The Perfect Online Music Store?

brace asks: "With the proliferation of online music sales, more and more companies are jumping onto the bandwagon and trying to sell you downloadable music. Some of them do a good job, some of them are just bad at it. The question I have for Slashdot readers is essentially 'What would the perfect online music store offer you?' Should it have OGG and FLAC tracks, as well as MP3? Would you rather pay per-song or per-month? Would you want the option to purchase hard-copy as well (like the actual album, or even band merchandise)? Should the song samples be 30 second downloads or full-song streams fed on-demand? Is a radio station important for an online music store?" "Personally, I'd like to see a store that has a 24/7 internet radio station, on-demand streaming, $0.99 downloads (and $9.99 album downloads), links to purchase actual albums or merchandise, and with MP3, OGG, and FLAC support. I'd also like to see the artists being paid more than 10%..."

Comments

This is what id like..

[PepsiProgrammer]

Personally I think it would be great if a music store kept the files in wav format and encoded them on the fly so you could choose any format you like (caching the popular options). Sure they would probably have to charge more, but I think it would be worth it.

Oh and no DRM please, I like my music without bullshit.

Re:This is what id like..

[Anonymous Coward]

That'd need a crapload of processing power to encode them with 1,000+ hits.

Re:This is what id like..

[senatorpjt]

www.allofmp3.com does it just fine. :)

Re:This is what id like..

[becauseiamgod]

If that music store is planning to service more than 3 customers, that won't be a reality. Decently encoded music, takes quite a bit of CPU power and quite a bit of time.

Re:This is what id like..

[PepsiProgrammer]

Thats why you would have the additional charge for more exotic codecs. 99.999% of people will be going after the mp3's if given the option. But a few people would rather grab oggs or flacs.

And, the topic did not say your ideal music store had to be feasable with current technology.

This is just what I think would be best format wise, but until the entire recording industry gets its head out of its ass and starts: distributing good music, at a decent price, with a decent chunk going to the artist. I won't be buying shit from them.

Re:This is what id like..

[I Love this Company!]

Maybe I'm missing something, but what about the legality of that site? I've seen it advertised often here as a good service (it looks quite professional) but I'm hazy as to its legitimacy.

Re:This is what id like..

[Fancia]

They pay royalties to ROMS, the Russian organization that handles licensing for radio, television, internet audio and so forth, and ROMS pays royalties in turn to the artists. In Russia, it's perfectly legal, and seems to be in other countries; it is a bit grey whether this is covered under export laws proper or not, but generally it's legal to import something if it has a legal license in the country of origin, to my knowledge.

Re:This is what id like..

[damiam]

That's why he said "caching popular options". Most people are gonna want 128 or 192 MP3, WMA, or AAC, or maybe FLAC. Anything else probably could be encoded on the fly; the CPU can probably encode fast enough to saturate the average customer's bandwidth.

Re:This is what id like..

[cpt kangarooski]

If you are in the US, it is illegal to download from them. OTOH, if you are willing to send CC numbers to shady Russians, you may find that you're not likely to get caught. But not getting caught doesn't make it legal.

Re:This is what id like..

[rpdillon]

Try: All of MP3 It's what I use.

Re:This is what id like..

[cpt kangarooski]

but generally it's legal to import something if it has a legal license in the country of origin, to my knowledge.

That's generally untrue. And it makes sense:

Imagine if there was a country, Strongbadia, which had very liberal copyright laws, and permitted anyone to make copies of recorded music for a nominal fee. Imagine further that they tended to obtain copies of music from the US, reproduce them en masse for a miniscule sum, and then send the copies they made back to the US, flooding the US market.

The US copyright holder would be totally undercut, since he gets no meaningful profits from the Strongbadian copies, which are made against his will by third parties, and are cheaper than US-made and authorized copies.

So imports are generally prohibited so as to make a US copyright worth something. The pertinent statute is 17 USC 602. It has two independent subsections, (a), and (b). There are some exceptions to the ban in (a) that do NOT apply to the ban in (b). This is important.

Re:This is what id like..

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh and no DRM please, I like my music without bullshit.

So I take it you don't like much [new?] music?

Re:This is what id like..

[PepsiProgrammer]

Nope not really, stopped listening to the radio about 5 years ago when i realized nearly all of it was shit.

Unfortunately there are still a few artists who's music I enjoy but who's politics (and their label's) I dont. Such as metallica (their older stuff).

Re:This is what id like..

[Mr. Slippery]

Decently encoded music, takes quite a bit of CPU power and quite a bit of time.

It's a solved problem. Allofmp3.com offers you the option to select either MP3. MP4, or Ogg Vorbis at a variety of bitrates. The songs are encoded to order and you are sent an e-mail message when they are ready for download.

Re:This is what id like..

[Mr. Slippery]

The pertinent statute is 17 USC 602

Not really revelavent to people's use of allofmp3.com, since it exempts importation for personal use.

Some consideration of allofmp3.com legal issues can be found here.

Re:This is what id like..

[Hillie]

you took the words right out of my mouth...

Not only choose the format but the bitrate as well..

iTunes is really great and all but if the quality of what they sell (128kbps aac) is rather dodgy.. it's not really worth paying for.

They should use lame ;)

Re:This is what id like..

[cpt kangarooski]

NO. 602(a)(2) says that the ban in 602(a) has an exemption. But the ban in 602(b) still applies.

Try again. And this time, refer to a site that actually knows what laws apply.

No importation is occuring at all. It is a red herring. This is a matter of reproduction.

Re:This is what id like..

[pbox]

Yeah, allofmp3.com got it right. Two "minor" complaints:

1. It is illegal to download from there in the US and probably most contries other than Russia.

2. They seem to use per-track normalization, on some if not all of their albums. Which tends to fcuk up almost all classical and some popular albums.

Other than it is "funny" [*] how we still don't have any decent large-selection music stores in the US, but the Russians got it right.

[*] funny as in really downright sad, annoying and unexcusable. Fuck RIAA!

Re:This is what id like..

[orthogonal]

The US copyright holder would be totally undercut, since he gets no meaningful profits from the Strongbadian copies, which are made against his will by third parties, and are cheaper than US-made and authorized copies.

So let me get this straight: it's wrong for me to buy music from Russia where I can get it more cheaply, because I'd be undercutting the honest American business man?

But it's right for American businesses to outsourced my job to India where they can get labor more cheaply, because that's streamlining business and creating efficiency?

Man!

One day I want to live somewhere where real, living, breathing -- and maybe starving -- people have as many rights as faceless, soulless, corporations.

But I guess it's fair, those corporations paid good money -- money they made by charging customers like me more -- to buy the politicians who wrote them the favorable laws.

Re:This is what id like..

[Mr. Slippery]

1. It is illegal to download from there in the US and probably most contries other than Russia.

While asserted by many. that's not at all clear.

Re:This is what id like..

[cpt kangarooski]

So let me get this straight: it's wrong for me to buy music from Russia where I can get it more cheaply, because I'd be undercutting the honest American business man?

Yeah.

I mean, what would the point of having a US copyright be, what value would it have, what incentive would it bear, if we let copies into the country that couldn't have been made here legally to begin with?

It does make sense if you want US copyrights to be meaningful. Otherwise it only takes one country to abolish copyright law and be a pirate, or to have super-weak copyright law (e.g. 1 day terms or something), and the actual authors and US publishers get screwed.

This is actually why the US has been very aggressive in trade discussions with countries that do this: Taiwan, China, Ukraine, etc. In fact, we are insanely pissed off at Ukraine for allowing piracy of American-authored works, since those copies get into markets around the world. We're cutting them off from other US trade, and imposing high tariffs so that they're uncomfortable enough to stop. This often works: Imagine how fucked Taiwan would be if we didn't let their goods into the US. Of course they caved in. The US is kind of a trade bully. Because that's where the money is.

Re:This is what id like..

[Kufat]

People, THIS IS A PIRATE SITE. They sell bootleg recordings, the kind that people make when they sneak microphones into concerts. Last time I looked, they had live bootlegs of Pink Floyd, Bowie, U2, and others. They do this both for bands/artists that allow taping (but not sales of tapes) and for bands/artists that explicitly ban it.

They claim they pay royalties, but I don't believe that they're legit, and the evidence seems to back me up on it.

Re:This is what id like..

[evanbro]

The price doesn't seem realistic, but I haven't gotten anything that's clearly a bootleg. All the music I've downloaded has been far too high quality to be bootleg like that.

Re:This is what id like..

[Anonymous Coward]

Taiwan was actually the first country to stand up to the US. That's where the US started its campaign to coerce other countries to adopt the 75 year, lifetime audio video restrictions that they use domestically --AKA Sonny Bono. Taiwan's legislators stood up and said no. They were the first country to do so since they were the first country the US tried as they figured they could coerce them the easiest.
Recently senior members of the Taiwan military staged street protests in opposition to a US$30Bn US military purchase package. So, Taiwan is not quite the pushover you make it sound. The US has lost a lot of global credibility and you can bet the copyright interests are going to eat shit over Bush's global policies.

Re:This is what id like..

[hunterx11]

I see you jockin' me, allofmp3.com, like
"U NO ME"

Re:This is what id like..

[eric76]

I don't think that 602(b) bans them either.

In a case where the making of the copies or phonorecords would have constituted an infringement of copyright if this title had been applicable, their importation is prohibited. In a case where the copies or phonorecords were lawfully made, the United States Customs Service has no authority to prevent their importation unless the provisions of section 601 are applicable. In either case, the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to prescribe, by regulation, a procedure under which any person claiming an interest in the copyright in a particular work may, upon payment of a specified fee, be entitled to notification by the Customs Service of the importation of articles that appear to be copies or phonorecords of the work

So if the copies were legally made, the Customs service has no authority to prevent them from being imported unless section 601 applies. Section 601 deals with copies made prior to July 1, 1986.

Re:This is what id like..

[cpt kangarooski]

Read the first sentence again. Lawfully made means 'if it was made in such a fashion that it would have been lawful if US law applied.' And remember that under US law, only the US copyright holder may authorize the making of otherwise infringing copies.

But of course, again, downloading is not importation, so this is a more academic discussion than the other one which is more direct as to why it's illegal to be in the US and download from allofmp3.

Re:This is what id like..

[Anonymous Coward]

These peoples try to FADE ME!

Re:This is what id like..

[Kufat]

Search for Pink Floyd. "Animal Instincts," "Ultra Rare Trax," "Wembley Pre-FM," the whole tree full of secrets collection, etc are all bootleg and/or fanmade releases. (The latter not being intended for sale by anyone, ever.)

Re:This is what id like..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if Taiwan imports were not allowed into the US we'd be more pissed off than them.

Re:This is what id like..

[pbox]

The "feeling lucky" link on Google takes you to a page where a quote from a NY high-school student graduating in law (WTF is THAT?) asserts that there is no US law opposing the legality of downloading from AOM3.

In my neck of wood high-school students gradute in smoking pot, so I tend to disregard their learned opinions, at least in legal matters.

The problem in the US is that while it might be possible to prove (in a court of law) that you are right about legally downloading from Russia for personal use, it is just a selected few (read 1% of the 1% of the 1% of the population) who can actually financially afford to stand up to RIAA.

You settle with RIAA by the way of they taking all of oyur 401k plus IRA and complete savings. What you will earn in the rest of your wretched life will go towards to court and compensation for your lawyers. Good luck...

Re:This is what id like..

[shutdown -p now]

The price is realistic. For Russia. Legal recordings on tapes cost about as much there. CDs are slightly more expensive, but still not by an order of magnitude.

If you'd go there and buy a legal CD, you would also pay much less than you pay in US. About $5 for a CD.

Re:This is what id like..

[buckminster]

The evidence seems to back you up? What evidence would that be??

Russia has an entirely different copyright structure than America. Hard to believe, I know. And it's probably only a matter of time before the RIAA has it's say about the matter.

In the meantime, sovereign nations are free to implement whatever copyright laws they feel are appropriate -- or none at all.

Re:This is what id like..

[Anonymous Coward]

Understanding "lawfully" as "lawfully under US law" is nonsensical. US law does not apply to copying in Russia. Consequentially copies made by a foreign company in a foreign country can not be unlawful under US law. The only sane way to interpret "lawfully" is "lawfully under applicable law".

Re:This is what id like..

[jtcm]

Yeah, allofmp3.com got it right. Two "minor" complaints:

1. It is illegal to download from there in the US and probably most contries other than Russia.

Is this true? Import CDs are legal. If buying and downloading from allofmp3.com is, in fact, illegal, then would it be okay for them to mail me a CD with my purchased songs instead of downloading them?

If so, the only difference is how I my music is transferred. This doesn't seem logical...of course very little modern copyright law makes sense.

Perhaps you could point me to some legislation that says buying music from Russia over the internet is illegal.

Re:This is what id like..

[jtcm]

1. It is illegal to download from there in the US and probably most contries other than Russia.

Is this true? Import CDs are legal. If buying and downloading from allofmp3.com is, in fact, illegal, then would it be okay for them to mail me a CD with my purchased songs instead of downloading them?

I spent some time googling and found an answer to my own question, though hardly a definitive one.

Is downloading from allofmp3.com legal? Well...um...er...probably. Even if it is illegal, you're probably safe.

...at least that's what I gathered. I doubt this question can truly be answered without going to court.

Re:This is what id like..

[akadruid]

If you want to support them, watch them live. Metallica are still an amazing live act, and when I last saw them (Reading Festival 2003) they played a fair bit of their older music.

Oh and download their albums at allofmp3.com too

Re:This is what id like..

[fermion]

And this is the fucked up synthetic asymetry of capitalist America. The companies producing goods can go anywhere to get or produce the goods that they sell Americans, but if normal consuming Americans try to make the same economies, as they are often forced to do due the ineffeciencies of a few ultimately unnecesary middle men raking in millions of dollars of compensation, these Americans get called unpatriotic and the American Government tries to pass laws to stop the free trade.

This is the kind of crap that caused the American Revlutionary War. This is the kind of crap that caused the economic boycott by opporessed population in the Southern US. This is no different than the British Government saying the Indian people can't make salt from thier own sea water, Yes, the government and corporations must be recompensed for thier useful work. However, neither has an inherent right to exist. The US corporations have all but stated they agree with this statement by artificially moving much profit out of the US, which is where most executives live, into lower tax havens. I wonder if they even check to see if some of these havens perhaps provide financial services for unfriendly military organazations.

Re:This is what id like..

[gurutechanimal]

So let me get this straight: it's wrong for me to buy music from Russia where I can get it more cheaply, because I'd be undercutting the honest American business man?

Ok, so it's wrong when i excercise my ability to purchase goods on the open global market, thus participating in the globalization of the "music commodity", but it's perfectly ok when those same mechanisms are used to move $MY_JOB overseas so that "The Man" can increase his profit margin and get that seventh Bentley.

With every passing day, I see more examples of Copyright Law and Treaties being used not to temprorarily protect the creator of a work (as is the spirit of copyright), but to create and enforce an incredibly restrictive regime of one sided IP monopolies. When you can buy the Law, the immoral can become legal, and the Right Thing(tm) can become outlawed.

Either we have a global market for goods and services, or we don't. They can't have it both ways.

Re:This is what id like..

[grahamm]

Why should there be such a things as a "US" (or any other geographic area) Copyright holder? Surely there should only ever be one owner of the copright in a particular work? They can then license abc inc to produce copies in the USA and xyz GmbH to produce copies in Germany, but ultimately there is only one copyright owner.

Re:This is what id like..

[coran007]

Try www.allofmp3.com, its an awesome music store. You simply pay per MB usually between 1 and 2 cents per megabyte. It also allows you to choose which format you would like it in, wave, lossless, wma, mp3, ogg, etc. In addition to the format it lets you pick the bitrate and quality of the encoding as well.

Re:This is what id like..

[cpt kangarooski]

That might make sense, if not for the first sentence, which is all about whether or not it's lawfully made HAD US law applied as to its making.

Re:This is what id like..

[cpt kangarooski]

Because it is up to each country, individually, to even HAVE copyright laws. And the laws generally only apply within each country. And this overall does make sense: developing countries don't need strong copyrights, because each country should do what benefits it the most, and they'll benefit the most from piracy. Eventually they'll start to develop local authors that want stronger rights, and a more conventional, by our standards, copyright will emerge. But the kind of culture that works well with copyright cannot be forced to develop.

While an initial vesting of copyright might result in only one person being the copyright holder, they can of course sell off their rights, or be required to assign them, to different parties within different countries.

But what's particularly important here is that even if there is still only one copyright holder, who has, say, both the US and Russian copyrights, they are wearing different hats. The Russians might say that by virtue of having a copyright there, or publishing there, that the author constructively consents to a compulsory license. But in his capacity as a US copyright holder, as to what goes on within the US, we won't care about what's been going on in other countries. We don't have the same compulsory licensing; and so therefore if the Russian materials end up in the US, we find them to be piratical.

Re:This is what id like..

[hagios17]

There is a good startup at http://www.studiodownloads.com/ which offers MP3 and FLAC downloads for small and independent artists. They are pretty cool. The prices are set by the artists.

Re:This is what id like..

[Anonymous Coward]

forget the store, I want the friggin band/group/solo artist in my house playin live music. I'll let them take 5 or 10 minute breaks now and then, but they clog up my toilet and I'm suing!

Do it like Netflix, I send them back when I tire of them, and a few days later another bunch of musicians show up. Then I can say:

"Sure they would probably have to charge more, but I think it would be worth it.

Oh and no DRM please, I like my music without bullshit. "

Re:This is what id like..

[frisket]

Yes, any format of choice, blah blah blah. But what I want is:

1. Oggs
2. Classical music (everything from 1200-1800 would suit me fine :-)
3. Max two tracks per album, downloadable. I probably want to listen to them several times, from several different recordings, to be sure I'm buying the right CD.
4. Option to buy CD there and then. I'm not interested in downloading whole CDs 'cos I want the sleeve notes as well as the jewel case and the pretty picture on the front, plus the chance that the CD will last longer than the next 3 years
5. No restriction on operating system and no DRM. If you really insist, I don't mind if the downloads self-delete from my hard disk after a day or so: they'll have served their purpose and I'll have bought the CD

That is, just like going into a classical music store: listen to what you want, several versions, make comparisons, talk to a few people, then buy.

Oh look, some pigs just flew past...

Re:This is what id like..

[schvoo]

There are programs in existance that strip iTMS songs of the DRM. Its a tad annoying, but it works. My favorite music store is *cough*gnutella*cough*. It has every file format, and a much larger library. My second favorite is the iTMS though. Apart from the DRM and the lack of files other than m4p (protected AAC), its as good as it gets.

Re:This is what id like..

[laird]

"Maybe I'm missing something, but what about the legality of that site (allofmp3.com)? "

It's not legal. Despite the claim on their web site, they're:
- Selling music digitally that the artists have never agreed to sell digitally (e.g. Led Zeppelin, The Beatles).
- They've never (AFAIK) actually paid any royalties to any musicians, composers or music companies.

So while the technology of the site is impressive, as is often the case, this deal that looks "too good to be true" is (IMO) a scam, in this case directly ripping off artists, composers and music companies. That's (IMO) why PayPal stopped processing their payments.

allofmp3.com

[n0iz77]

allofmp3.com is already amazing. super low prices and i can get most of the music in ogg q5. :)

Re:Allofmp3.com

[MrRage]

It's a lot easier to download a song vs. downloading a whole movie. That's probably why the movie industry hasn't been hit as hard.

Re:allofmp3.com

[bullitB]

Unless you're a Russian citizen, living in Russia, listening to the music in Russia, allofmp3.com is also not legal. If you're going to violate local copyright laws, at least use a P2P service where they don't take down your name and credit card number.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[OS24Ever]

But the RIAA should learn the lesson that the MPAA has learned:


That, and produce a quality product. I'm hard up to find any new music that isn't over sampled over produced stripping teeny bopper. I mean with the iPod and you listen to the music without her shaking her ass your face on the screen you see the crap for what it is.

Re:allofmp3.com

[blackmonday]

Those of us in the USA who buy music from allofmp3 need to remind ourselves thats it's not legal here. But dammit its the closest thing to perfect. There media app downloads the songs for you in the background, the tunes are dirt cheap and they have a good (but not excellent, at least in punk) selection. Their search engine sucks though. Search for "corazon oro" without the quotes, then search for "corazon de oro". that song should be there in the first search! I would also like it if it embedded the album cover into the tune, so iTunes could display it.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

assuming i dont have other choices, i rather see the crap for what it is than seeing the crap with her ass in my face, thank you very much.

