-downloader program is only available to Win32 systems. I still love being to download the songs on my Linux box and pay by Paypal. http://www.allofmp3.com Seriously, give it a try. I find it's better than using KaZaA or any other P2P system even though I have to pay a few cents per song.
I'm sorry, Chess, but you're referring to the same case as Saucepan, and the judge did not rule that uploading is legal. He expressed that it was similar to placing a photocopying machine in a library, yes, in an allusion to a recent Supreme Court of Canada case (CCH vs. Law Society of Upper Canada) but this opinion was purely obiter dicta, meaning that it does not have binding force. This case was tossed by the judge on evidentiary merits, or the lack thereof, so no new legal precedent has been set.
At present, the law still suggests that uploading is a violation of copyright with no exemption under the Private Copying provision.
Yet another reason why Magnatune might be worth looking at again. Magnatune has greatly increased its selection since it started up (e.g. it actually has some music I like now), so if you haven't taken a look in the last few months, you might want to look at it again.
eMusic gives you tracks for 22 cents each - Lame VBR encoded MP3s - and of course there's no copy protection. And they have great independent labels like Matador, Kill Rock Stars, 5 Rue Christine, Thrill Jockey, Mille Plateaux, Schematic, etc. plus a shitload of jazz and classical. I have the 90 songs a month for 20 bucks deal - you can buy more if your downloads run out before the month is up.
I refuse to buy into this dollar a song for inferior closed formats with DRM deal. eMusic may not be perfect but it's the closest thing going.
eMusic