Slashdot Mirror
OD2 Launches Penny-Per-Song Streaming Jukebox
securitas writes "BBC Technology's Darren Waters reports that UK digital music service OD2 launched its 350,000-song SonicSelector streaming 'digital jukebox' for a penny per song a day ahead of the iTunes Europe debut. The service (co-founded by Peter Gabriel) is available only in 'UK, France, Germany and Italy and will only work with users of Windows Media Player' 9. NewsFactor and The Register have descriptions of the pay-per-use / a la carte service. More at the Financial Times and Reuters via ZDNet UK. You can also read the previous OD2 Slashdot discussion."
To see Brian Eno on the side of the borg. What is the world coming to?
Just think on this - Peter Gabriel is now a voice of sanity in the music biz.
And you listen to the stuff these people put out. They could be sneaking _anything_ into your subconscious in their music...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
sod using WMP9. No way I could live with that. I'm not even asking for non-DRM'd files (although that would be ideal), but something a bit more cross platform is a pre-req for me. I should be able to play it on what software on whichever OS I choose.
A penny per song is a nice deal, and the 350.000-track database should contain something for most people's taste - but why only UK, France, Germany and Italy? What about us in the rest of Europe?
The article states that OD2 is "Europe's leading music download firm", and I've never heard of the company - which might explain why the service will not be available in my country...
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
With the massive proliferation of online music distribution services popping up all over the internet could this finally make the RIAA take notice that the old channels of distribution are finally dead and they need to reinvent themselves to stay alive? It will only be a matter of time before non-RIAA artists starting getting exposure through these new channels and the RIAA loses their shakey grip on the industry. Maybe they will never actually admit to being dinosaurs but that won't stop them from becoming extinct.
Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous/interesting/insightful value of this comment
...right up to the point where he says 'will only work with users of Windows Media Player', and there my interest tails right off.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
iTunes surprised a lot of people when they hinted one week ago that they would launch iTunes in Europe today. Well, it's not exactly Europe (just UK, Germany, France), but everyone is running scared right now trying to prevent Apple from doing in Europe what they have done in the US.
Competition is good for everyone, especially for the consumers. Let the music war begin.
Little Bricklets
Infrastructure
OD2 offers a complete end to end solution for the digital sale, promotion and distribution of Music.
The OD2 infrastructure is designed to serve all channels, devices, platforms and formats. This means that the consumer will be able to purchase digital product to their PC, Mobile phone, TV or portable devices - like MP3 players. OD2 provides all the tools required for labels to sell and promote their music digitally and, as the market evolves, OD2 will ensure that the label's music is sold in every viable media.
Performance
* Systems capable of delivering over 1,000,000 streams and downloads per day.
* New European clusters will extend this to over 2,000,000 in Q1 2000.
Reliability
* Full Application and System Monitoring 24x7x365.
* Automated test downloads every 120 seconds.
* Hardware and software redundancy throughout OD2 systems architecture.
* Rigorous development, test and deployment processes. (OD2 is an accredited Microsoft Solutions Provider).
Security
* Digital Rights Management (DRM) based on Microsoft Version 7 Rights Manager.
* Enables a range of distribution and playback controls to be defined.
* Media protected internally and externally using latest security and encryption techniques.
Multi-platform
* Architecture enables new DRM's to be inserted for support of new platforms e.g. Cable TV, ADSL, 3rd Generation Mobile.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Seriously, does anyone have experience with trying to use MPlayer on the site with the windows codecs installed?
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
It's pretty tough to argue with a legal listen for 1-2 cents (exchange rate varies). I bet that 50-100 times is about as many as I could listen to a song before I'm bored of it anyways, and for 99 cents I can get either that, or I can own the song. Plus, unscrupulous listeners could always record the stream!
stuff |
...and will only work with users of Windows Media Player' 9.
:)
Any idea whether this'll work with the MPlayer Win32 codecs?
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
This new service package sounds interesting, but honestly, all it seems like to me is an extended preview that you pay for.
Granted its only 1P, but their ultimate goal is to get people to buy the whole song...and this sounds like kind of a scummy way to do it.
Unfortunately, this may be the only way they are ABLE to do it because I'm sure they have to pay the labels for the streaming rights to the song, so they couldn't just offer up a whole preview for free.
I'm curious though, can anybody spot any difference between the sites that use OD2's main product other than the brand name/images/colorscheme slapped onto the webpages?