Re:allofmp3.com

[geniusj]

Well i've never heard of anyone getting busted for it yet. Nor have I heard a statement from the RIAA saying that the site was illegal.

Re:allofmp3.com

[brandorf]

How exactly is it illegal for us? Wouldn't that be something along the lines of "importing" your music?

Re:Allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing how many people agree. I feel guilty using allofmp3 because I know that the artists are not being properly compensated but if that's how the RIAA is going to force me to purchase so be it. The keys are you can listen to any song you want before hand at reduced quality and you can download in any format.

Re:allofmp3.com

[jonathan_95060]

Unless you're a Russian citizen, living in Russia, listening to the music in Russia, allofmp3.com is also not legal. If you're going to violate local copyright laws, at least use a P2P service where they don't take down your name and credit card number.

And what do you base this statement on? Forget proof, has RIAA even ever commented on allofMP3? Last time I searched RIAA was mute on the subject of AllofMP3.com which is strange when you consider how much music US customers download from there. It is inconceivable that RIAA is unaware that US citizens are using AllofMP3 in droves.

Granted, ripping CDs in the US and uploading them to allofMP3 is likely to be illegal but I have seen nothing to suggest that downloading music from allofMP3.com is illegal.

Presumably if it was illegal to download from allofMP3 then RIAA would get an injunction (or some such legal device) against the credit card companies so that VISA and Mastercard would not let US customers do business with AllofMP3.

I've used AllofMP3.com for nearly a year and I'm thrilled with them. They give me MP3s in the format I want (192kbps VBR MP3s) and they have old hard to find music (e.g. King Crimson - Discipline) that I can't get from other online services.

SIDEBAR: it was actually the fact that I couldn't fine old AC/DC and King Crimson albums that I wanted on iTunes that drove me to AllofMP3, not the fact that AllofMP3 is cheaper!

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

Yeah, but it's illegal* to use (at least for Americans). So it's not noticably better than free, illegal alternatives.

*Yes, it's illegal to download from them. This is because downloading is reproduction, not importation (which is also generally illegal anyway)

Before disputing this, please read 17 USC 106; pertinent definitions in 17 USC 101 (in particular 'phonorecord'); Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 75 F. Supp 2d 1290, 1294 (D. Utah 1999); A&M Records v. Napster, 239 F.3d 1004, 1014 (9th Cir. 2001); and 17 USC 602(b) (which is totally independent from 602(a) and any exceptions in that subsection).

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

And what do you base this statement on?

17 USC 106(1), given the definitions of a phonorecord in 17 USC 101, and numerous cases such as Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 75 F. Supp 2d 1290, 1294 (D. Utah 1999).

I have seen nothing to suggest that downloading music from allofMP3.com is illegal.

Well, now you have!

Presumably if it was illegal to download from allofMP3 then RIAA would get an injunction (or some such legal device) against the credit card companies so that VISA and Mastercard would not let US customers do business with AllofMP3.

I admit, I'm surprised that RIAA hasn't done anything. I suspect that it's due to concern that it would only serve to publicize them. But there really is no doubt that it's illegal for a person in the US to download from them.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

First, if you have to put importing in quotes, you should know better. Tangible things are imported. Intangible things are not.

Plus importation of copyrighted works is generally illegal per 17 USC 602(a) AND (b).

But this is downloading, which is reproduction, not importation, which is distribution. (we're talking about what the downloader is doing, not allofmp3, which is comparatively safe from RIAA by being in Russia; downloaders are in the US, and are subject to US law, even if Russians say they aren't)

Unauthorized reproduction is illegal, unless there's an applicable exemption. There isn't.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Jardine]

Unless you're a Russian citizen, living in Russia, listening to the music in Russia, allofmp3.com is also not legal.

It's not limited only to Russia. I've heard it argued that allofmp3.com is illegal to use in the US, but it looks legal in other countries. For example, the law in Canada allows people to make copies for personal use. The source of the song doesn't really matter for the person receiving the song. Any country with a similar provision in their copyright law should be okay with allofmp3

Re:allofmp3.com

[damiam]

Whether or not it's legal, allofmp3.com is ethically no better than p2p because the artist doesn't get payed a single penny.

Re:allofmp3.com

[GreyWolf3000]

Copyright infringement isn't stealing, because the reason we can't go around stealing eachother's cars is that in doing so we deprive others of their possession.

What we're dealing with is unauthorized distribution of duplications. Yes, this is wrong and illegal, but it doesn't have the same consequences as stealing.

I'm not doing this just to be a pedantic prick, but when you talk about economics, you have to look at risks and concerns. A big risk in the existing record business is mass unchecked redistribution. When you call it 'stealing,' you put the focus on catching the crooks that are downloading songs (they're the 'thieves'). Instead, the focus should be on the people distributing the songs themselves.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Senjutsu]

Question: Why can't I use the iTunes Music Store outside of the US, UK, France, or Germany?

Answer: Because Apple has not secured the copyrights for the songs they sell outside of those 4 countries.

If having the distribution rights in one country were enough to allow you to distribute worldwide, you can damn sure bet Apple would do so. They wouldn't deny themselves a revenue stream like that.

Just because the RIAA hasn't commented on it, it doesn't mean it's it legal.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[mmkkbb]

look a little harder than flipping through commerical media then, sheesh. you sound like a cranky 86 year old man.

Re:allofmp3.com

[NSash]

That's actually not true. I am not a lawyer, but until I hear from one, I think I'll go by this.

602 - Infringing importation of copies or phonorecords

(a) Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringement of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under section 501. This subsection does not apply to--

(1) importation of copies or phonorecords under the authority or for the use of the Government of the United States or of any State or political subdivision of a State, but not including copies or phonorecords for use in schools, or copies of any audiovisual work imported for purposes other than archival use;

(2) importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person's personal baggage
[...]

(b) In a case where the making of the copies or phonorecords would have constituted an infringement of copyright if this title had been applicable, their importation is prohibited. In a case where the copies or phonorecords were lawfully made, the United States Customs Service has no authority to prevent their importation unless the provisions of section 601 are applicable.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Photar]

I checked it out and it didn't seem obvious to me that it was illegal in the US. Could you provide some linkage to back that up?

Re:allofmp3.com

[Senjutsu]

Indeed, under Canadian law, using AllofMP3 is probably legal insofar as one has the right to download (but not share) a copy of the music. But there's no point in doing so, because it's every bit as legal to use $P2P_APP_OF_CHOICE in Canada to download for free.

In the US, on the other hand, it's just as illegal to download from allofmp3 as it is to download from the p2p service, so there's still no point in using allofmp3, unless you really enjoy giving your credit card number to Russians running a service of highly dubious legality.

Re:allofmp3.com

[kayen_telva]

I fail to see how that case you cite relates.
so I guess I guess I can post links to bugs bunny to support mine.
is buying russian liquor illegal ? is buying a russian fur hat illegal ? no.

http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3faq.htm#Is%20All ofmp3%20legal?
http://www.technewsworld.com/story /34512.html
http://news.com.com/5208-1027-0.html?forumID=1&thr eadID=1110&messageID=4945&start=-181

2 friggin seconds on google and your little soapbox is destroyed

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

What, can't you read?

(b) In a case where the making of the copies or phonorecords would have constituted an infringement of copyright if this title had been applicable, their importation is prohibited.

That means that unless the copies made would have been legal had US law applied at the place where they were made -- and therefore, since only the US copyright holder has power under US law, he would have had to consent; Russian organizations have no blanket power under US law -- they are NOT importable.

And since the exception in (a)(2) only applies to (a), and not (b), you're fucked.

Also 602 doesn't apply. Downloading is reproduction, not importation. Check it out: Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 75 F. Supp 2d 1290, 1294 (D. Utah 1999).

Re:Allofmp3.com

[valmont]

well the RIAA may own and produce a lot of crappy music of "today". The only problem is that they own really, REALLY *REALLY* good music from "back in the day". I'm sorry but show me one independent artist who's nearly as good as Ella Fitzgerald.

Hey that's how it's been for decades. If you're really good, people like your shit, the big guys go after you, and you succumb to the big buck, or at least prospects of it.

The thing is, if you want to become really famous, and make the big bucks, you have to be part of the whole media food chain. Start with ClearChannel worldwide, to all the Broadcast and Cable moguls. They're all in bed with the RIAA, this is all one big family that dictates what we, consumers, get to listen to.

Because in the end we're all veggies. Actually, I'm not. I rarely watch TV and only listen to very odd radio stations.

But we go back to the basic challenge: You're an artist with talent, everyone in your town loves your shit, how do you make it to the big times?

Answer: you plug into the iTunes Music Store, and distribute your music online.

Re:allofmp3.com

[brandorf]

So that CD I imported from europe because the US publishers were taking too long was illegal? Interesting. I decided to do some digging around myself and found this.

"Now lets look at the US law. You can legally acquire music from anyone who has a legitimate right to distribute it. You can buy from a iTunes, because it was licensed by RIAA, you can buy it from Canada, if it is licensed by CRIA, you can buy it from Russia, if it was licensed by ROMS."

If it's legal in Russia, and the Artists do in fact recieve a portion of the proceeds, as stated in the site I linked, I'm having a hard time seeing the illegality of it. Granted, I'm sure the RIAA would tell me that it's illegal, but is there any proof?

Re:allofmp3.com

[chris_mahan]

Ever since when the US recording industry big boys have cared about ethical? If it's legal and they can make a buck, they will do it.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah so you have read the contracts between apple and the major labels and know that they contain no sections where apple agreed to not doing cross-country sales?

Re:allofmp3.com

[rpdillon]

Mod parent up! Ya know, people throw around US code blah blah and "Oh, its obviously illegal.", but honestly, I'm not stupid, I've worked quite a bit with the law in courtrooms, etc, and it not at ALL obvious to me that it is illegal. In fact, I think its hazy enough that it may deserve some courtroom time, but certainly the section posted above would cast doubt on the conclusions of those who say it is as illegal as downloading from P2P services. Don't forget, allofmp3 operates legally in Russia.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

I fail to see how that case you cite relates.

The case says, very clearly, that when you download something from the internet, it is necessarily reproduced in your computer's memory. Reproduction is illegal, per 17 USC 106(1) unless authorized by the copyright holder, or an exemption applies, and none do.

I would suggest that you read the actual law, and the actual cases that interpret the law. Thus, I've cited them. Those other guys -- they don't know shit. They don't know what's actually going on, they avoid the question (as in the 2d link), and they never properly address the issue of US legality, which is critical for people in the US using the service.

Come back again once you've read the laws in question.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

So that CD I imported from europe because the US publishers were taking too long was illegal? Interesting.

Depends on the specific circumstances, but there's a good chance of it, yes.

You can legally acquire music from anyone who has a legitimate right to distribute it.

No. First, downloading is necessarily reproduction. So this isn't the same as buying a CD, it is like burning a new CD. You only have the right to reproduce a copyrighted work into a new copy (RAM, hard drives, etc. are all copies, since a copy is a tangible object as defined in the law; ignore the vernacular) if: you're the copyright holder in the place you reproduce it at; you have authority from the LOCAL copyright holder; an exemption in the law applies.

Here, no exemption applies, you're not the copyright holder, and the US copyright holder hasn't given permission. It doesn't matter if everyone else in the world does, including foreign rights holders. They have no rights in the US to permit you to make the copy.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[DeeKayWon]

Allofmp3.com already has FLAC

Sure, transcoded from 384kbps freeformat MP3. You might as well just buy it in that format, as FLAC isn't likely to be any smaller.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Or use a pseudonym and pay through Paypal. It's not like P2P guarantees your anonymity.

Re:allofmp3.com

[jonathan_95060]

by your definition, ripping a CD is illegal, which I seriously doubt. Has anyone been sued for ripping a CD? If not then I suggest your cited article is about as relevant as some of the oral sex is illegal laws that are on the books in some states.

Regarding peer to peer (and other internet) case law, has anyone been successfully procescuted for downloading music? I've heard of RIAA suing people for sharing (i.e. distributing) but not for downloading.

SIDEBAR: global megacorporations love it when they can fire me and move my job to india or china and pay someone pennies on the dollar to do the same work but the when the shoe of globalism is on the other foot and folks here in the US pay russian prices for music they aren't so thrilled. LOL.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[geekee]

"VCO tuning and gain curves at -40degC and 90degC. Simulated with no layout parasitics."

I think the increasing p2p sharing of movies online contradicts your arguement.

Re:allofmp3.com

[brandorf]

Doesn't the US copyright holder give his permission when he allows his product to be distributed in Russia? It's stated that ROMS (the Russian RIAA)gains the distribution rights automatically when a foreign company distributes their music in Russia. And also, if such rights are, in fact, restricted locally (Russia), isn't it their responsibility to limit what countries can access their service, a la iTunes? I'll concede that this is quite a grey area, but if it was so cut and dried, you'd think the RIAA would have grounds to prevent them from selling to Americans (though I'd wager that it's 100% legal in Canada, due to the media levies.)

Re:allofmp3.com

[NSash]

That means that unless the copies made would have been legal had US law applied at the place where they were made -- and therefore, since only the US copyright holder has power under US law, he would have had to consent

Russian copyright law grants the holder the exclusive right to distribute and reproduce the work. Russia is a signatory of the Berne Convention, so if allofmp3.com is operating legally within Russia, they already have the copyright holders' consents.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

by your definition, ripping a CD is illegal, which I seriously doubt.

It very nearly is, actually.

It is clearly an infringement of the reproduction right per 106(1). So we need authorization or an exception. Here, exceptions tend to work for us.

1008 -- in the rare cases it's applicable (the definitions in 1001 are pretty limiting) is tailor made for this.

But mostly CD ripping has to rely on 17 USC 107 -- fair use. And it nearly fails that, if we simply run through the four factor test. It only wins on having no appreciable economic impact. Apparently, that's been fine for the courts; the Diamond cases have put forth a theory (which AFAIK hasn't been tested anywhere, not even there, technically) that space shifting is a fair use.

If it isn't generally, based on the circumstances involved (which is likely already the case if you, say, don't own the copy you're ripping from) then it would indeed be illegal.

Why does this surprise you? It took the Supreme Court until '84 to decide that VCRs were legal because they could time shift, which was a pretty revolutionary legal theory. Otherwise they might not have made it. And it was a 5-4 decision even then!

Copyright law as it stands in the US sucks horribly. It often defies common sense and common practice.

Regarding peer to peer (and other internet) case law, has anyone been successfully procescuted for downloading music? I've heard of RIAA suing people for sharing (i.e. distributing) but not for downloading.

Duh. It's impractical. Think about it: it costs a certain amount of money to sue someone.

If you get rid of a server, you get one infringer. And you discourage other server operators. And you make files harder for downloaders to get.

If you get rid of a leech, you get him, and that's it.

So it's not practical to go after downloaders. It'd be like going after the ass end of the snake.

Same reason why they went after Napster first -- that screwed ALL the users of Napster. If it had successfully detered other P2P services from starting up, we'd all be comparatively high and dry. An ideal, and efficient solution for RIAA!

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

Russian copyright law is as worthless as Moon-Man law within the borders of the US. Copyright law is national. Which is why they can have whatever they have within their borders.

Since I'm talking about US-located downloaders breaking the law, Russian copyright law is not a part of this discussion.

so if allofmp3.com is operating legally within Russia, they already have the copyright holders' consents.

No, they have either a) compulsory licenses so that they can reproduce legally without consent, or b) consent of the RUSSIAN copyright holder. Who very well might not be the same person as the US copyright holder.

And from what I hear, it's the former. Even they seem to admit it.

I dunno why you point out the Berne Convention. It doesn't play into this.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Kenja]

And as long as your supporting the russian mafia why not buy some crack and hire an underage hooker? Or have you deluded yourself into thinking that the artists get a penny from these russian sites?

Re:allofmp3.com

[shutdown -p now]

If you forget for a moment about their legality, and look at the services they provide... encoding to MP3, WMA, OGG or FLAC in any bitrate you desire, a helpful download manager (but not required) etc... That's what the people want from a good service. Just a similar legit one - prices will go up, of course - and you'll get that perfect online music store.

That, of course, is for those of you who choose to stick with the law. The rest of us are perfectly happy with allofmp3.com and buying merch in artist's online store to compensate them.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Mr. Slippery]

Reproduction is illegal, per 17 USC 106(1) unless authorized by the copyright holder, or an exemption applies, and none do.

The U.S. code doesn't apply to acts of reproduction or publication by allofmp3.com in Russia.

Allofmp3.com can legally transfer copies to me, and I have the right to import for personal use reproductions from Russia. I could fly to Russia and come back with a suitcase full of cheap CDs for personal use.

Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry deals with publication, not downloading, and doesn't involve and international issues.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

Doesn't the US copyright holder give his permission when he allows his product to be distributed in Russia?

No. The permission that is important is permission to do things WITHIN THE UNITED STATES, AS GOVERNED BY UNITED STATES LAW.

So if Russian law says that permission is given, that doesn't matter for us, here in the US, under US law. We say permission to do things in the US is NOT given. And guess what court Americans get dragged to when they violate US copyright laws in the US. Hint: not a Russian one.

And also, if such rights are, in fact, restricted locally (Russia), isn't it their responsibility to limit what countries can access their service, a la iTunes?

Depends, ironically, on Russian law. If it says they have to do so, or they have a contract that says so, then yes. But I haven't once talked about whether allofmp3 is breaking Russian law. Only whether US downloaders are.

And it's not a grey area; it's very clear cut.

Re:allofmp3.com

[NSash]

I dunno why you point out the Berne Convention. It doesn't play into this.

The Berne Convention is the reason that Russians couldn't ignore their own copyright laws with regard to works created by non-Russians.

No, they have either a) compulsory licenses so that they can reproduce legally without consent, or b) consent of the RUSSIAN copyright holder. Who very well might not be the same person as the US copyright holder.
And from what I hear, it's the former.

If you have any specific sources on the exact licenses held by allofmp3.com, it would be nice if you could share them.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

Allofmp3.com can legally transfer copies to me

Copies are defined in section 101 as being TANGIBLE.

Are you saying that they sent you a tangible thing? How? Air mail? FedEx?

I know you're not going to say via the Internet, because you can't get tangible stuff over the Internet, unfortunately.

Or maybe, since your computer's RAM is a tangible thing, and it contains the work, then IT is a copy. As in fact is the case. And that means it is a NEW copy, and reproducing the work into copies is infringing.

I have the right to import for personal use reproductions from Russia.

No, you do not. You would be violating 17 USC 602(b), which applies even when 602(a) does not.

Also importation is, again, limited only to when tangible things are moved across borders. Downloading isn't importation.

Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry deals with publication, not downloading,

Okay, see, you're just stupid. I OBVIOUSLY read the case or I wouldn't be citing it. You OBVIOUSLY didn't read the case, because you didn't read the part where the court said:

When a person browses a website, and by so doing displays the Handbook, a copy of the Handbook is made in the computer's random access memory (RAM), to permit viewing of the material. And in making a copy, even a temporary one, the person who browsed infringes the copyright. n5 See MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511, 518 (9th Cir. 1993) (holding that when material is transferred to a computer's RAM, copying has occurred; in the absence of ownership of the copyright or express permission by licence, such an act constitutes copyright infringement); Marobie-Fl., Inc. v. National Ass'n of Fire Equip. Distrib., 983 F. Supp. 1167, 1179 (N.D. Ill. 1997) (noting that liability for copyright infringement is with the persons who cause the display or distribution of the infringing material onto their computer); see also Nimmer on Copyright 8.08(A)(1) (stating that the infringing act of copying may occur from "loading the copyrighted material . . . into the computer's random access memory (RAM)"). Additionally, a person making a printout or re-posting a copy of the Handbook on another website would infringe plaintiff's copyright.

I'd give you a nickel so you could get yourself educated, but the tangible coin doesn't fit into my internet connection, you moron.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

I keep hearing that they're licensed by ROMS which is some sort of compulsory licensing agency, similar to ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, in the United States.

The law says that they can -- regardless of the wishes of the author -- collect money at a state-set rate in compensation for acts that otherwise would be infringing.

In the US, it's what lets cover bands play other people's songs for a small fee (generally paid by the venue) without permission. In Russia, I hear that full-fledged copies can be made, under a similar regime.

Re:allofmp3.com

[J. T. MacLeod]

Quite irrelevant.

It's not Apple who's selling it there. It's a company who IS selling it legally in Russia.

There's no prohibition against buying American products sold in Russia.

Re:allofmp3.com

[NSash]

Russian copyright law is as worthless as Moon-Man law within the borders of the US. Copyright law is national... Since I'm talking about US-located downloaders breaking the law, Russian copyright law is not a part of this discussion.