As far as I know they all use the same catalogue, same terms, and same price, so I can't see how they are differentiated at all other than by Brand.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Europe launch for Apple's iTunes
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I don't know. I mean, a penny-a-song is pretty cheap. But, something about me wants to pay once and be able to play a song as much as I want.
If I kinda of only liked the song and wanted to hear it only once in a while. I'd probably wait for them to play it on the radio. If I really liked a song, I'd pay a buck so I could listen to it when ever I wanted and be done with it.
The only time I see this as useful is if you are playing a song that you don't like that much, but somebody else would. For example, hosting a party or you have a date at your house and you figure Wierd Al isn't going to set the mood you want.
I just don't see those situations of use setting up a sustainable business model for the costs they are going to endure. Of course, if it becomes _the_ method for DJ'ing. You might get the volume you need, but I still doubt it.
Of course, this is just my opinion and I could be wrong (and frequently am).
Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true! -Homer Simpson
You could always just capture the penny streams with AudioHiJack (I am sure there is a PC equivalent as well).
This looks like an excellent way of "browsing" for music which is not played on the radio. I mean, it's not really competing with the $.99 "own the song"-price of iTunes, but rather it seems like a neat way to preview a lot of songs once (at a penny each) then buy the ones you like on cd or from iTunes.
I agree that the cost of music needs to approach this cost, and as soon as that happens, I'll likely ditch the cds permanently. It's too bad that the music industry has this perspective that we need to own the music. Like every other commodity, costs decline as distribution increases. That said, I'm not holding my breath for wide distribution of songs via this method. iTunes really has a great model, although I wish that albums could be downloaded multiple times. I want to own the license not the data.
Good idea, but its only accessable with Microsoft Internet Explorer. WTF? I use Firefox and am not going to switch back ;-)
Of course, ripping songs from this service could eventually become rampant.
_____
Thank you.
It's not ahead of the iTunes Europe debut... I live in the UK, I have a UK credit card, and I have downloaded music in my iTunes folder - the iTunes UK, France and Germany stores are open.
They really need to offer something better then the legally grey apps before I'll consider them.
Maybe a massive site with full archival downloads. I'd pay for that, even per download, simply for the convenience of knowing where to get it, and the gaurentee behind the quality and speed of download.
Otherwise, they are just being woefully hopefull, or dismissive of online distribution. "see, see, we charged 5 cents a download for a crappy file that most people cant play where they want. thats PROOF that online sales dont work."
Give me a break.
There's a difference between won't and don't. Some of us, though you may find it hard to believe, don't care much about the sticker price of a working environment, so long as it gets the job done in a manner that's acceptable. It just happens to be that one of the best environments available today can be downloaded for free off the 'net (or paid for from a vendor like Red Hat).
I, for one, would be perfectly happy to pay for an iTunes-like service (their restrictions are acceptable to me, though I'd prefer either MP3- or Ogg Vorbis-formatted files; the former is extremely portable, the latter is very nice and reasonably portable), just like I'd be happy to pay for an operating system which suited me. It's a pity that since my operating system *happens* to be free, I can't pay anybody to let me access their service :)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Let's see... the average song is 3 minutes, one penny per 3 minutes, let's unrealistically assume I work 8 hours a day. That's $1.60 per day to have this playing all day. That's about $400 per working year.
I think I could buy a lot of music on iTunes for $400 and listen to it for more than a year.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
How and why would they limit this to some countries only?
Physical location is just about meaningless within the internet.
This is whats gving governments like China headaches because they can't control the propaganda anymore. Why should the record comapnies think they can control it?
The definition of what Apple is doing is confusing on its face and the poster of this article made it worse.
The iTunes Europe debut is for the rest of Europe, while Germany, France, and the UK already have iTunes. Yes it doesn't make perfect sense, but calling the debut iTunes "rest of Europe" wasn't as catchy.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
OD2 has actually had this feature for a while (streaming a song for 1p) and I think it's hideous. Forget the WMP stuff, and forget that it demands Internet Explorer... the tracks only play at 32kbps! I thought it was some sort of big joke (or malfunction) until I searched the Net and found out that, indeed, 32kbps was the order of the day. 32kbps? I'm willing to bet my almost-deaf grandmother could tell how poor the quality is at 32kbps in WMP compared to even a 128kbps MP3. Steer clear!