If they are in compliance with Russian copyright law, they have the copyright holders' permissions, which means they are in compliance with U.S. copyright law.

(Edit - If they really are distributing under a compulsory license, that's something else.)

Re:allofmp3.com

[nolife]

The case says, very clearly, that when you download something from the internet, it is necessarily reproduced in your computer's memory. Reproduction is illegal, per 17 USC 106(1) unless authorized by the copyright holder, or an exemption applies, and none do.

It is my understanding that allofmp3 IS authorized by the Russian equal to the RIAA to distibute the copyrighted works. The question is not about legal right for the the distribution of the media, it is about that media crossing country lines. If it is NOT legal to cross country lines, I belive allofmp3 would be the target of the law more then an individual using the service as the penalty for illegal distibution is far greater then the penalty for illegally purchasing. I can buy an audio cd from a country outside the US and bring it into the US legally provided it was an authorized copy like allofmp3 makes. IANAL and really do not know the legality of allofmp3 but I believe it is much more involved then what you referenced.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

they have the copyright holders' permissions

Which copyright holders? Holders of, say, only the Russian copyright (and likewise Russian licensing agencies) have no rights in the US. Only the person who holds the US copyright (and US licensing agencies) have power in the US to permit that which would otherwise infringe.

Me, I keep hearing that they operate under a compulsory license that permits reproduction of sound recordings. And worse, I've also heard that they don't pay their bills to the pertinent agency, so maybe they're even illegal in Russia.

But seriously: do you really think that damn near every single composer and performer of note have given permission to allofmp3 to sell to American customers, given how little they charge? When none of the more above-board stores in the US have particularly thorough catalogs?

That just doesn't pass the smell test, man. You have to admit it.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

It is my understanding that allofmp3 IS authorized by the Russian equal to the RIAA to distibute the copyrighted works.

So you're saying that Russian A can permit Russian B to do things in the US that are normally illegal in the US, and because Russian A said so, it's okay?

Please.

Only where AMERICAN A was permitting Russian B (perhaps via Russian A) to do those things would it be okay. And I'll bet cash money that the Russians don't have permission from the US copyright holders to do stuff in the US, and therefore cannot pass that permission along to the US-located downloaders.

The American music stores, OTOH, do have that permission and are permitted to pass it along. And amazingly, they don't claim that this gives them permission to operate in countries where they don't have permission from the local copyright holder in each country, so that ought to jolly well clue you in.

I belive allofmp3 would be the target of the law more then an individual using the service as the penalty for illegal distibution is far greater then the penalty for illegally purchasing.

No, they're the same. What matters is basically intent, and there distributors tend to have it worse than downloaders. But not necessarily. And regardless, $30,000 per work is a fuck of a lot for a downloader even if it wasn't willful.

I can buy an audio cd from a country outside the US and bring it into the US legally provided it was an authorized copy

No, you generally can't, actually. 602(a) and (b) cover this.

But again, downloading is NOT and NEVER WILL BE the same as importation.

but I believe it is much more involved then what you referenced.

I bet it's not.

Re:allofmp3.com

[rainman_bc]

I can see the reply to this coming:

In Soviet Russia, MP3's encode YOU!

Sincerely, annoyed with these posts now :)

Re:allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no. PayPal has been "temporarily disabled" on AllofMP3 for about 1 month. Much to my disappointment.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not making a copy, you are downloading a copy someone else made. The fact that it sat in your system memory is a dumb claim, it HAD to for the download to get there. When I play Sims, I have a copy in memory and on my harddrive, when I play my iTunes songs, I have a copy in memory, when I open an ebook, I have a copy in my hard drive, one in memory, a copy in my video memory, and a copy visible on the screen. Why do you keep claiming that as PROOF it is illegal in the US?

Re:Allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

grow a fucking taste in music you fucking bozo.

yes, Britney, etc are crap. But get off your ass and find some good music. Don't expect the artists to come suck you off just to get you to listen to their music.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

You are not making a copy, you are downloading a copy someone else made

No, no, no, no.

A copy is defined in the law, at 17 USC 101, as a TANGIBLE OBJECT.

A CD is a copy, because I can hold it in my hand. I cannot hold an mp3 file in my hand, when it is ALL BY ITSELF. Ergo, it is NOT a copy. Only the medium which the work is within is a copy.

Read MAI v. Peak. Read the Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry case. They are all AMAZINGLY CLEAR: when some creative work is loaded into RAM, a new copy has been reproduced, and this is illegal unless it's authorized or falls into a specific exemption in the law.

Maybe it is dumb. But the courts have uniformly said this for a decade, if not longer. You cannot win if you argue against it. They have settled the issue!

When I play Sims, I have a copy in memory and on my harddrive

And if you look in the EULA for the game, you will find that they specifically permit you to do so. Otherwise, you could not. MAI v. Peak was about this: someone ran some software and was sued and lost because running it was illegal. The 117 exception doesn't often apply, because it requires ownership of the copy, but sometimes it does, and then it's an applicable exemption.

when I play my iTunes songs, I have a copy in memory

Dollars to donuts, this is in the iTMS EULA.

Why do you keep claiming that as PROOF it is illegal in the US?

Because off the top of my head I can think of a number of cases that say it is. And these cases are widely followed. And if I bothered to look it up, I bet I could easily find a dozen cases, each one saying the same damn thing.

Loading works in RAM can be illegal.

This is the law. You don't have to like it. But it's a good thing for you to know what the law is, so that a) you can avoid breaking it, and b) you know just how fucked up it is, so you can make cogent arguments to fix it.

This is why I keep railing on about allofmp3.

I couldn't care less that people d/l from it. But they should not be fooled into thinking that it is legal. They should know the truth, and then they can proceed to do things armed with that knowledge.

Do you need specific case cites, or can you google for them by the party names. Seriously: read the damn cases. Do a find for 'RAM' if you must skip over some of it, to find the relevant bits, but please read the cases and educate yourself.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[mqduck]

Not knowing where the good new music is is one of the best signs that you're growing old. I'm so sorry.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Senjutsu]

Not irrelevant at all.

The point, which you quite entirely missed, is that when one downloads music from a site, a copy is necessarily made. That's why these kinds of purchases are governed by copyright law, and not (as others in this thread have mistakenly thought) customs laws.

The relevance in the Apple example is that Apple has negotiated the legal right to sell their music with the US (and UK, French, and German) copyright holders and so can legally sell copies of the music in those places, just as allofmp3 has (presumably) done so in order to legally sell copies of the music. The relevance is that, despite the fact the iTMS can legally sell the music in the US, they cannot legally sell me the music in Canada, Spain, or anywhere but the US (or France, the UK, and Germany).

Thus your point is quite irrelevant. Allofmp3 may well have the legal right to sell the music within Russia, but they clearly have not negotiated the right to do so with the US rightsholders, and so cannot legally sell the music to US customers. The service is thus illegal in the US. If you want to give your credit card number to a set of people in a foreign country with very lax laws half way around the world who almost certainly know that they are acting illegally that is your perogative, but it is not a course of action I would recommend.

Re:allofmp3.com

[nolife]

So you're saying that Russian A can permit Russian B to do things in the US that are normally illegal in the US, and because Russian A said so, it's okay?

Please.


HUH? What is illegal in the US?
Assuming allofmp3 has a legal right to distribute the music (if they don't then I agree with you 100% that the whole thing is a time bomb), the only issue at hand is the legality of that music leaving Russia and entering into the US. Plain and simple.
I have no idea what rights or geographical limitations anyone has for distributing anything but that dispute or difference between two distributors of the same copyrighted work are not going to be putting you in jail.

Re:allofmp3.com

[jonathan_95060]

you wouldn't, by any chance, be a RIAA astroturf artist would you?

I'll I keep hearing from your side is lots of FUD (russians are scary, woooooo) and little compelling reason to avoid their service.

Again I ask, why doesn't RIAA close the loop? That is to say apply pressure where they have some power -- hear in the US! Why don't they get an injunction against credit card companies to disallow US customers from paying via credit card to AllofMP3? I'm very confident that AllofMP3 would stop illegally distributing music to me if I didn't pay them. The credit card companies have active business presences here in the US so RIAA should have no problem getting to them.

Instead of RIAA simply cutting off AllofMP3 (which I confidently assert is the single largest distributor of online music to US citizens) from US credit card payments they choose piddly ass cases against grandmothers and teenie boppers as a scare tactic.

Ignoring the easy shot against the big fish in favor of making examples of people who'd rather lose and settle out of court than win in court and see their life savings consumed in legal costs suggests to me that the big fish isn't the easy target you make them out to be ...

P.S. I'll be sure to post here on slashdot as soon as RIAA whoops my ass for being an allofMP3 customer.

Cheers,
--Jonathan

Re:allofmp3.com

[clifyt]

"There media app downloads the songs for you in the background, the tunes are dirt cheap and they have a good (but not excellent, at least in punk) selection."

Its easy to be dirt cheap when the price of adding a new song to the server is around $16.95 + worldwide shipping from Amazon.

Its dirt cheap because they don't pay the artists. More than that, folks like me that get paid on points (regardless of the fact its a quarter of someone elses half or a percentage of a point) don't get paid -- especially when some of us take chances on more unknown artists knowing that if we do great work, we might get paid later -- while if we do shitty work, we probably won't get anything.

The fact is, folks like Downfuckinghill Battle scream about artists get only $0.10 a song (which is actually a higher percentage than most get from anything sold at BestBuy or WalMart), while the same folks bragging about this are willing to fuck over everyone in the music industry because they are trying to fucking save us from ourselves.

Personally, I have a job doing research that keeps me afloat. Music buys me gear, gets me into parties that geeks like me should never be allowed close to, and puts some pocket change in my wallet. And yet, I've worked on shit that was high profile enough that I know friends of mine have ripped the shit off a P2P site -- and honestly, thats what I consider allofmp3 -- just an illegal operation running under laws that are not quite clear in Russia and not up to the technical reality of today nor intended to be used in the way they are, and actually even illegal for them to sell outside of their borders -- let alone illegal for you to download outside of their borders as well.

I've taken a look at the site and it pisses me off. Music as a commodity and not an art. Buy it in bulk. You aren't paying per song, you are paying per the bandwidth. Want higher quality -- its more money to download. The artist gets exactly the same percentage of the sale -- NOTHING.

Honestly, as a musician and technician , I can hear the difference between MP3s, AAC or WAV but I don't care. I buy the music not for the quality, but for the content. Audiophiles have always gotten on my fucking nerves. If you weren't around when it was originally recorded, you are getting no where near the original quality, so it doesn't matter. This is why we go to see concerts and why I don't get tired of seeing the same band a few dozen times a year (well the fact that they pay me to be there is beside the point -- I'd have been there with simply the invite and the travel reimbursement).

What would be more important that quality to me would be all the lyrics and artist notes to the song. Cover art? its nice, but not integral to the music. Lyrics, notes -- definitely important and can make the difference between a good song and a great one because it sets the mood and context.

Past that, iTMS is perfect for me. And I just checked -- it looks like its got my friends band's bio pages up -- maybe one of these days they will have their own customized mini portals as well one of these days.

Re:allofmp3.com

[clifyt]

"Doesn't the US copyright holder give his permission when he allows his product to be distributed in Russia?"

There are quite a few albums on AllOfMp3 that were never distributed in Russia or sold there (legitimately). As such, even if AllOfMp3 was legit, how does it give them the rights to distribute it.

I know several bigger artists that are there and are probably distributed by their labels in the company, but I also know several lesser known artists that ship out of their own homes -- but still have a pretty big clip in sales -- when you take ALL the profits you can sell far less -- fortunately, for the one that is actually making real money this way had a 10 year deal, several million major label sales, and a decent soundtrack licensing biz. Her claim is that she has never sent anything recent past Scandinavia as the former eastern bloc is too rife with credit card theft and as such, will not even send anything into there and encourage her fans to buy from independent music stores that might pick up 4 or 5 copies to sit on the shelf for a few years.

So why are her albums there? I've got a few others that are in the same boat. The fact is, AllOfMp3 is illegal and waiting for the law to catch up with them -- though in Russian they have far more pressing needs at this time than to deal with minor copyright violations...

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

What is illegal in the US?

Downloading is illegal in the US. Unless authorized by the US copyright holder, or permitted in one of the exemptions in the law.

This is because when you download, you are creating a new copy. I've gone into the details of why that is so in other posts in this topic; you can check them out if you're interested, or take it as a given for purposes of our present discussion.

It is of course possible for the US copyright holder to permit another party to do something within the US, which otherwise would be illegal. And it is further possible for the US copyright holder to allow that party to extend the permission to yet other parties. Of course, such grants of permission tend to be conditional; for example, that you have to pay a fee in order to get permission even via an intermediary.

So when, say, iTMS sells someone music, the US-based downloader is, in a convoluted way, getting permission from the US copyright holder to download the music, and to make some other incidental copies of it.

However, since such permission can only ever derive, ultimately, from the US copyright holder, third parties cannot grant permission all by themselves, as to activities, such as downloading, that take place within the US.

So unless allofmp3 directly or indirectly has ACTUAL PERMISSION FROM THE US COPYRIGHT HOLDERS to sell music -- which seems impossible, given the vast differences between all notable US-based music stores, and allofmp3 -- then it is illegal for people in the US to download music from them.

The fact that allofmp3, or possibly some other Russians, say that it is okay is in fact irrelevant, since they have no power as to what can go on in the US, and downloading by people in the US, occurs within the US.

Is this simple enough?

Re:Allofmp3.com

[Barlo_Mung_42]

"I'm sorry but show me one independent artist who's nearly as good as Ella Fitzgerald."

That's a matter of taste. Ella is fine but I haven't a clue what you would think is better. Check out emusic. They have the best selection of independent music of any service I've seen.

I'm sure you'll fine something you like.

Re:allofmp3.com

[FLEB]

If only my mod points hadn't expired...

I've got to congratulate you on (what to the best of my knowledge is) the first post I've seen here with the argument of "duplication isn't stealing", with a solidly-explained reason (other than muddying the legal/moral discussion) for wanting to distingush the two.

In reply, though, I think much of the law as it is, and the desire not to curtail legitimate practices, leads to the situation where many distributors and "middlemen" (network operators and facilitators) are harder to catch or prevent, because although their goal may be to facilitate infringement, their actions are not specifically malicious enough to be legislated out.

I believe it's fully within the power of rightsholders to go after both parties who knowingly allowed the unauthorized duplication, both the poster and the downloader. Although the laws could be made saner, sure, the fact of the matter is that both parties do NOT have the rights to make the transaction.

Could you expound on your justification for focusing on the distributors (I'm assuming you mean sharers as opposed to downloaders). Is it the higher effectiveness of shutting down "dealers" over "buyers" that makes it a better choice?

Re:allofmp3.com

[FLEB]

That's the kicker, though... add in the price of licensing, and the higher baseline price will kick the end price into the stratosphere.

Not that I'm disagreeing with "the dream"... and I even think it's possible on a more targeted scale with the right labels backing, but I don't think you'll see something this grand on a wide-variety music store.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Senjutsu]

you wouldn't, by any chance, be a RIAA astroturf artist would you?

Nope. My dislike for them and for uninformed statements are about level, so it's an interesting tightrope. Read my history, if you want. The RIAA sure as fuck ain't going to pay a Canadian to post on non-RIAA related topics on slashdot. But while we're dodging the discussion in favor of silly acusations, how do I know you aren't a front account posting on slashdot to drum up card numbers for some crooked russian outfit?

I'll I keep hearing from your side is lots of FUD (russians are scary, woooooo) and little compelling reason to avoid their service.

I'm not employing scare tactics, just common sense. If one is going to break the law, why not do it on p2p for free? Why pay someone halfway around the world to accomplish the same goal? It's just as illegal, and you're opening yourself to the possibility of credit card fraud. The mere fact that they'll sell music to you demonstates that legality of action is not their primary concern.

Instead of RIAA simply cutting off AllofMP3 (which I confidently assert is the single largest distributor of online music to US citizens) from US credit card payments they choose piddly ass cases against grandmothers and teenie boppers as a scare tactic.

You could assert that, but please provide proof if you want to discuss it as a serious fact. It seems to me that allofmp3 is nowhere near the buzzword that napster/kazaa was; it's utterly obscure to the general public. It's your assertion, back it up.

Why don't the RIAA shut it down? How can they? It operates in fucking Russia, and they probably have the Russian distribution rights payed up; only their foreign distribution is likely illegal. Unless the operators pull a Skylarov and show up on US shore, the RIAA probably can't do shit. They can't subpoena the server logs, they don't have legal standing there, the State Department probably has a million things better to do than pester the Russian authorities about it, and the Russians probably don't give a shit anyways. But that cuts both ways. They decide to fuck with your credit card, good fucking luck getting the Russian police to give a shit about it.

They went after the teeniebopper and Grandmda distributors. The RIAA never filed a case against a downloader, ever; all the kazaa suits were against people dumb enough to check the "I want to be a supernode" box. So if all you're doing is downloading and not uploading (which is, after all, all you can do at allofmp3) again, I ask, why give your credit card to a foreign corporation of dubious legality? You're just as unlikely to face prosecution downloading for free off a p2p network. You're still breaking the law, either way, but you're absolutely right in that you'll probably never get "your ass whooped" over it. Why pay, unless you're buying into the scam that allofmp3 is running, the delusion that it's a legal service.

Ignoring the easy shot against the big fish in favor of making examples of people who'd rather lose and settle out of court than win in court and see their life savings consumed in legal costs suggests to me that the big fish isn't the easy target you make them out to be ...

In fact, I have never suggested they were an easy target, merely that them distributing to the US (and US customers downloading from them) is illegal, and therefore redundant given the availability of the material for free through other avenues here. None of that in the least suggests that they are an easy target.

Re:allofmp3.com

[GreyWolf3000]

Could you expound on your justification for focusing on the distributors (I'm assuming you mean sharers as opposed to downloaders). Is it the higher effectiveness of shutting down "dealers" over "buyers" that makes it a better choice?

My reason is primarily economic. The record industry wants to look at a stolen record or song as a loss. I may be a college student heavy into internet piracy. I can, at the most, 'steal' a couple of thousand dollars worth of content per year.

Let's say the new season of Enterprise starts coming out and I have HDTV. I start ripping each episode at high definition and seeding them with bittorrent. It may end up that, say, five hundred people out there end up with a duplication of the rip that I made. I've just been a two or three thousand dollar loss overnight.

Who stole the episode, the people that downloaded it or me who distributed it? We completed a data transaction together, and it sort of looks like the downloader did the "stealing," so in this case things look kind of blurry.

In my opinion, the one who seeded the file should be the one the content holders should pursue.

If I weren't dead tired I could put this together in a much more succinct and elegant fashion, but I hope my point comes through.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Senjutsu]

HUH? What is illegal in the US? Assuming allofmp3 has a legal right to distribute the music (if they don't then I agree with you 100% that the whole thing is a time bomb),

Therein lies the heart of your confusion. Repeat after me:

There is no such thing as a right to distribute music. There is only the right to distribute a copyrighted work within the country that the copyrightholder holds the rights for. Allofmp3 doesn't have the right to distribute the music worldwide, because no such right exists. The rights holder for the music is different in every country . Allofmp3 probably secured permission from the Russian copyright holder to distribute the works, but NOTE THAT that only gives them the right to distribute the work within Russia. The Russian copyright holder is not the US copy right holder, and they lack the right to grant US distribution. Unless allofmp3 has secured the rights from the US rightsholder, the RIAA, it is illegal for them to distribute the work here. And the lack of the RIAA's beloved 'rights-management' crippling is a clear indication that the RIAA never granted them distribution.

the only issue at hand is the legality of that music leaving Russia and entering into the US. Plain and simple.

No such issue exists here. The work never leaves Russia, only a copy of it is made by you in downloading it. It is thus governed by copyright law, and since the US rights holder has not authorized the copy, it is illegal. End of story.

Re:allofmp3.com

[lombre]

allofmp3.com uses an independent billing company (cyberplat) even if the RIAA could get the US credit card companies to tell them who made payments to them this would not indicate who is an allofmp3.com customer.

they would need cyberplat to tell them who the customers of allofmp3.com are.

as allofmp3.com also sells russian music they would need allofmp3.com to tell them who actually bought RIAA music

since both cyberplat and allofmp3.com are russian companies the RIAA cannot subpoena them here but must do it in Russia where they have no case.

in any case has the RIAA (or anyone else) actually sued a downloader (as opposed to people who shared/distributed music)? If they haven't they are obviously reluctant to even test in court whether downloading itself is illegal.

Re:allofmp3.com

[shutdown -p now]

Well, if they are able to maintain their current level of service for $0.015/100Mb, then I don't see why their prices would be significatly higher than that of their competitors if they choose to license songs they sell. Then it'll be $9.99 an album, plus $0.01 for re-encoding. Which will give you $10.

Re:allofmp3.com

[buckminster]

How are bits not tangible?

If they configure themselves to be an artistic work that I can replay again and again they certainly are tangible.

How is a mass produced CD more tangible than a mass produced hard drive that just happens to contain the same reproduction of sound?

Re:allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

What the poster wrote:

Unless you're a Russian citizen, living in Russia, listening to the music in Russia, allofmp3.com is also not legal. If you're going to violate local copyright laws, at least use a P2P service where they don't take down your name and credit card number.

What the poster meant:

If you're a US citizen, living in the US listening to the music in the US allofmp3.com is also not legal. If you're going to violate local copyright laws, at least use a P2P service where they don't take down your name and credit card number.

Sheesh, I thought the us-and-them (USA-Russia) mentality went out with the Cold War!

Re:allofmp3.com

[Jugalator]

Unless you're a Russian citizen, living in Russia, listening to the music in Russia, allofmp3.com is also not legal. If you're going to violate local copyright laws, at least use a P2P service where they don't take down your name and credit card number.

What information do you base this on? :-/

Have any judge said so, or do you have more insight in laws than I do? :-)

Re:allofmp3.com

[jonathan_95060]

But that cuts both ways. They decide to fuck with your credit card, good fucking luck getting the Russian police to give a shit about it.


Luckily I don't have to get the Russian police to give a shit -- I can call my credit card company and have them reverse the charge, cancel the card and issue a new card.

I don't know about your credit card company but mine recently called me after I used a card to book a hotel room in London. They called me because they had noticed unusual activity on my account.

Perhaps your credit cards don't allow you to dispute charges ...

Re:allofmp3.com

[Jugalator]

In the US, on the other hand, it's just as illegal to download from allofmp3 as it is to download from the p2p service, so there's still no point in using allofmp3, unless you really enjoy giving your credit card number to Russians running a service of highly dubious legality.

I personally generate a temporary VISA number so they aren't getting my real one in case "something" would happen. But why are you saying it's not legal? Can someone here saying this point me to a place where it says they're illegal outside of Russia?

Re:allofmp3.com

[Tet]

by your definition, ripping a CD is illegal, which I seriously doubt.

Here in the UK, ripping a CD is illegal.

Re:allofmp3.com

[kayen_telva]

A little reading for yourself...

Re:allofmp3.com

[caudron]

That means that unless the copies made would have been legal had US law applied at the place where they were made

(standard IANAL stuff applies)

Even under US Copyright law, these copies are legal. They are licensed under contract in a legitimately recognized sovreign nation that is an active and signifigant participant in the world community. Russian-born contracts are perfectly valid and enforecable across borders.

Facts:

1) The music was legally licensed in the nation where the sale is taking place.

2) There exosts no prohibition against sale in the legal license.

3) There exists no prohibition against sale accross borders once the music is legally licensed.

4) When the RIAA had legal grounds to injunct a music distribution method, they do so.

5) The RIAA has never made a single public mention of AllOfMP3, and there exists no evidence to suggest that AllOfMP3 is on their hitlist.

6) Copyright law allows me to purchase music in another country and bring it here, so long as the purchase was legal.

7) The sale of music by AllOfMP3 is legal.

Downloading is reproduction, not importation. Check it out: Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry,

I trust that you, also, are not a lawyer since you have taken IR v ULM way out of context.

1) In IRvULM, the hosting site did not have license to distribute. AllOfMP3 does.

2) In IRvULM, there is no mention whatsoever of the distinction between reproduction versus importation as an issue. Judge Campbell was ruling on the distinction between viewing and copying. The judge ruled that viewing a page constituted the illegal making of a copy, rather than a legal viewing (i.e., same as photocopying a book rather than same are reading it in the library) which has zero bearing on a case where the licensee has every legal right to sell copies of the material and is doing so under the auspices of a legally recognized government that engages and accepts the rules of the WTC, of which Russia is a member in good standing.

What, can't you read?

Though it's clear by this statement that you were being offensive in your reply, you'll note that I stuck to the facts and didn't engage in meaningless insult. Try doing that from now on and people will respond better to your arguments. and especially avoid being so cocky when you are wrong. It doesn't make you look so good.

Re:allofmp3.com

[J. T. MacLeod]

No, I understood your point quite clearly. I'm implying that it's wrong.

This Russian company is not selling *in* the US. They are selling to people in the US from their Russian presence, where they are not governed by US copyright laws. Key difference there.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

How are bits not tangible?

I cannot hold a bit, all by itself, in my hand.

This isn't surprising: I can't hold a letter or word, all by itself, in my hand either.

Now, I can hold some kind of medium that embodies such a thing: fridge magnets in the shape of a letter, paper with writing on it, and so forth. But the letter 'A' divorced from any medium, is an intangible.

So is a bit.

You NEED a carrier medium. A CD, an HD, RAM, etc. That medium is a tangible object. It's a copy, as that word is defined in the law. And making new copies is subject to some restriction.

Re:allofmp3.com

[erasmus_]

as worthless as Moon-Man law

Hahaha, I think that's classic. I really admire your efforts to fight a battle that you can't win, Cpt Kangarooski. Even when common sense should tell people that what they're doing is illegal, and you specifically point out why it is so, they'll defend their position with foam at the mouth. AllOfMp3 is basically a digital equivalent of going to Korea and getting Photoshop for $2 on a street corner, and if someone can't see that, there's really no getting through to them.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Senjutsu]

No difference at all, a copy is being made on US soil.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

Even under US Copyright law, these copies are legal.

No. They would only be legal if the US copyright holder willingly gave permission for otherwise-infringing activities within the US to occur.

Are you seriously telling me that you think that damn near every person with a US copyright on popular music just jumped at the chance to let a shady Russian music store sell lossless, non-DRMed music for a pittance? When no one else even has a thorough catalog?

You must be pretty stupid to believe that.

allofmp3 appears to operate under a compulsory license. That means that, in the US, we wouldn't treat the copyright holder as having willingly permitted US downloads. Thus, they're not within the bounds of what's permitted under US law -- they have no authority granted to them by the US copyright holder, regardless of whatever Russian law says, since it doesn't apply in the US.

There exists no prohibition against sale accross borders once the music is legally licensed.

That's untrue. There are bans on it in 602(a) and (b), and only narrow exceptions in 602(a) and 109. But of course, downloading isn't importation.

When the RIAA had legal grounds to injunct a music distribution method, they do so.

Since when? They have finite resources, and use them in the most efficient manner. This is why they went after P2P services first -- it had the greatest impact on the scene. Now they're going after uploaders, because they have a greater impact when taken down than if they went after downloaders.

Eventually they may also act against downloaders. It's just not very practical to do so, since it's not the most efficient use of resources.

Re:allofmp3.com

[J. T. MacLeod]

Basing all of our laws on irrelevant technicalities sounds fun!

Re:allofmp3.com

[ChozSun]

Second that.

Everything you want in a store, guess what, they do it.

Different formats, different bitrates... all other music stores need to take heed.

It helps that it is cheaper than dirt however I would pay iTunes prices to get the service that Allofmp3.com gives.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

Moon-Man law

Oh, well that's just because in my social circle, an inane statement is generally termed 'crazy moon talk' and so 'moon-man law' is the logical outgrowth of that.

fight a battle that you can't win

Well, I don't care if they do something illegal. Hell, I think US copyright law is insanely crappy right now, and in serious need of reform. And I loathe RIAA's behavior in pushing for the law to get worse.

I just don't like people spreading misinformation or being misinformed about the law. In particular, I think that if people know just how bad the law actually is, it'll help induce reform. Plus of course, when people know if some action is illegal, then they can plan better as to whether they want to go through with it, and if so, how best to do it.

Generally, I think the law ought to conform to people's common sense attitudes of what it likely is, since that's what they'll usually do anyway, unless they're unusually aware of what it actually is. This won't always work, but I think it's a good guiding principle.

Re:allofmp3.com

[aristotle-dude]

Sorry but illegally duplicating that which is not yours and reselling it is stealing. If you use this service, you are purchasing stolen goods. You, as a customer are not infringing on copyright, the reseller is by distributing the materials.

What you and the service deprive the copyright holder is money which would be earned through resale of the item to you. If you are willfully buying stolen goods, you are breaking the law.

Fine, you are not stealing but you are willfully purchasing stolen goods from allofmp3.com which is committing copyright infringement and intellectual property theft. The theft comes in when they resell that which is not theirs.

I'll give you an analogy. say farmer A has a bull and is willing to sell use of this bull to farmer B to inseminate his cows. Now say that farmer B does not want to pay for the service and so he sneaks into the farm of farmer A and steals bull sperm. If farmer B inseminates his cows with it and resells the calfs, he has not only stolen the bull sperm but also deprived farmer A of potential revenue from his bull and has profited from selling his calfs.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, and EVERYTHING on the web is 100% true all of the time!

Re:allofmp3.com

[caudron]

Are you seriously telling me that you think that damn near every person with a US copyright on popular music just jumped at the chance to let a shady Russian music store sell lossless, non-DRMed music for a pittance? When no one else even has a thorough catalog?

Yes. If they want to sell in Russia (they could abstain, of course) then they must abide by the rules presented to then in Russia. This is one of them. Capitalism is a two-edged sword. They want the Russian market, but this comes along with it.

You must be pretty stupid to believe that.

I have a 167 I.Q. But then, I don't hold much stock in intelligence tests. Either way, most people would say I'm not stupid. Try to avoid insulting people in arguments it tends to have the opposite effect that you may have intended. That is just a friendly bit of advice.

allofmp3 appears to operate under a compulsory license. That means that, in the US, we wouldn't treat the copyright holder as having willingly permitted US downloads.

You appear to have made that idea up, whole-cloth. I know of no such precedent n the U.S. We enforce compulsory licensing in the U.S. in other cases. Is there some reasons we would disregard it here? Can you cite case law of is this just your personal opinion?

This works like the GPL. If they don't want to experience the downside to Russian sales, they can choose not to sell in Russia at all. That is their option. It's a valid option. Noone is putting a gun to Sony's head and telling them to sell in Russia. Nothing is done without consent. Sony offers it's works in Russia in full and explicit acknowledgement of the rules surrounding that offering. They can always leave that market. That is how capitalism works. Some artists/labels have chosen to abstain. Those artists aren't represented on AllOfMP3.

There are bans on it in 602(a) and (b)

we've already covered that those bans apply to illegally-gotten music. If the music was legally purchased, those bans do not apply. If I legally buy a CD in Russia, there exists no legal precedent of which I am aware to make that CD suddenly illegal in the U.S. Russia follows the rules of the WTC, as does the U.S., and it is a member nation of WIPO, which our own USPTO has conjoined with to set international policy on recorded works. No one in a position of authority thinks that anyone is doing anything illegal in this regard. The Russian recording contracts are vetted by WIPO for compliance. They comply, hence are enforceable in all WIPO member nations. We are one of those member nations.

They have finite resources, and use them in the most efficient manner.

And going after a single entity the size of AllOfMP3 would be a pretty efficient use of resources if they had a case.

But of course, downloading isn't importation.

You said that last time and cited a case that didn't relate. Is there another citation you can provide that makes your case? Is this just your personal opinion? Where did you get this fact from?

Re:Allofmp3.com

[poot_rootbeer]

(DVDs have good quality and nonrestrictive DRM)

What, don't we think that CSS encryption and region codes are TEH DEVIL anymore? Or is the MPAA not evil for foisting those things upon us now that we've found workarounds for them?

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

If they want to sell in Russia (they could abstain, of course) then they must abide by the rules presented to then in Russia.

But a law that says, 'to do business in Russia, you have to permit Russians to generally ignore your copyrights in the US, and permit others to do the same' isn't worth the paper it's printed on in the US.

This is because activities in Russia occur only under the 'hat' of a Russian copyright holder. They don't influence what happens when wearing the hat of a US copyright holder. There's no agreement that's enforcable in the US.

You appear to have made that idea up, whole-cloth.

I wish. It seems that every idiot that comes along saying that downloading from allofmp3 is legal cites a discussion located here indicating that allofmp3 operates under a license from some group called ROMS.

ROMS seems to have issued a press release here which states: ROMS is authorized by the Russian law on copyright and related rights as well as by its members and other copyright managers, including foreign, to issue user licenses on behalf of all Russian and foreign rightsholders.

So when I see an entity authorized by Russian law to issue licenses, where that entity is NOT the copyright holder, I see a compulsory license.

We enforce compulsory licensing in the U.S. in other cases. Is there some reasons we would disregard it here?

We enforce US compulsory licensing laws here. However, we do not, as a rule of thumb, enforce foreign law within the US. So that's why we disregard it. It isn't our law. It has no effect within our borders.

If they don't want to experience the downside to Russian sales, they can choose not to sell in Russia at all.

Sure -- but since the US won't enforce that against them, it doesn't much matter. It's a downside that only applies within Russian jurisdiction.

we've already covered that those bans apply to illegally-gotten music.

Yes, but illegally, where the law in question is that of the US. Since the US has no provision allowing for compulsory licensing of sound recordings, they're per se illegal, regardless of Russian law.

If I legally buy a CD in Russia, there exists no legal precedent of which I am aware to make that CD suddenly illegal in the U.S.

Only the US copyright holder can authorize the making of a copy that is legal for import into the US. So if you legally buy a CD in Russia that was not made with the authorization of that entity, where such authorization is valid under US law, it's illegal for import.

our own USPTO has conjoined with to set international policy on recorded works

You're saying that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has set policy on copyrights? Isn't that a bit outside their mandate? I would think that the United States Copyright Office would be more involved with that. (And also Congress, the President, the US Trade Representative, various international lobbyists, etc.)

The Russian recording contracts are vetted by WIPO for compliance.

Where the fuck are you coming up with this crap? WIPO does no such thing. They're a trade treaty organization. They don't deign to to look at individual contracts.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Senjutsu]

Didn't say it was right, didn't say it made sense, didn't say I agree with it, but believe it or not, that's the way it works.

I'm so insistent on the point not because I agree with it, but because if people understand that our laws actually are that retarded, there's more of a chance they'll agree with the need for copyright reform.

Re:allofmp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, that copy is made in Russia. It's not like they send you the file, you copy it and then send back the original. The copy is made on their end and sent, via the internet, to you.

Re:allofmp3.com

[steve_bryan]

"What, can't you read?

(b) In a case where the making of the copies or phonorecords would have constituted an infringement of copyright if this title had been applicable, their importation is prohibited. "

What I can read is the word "importation". Since downloading does not involve importation (something I believe you have strenuously argued) how could this clause be of any relevance? Wouldn't it be more likely that this clause is about pirate CD's and not about downloads at all?

Like many others I am not about to modify my behavior based on the musings of armchair lawyers when there are courts available to adjudicate these issues. If the RIAA does not bring a case against Allofmp3.com and win it, it would be distinctly odd for me to reach their (the deservedly despised RIAA) desired conclusion without them having even attempted to bring a case.

Re:allofmp3.com

[caudron]

There's no agreement that's enforcable in the US.

WIPO agreements are enforceable in the U.S. thanks primarily to copyright holders that wanted to see their reach extend past our border. Russian law is WIPO approved.

It seems that every idiot that comes along saying that downloading from allofmp3 is legal cites a discussion located here indicating that

I can't speak to whether or not they are idiots, but you seem a little too willing to name them thusly. Either way, it bears no weight here as I have not cited that reference in my argument.

So when I see an entity authorized by Russian law to issue licenses, where that entity is NOT the copyright holder, I see a compulsory license.

The copyright holders may abstain from Russian law by not selling in Rusia. There is no compulsion. They choose to go after that market with full understanding of the rules in place. ROMS canot grab just any copyrighted material and license it out. It has to be a material for sale in Russia. Hence, it has to be a material that has fallen under their jurisdiction. If you don't sell in Russia, they cannot license your work out. That would be a violation of WIPO rules. They and we both agree to those WIPO guidelines and the IP holders are allowed to decide which market's laws are acceptable for their product. In this case, those IP holders are clearly choosing to accept those rules, since they sell within the Russian border.

Since the US has no provision allowing for compulsory licensing of sound recordings, they're per se illegal, regardless of Russian law.

You seem to be inventing this legal idea yourself. Again. Can you cite references for this claim or is it just your personal opinion?

You're saying that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has set policy on copyrights?

My bad. I meant the Copyright Office. Just a mental typo. They are tightly related in function...and both are conjoined to WIPO.

WIPO does no such thing. They're a trade treaty organization. They don't deign to to look at individual contracts.

Bad wording. The laws surrounding recording contracts are vetted by WIPO, not the contracts themselves. Same diff. the contracts, if they are legal in Russia, are legal in the eyes of the international community (those of them that respect WIPO, which includes the U.S.).

Where the fuck are you coming up with this crap?

Really, you should be more respectful of others opinions. This sort of attitude will alienate others from you.

Re:allofmp3.com

[FLEB]

I think I understand you...

You're saying that the actual "theft" was done by the original copier, and the transaction is (more) legitimate from the secondhand downloader's perspective, since he's being openly given a file from a third party, as opposed to knowingly "pirating" it from the original licensor.

Am I reading you right?

(Ahh, economics, law and insomnia)

Re:allofmp3.com

[Jardine]

But there's no point in doing so, because it's every bit as legal to use $P2P_APP_OF_CHOICE in Canada to download for free.

That depends on how lazy you are and how particular you are in how you want your music. Say you want the album Day For Night by The Tragically Hip in Ogg Vorbis at a particular bitrate. You're unlikely to find that on any p2p network but allofmp3 will encode it for you. Even if you could find the files you want in the format you want and at the bitrate you want, the speed is probably faster through allofmp3. It'll probably cost you about $1 or less depending on bitrate.

Re:allofmp3.com

[GreyWolf3000]

Am I reading you right?

Sort of. What I really mean is that when you steal, there are two parties involved--the thief and the victim. When you duplicate copyrighted content and distribute it, there are three--the copyright holder, the distributor, and the downloader.

What sucks about stealing is that when I steal from you, you now no longer have whateven I stole. In piracy, the distributor is neither a theif nor a victim. The same applies for the downloader. The copyright holder is certainly the victim, and the other two combine to perform a role that is sort of like stealing, but not quite.

No one loses anything, but one person obtains something illegaly. It is natural to point the finger to the downloader because of this logic, but actually the distributor is doing the most damage.

Re:allofmp3.com

[GreyWolf3000]

What you and the service deprive the copyright holder is money which would be earned through resale of the item to you. If you are willfully buying stolen goods, you are breaking the law.

For reasons I have explained elsewhere in this thread, I maintain that piracy isn't theft. More importantly, considering it theft puts the focus on the downloader, not the distributor.

The analogy that comes to mind is knowingly buying a "hot" stereo. Definately illegal and morally reprehensible, but the real problem is people stealing stereos and selling them. This isn't that close, since the stereo theif has no right to steal the stereo, when a distributor usually has the right to personal use of the media.

I'll give you an analogy. say farmer A has a bull and is willing to sell use of this bull to farmer B to inseminate his cows. Now say that farmer B does not want to pay for the service and so he sneaks into the farm of farmer A and steals bull sperm. If farmer B inseminates his cows with it and resells the calfs, he has not only stolen the bull sperm but also deprived farmer A of potential revenue from his bull and has profited from selling his calfs.

It's more like farmer A sells farmer B the sperm for his own use, and farmer B genetically copies the sperm and sells it (or gives it away) to farmers C, D, E, and F. Everyone seems up in arms about farmes C, D, E, and F 'stealing' farmer A's sperm, because they've obtained it without a license, but the person that's really screwed farmer A out of his money is farmer B, who hasn't actually stolen anything.

My point is that by calling piracy theft, we've shifted the blame onto farmers C, D, E, and F, who are only stealing in a butchered sense of the word. The real culprit is farmer B, who hasn't stolen, but has committed the greatest crime.

Re:allofmp3.com

[cpt kangarooski]

WIPO agreements are enforceable in the U.S.

And what, pray, is a WIPO agreement?

I trust that you do not mean treaties, because copyright treaties in the US are not self-executing. Only our domestic law can be used for enforcement.

If you don't sell in Russia, they cannot license your work out.

But even if you do, they cannot license your work within the United States, because we determine what the law is within our borders. Their power to license exists solely within Russia. Nowhere else.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[OS24Ever]

Did I say I flipped only through commercial media? Have you turned on a TV lately? Just because I remember that MTV was music video channel doesn't make me that old.

I've found many interesting non-corporate rock, no thanks to my radio. Actually I've gotten many good recommendations from Slashdot folks.

Must have struck a nerve on the spank to the music folks, because I got more jabs & 'you suck' posts than agreement this time.

Re:Allofmp3.com

[mmkkbb]

"I'm hard up to find any new music that isn't over sampled over produced stripping teeny bopper." and "I've found many interesting non-corporate rock, no thanks to my radio. Actually I've gotten many good recommendations from Slashdot folks." are contradictory!

Re:allofmp3.com

[FLEB]

I gotcha.

What I want...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap, CD quality tracks with no limits (Just like buying a CD from a brick and morter store). Large selection, and an easy to use interface.

I'll dare to dream.

iTunes rock

[Anonymous Coward]

After 3 years of boycotting music and not buying any, I finally started using iTunes 4 months back. Since then I've purchased 10 albums. I tried MusicMatch and looked at Real, but honestly iTunes is the most user friendly.

Re:iTunes rock

[dbn3]

[Listening to the new U2 single just bought on iTunes :) ]

Now that I am more than 10 years out of college, it is definately worth $0.99 to just get the song I want without trolling the p2p networks looking for music.

Besides, in recent years, if it ain't hip with the teen/college crowd, it ain't on the p2p networks. Those tracks that are there are of very variable quality -- you have to get several copies because some moron can't rip or encode correctly. It's just not worth the hassle.

Things I really like about iTunes:
- cost;
- quality;
- ease of purchase;
- the "others also bought" links let me explore things I haven't heard before; and, of course
- buying the single for a buck instead of a 10 track crappy cd for $14 for that one single.

Things I still am waiting for:
- broader catalogue (Madonna and The Beatles for two are still not available)

Re:iTunes rock

[Anonymous Coward]

eMule has just about everything, I've found some damn obscure stuff on there that I just can't get on CD locally. Most albums come rar'd as high quality MP3s - I've never had a fake or one with dud quality.

The flip side, of course, is that it's illegal and the artists don't get any royalties, and it is a fair bit slower than other networks - the best way to use it is queue up a few albums (>5) and forget about it.

Re:iTunes rock

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the best luck using Ares. There's still gaping holes in my 70's prog and metal collections that I've been able to fill through it.

In two days, I had a cd's worth of mp3s from Ares. Granted that isn't much, but using eMule and friends it takes much longer. The only thing that comes close (IMHO) is IRC; but with IRC you have to deal with ques and a limited selection. (both are limited, and you can use both to make up for the limitations of the other, if you want to deal with ques, I guess).

Re:iTunes rock

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent -1: Can't fucking spell definitely.

Re:iTunes rock

[hunterx11]

The Beatles . . . are still not available
I wouldn't count on Apple selling records that belong to Apple anytime soon :)

Re:iTunes rock

[dasmegabyte]

P2P "search" networks basically suck. It's a hassle to get what you want, a hassle to find what you want, a hassle to avoid astroturfers and trolls, and a hassle when you discover some joker used the Xing encoder at 112 kbit to encode that rare gem of a Bob Dylan duet that cuts out a minute before the end of the song. Or that the damn thing is in OGG at any bitrate, a fate worse than death for an iPod user (and there are several million of us).

iTunes has, in general, a better selection in higher quality than P2P and the samples are usually good enough to tell if you're going to like it. Unless you're a shmuck who's dead set against paying for music or some quality nut, it's a great solution.

However, I've recently become reacquainted with the Usenet -- not as a download method, but as a method of keeping myself updated with what's coming out. Albums these days hit the Usenet weeks or even months before they hit the streets, meaning that smart critics and music fans should be watching the 'groups for word from their favorite artists. The Madlib/MF Doom collaboration "Madvillainy" hit the groups nearly a year and a half after it "leaked into cyberspace," and as a result of that crappy rip (from a CD left on an airplane in Buenos Aires) the album was greatly anticipated. I'd have bought it on the first day, if any store within 80 miles of here had CARRIED the shit. *sigh*. The internet really is a double edged sword, simultaneous promoting and crushing the industry.

Re:iTunes rock

[RockClimbingFool]

So after diligently boycotting music, you decide to pay the record industry the same amount, if not more, money for a version of the song with more restrictions and lower quality.

i don't get it.

Re:iTunes rock

[Anonymous Coward]

What I really like about iTunes is that all of my friends use it and it is cool. Also, I like the looks I get from idiot PC users who wonder where they can get white headphones like the ones that came with my wicked ass iPod. Wicked.

MP3?

[Treacle Treatment]

I wouldn't pay for any downloadable music that wasn't CD quality and storable to as many CDs or MP3 players as I wanted.

Re:MP3?

[Frizzle Fry]

Agreed, especially with the need for CD quality. On reason I'm happy to shop (occassionally) at livephish.com is that they give me the option of buying flac and doing whatever I want with the files.

Obvious answer

[usefool]

The shop should have OGG and FLAC tracks, as well as MP3.

Users can choose to pay per-song or per-month.

User can also have the option to purchase hard-copy as well (like the actual album, or even band merchandise).

The shop also ofeers song samples be it a 30-second downloads or full-song streams fed on-demand.

Re:Obvious answer

[sunami]

Users can choose to pay per-song or per-month.

There is an obvious problem with the pay-per-month method. The average cable user gets about 500KB/s (maybe more, I'm going moderatly). The average song at CD quality is 4MB's. That is 324,000 songs in a 30 day month. That's a lot of songs for a one month fee, which probably won't be $320,760, I'm guessing.

iTunes

[loid_void]

No one has done /. better, and no one has done iTunes better, and didn't someone say, "Bring 'em on." Nah...

Re:iTunes

[Lord Kano]

No one has done /. better, and no one has done iTunes better, and didn't someone say, "Bring 'em on." Nah...

What the fuck are you talking about you karma whore?

Re:iTunes

[loid_void]

That's English for, "when the music's over, turn out the lights."

FREE MUSIC

[michalas]

>'What would the perfect online music store offer you?'

FREE MUSIC!

Re:FREE MUSIC

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you want free music, go to garageband.com, dmusic.com, modarchive.com, midisite.com, ubl.artistdirect.com, or www.epitonic.com. These and millions of other sites that have Legal non-riaa music for free. :)

Re:FREE MUSIC

[dsanfte]

And free women.

Re:FREE MUSIC

[Anonymous Coward]

misogynist pig

Multiformat is there!

[delrinian]

The Russians have it already at allofmp3.com. They don't sell the physical albums but you can download the albums or individual tracks in different formats and bitrates.

Re:Multiformat is there!

[BasilBrush]

It all depends whether you are the kind of person that will happily pay vendors for stuff they don't have the right to sell. If you'll happily buy pirate tapes and CDs from a fly-by-night street vendor, you might happily use allofmp3. But a lot of people prefer to only hand over money for legal goods.

Of course even if legality isn't an issue for you, you have to be either brave or stupid to hand over your credit card information to a Russian web-site that have already shown they have little interest in abiding by the law. You ever heard of the Russian mafia?

Re:How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you aren't pointing at your crotch.

Allofmp3.com

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Allofmp3.com already has FLAC, Vorbis, and VBR MP3 files for the taking. They're DRM-free and play on anything.

I would happily pay $.99 a track for what Allofmp3.com offers. Of course, they only charge $0.01 per megabyte.

Of course, Allofmp3.com is probably illegal, at least in the US. But the RIAA should learn the lesson that the MPAA has learned:

Give people the content they want (movies, some of them costing $100s of millions to produce), at a fair price ($15 DVDs), in a format that's convenient (DVDs have good quality and nonrestrictive DRM) and there will be no incentive to pirate your content.

The perfect music store

[camusflage]

(near) unlimited servers spread across the world, making bandwidth a moot point
a flexible distributed search engine
wide variety, from studio releases to live recordings to fan-inspired mashups.

Hmm, sounds like an average p2p network. :)

Re:The Perfect Music Store

[dasmegabyte]

Okay. Culling out the features NOT offered by the iTunes Music Store:

Lossless compression: Consider how many people can tell the difference. Now consider the hassles and long download times involved with 16 meg per song downloads. Is it really worth all these people clogging up the download pipe for a 5-10% improvement in perceptual quality?

50 cents or less pricing: Why? Why should music be so cheap? They'd have to sell twice as much. I wouldn't buy twice as much. Certainly doesn't seem to be helping Rhapsody at all.

Good Music Selection: iTunes has the beach boys and u2. I don't think anybody has the Beatles or Led Zepp. They guard their catalog tightly, because they get a lot of money every time they re-release some material. Think, man: you have not made anything people really liked in 30 years, why would you reduce the value of your old shit to $.50 for a hit when you're already getting $20 per hit?

Less popular artists on Front Page: Not gonna happen, man, because these are the guys who sell. If they sell, put them where people can see them, they'll sell more. Of course, iTunes usually has about 50 artists on their front page, many of them obscure indepedents and always from multiple genres. Today it's (lets see) U2, Green Day, keb Mo, Jeff Fozworthy, lil Romeo, Franz Ferdiand, James Galway, The Samples, Spymob, Mark Knopfler, Lindsay Lohan, REM, Mario, Herbie Hancock, John FOgerty and Baaba Maal. That's pretty fucking ecclectic, man.

Reasonable DRM (none): Come on. People need a little assurance that online music isn't some pandora's box. Is DRM so bad? It's never hurt me and I listen to music all fucking day on a half dozen devices. I can't imagine other people having such radical needs that DRM can't be stepped around sanely. Shit, burn it to disc and rip it lossless to ALC or FLAC or SHN. Bye bye DRM, no loss in quality, you can do it from within iTunes. And it gives your favorite artists the peace of mind that allows them to loosen up and let you hear them.

Re:The Perfect Music Store

[Anonymous Coward]

Burn to disc and rip in lossless? Sure you won't have a loss in quality, but you tripled the file size.

This isn't a resonable solution for any volume of songs, either. What if your iPod broke and you replaced it with a different music player?

Sure, there is not a loss of convenience, as long as you operate exactly how apple wants you to. When you go along with it, you put them in control and you are locked in.

Have fun, slave.

Global library

[CrazyJim0]

I talk about the Global Library in books 6/7:

www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA

I think its vitally important to keep record of what users buy. This way, you can give other users tips... ALA:

80% of users that had 50% of your favorite music also downloaded groups: A,B,C

Read reviews, and mod them up/down, and your favorite critics suddenly occur... Read what they say about music and trust them because they were right all the other times.

ETC ETC, you can go deep... Right now its getting the rights to download off those punk lawyers.

I remember when you could go into a movie rental store and rent a movie, and their name wasn't Blockbuster.

Re:Global library

[Anonymous Coward]

>I remember when you could go into a movie
>rental store and rent a movie, and their name
>wasn't Blockbuster.

i rent from hollywood, they're next to my work...

Re:Global library

[Anonymous Coward]

Close enough.

AudioLunchbox

[munner]

...does this already, for the most part. They cover mostly indie stuff, but you can still find a few mainstreamers.

All tracks are 0.99$, and most albums are 9.99$. Streaming is limited to a few seconds only, though.

The site is flash-intensive, which sucks, but there's no DRM on their MP3 or OGG downloads. Downloads also include album cover art.

I like these guys for their offers -- sign up and get a semi-regular newsletter with free downloads / cheap offers.

Perfect music store

[vivek7006]

Everytime you buy a song, your size will increase by 20%

Re:Perfect music store

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice sig.

For me

[Judg3]

The author's idea of a music store is pretty much aligned with my own, except for one thing - I'd like to have the ability to (for an additional fee even) download the .wav file.

Then I can do whatever the hell I want to with it. Yes MP3 and OGG are nice, and yes FLAC is lossless, but the ability to download a .wav just gives me that warm fuzzy "I can do whatever I please with it" feeling.

Ah, yes, and I'd like the ability to download the track I purchased 3 times, just in case. Making sure I could grab my music again if my hdd fails would be an extra warm selling point too.

Re:For me

[s7uar7]

Given the price of hard drives now, I considered ripping my CDs to .wav, but in the end I couldn't see any benefit of wav over FLAC. You can tag FLACs so they're easily converted to tagged MP3s or Vorbis for portable players, you save on space and if you really need a .wav you can always convert them.

Re:For me

[CryoPenguin]

What part of "lossless" don't you understand? You can turn the FLAC into the WAV with just a couple seconds of CPU time. Just like ZIP, except smaller and faster.
Actually, that's the more likely outcome: The client downloads a FLAC (to save bandwidth), and transparently decodes it to WAV, which it hands to you. The geeks get to convert to their exotic formats (or back to FLAC), and everyone else has a plain old WAV.

Re:For me

[cpt kangarooski]

But a flac contains exactly the same data as the raw sound data, yet is smaller? You can transcode it into a wav if you want to, with no quality loss?

Why would you want to waste bandwidth/time for no improvement in quality?

Re:For me

[Judg3]

I never said I would download wav files, but I want the option to.

It's just a reassurance thing - if I know I can have it in a format that's been around for ages and probably won't be going anywhere for awhile it would just make me feel better about signing up.

Re:For me

[Anonymous Coward]

But a flac contains exactly the same data as the raw sound data, yet is smaller?
You can transcode it into a wav if you want to, with no quality loss?
Why would you want to waste bandwidth/time for no improvement in quality?

Are you an uptalker or are those questions.

Re:For me

[cpt kangarooski]

No... no... I don't even remember typing those question marks. WTF? (that one I deliberately typed)

Re:For me

[mqduck]

Do you commonly make statements bigging with "are" or was that a question? ;)

Re:For me

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, the subtle hues of irony do not color your mental rainbow.

Does? that answer your question or would you like more hints,

Re:For me

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you notice that I didn't even mention your spe?lling (8{

Re:For me

[EvilIdler]

You can do whatever you damn please with a FLAC.

Re:For me

[zoeblade]

yes FLAC is lossless, but the ability to download a .wav just gives me that warm fuzzy "I can do whatever I please with it" feeling.

Just install FLAC and type in flac --decode [whatever].flac. There's your .wav file. Being against downloading a FLACced file because you lose a "warm, fuzzy feeling" is like being against downloading a .txt.gz file because of that warm feeling that uncompressed text gives you. That warm feeling's probably caused by your modem being overused. Let it cool down by downloading compressed files.

Re:For me

[zoeblade]

Are you an uptalker or are those questions.

Are you a downtalker or is that not a question?

AudioGalaxy

[frankmu]

that was a great site, with informative reviews, and vast selection of music. still miss it.

Re:AudioGalaxy

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn straight. AudioGalaxy is still the first site I bring up whenever anyone gets nostalgic about downloading music.

The ability to grab track after track with such ease was near-perfect. Entire albums were obtained in minutes. Their discussion boards for each artist/genre turned me on to more bands and styles than I've ever cared to know.

How, I miss thee, AG!

So, the obvious comments:

[The Only Druid]

Look at it this way, there are two groups of replies to this:

The Slashdot Crowd...

They're going to demand support for all of the Ogg contained codecs.
They're going to demand no drm, even optionally, so while you'll probably see AAC as a general format, you wont see fair-play.
You'll see the classic mp3, of course.
The price is going to have to be far less than 99c, since so many people here resent all things associated with the Apple store. I'm thinking what, 30 pence will please you guys?

The Normal Crowd...
For everyone else, you know what the perfect music store would be? The iTunes music store with basically a few additions:
There should be some ability to purchase at least some songs (i.e. certain classical pieces) at a higher bitrate.
There should be the ability to purchase files for more than one player, so that may mean something like WMA.

There's probably more, but I think these are the key points...

Re:So, the obvious comments:

[kelnos]

Yeah, that's pretty much on target (/. crowd). Personally, I'd be fine with 99c/song (or some kind of monthly subscription), but I won't pay 99c for a DRM-encumbered file.

Re:So, the obvious comments:

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a moron.

Re:So, the obvious comments:

[PhiberOptix]

And thats why hes asking it here, on /.
The general /. public is definitely different than "normal" public, but seeing how much time we spend online and how many of us there are (slashdotted sites everywhere?), it makes sense to open a music store aimed at "geeks", doesnt?

Re:So, the obvious comments:

[Teese]

What he said plus iTunes needs to offer a discount for an album if you had already paid for one of the songs and decided you really liked it and wanted the whole album (If I buy 3 of the songs for the album individually, I should get the 2.97 off when I decide I want to purchase the album later)

It would also kick ass if iTunes let you redownload songs you've already paid for.

And freakin' fill out your partial albums already. I've been waiting to get a legal copy of the gary jules Tears for Fears cover "Mad World" but they won't complete the album

Re:So, the obvious comments:

[Anonymous Coward]

Higher bitrate for most non-us electronic music also. I was also expecting the article summary to say that iTunes is the perfect store but the parent post will do.

Re:So, the obvious comments:

[Anonymous Coward]

So the slashdot crowd are technically savy people aware of how legal systems accross the world are being manipulated and downright altered to remove traditional fair use rights (i.e: listening to purchased music wherever and with whomever one pleases). Whilst 'the normal crowd' having used services like iTunes for at most a couple of years, and being on their first iPod, and never having ripped a cd never mind encoded an mp3, are for the most point unaware of the real restrictions DRM places on their choices and freedoms.

Yep you have a point there, theres certainly a difference, the differene is in the level of education vs indoctrination.

Re:So, the obvious comments:

[hai.uchida]

And freakin' fill out your partial albums already. I've been waiting to get a legal copy of the gary jules Tears for Fears cover "Mad World" but they won't complete the album

"Mad World" is of course originally from the Donnie Darko (otherwise instrumental) soundtrack, and credited to composer Roland Orzabal (with "vocals by Gary Jules")... And that's not available on iTunes, either.

So don't blame Apple for this missing song, I'm sure it's a rights issue-- which often happens with both covers and soundtracks... Though who exactly is holding it back, I couldn't tell you.

Re:So, the obvious comments:

[cjpez]

The price is going to have to be far less than 99c, since so many people here resent all things associated with the Apple store. I'm thinking what, 30 pence will please you guys?

$5 per album is about what I think is right given that you don't get a physical CD to drag around, a case to keep it from being scratched, pretty liner notes to peruse, or in some cases a nifty packaging scheme or whatever. In general I think the ("x" money / 1 track ) pricing model is fundamentally flawed. I guess it's okay for when you just want to get one track off an album, but in general I'm interested in getting the whole album. The issue becomes apparent when you start looking at how the per-track pricing model differs between, say, a disc of a classical symphony, and a disc by, say, Gore Beyond Necropsy. I can't imagine that anyone on emusic's pricing scheme is ever going to download that. Why waste money on fifty-nine separate tracks which take up less than 25 minutes? So yeah, do it per megabyte or minute or so, and make sure that the price stays around $5 an album, and I'll be happy.

Re:So, the obvious comments:

[naily]

You missed one other crucial grouping - the artists.

Frankly, I don't give much of a shit about how I pay for my music or whether it's DRMed to the max, or what system I can or can't play it on.

All I care is that the greater proportion of earnings from songs goes to the artists who create them. My perfect online tunes store is the one whose success is based on the decisions of artists and fans, and not fat media companies telling me what to listen to. I think more people would be happy to pay for music if they knew that most of the money was going to the creator (or at least that the creator controlled most of the money).

The best online music store?

[Anita Coney]

Personally, I like buying CDs from Amazon. The prices are good, I have yet to find any DRM, I pay no shipping, no taxes, and usually get my CDs in about a week. I can then rip them to any format I choose.

Re:The best online music store?

[Yolegoman]

I recently bought two cds, Spider-Man 1 Movie Score and Spider-Man 2 Movie Score (One for me, one a birthday present: We are going to swap-out, if only for the sake of having the cool album art in our possession once in a while... anyway), and simply chose "Free Super Saving on Orders Over $25". Said 4-6 business days, but the order was packed within 24 hours, and got here 48ish hours later. Not bad. Not bad at all. And, if you consider that I make $14 an hour programming, and you consider that I suck at finding stuff on p2p, it was probably cheaper to just buy the CDs, have them come with cool album art, and get here with no fuss, than to try to find them on some p2p prog where all the audio files are actually disguised Britney Spears wannabes. I simply don't have time to fuck about looking for files that aren't there. I'd rather buy, but I only buy when I want. Maybe that explains why I only purchase movie soundtracks anymore... already heard all of the music anyway.

Re:The best online music store?

[kylemonger]

I like buying CD's from Amazon too, but not when the CD contains one song out of thirteen that I want to hear and I'm expected to pay for all of them. This is where Apple's store excels; you buy exactly what you want. Sound quality is good enough; if you're listening through those lousy iPod earbuds or average desktop speakers, 128 bit AAC files are fine. If you're an audiophile, only 30ips reel-to-reel analog tapes are good enough for you, so what are you doing here anyway? :)

Re:The best online music store?

[dasmegabyte]

I bought a DRM'd CD from Amazon. It was by the Beastie Boys (had to buy it, the album art is absolutely beautiful, if you love NYC at all, get that record).

Luckily, iTunes ripped it with no problems.

Re:The best online music store?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you love NYC, you need to support Mindless Self Indulgence. It's the law.

Re:The best online music store?

[Anita Coney]

I've never been into singles. I figure if an artist can only come up with one good song out of 10-15 songs on a CD, that one song is probably not very good to begin with.

The only thing I have against iTunes (and all such services) is that you're paying essentially the same price as the CD, but you're getting your music in a lossy format. And sure you can burn and re-rip, but then you're getting MUCH less for nearly the same price.

I'd only buy from iTunes (or any other such service) if the music was a LOT cheaper (e.g., ten cents per song) or came in a flac type format (at a buck per song). I'm simply not going to pay the same amount and get less.

Re:The best online music store?

[dasmegabyte]

This is utter garbage, man.

But I'll give you that it's better than the last Beastie Boys album.

loss free Compression

[njko]

i want wav or any format encoded with loss free compression.
this is the audio quality that i would purchase

The perfect music store.

[luugi]

How Napster used to be.

Re:The perfect music store.

[sien]

Really? Napster was crap if you were searching for things that weren't particularly popular. Or trying to get an entire album. Your time had to be available and fairly cheap.

Re:The perfect music store.

[real_smiff]

shhhh - it's how slsk is. of course, since no buying is involved, it can hardly be considered a store. (being slightly cryptic deliberately).

Re:The perfect music store.

[clarkie.mg]

Completely disagree about that, I used to find anything on napster even unreleased remixes, live concerts. I once downloaded an old techno song heard in a movie impossible to find anywhere (not sold anymore) and 5 or 6 remixes.

Re:The perfect music store.

[Anonymous Coward]

However this waste got modded insightful...

Re:The perfect music store.

[Paulrothrock]

Like in College?

/me daydreams about 300KBps downloads over an unclogged dormNet

Re:The perfect music store.

[legirons]

"How Napster used to be."

Or how MP3.com used to be

What was the point of deleting that, the only useful internet record store ever to operate?

already exists...

[MrBlic]

Magnatune fits your description and it already exists. All we need is to have Magnatune license it's storefront for many other publishers to open and make some money in a similar grass-roots way.

http://www.magnatune.com

I'm not affiliated in any way other than to love what they do. I've listened to lots of stuff, including their streaming mp3s of entire genres. I have bought a couple of albums from magnatune, and still listen to it today. It's been a long time since I've been into music this much.

-Jim

Re:already exists...

[Anonymous Coward]

Audio Lunchbox provides Ogg and album literature, whilst giving artists about 65% of album sales. Looks good, easy to use.

Re:already exists...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree wholeheartedly. I wish it would continue growing, though; it seems as though he hasn't had any new artists in a while.

Re:already exists...

[njko]

magnatune is great, but no mainstream band is on there. if i was a musician i ll sell in magnatunes, if a track was in every online music store ill buy it in magnatunes

Easy...

[kelnos]

Give me a choice of Ogg Vorbis or FLAC, give me the choice to pay an "all you can eat"-type periodic subscription, or a per-song price (with a discount for an "album's" worth of songs). I'd like to see this store backed by artists who actually get a large chunk of my change, not by huge music conglomerates. The obvious one: I don't want any DRM on the files themselves. A supported Linux client is a must, of course (or a web interface). 30 second preview clips are good enough for me to decide if I like a song enough to buy it.

So, as you might guess, I'm not buying any online music anytime soon...

Re:Easy...

[adamjaskie]

Everything in parent, plus:

• Decent selection of classical music
• Decent search capabilities that can take into account the requirements of classical music (same piece recorded by several different orchestras/conductors/soloists, sometimes more than once by a particular artist, movements, organization by composer's work rather than by which things someone crammed onto a CD, etc)

FLAC is good enough. Since it is a lossless codec, I can transcode it without the inherent loss between, say, going from OGG to MP3 or vice versa.

Re:Easy...

[Anonymous Coward]

magnatune.com

Preview the full version of any song/album (or listen to their genre-specific shoutcast streams) for free. Download albums in a variety of losslessly and lossily compressed formats for your choice in $[4,infinity) ($8 recommended). 50% of the gross revenue goes to the artist.

The only issue you might have with them is that their selection is comprised entirely of independant artists, so you probably won't be able to find anything that's playing on the radio.

Re:Easy...

[KennethE]

So, as you might guess, I'm not buying any online music anytime soon...

That may depend on your preferences in music.
eclassical.com seems to fit most of your demands. They are trying out Ogg Vorbis right now, to see if the time is right. There is a few wma's left from the early days, but they are rapidly being replaced by mp3 encoded at 192Mb/s. And they heve a very generous guarantee!

Re:Easy...

[hexxeh]

Bleep.com is one of the most "advanced" stores from a Slashot user perspective - all content is available exclusively as DRM-free LAME --alt-preset standard MP3 files, with Vorbis and FLAC under consideratiojn in the future. Tracks are charged at 99p each, albums and EPs come at a heavy discount. Of the money paid, they are refreshingly honest about the payment split (99p - running costs / 2 goes to the artist and the record label) The store is owned and operated by Warp Records, of Aphex Twin fame, though a number of similar labels operate on bleep.com's store & terms. It's the most consumer-friendly thing we've got, in a sea of WMA and M4P

Re:Easy...

[kelnos]

Thanks for that; I'll look into it. I'm not a big classical collector, and I can usually fulfill my classical tastes just by going to the public library. But I'm lazy, so this might be something I'd use...

sound quality

[evil crash]

Guaranteed sound quality, and the ability to re-download any track I've ever purchased. (Ya just never know when ya might lose it.)

What I would like to see...

[mcwop]

To be up front I like Apple's music store, but it needs vast improvement:

• Create magazines by genre. Example, a punk page with weekly news album reviews highlights etc. Tour dates. Could have one for Classical etc...
• More indy music, most stores do not have the more esoteric independant stuff that I want.
• Allow bands to set up their own bootleg store page, where they can upload and sell live albums or singles - all to be billed thorugh the main store
• Set up store preferences, like the landing page by music genre etc...

That is it off the top of my head.

Re:What I would like to see...

[dasmegabyte]

Create magazines by genre. Example, a punk page with weekly news album reviews highlights etc. Tour dates. Could have one for Classical etc...

I wouldn't want Apple to do this...but their affiliate program means YOU could do this, keep it real and still make some cash. I'd like to see one of the big, pretentious online review sites plug in to iTunes...and Apple reciprocate by signing up all of their reviewed artists...

More indy music, most stores do not have the more esoteric independant stuff that I want.

It's coming, man. iTunes just signed a deal with the Hieroglyphics Imperium, my all time favorite hip hop label (Casual, Pep Love, Souls of Mischief and Del the Funkee Homosapien). And they're adding new bands all the time...they have a backlog of indies just waiting to get signed up. No other music store has as much obscure shit, and I doubt they will. Rhapsody et al seem to be about the NUMBER of songs, not about the quality of the artists they sign.

Allow bands to set up their own bootleg store page, where they can upload and sell live albums or singles - all to be billed thorugh the main store

This is an awesome idea and I'm sure it's coming. But remember that good software takes time and iTMS is only a little over a year old. I'll bet this feature is planned for when artist additions die down to a dull roar. iTunes certainly loves exclusives.

Set up store preferences

Yes. I never want to see another Nelly record again and I couldn't give less of a fuck about U2. But I'll download anything Elvis Costello does. License that spooky technology from Amazon and do it up.

A single repository for live stuff...

[garcia]

Offer a single repoistory for FLAC/SHN downloads via torrents for live music that's distributible for free.

It will draw people in that are interested in both the live stuff and paying to support the bands that support the free distribution of their music.

Give me that and I'd frequent your store. Hell, I've even been peeking more and more at iTMS because of their large studio collection of the Grateful Dead. They even have a good size collection of other jambands (WSP, SCI).

Re:A single repository for live stuff...

[dasmegabyte]

Jeez, man, just use etree.archive.org for that jamband shit. Bootleg acts and commercial music shouldn't mix, though. What a mixed signal..."oh yeah, the high quality live stuff is free, but the lukewarm studio records are $.99 per track." Silly when they're already available, free and easy, elsewhere.

I don't like jam acts, but a few of my favorite bands (Tenacious D, Rustic Overtones & the Paranoid Social Club) are on archive.org. Downloads were painless and easy converted from SHN (preserving every drunken idiot, feedback loop, forgotten lyric and failed solo in pure lossless quality) to something useful like AAC.

Last time I used it

[bigberk]

bleep was just about perfect. Because it's direct to the record label, about 50% of the sale goes to the artists (which is fantastic in my books). You simply pay for the sale, maybe an entire album, and get a ZIP file containing the high quality MP3s that have been lame encoded with VBR. Very proper. Looks proper, sounds proper. So yeah, that's about as perfect as I have seen!

Re:Last time I used it

[MrNemesis]

Oh dear, a "me too!" post...!

I've been using bleep since the launch, and it's grown to encompass most of the UK's premier indie labels, including Warp and Ninja Tunes. I've downloaded about a gig and a half from their site, some of which was legitamising the stuff I downloaded offof P2P when I was a student, and then filling my capacity for Aphex Twin, Red Snapper and Funki Porcini :)

They've had a pretty stellar track record in my book (always up - may be something to do with it running BSD ;) always maxes out my download bandwidth, no-nonsense policies), and my only gripes with it are:

The site doesn't work properly in Opera (unsure if this is a bleep thing or an opera thing)
They don't provide vorbis or FLAC, but they say they are considering it - email them with your support for superior file formats! Although the MP3's they do flog are of very good quality (some even made by the artists themselves if you believe the blurb)
The unzipped filenames are less than helpful, and I need to run them though EasyTag before they're usable - thankfully the tags are very well done and consistent throughout
The previews need to be longer, as most electronica tracks don't vary much over 30s. A "random song radio" would be ncie for impulse buys as well :)

TBH, the only fundamentally wrong thing with Bleep is that none of the major labels will ever come onboard, which will be a loss for a lot of you. Thankfully, not for me, as I switched to indie labels-only several years ago, and have never looked back. If you're at all into electronica or hip hop, give Bleep a whirl, if only to listen to a few previews - you won't be disappointed!

Disclaimer: I do not work for Warp Records and am in no way affiliated with the bleep.com (although I wish I was, damnit! Time to roll out that CV...)

Re:Last time I used it

[radish]

I use BeatPort a lot. They charge between $0.49 and $1.99 per track for 312kbps no-DRM mp3s (bear in mind these tracks are up to 15 mins long). All completely legal of course, and extremely good music (to my taste anyway). Of course you won't get any Brittney there, or Iron Maiden for that matter, but I couldn't care less. For my needs (as a digital DJ) it's just about perfect. I could live without the flash interface though...

The Perfect Music Store

[darthtrevino]

* Per Song Pricing

* Lossless compression scheme and a cheap program to encode it to any other format.

* 50 cents or less pricing per song

* GOOD MUSIC SELECTION (ie Beatles, Beach Boys, U2, Led Zeppelin)

* EVEN MORE GOOD MUSIC SELECTION (Rarities, B-Sides, Live Shows, exclusives)

* Indy artists

* Less 50 cent, nelly and timberlake on the front page

* Reasonable DRM (none)

* Audiobooks

Than go to iTunes.

[OS24Ever]

One free track a week. Can't complain about that. But I'm sure someone will.

Re:Than go to iTunes.

[PepsiProgrammer]

Correct, someone will They are not free, they are infested with DRM, and therefore worthless to me. I do not own an ipod, nor do I run windows, a 'free song' that does not play on anything I own is not free.

Re:Than go to iTunes.

[damiam]

Well, if you don't use Windows or OSX, the point is moot; no major online music store is Linux-compatible (although Crossover is working on iTunes). However, if you were downloading on a Windows/OSX box, you could use hymn to decrypt it and play under whatever OS you please.

Re:Than go to iTunes.

[BasilBrush]

Is it free as in beer, or free as in libre? Since the only difference between the "free" song and the other songs on iTunes is that it has a price of $0.00 rather than $0.99, it's clearly free as in beer.

Is beer free if you can't drink it because you are underage? Yes, that you can't have any doesn't stop it being free. People who are of age are enjoying the freebie, thank you very much.

Is beer free if you are a muslim and your personal belief's stop you from drinking beer? Yes, that you prefer not to have any doesn't stop it being free. People who do drink beer are enjoying it thanks very much.

Is the beer free if you prefer to drink wine? Yes. Those beer drinkers are getting quite drunk by now on all that beer that they didn't have to pay any money for.

None of your preferences, or the fact that you use an incompatible system makes the slightest difference that the songs are free for those who want to make use of them, and choose to use a system on which they work.

Re:Than go to iTunes.

[PepsiProgrammer]

After seeing this thread I decided to try out magnatunes and see how good their music/policies were. They seem to be everything I was looking for in a music store, they could stand to have a slightly bigger selection though.

And yes, they do support linux very nicely, since their store is completely web based, they offer: wav, flac, mp3, ogg, aac all without any drm restrictions. And you can even download in multiple formats if you like. Though i think I will download the flacs and encode them to ogg for portable use myself to help save them some bandwidth costs.

Also you get to choose what you pay for an album (anywhere from 4 - 20$ USD I think) and they are upfront about how much money the involved parties get (the artist gets half). They also let you listen to 128kbit mp3 streams of all of their albumns/tracks before buying.

I'm sold.

Don't buy music online.

[EvilCabbage]

When I find music worth buying, I seek it out in my local, privately owned music store. These little stores are often owned by people that love music and they really need help to keep the money in the local economy.

After I purchase my real, shiny CD I rip it to MP3 and stick the CD on my shelf. If my hard drive crashes and burns, I've got my hard copy right there, waiting to be re-ripped.

I just don't see the appeal in buying music online in the way proposed. My idea of buying something involves actually having a physical end product, otherwise it's just called 'renting'.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[stubear]

I agree for the most part. I buy the CD mostly because I want to rip the CD to the format and bitrate I choose.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes the ones and zeroes on your bookshelf more real than the ones and zeroes on your hard drive?

Re:Don't buy music online.

[clarkie.mg]

I don't think your local store has hundreds of thousands CDs. Usually, they stock only novelties and popular artists.

Of course, you can back order through them but then you will have to go twice to the store. Why not buy online then.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[EvilCabbage]

What makes the ones and zeroes on your bookshelf more real than the ones and zeroes on your hard drive?

If I was a Britney fan, I'd probably agree with you, I like to think that real music has some soul to it, and having a CD with interesting cover notes or band information I can roll over in my hands and read while listening to the music means something to me.

It's not something I can quantify, it's an emotion about the music. I love music, I just hate what MTV, the Pepsi generation and (gasp) The Internet has done to it.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[EvilCabbage]

Of course, you can back order through them but then you will have to go twice to the store. Why not buy online then.

My local outlet is quite comprehensive (even more impressive considering this is a town of less than 30,000 people), but is it such a bad thing having to go and browse twice?

Music should be something social. It's great being in a store and bumping into someone with similar tastes and interests. This may come as a shock but it's a great way to work on those people interaction skills, just getting away from the computer for things like this.

It worries me that we've become so complacent with human interaction in the quest for convenience and quick delivery.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[Anonymous Coward]

duh -- you buy them from the local store to support local business. taxes to your local area, better music like yours locally

Re:Don't buy music online.

[Anonymous Coward]

It worries me that we've become so complacent with human interaction in the quest for convenience and quick delivery.

And your response was to take 8 seconds to slap something up on Slashdot about it and hope it would change the world? Hel-loooo?

Re:Don't buy music online.

[AeroIllini]

I don't think your local store has hundreds of thousands CDs. Usually, they stock only novelties and popular artists.

Of course, you can back order through them but then you will have to go twice to the store. Why not buy online then.

I do buy online: I purchase CDs at Amazon and BMG. I get physical media, the selection is HUGE, and if I time my purchases right, I can get discounted music and sometimes free shipping. I haven't set foot in a brick-and-mortar music store in ages. Once I have the CDs in hand, they get ripped to OGG format for listening while I'm working at my computer, or burning to mix albums. The physical CDs sit on a shelf and get rotated into the collection in my car.

I would MUCH prefer to have a physical copy of the music I purchased, without needing to purchase a "license" to create one, and being locked into proprietary software.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[EvilCabbage]

And your response was to take 8 seconds to slap something up on Slashdot about it and hope it would change the world? Hel-loooo?

You read it, right? If it makes one more person think about supporting local businesses then it's done something.

The Slashdot crowd is awfully quick to bitch and moan about the next big-ass company getting too big, but how many of them really make an effort to support the little guys?
What the hell buddy, at least I'm trying.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[pebs]

right on, bro. if you got a good store in your town, it is much better than an online store. instant gratification is one bonus. used CD's at lower prices is another. and of course, that hot punk chick that works there that has the same taste in music as me :)

Re:Don't buy music online.

[Anonymous Coward]

You read it, right?

Read what?

at least I'm trying.

You're very trying.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[Anonymous Coward]

Me again. Hey, calm down - you're too easy to bait. I was just funnin' with y'all.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[dasmegabyte]

As somebody who buys about ten CDs, records or 8 tracks per month, I agree with you.

However, just because a CD is BETTER than iTunes, doesn't mean iTunes also isn't completely awesome. The great thing about iTunes: it's always on, always accessible, always has what you're looking for and doesn't cost $19.

I've even bought music on iTunes I already own on record. It's just easier (and better sound quality) than ripping the vinyl for playback on the iPod. I bought Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" on vinyl, CD AND off iTunes...because my CD was scratched to shit and I didn't feel like shelling out the $50 or whatever Coconuts wanted for it. I put my iTunes burnt CD in the original case.

Re:Don't buy music online.

[jred]

I'm currently using Emusic, and loving it. I'm *re-buying* stuff. I mainly use it to replace cassettes (and some LP/7" stuff) that I have no way of playing. I've already "supported" them once when I bought my original copy. Whatever amount they get from my online purchases is simply cream.

New artists, and especially local artists, I agree with you and usually buy the CD from a local shop (I have no idea how they stay in business).

Re:Don't buy music online.

[Anonymous Coward]

god damn it, gasmegabyte, you bloated fuck, every time i see your name i picture you in that gay-ass fez and want to scoop out your fat fucking eyes, gloucester-style.

go die.

almost forgot

[loid_void]

All these music stores should sell those nuclear batteries, that would be a big +

magnatune

[chocolatetrumpet]

I've said it before and I'll say it again!

The perfect online music store is already here, at magnatune.

Stream the entire catalog for free! If you decide you want to download something, you chose the format and the price. The artist gets 50%.

The quality of the entire catalog is extremely high. This is a feature, not a bug :-) (what, no Britney Spears?).

Check it out and enjoy :-)

-- a satisfied Magnatune customer

ultimate music store would be musician centered

[httpamphibio.us]

The ultimate music store would let each individual artist choose the format of the songs, the cost of the songs (per song, per album, or a subscription), how the songs are to be previewed, hard copy, merch, etc.

ahhhhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

to many questions

Not worse than a CD

[Jason1729]

It has to have CD quality or better, no DRM, and substantially cheaper than buying on CD.

Re:Not worse than a CD

[Anonymous Coward]

"CD quality or better?"

CD quality is massively over specced for human hearing so I really don't see the point in anything "better". Most people can't can tell 196kbs VBR MP3 from raw CD and AFAIK nobody can tell 320kbs VBR MP3 from raw CD (using a good quality MP3 encoder like LAME and double blinding from something like WinABX). It's all in your head, dude.

Re:Not worse than a CD

[Jason1729]

The result of decoding even 320kbs VBR perceptual coding algorithms such as mp3 is very different from the original sound.

The idea is that those differences are in areas the human ear can't detect; high frequency shifts, loud and quiet sounds at the same time.

There are very likely nuances to the music that we can't "hear" but still detect with our ears at a subconscious level.

Deleting the high freqency co-efficients from the DCT leaves the sound wave much more ragged, this is harder on your speakers (not a big deal), and there is a chance that the ragged sound wave will cause permanent damage to your ears (a very big deal).

Anyway, all this is besides the point; I can go into a store and buy a CD with "CD quality" music that also gives me a pressed media as a backup for about the same price as I can download heavily compressed files of the same music. Why would I not buy the CD?

How about NOT a buffer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesyes, all what we would like to see; features. But here's a thought. How about instead of that buffer space between the artist and me, you make it easier for the artist and me to interface. Say an honest exchange where I can respond back and give him valuable feedback. Say a bugzilla for musicians. Why not make me not want to steal from you by putting in that human touch. Kind of like how avatars diminish somewhat of how vulgar we can be to each other by reminding it is a human being. How about people like the RIAA do something like that to curb pirating? Oppression hasn't worked. And the advertisements where the artist and crew explain how much it hurts their bottom margins are too far away. Let's enjoy music for the music. I'm for one up for this.

Heh, maybe that steam blown had a bit to do with all the misinformation and stricken refusal of honest dialogue between our (ONLY TWO!) candidates.

Thanks for staying with me.

Backups

[DAldredge]

It should have the ability to give you back what you bought in the event of a computer crash.

perfect? that's easy!

[ColMustard]

1. Everything is free.
2. Everything encoded in a new revolutionary format which features greater than CD quality, and all files magically don't take any space to store or time to download.
3. Everything is without DRM.
4. Despite it being a new format, it automatically plays on every device in existance anyway.
5. Every piece of music ever composed is available and audiobooks of every book written.
6. Revolutionary new searching technology brings you right to what you're looking for the first time every time whether you knew you were looking for it or not.
7. The store brings about world peace.

Duh!

any format (now or future)

[a2wflc]

I want to be able to download the song now in whatever format they have and in the future download it in any new formats with no extra charge (maybe $.10 for bandwidth). I'll take DRM, but I want to be able to re-download in a different format or different computer or different DRM system sometime in the future without an new license charge(even 20 years from now). I've paid for many songs or albums times (lp, 8 track, cd, cassette) and now I just want to pay 1 time for any song then listen in any/all formats forever.

Re:any format (now or future)

[Socket Scientist]

Yep, cause we all know how much venture capitalists like to fund new businesses who sell 5-cent margin products ... that create incalculable future liabilities! ;-)

Don't use lossy compression

[Anonymous Coward]

Use FLAC - lossless compression. Encode from SACD or DVD audio versions of albums (if such things exist)

Re:Don't use lossy compression

[DeeKayWon]

Encode from SACD or DVD audio versions of albums (if such things exist)

That's possible from DVD audio, but no lossless codec that I know of operates on DSD (which is used in SACDs) - just PCM.

gnomoradio

[joe_plastic]

gnomoradio has music sharing, playback, and recommendation program for Creative Commons licensed songs. peer-to-peer, legal, and free -- what could be better?

Re:gnomoradio

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, good music - not creative commons crap?

and yes, I have tried it.

What I want

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be free and the artists should get at least half the money.

It should be available in all codecs, but no DRM.

There should be no Russian mafia involvement in the site. Providing my credit card number should not involve worrying that it will be used by Vladamir Putin to download porn from huster.com.

I want to be able to preview the entire track, in good enough sound that I don't hear any compression artifacts when playing a hijacked copy of the preview on my ipod. Even though my ideal online store would be free, I still want the thrill of stealing music. So for that reason the music should be free, but supported by advertising, which I can then block from viewing.

The site should also be supported by selling t-shirts, but the t-shirt graphics should also be posted in downloadable form, so I can make my own t-shirts.

I also shouldn't have to register for the site, or be able to just register as Vladamir Putin.

Rather than make money from their music, I would prefer that the artists make money by selling cocaine to their A&R guy/girl.

you just described allofmp3

[poptones]

and the prices are good, too. Problem is those "wav" files seem to be ripped in analog format or something, cuz their quality is very erratic.

No fucking way am I gonna pay a buck a song and ten bucks an album for downloads unless I really like the work and can get pristine quality. Thus far I would say Magnatune does it best: you can listen to anything they have (and you can actually hear it because the quality doesn't suck) and, if you want to buy it, you can set the price and download it in high quality formats. I've bought a few albums there and have actually found myself going back to buy a work again because I decided I liked the work more than I thought and I felt bad about being such a cheap bastard.

if the record companies would trust people to do the right thing and stop calling us all thieves they could make a LOT more money. If I can buy a used CD for five bucks, rip it and get the quality I want, why the fuck would I pay twice that for the download? Magnatune gets it... the others don't.

Re:you just described allofmp3

[shark72]

"if the record companies would trust people to do the right thing and stop calling us all thieves they could make a LOT more money. If I can buy a used CD for five bucks, rip it and get the quality I want, why the fuck would I pay twice that for the download? Magnatune gets it... the others don't."

The empirical evidence runs counter to your opinion. The iTunes Music Store does absolutely gangbuster business, and they have very little trouble signing up artists, compared to Magnatune. They charge a buck a song, and they don't use the "payment optional" system that Magnatune does because they don't need to.

In this context "getting it" means being successful, and it looks like Apple gets it just fine. While Magnatune is a terrific proof of concept and I wish them a long life, their relative unpopularity serves as an interesting counterpoint to the chorus of Slashdotters who point out that the traditional retail music business model is broken.

Re:you just described allofmp3

[Fnkmaster]

A) iTMS doesn't sign up artists directly, they sign up the labels and resell their music, paying them 77 cents out of the dollar. B) Magnatune doesn't really try to sign established artists, they appeal to independent artists, or artists in non-mainstream genres, and they apparently have substantially more artists interested in being listed than they want to list - they are being selective, trying to pick good music, focusing on niches where they think they have a chance of getting traction.

Magnatune is trying to be a niche online record label, not a catch-all retailer selling music as a loss leader for their music player devices, so comparing them directly is pretty meaningless. Does Magnatune have issues with their marketing and PR? Absolutely, but I'm not sure that the fact that they let you listen to high quality streams before you buy has anything to do with their issues (it's not really payment optional, they just let you choose your payment amount between 5 and 20 dollars for an album, I believe, with 8 being the recommended amount).

If the problem is just exposure of the artists and the Magnatune site, that's a fixable problem and doesn't fundmentally disprove their model (which I see as high quality, DRM-free tracks for a reasonable price per album, with free full song previews). In any case, I think the jury's still out on this one, but there's plenty of room for an iTunes and a Magnatune to coexist out there (in fact, iTunes is going to be doing a deal with Magnatune in the near future to promote some of their artists in exchange for time-limited exclusives to sell their new albums).

Re:you just described allofmp3

[R.Caley]

If I can buy a used CD for five bucks, rip it and get the quality I want, why the fuck would I pay twice that for the download?

If I can make better bread than the shop sells at a fraction of the price, why would I buy bread from a shop?

I suspect many of us here have bought PCs ready made, dispite having the skills to build from parts, and knowing where to go for good prices on those parts.

People are more than willing to take a quality/price hit in exchange for convinience on most things. Which things this applies to differs from person to person.

Re:you just described allofmp3

[timts]

I can't read that allofmp3.com stuff, but I believe the record company is way too greedy to charge so much money for a song.

I think it's only ethical to pay for something I love. artists should let people download free mp3 whole songs for promotion, then for not so well known ones, maybe 10c per song, and for famous ones, 50c/song.

Re:you just described allofmp3

[jinzumkei]

just playing a little devil's advocate here but I HATE parking tickets so is it ethical to NOT pay them?

Re:you just described allofmp3

[timts]

well, you can choose "NOT TO" park where you have to pay. :D

it's "NOT TO" instead of "TO NOT".

Liner Notes

[MrDelSarto]

Liner notes please!

Especially for jazz albums, where the personel and circumstances surrounding the album help understand the music. Others have written on the importance of keeping this part of musical history.

Not to mention the cover art which is often a casulty of being squashed into 200x200 pixels, if you're lucky.

The Perfect Online Music Store?

[jlramirez]

One that has a radio station on-demand with full album streaming in 320kbps format. And some crisscuts with that please.

For a Start

[L0stPack3t]

For a start, my perfect store would be iTMS in Canada.

Then make everything mp3 and free :)

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I understand what you meant.

Anyway, personally I really like iTunes, but the hardest thing about iTunes is just browsing for music. If I don't know the artist/album/track name, then I'm screwed.

I'd like a music store that gave a few selected picks from genres and allowed me to explore albums based upon what songs I liked and didn't like.

That would be nice. A personalized music store.

Re:Hmm

[loid_void]

but you can browse by genre, left side pull down menu, then go for it...

In a perfect world...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like a content license... something that the entire industry recognizes as and translates in to 'the right to be in posession of said content'.

So once I purchase a license for Song-X, Movie-Y, or Book-Z, all I have to pay for after that is the cost of the media... ie: I buy Star Wars on VHS, years later DVD comes out, then HD-DVD, then Internet delivery, then...? I have a content license for Star Wars so I only have to pay what ever the store decides to charge for the actual media costs plus markup.

Disclaimer: No I'm not that naive; read the subject... we all know this would never happen because it would probably kill the entertainment cartel. And if it did happen, they'd find a way around it like "well your license was for Star Wars 640x480 mono, but the DVD is super-fi wowowow 16 particle wave stereo".

'nuff said... gotta stop drinking Sprecher Root Beer... does strange things.

How About.....

[durtbag]

Decent music? FLAC vs. OGG vs. MP3, $.99 vs. $1.50, streams vs. 30 sec snippets. None of these things matter when the product is still the same crud they charge $18.99 for at the store.

Here's the deal

[Henry V .009]

Huge selection and $0.10 a track, and they'd get a lot of money from me, as opposed to no money right now.

Profit!

[Vaystrem]

1) Submit story to /.
2) Have /. community critque existing Music stores
3) Implement Recommendations
4) Submit story to /. about new music store
5) Profit!

Re:Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unsurprisingly, this is pretty much half the story :)

We are currently coding a music site.
We asked the /. community to critique and suggest existing stores.
We will be adding suggested features and modifying existing ones.
We will submit to /. when the store launches.
We will make enough to be at or near the local poverty level. But that counts, and frankly, it's all we want at this point, financially speaking.

Fortunately, the site we are building is not all about the store. The store is just a part (albeit a large part, though maybe not even half depending on your views) of the site though. What we want is to create a site that people will *want* to use. To some people, this means having a good store, so we submitted an Ask /. thingy. We honestly want to know what makes a good online music store. I refuse to go near iTunes and Napster normally, but I have tried to use them both (as market research, wink wink), among others. Now I want to know what people think is wrong with them. I want to know what's right with them. I want to know what people want. I want to give that to them. End of story.

If this were about profit, I'd be blowing record execs from New York to Los Angeles. This is about rights.

My 2 bottom lines

[saur2004]

1) No DRM
2) Cash anonymity. [1]

I could not care less about any other details, ogg, mp3, ect, ect.

[1] If I walk into a music store, get a CD off a shelf and pay with cash (tinfoil hat arguments about face recognition systems or ATM bill number records aside) I can expect a certain level of anonymity. Ill buy online when I can expect that level of anonymity. (aka never) No one has my permission to record what music I listen too, what books I read, or what video I watch piriod, and that includes credit card records.

Re:My 2 bottom lines

[syrinx]

Are you sure you can hear music through that tinfoil hat of yours?

Apple comes real close

[jht]

I'd like to see the quality of downloads be a little bit higher - other than that I can live with the DRM limitations they impose.

(Of course, I've been known to feed my files through jHymn...)

The biggest shortcoming I have found on an ongoing basis to the iTMS is that some of the really good back catalog stuff hasn't made it there so far. That's probably more due to label issues than lack of demand. For instance, theough the iTMS has Elvis Costello's most recent stuff, his older albums and compilations haven't made it there. There's virtually no Zappa (last time I checked), and though Dan Zanes has his children's music on iTMS, none of his work with the Del Fuegos is available whatsoever. All back-catalog stuff, but that's what makes a music store "comprehensive".

They Might Be Giants, on the other hand, have some iTMS-exclusive music available, as well as just about everything else they've released.

(side note: TMBG now sells soundboard mixes of their shows via their own website - as unencumbered MP3 files)

So there's a lot of variety on iTMS (the biggest of the online stores, but still all kinds of stuff they don't offer yet. That's the biggest shortcoming that I can think of. Of course, I haven't used anything else for buying music, but the iTunes/iPod combo Just Works. I've had no incentive to try anything else. My Limewire usage, OTOH, has all but vanished as a result, though I've downloaded a couple of rarities that I couldn't find online through legit channels.

I think that the success of iTMS has proved one thing: if you make it easy enough for the average person to buy music online legally, they will do so.

Summary answer to the above questions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Each of the questions the poster mentioned will appeal to a different demographic of slashdot's readership.

I want full length previews.

[MagicDude]

I would like for previews to be the full length of the song, because I frequently want music that I've not heard before. It's one thing to say "I definately want the latest song by Eminem" and just buy it because you know you'll like the artist, but I have more offbeat tastes, and I'd like to know that I like all of a song I want to buy. So if I'm crusing through the store and I see something like "The Boston Pops plays a medley from The Simpsons", I'd be interested in hearing that, but the first thirty seconds of a 5 minute song that could either be very good or very bad isn't enough time to make a decision. It wouldn't even matter if they made me jump through all sorts of hoops and password logins and stuff to protect their material from being pirated from these previews.

I'll agree to that!

[ValourX]

Magnatune is incredible -- if only they also had Opera, I'd never have cause to listen to anything else.

I listen to the New Age and Electronica shoutcast stations from Magnatune on Rhythmbox petty much all day and night.

For people who like new music -- and it's *good* music, too -- Magnatune is probably the best Internet resource.

You choose what you want to pay for an album ($4 minimum, $8 suggested, the sky is the limit) and 50% goes to the artist. You can download full-quality WAVs, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, and I think there's one more. You can also download all of the album art in PDF format, so you can write your own CDs as they would be from the store, minus the DRM.

I usually get the WAV zip file, then compress it to OGG/Vorbis for my computer and write the WAVs to CD for my car.

-Jem

Re:I'll agree to that!

[strikethree]

>>Magnatune is incredible -- if only they also had Opera

>You can get Opera here

Someone once suggested reading with flamebait comments set to +4, so I have been trying it. I find it amazing that so many comments which give me a small chuckle are marked as flamebait. What gives?

strike

Re:I'll agree to that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone once suggested reading with flamebait comments set to +4, so I have been trying it. I find it amazing that so many comments which give me a small chuckle are marked as flamebait. What gives?

The terrorists have won.

Nobody Does Mix Albums Properly

[szyzyg]

Most online record sales still think in terms of individual tracks, and when you get a DJ mix album there aren't any gaps between the tracks. Problem is both MP3 and AAC encodings of these albums leave glitches between the tracks, either when you play it or try to burn a CD from it.

Vorbis or FLAC would fix this issue, at least from a CD burning point of view, but a lot of players will still add an auduble glitch into otherwise perfect DJ glue.

Re:Nobody Does Mix Albums Properly

[DeeKayWon]

Here's the reason for this: It's perfectly possible to get gapless AAC and MP3 using pretty much the same method that Vorbis does. It's just that it requires certain information (i.e. encoder delay) to be passed to the decoder, and only Vorbis has set in its spec how to do so.

There are encoders that'll add the info into tags for AAC (Nero) and MP3 (LAME), but few decoders know how to use that info.

FLAC, as with all lossless codecs, is inherently gapless-capable.

The best online music store isnt one

[sPaKr]

When you look at pricing selling bits is a losing game. First lets just get past the whole DRM, no I repeat NO DRM has ever worked. Just look at the warez groups and software, every game comes out with DRM and within hours its down like panties. The next fact we need to look at is just the econmics of the music buisness. Albums will never avarge over $20, the current sweet spot is $9 - $15. The per track sweet spot is $.99 (pick your currancy its all .99). Now lets look at concert tickets and expendatures. A decent show will start at about $30 per person, (figure you need to shelp a girl that makes less then you along so your paying her way). Add in tshirt (gotta get the sweet brittny t) and maybe a few beers, and you can esisly kick that outing up to $100s. So we have a situation where the concerts are brining 10x what the album sells for, and we are talking about albums? Jebus, why not just take 10% of the gate and give the bits away for free? So this is how it should work. First encode all the albums in just about every decent format that someone might want, and give them away for free. Allow people to download them directly from your website, share them p2p, it doesnt matter its just bits. Now Sell albums with something that they dont get by downloading. Keep the CD at about $15, but include a head of line copuon for the next concert. Most people if they like the ablum and buy it, and get it gets them into the concert. Now whamo this is where you start to cash in as we have seen the concerts is where people spend real money. The mp3s, flacs, aac's are just marketing to sell more concert tickets, shirts, and beers. Hard Copy CD's stay at $15 so they break even, but again just push people into the concert. The scary thing is the same model works for movies. How many Starwars fanboys would preorder the DVD's if they got into the premier of the next episode a day early with the movie critics? This also fixes the DRM arms race as by not playing that game. I mean how can kazaa compete when I can get the album, for $15 but a $20 rebate for the concert? If I show up for the concert the 'album pays for its self' in my eyes, but since they jack up the price of the concert, add in the price of the tshirt and the 'CD of the concert' vendor the music industry, artist, and promoter makes back the cash hand over fist.

Re:The best online music store isnt one

[thenightisdark]

Wow. Sold. I would buy the 'free' cds too!!
But then artists would have to tour all the time though... no break. Sounds bad if i was an artist, but im not, so bring it on!!

Re:The best online music store isnt one

[sPaKr]

Dont assume that if you buy a CD and got a deal on a concert it would have to be the same artist that recorded the original track. I mean if there was a kickass Led Zepplin coverband I would brush back my mullet and buy some of my old zep cd's if I got into a decent Zepplin Jimmy Page show, Or even a good coverband. Infact If I bought the new Bad Religion CD, but got a coupon for a NOFX show, that would be cool as well. Infact artist working toghter and sharing sales and rebates might one of the few things the record lables might be good at in such a world. Intead of a controling distribution channels tightly they would be more a union of collective of aritst sharing revenues.

Re:The best online music store isnt one

[thenightisdark]

4 words:

Fuck that be cool.

Re:The best online music store isnt one

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Prince is giving away his current, full-version CD to every concert attendee of his Musicology tour, as we "speak." This CD then gets counted in the rating system as a CD sale.

Could that be where you got the idea?

He also engaged in direct music sales over the last few years, bypassing the music companies altogether.

As for allowing front-of-line space, as you propose:
Where is the front of a line for an artist/group who sells millions of CDs?

Outlet for the unsigned

[clone22]

Forum for the unaligned
Time to disintermediate
The record pimps and the RIAA

I've got an "Ask Slashdot"

[Mag7]

Can anyone suggest an alternative site to Slashdot, without:

-Posts like the last two Ask Slashdot's where posters become free technical support or market research guinea pigs.

-Sensationalist headlines and misleading blurbs

-Pore speling

-Content/link whoring (hi Roland)

Honestly slashdot, I'm deleting my bookmark. This site is just disappointing now.

Re:I've got an "Ask Slashdot"

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, I can't speak for anyone else, but I was genuinely interested when I submitted this to /.

There are constant complaints on this site about the online stores, and a constant stream of suggestions on how to fix the problem. Most of them bad (music should be free? It'd be nice, but it just ain't gonna happen 99.99% of them time), but some of them good.

Yes, we are developing a new store for music (not just a store, but that's another story submission). No, we are not using posters as here as market research. We asked this on a personal level because we are genuinely interested in your thoughts and suggestions. We don't have a million dollar bank roll to do this. We can't do what we want and spend shitloads of money on marketing. We have to work within the system, and /. is part of that system. This *is* market research to the extent that everyone who has posted somewhere else about the current situation with things now has a place where those thoughts can be seen as a whole without surfing 500 sites. This is *not* market research because we don't have a product as of yet. Just an idea, the skills to work with it, and the motivation to succeed somehow. If just 1 person uses the site and says to themselves afterwards "cool", I'm happy. These have been months well spent.

The benefit to asking /. what they want is that we might actually be able to do it. There are many people here smarter than we are, and with more education, more talent, and more insight. I don't know why they haven't done anything about the music industry, and I don't care why. It hasn't been done. I have the time, I have the drive, and I have the coding skill. My partners have the industry experience, the marketing experience, and the money, not to mention the motivation to want to change things for the better - better for the bands, better for the consumers. Labels are still necessary for many things, but spreading the music is no longer one of them. Making enough money to pay rent and buy food and have insurance on the van is a viable option to an independent band now. More of them can play music for a living now than even a year ago. In another year, we want to have made a difference in that and show that *any* good band can do it. They won't need the marketing experience.

Anyways, thanks for linking to your other post. It was insightful :)

I made this submission months ago

[MacDork]

An idea I posted a while back already describes my idea of the ultimate music store. It would essentially put profits, control of sales, and pricing directly in the hands of the people who make the music. It would also serve the purpose of spreading the word about the music to those most likely to buy it, eliminating the need for MTV, Clear Channel, etc. But that wasn't what you wanted to hear, was it Bill Gates? ;-)

Re:I made this submission months ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, if I were Bill Gates I'd give myself an enema and sign all my material possesions over to my real self.

And that *IS* the kind of thing I wanted to hear. We don't have the resources (or, hey, the knowledge of C or C++) to write the kind of application you describe, but your post had several good ideas. Mind if we inspire ourselves a bit with some of them?

Re:I made this submission months ago

[MacDork]

The wink implies I'm joking about the BG thing :-) Yes, it would be very nice if someone took it and ran with it. Anything to stop the RIAA once and for all is welcome. There was even a partial implementation of this very thing mentioned on slashdot not too long ago. It did the encryption/signing aspect, but did not include any collaborative filtering. I wish I had bookmarked it, as I cannot find the link now...

good question

[real_smiff]

Well i'd like:

- whole albums at a reasonable price (say half the price of buying all the tracks seperately). since i mostly listen to whole albums, not songs, and albums are prohibitively expensive atm track by track.

- no DRM, obviously. assume since i paid, i'm not on P2P. i'm not going to work around artificial restrictions.

- Lame preset standard encoded MP3s, nicely tagged. perhaps a lossless option, but i'm not too bothered. i shouldn't have to pay twice either, this is a licence for content and i'm paying for time/bandwidth.

- a wide range of independant (sp.?) label material, since i'm not really interesting in most major label music. this could be the biggest stumbling block, organising all the rights holders.

- ability to preview any part of a song, if this can be done safely.

- album art downloads in high res JPEGs?

- not pay per track, but a reasonable limit per month would be preferable, perhaps with a tiered service for heavy/light users. the money must go to the right artists in the right proportions though.

- the store should remember what i've bought, and let me download it again in case a file is lost, and maybe even let me order a hard copy at media + handling cost since i've already paid for the music.

finally, i will not use any online store until i know that the artist and store are getting a deal that makes it worth their time, since they are the two parties most providing me with the service.

To own my music

[DelugeDreamer]

One of my biggest problems with online music stores is music only being available in formats such as protected WMA files. First, this limits me to a proprietary OS. The real beef is that I don't feel like I am getting a good value for my money. By that, I mean that I purchase a song and download it only to find that someone else still owns it. It's like buying a car only to find that the dealer still owns the title... you pay nearly a full retail price and only have permission to use it (retrictions apply, so our web site for details, etc., etc., etc...).

So, getting onto the subject, the perfect music store would allow me actually to own the music for which I pay. I suppose that I can see why they protect content as to deter pirating (remedied by burning onto an audio CD, and then ripping as mp3... but still a hassle). And yes, I would like to see other formats such as Ogg.

I would like to see subscriptions for people with high speed connections. A flat rate, unlimited. People who either have slow connections or would choose only to download a few songs every now and then can have the option to pay per song.

Has anyone ever heard of World Share ISP? http://www.worldshare.net/ I don't know f they still do this, but a long while ago, they used to donate a portion of the proceeds of their Internet service sales to a charity of each user's choice. I think that that would be great. If people knew that at least some of the money that they were spending on music was going out to help others and not simply to line the pockets of wealthy people, then I think that people would have an incentive to purchase the music rather than pirate it.

direct to the artist

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be an infrastructure of servers and billing systems that can work for any artist. Artists should negotiate a standard contract with the record companies for cds and other physical media, and a separate contract for data distribution. The artist should set their own price for their data-only releases, based on paying a set cost for the infrastructure services and their own costs of creation/marketing. You could buy directly from the infrastructure service, or on a prettied-up server hosted and paid for by the artist. Choice of format and DRM depends on the artist and the relationship they wish to maintain with their fans. "nuff said.

Free

[Apreche]

Recorded music isn't worth anything to me anymore. I'll pay to see a concert or buy merchandise if I am compelled to do so. But unless it is for a ridiculously low price, say a dollar a month for infinite music, then its just not worth it.

Even if I did join some service, almost none of the music I listen to would be available. I listen mostly to groups like machinae supremacy, who give their music away for free anyway, classic rock which I already have on vinyl and thus am legally allowed to have mp3s of, ocremixes, and foreign music. It might be possible to pay for some of the foreign music on some of the services, but either I wont be able to read it or it wont work with Linux or it will costly ungodly amounts of money.

In conclusion I would actually pay for music if.
1) Every song ever recorded was available.
2) I could choose my format and bitrate freely.
3) Absolutely no DRM encumberance.
4) Works with Linux.
5) Super cheap, we're talking pennies or half pennies per song.

It's a good thing not too many people feel like me. The record companies would be screwed.

Re:Free

[poot_rootbeer]

classic rock which I already have on vinyl and thus am legally allowed to have mp3s of

Maybe not, if the music was remastered for CD release and the MP3's you leeched were ripped from CD. It may be considered not just a different format, but a different phonographic work entirely.

IANAL, and this area of copyright law hasn't been tested as far as I know. But until precedent is handed down from the courts one way or the other, I'd hesitate to assume that it's completely legal.

Magnatune. Next question?

[Hortensia Patel]

Magnatune.

MP3, Ogg, FLAC, you name it. Listen to entire albums before buying, if you like. Most artists allow some discretion in how much you pay, depending on how much you like it and/or how much you can afford. Artist gets 50% and, IIRC, they retain full copyright.

I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but these guys really do Get It. Give 'em a whirl, they deserve it.

I buy discs from GEMM

[sielwolf]

which is a cohesive front for indie retailers around the globe. You can find some great stuff, out of print, foreign or hard to find that doesn't show up on iTMS (the closest I've gotten for my tastes has been emusic.com). The last four CDs I've bought have been from the UK, Belgium and France and purchased from Canadian, French, and UK distributors respectively, all of them privately owned small shops. Several of these shops (Action Records in London and Cheapthrills in Canada) have gotten repeat business from me.

Hell, its easy to find good record stores in your home town. Just go to digitalcity.com and type it in. But there's so much great stuff that, even in this age of cheap plastic discs, is still in limited print. Hell, Pharoahe Monch Internal Affairs is out of print due to an unlicensed Godzilla sample on there. You won't find it in a Best Buy or on iTunes. If you feel like shelling out 50 clams, you can find it online, and keep the indie distribution network alive to boot.

What I want is lossless sans DRM

[Malor]

What I want is what I get on a CD: lossless music without DRM. (stupid attempts at copy protection notwithstanding.) At that point, your pricing is going to determine how much I'll buy. If you're at 99c per song/$10 per album, I'll buy some... if you're at $5/album, I'll buy a heck of a lot more.

For me, at least, $5 is about the sweet spot.... it's low enough that I'd buy four or five albums at a time, and I don't think I'd buy any more if they were cheaper, since you can only listen to so much stuff. At $10, I'd guess that my total dollar value of purchases would be much lower, because I'd have to think about each one a little. At $5, it's an impulse purchase... at $10, it's less so.

Even www.allofmp3.com isn't THAT cheap; lossless files from them usually run about a buck apiece. If they were cheaper, and their selection was broader, I'd buy a lot more, but I'm still pretty happy with them as it is.

www.allofmp3.com shows that the infrastructure can work. But it would be hard to duplicate here, because the record labels here want to charge a lot more for stuff. Somehow, I suspect they'd want to price it so that original CDs were actually cheaper; their perspective will probably be that lossless DRM-free files are 'more' than what they give you on the CD (since it's easy to copy). Unfortunately, almost any customer would think of electronic-only delivery as 'less', and wouldn't be willing to pay as much. I certainly wouldn't.

Overall, allofmp3.com is running about $10-11 for a lossless album, and I've bought a few of them. So I am a real potential customer. Get that price down to $5 or so, and I'd buy a boatload of music that I wouldn't otherwise.

Re:What I want is lossless sans DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

NOBODY FUCKING GIVES A SHIT WHAT YOU WANT. NOBODY WHO MATTERS HAS EVER HEARD OF FUCKING FLAC.

DRM is here to stay, and nothing that the Slashdot idiot crew thinks makes any kind of difference.

So, in short, fuck you.

Re:What I want is lossless sans DRM

[Malor]

He asked what the perfect online music store was. I told him my opinion.

And I don't use FLAC. I prefer Apple Lossless, which I use to archive my physical media. Allofmp3 doesn't support that, so I download with APE and re-rip. Apple Lossless is about as easy as it gets, and absolutely will work for Joe and Jane User. It may not compress quite as well as FLAC or APE, but it works just like an mp3 file would. Anyone that can handle MP3 can handle AL.

And as far as nothing I believe making a difference... Allofmp3 has, geeze, $75 or so from me that they wouldn't otherwise have, and they'll be getting a steady trickle from me over time. They got that money because they provided me with the product I want at a price that I find reasonable. And it would appear I'm not the only one. They don't show the stats anymore, but when I first started to use it, it generally had about 1700 users actively browsing/shopping at any given time.

So, we may be indeed be irrelevant and stupid, but some company in Russia is doing pretty well targeting the irrelevant and stupid market.

Re:What I want is lossless sans DRM

[hai.uchida]

What I want is what I get on a CD: lossless music without DRM. (stupid attempts at copy protection notwithstanding.) At that point, your pricing is going to determine how much I'll buy. If you're at 99c per song/$10 per album, I'll buy some... if you're at $5/album, I'll buy a heck of a lot more.

Distributing audio files has some overhead, but not nearly as much as a physical CD... Why not lower the price on the back catalog, so the hot new single is full price but stuff that's a couple years (or couple decades) old is dirt cheap? All songs aren't created equal, after all... Why should the long-awaited new Radiohead single cost as much as "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" or a forgotten song on a Flock of Seagulls record?

Learn from the Napster rush-- most of the music that was downloaded wasn't the stuff we loved, it was music we were vaguely curious about but didn't want to pay full price for. A huge percentage of those mp3's were listened to one or twice and then put in a folder and forgotten. Say I was feeling nostalgic for my indie rock days, so I'd download a bunch of Replacements, Hoodoo Gurus, Camper Van Beethoven or whatever, listen to it a couple times and then move on to the next "hankering." There's no way I'd go spend $100 for a mess of 15-to-20 year old indie rock CDs (real or at the iTunes store), but if I could buy a mess of guilty pleasure songs for a real bargain... Why not?

AllofMP3.com...but not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

FLAC, OGG and mp3 are a must. I think alot of people would even be willing to pay 25,30 cents for a song... and maybe even 4,5 dollars for an album - being realistic it would have to be at least those prices for the RIAA to think about anything like that though.. and to ease distribution costs they could use somethin along the same concept of freenet (this part(taken from the freenet home page))

"Users contribute to the network by giving bandwidth and a portion of their hard drive (called the "data store") for storing files. Unlike other peer-to-peer file sharing networks, Freenet does not let the user control what is stored in the data store. Instead, files are kept or deleted depending on how popular they are, with the least popular being discarded to make way for newer or more popular content. Files in the data store are encrypted to reduce the likelihood of prosecution by persons wishing to censor Freenet content."

Obviously, the p2p network wouldnt contain all of the files offered, but it would really ease the pressure for the popular songs. The p2p network would be contained in a downloader program (like iTunes). It would have to be somewhat centralized so that a central set of servers could give users links to files on the p2p network, but they would somehow be temporary links...My only programming experience is dabbling in perl, html and BASIC so i couldnt tell you exactly how it could be done, but im sure it could. *note* proud user of ALLofMP3.com **note** check out me and my friends website and leave a comment on the layout or something ;) theres no ads or anything...hosted on FreeBSD and a cable modem!

Re:AllofMP3.com...but not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blyry.net/ *slaps self* i forgot to give a url

Role of the labels?

[zaxios]

From a music-supply perspective, which I don't think anyone has taken yet, the best music store would deal directly with artists, giving them more revenue, more freedom (straight to the market without needing to sustain an outdated business model) and would allow prices to drop from 99c (again, because there would be no need to sustain the labels). Essentially, if there are only going to be a few major online music stores, the role of the labels in distribution is no longer important as distribution is no longer a complicated task (previously it involved thousands of stores). Artists could negotiate with a few stores themselves.

On the other hand, there are problems with this approach that would need to be ironed out. At the moment, online music stores take the music that is already successful as measured by traditional charts. If online music became the primary distribution method for artists - that is, for their debut they go straight to iTunes - and the success of the artists is not measured by their success on the traditional charts, this would become more difficult. Without the labels, the music stores would have problems filtering good music from the bad. If iTunes was just saturated with new music, consumers would be overwhelmed and I expect very little of it would get exposure. That rather than actual distribution is the only role online music stores need to depend on a music industry middle-man for.

Re:perfect? that's easy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, what that a laboured attempt at humour.

In other news: Virgin launches Online Music Store

[z3021017]

Perfect timing for this /. article!

Simply not my kind of music

[hudsong]

The iTunes music store would be a good solution (in the way of features, price, how it works etc) except for one problem: I listen to very obscure music. Basically, all I listen to is electronic music. This is NOT Paul Okenfold, DJ fillinnamehere or any of that repetetive trance, rave, dance, jungle, drum n' bass stuff. The music I listen to includes aritsts like: Jimmy Edgar Jega Aphex Twin Four Tet Múm Funkstorung Crunch L'usine Autechre ...and many more. This type of music is not listened to by very many people, especially in the USA, where I live. It is simply not easy to find, not played by radiostations (clear channel bullshit!) and not hyped about on MTV. Therefore, it is not in music stores or on music web sites. It would be nice if there was a music service with good music.

The mind reels

[dynayellow]

Asking Slashdot what the perfect store to buy music should be like. It's like asking the American Cancer Institute which cigarette has the best flavor.

Shhhh....

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.allofmp3.com/ is great. Except for the legality issues. Enjoy it while it lasts.

AllOfMP3

[DAtkins]

What a great site.

Really, it proved to me the usefullness of having online music as an advertisement for physical media. I've been using it for a number of months to get copies of all of the CD's I already have (it's actually easier than ripping my own CD's, what with the scratches my CD's tend to collect) and I've already bought 4 CD's that I never would have bought otherwise. Why did I buy them? I felt bad about a great artist only getting a few cents so I tracked down the band's website and bought it from there. I already had the song, so shipping time wasn't really an issue.

This is what distributers need to understand. They aren't adding any value to the song itself, they are only an encoding and bandwidth service. Once they get passed the idea that the distributer needs to make all the money...heh, that'll never happen. Go Russia! Show us what freedom really is!

(I actually talk about my thoughts on the legality of all of this on my blog. Do a Yahoo search, I'm near the top - but God please, not all at once :)

Re:AllOfMP3

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually talk about my thoughts on the legality of all of this on my blog. Do a Yahoo search, I'm near the top

Or I could just click the link that's under your username...

Re:AllOfMP3

[DAtkins]

Well yeah, but that would look self serving :)

ownership.

[jon_c]

I would like an online music store where I actually owned a license to the music I bought, not a file, not a format or a CD. I should be able to download the file as ogg, stream it as mp3, aac -- whatever. If I delete it from my harddrive I should just be able to download it again, or stream it at work.

This is the only way the music industry will ever got another nickel from me.

-Jon

A la OS

[nerd256]

All music have sheet music included

"Remixes" should have CVS snapshots with release notes from the artists

And of course, all downloads accompanied with an MD5 sum!

DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

honestly, we can hope all we want that music could come without DRM, but the fact is that the music industry won't support it, and any store without DRM will have an extremely limited selection.

we all look at it like, "if we bought a cd, we could just as easily send that music to our friends as we could with a drm-free file"

but the industry doesn't want to take out that little step out of the equation.

10 years out

[simpl3x]

Since some of my CDs are nearing twenty years, and I am encoding all of them into Apple lossless, I'd like to think a decade out. Much of my music has never been really used until I have been burning them into iTunes, and while lossless is great, the availability is probably more important. Digging through a couple of thousand CDs prevents one from using the music. I will likely re-encode all of the CDs (3 of 12 boxes to go) into 256 AAC when the variable bitrate version is out with quicktime 7.0. This will give me about 120 gigs of compressed music, which will be usable on whatever Pod is around in 3 or 4 years. 128 AAC or 128 LAME is just not good enough.

So, before I begin purchasing music online, it has to be at least 256 AAC quality, reasonable (meaning easy to disable) licensing or non-restrictive DRM, and a better selection of music. Until then, I'll buy CDs, burn them and give away or sell the worthless shell to somebody else.

I do have to say that most people do not purchase as much music as I do, and that a certain amount of it needs to be freely available at lower bitrates. Streams are great, but smart playlists loaded on demand (RSS-ish) would be great. They could simply be automatically disposed of afterwards.

Re:10 years out

[nolife]

Any technical reason for not using FLAC? If I am reading the info right, the Apple lossless format plays only with the iPod, iTunes and Quicktime. IMHO, for preservation efforts, it would seem more logical to use a non proprietary and open standard tool. I hope your happy with whatever Apple releases for years to come as reconverting to something else would not be an easy task.

Re:10 years out

[Flamesplash]

256 just seems a bit much. Do you really hear the difference, or do you just think you do?

Sometimes I'm glad I have not perfect hearing, I don't have to worry about these issues.

Re:10 years out

[Anonymous Coward]

Any technical reason for not using FLAC?

Yes. Apple doesn't support FLAC, so you can't use it with iTunes, Quicktime or the iPod. So, if you have a Mac the choices are A) use Apple Lossless, so it works with what you have now, and hope there will be an al2flac program in the future, or B) use FLAC, which requires a third party program to play on a Mac (and none are as good as iTunes) and won't work with the iPod, and hope that there will be a flac2al program in the future to make your Apple-made stuff work again. Which would you choose?

Remember, it's not a huge problem since they're both lossless, so all you have to do is transcode (once the apppropriate program is written) rather than re-rip.

Re:10 years out

[nathanh]

Until then, I'll buy CDs, burn them and give away or sell the worthless shell to somebody else.

You are not allowed to keep the ripped versions once you've sold or given away the "worthless shell". You might as well be downloading the music off eDonkey because what you propose is just as illegal.

Re:10 years out

[nolife]

For the parent poster to claim to have more CDs then the average person, I find it odd to make a lifetime ARCHIVE to preserve of all of them in a format that can only be played on 3 things and not one of them, a standard audio device (boom box, car stereo, home stereos etc). When I think of that many CDs and the purpose of an archive, I do not picture a person sitting in front of the computer or walking around with an iPod and headphones as the only way for music enjoyment. If those are the only way the parent listens to music and iTunes is the only thing found useful, why bother with lossless and an archive at all.
I have no problem using any software if it fits my needs, the convertors you refence would be third party anyway, would you run those?

Re:10 years out

[citiZen2010]

I will likely re-encode all of the CDs (3 of 12 boxes to go) into...

Ughh... I consider myself a big music fan, and after I discovered music subscription, I knew I had seen the future. In 10 years, there's no way people are going to be encoding boxes of CDs, nor are they going to be buying hundreds or thousands of tracks via music stores like iTunes. If someone isn't really a music fan and only wants to listen to the same few songs over and over again, then the Walmart or iTunes store will be fine for them.

Not for me... I currently subscribe to Rhapsody, and I'm looking at Napster and the new Virgin Digital Music Club service. I strongly dislike the concept of DRM, but with subscription music, I find it a non-issue. I don't actually buy the music, and so as long as the service provides the functionality I want, DRM is not an obstacle. Believe it or not, after a month or two of "renting" the music, I was glad I didn't own it. Here's why:

Economics. As a music lover, I take advantage of the subscription service to listen to hundreds of new tracks every week. If I had to buy each one individually via Walmart or iTunes, I would go broke quickly.

Music Discovery. The Rhapsody service I subscribe to is really well put together. I've discovered lots of new favorite artists by browsing from artists I already like and from editorial recommendations. Music stores might offer similar advantages, but they generally cut you off after 30 seconds.

Music Library Management. This is what I was getting at in my response to the parent message. I've got boxes of CDs too, and they've been collecting dust ever since I started renting music. I would say roughly 80% of my CDs are available for stream and download via Rhapsody. That saves me days of in and out with my CD drive. When a new album comes out, all I have to do is go to the artist's page and start playing it. No need to whip out my wallet and buy a bunch of new tracks, or worse yet, buy the CD and rip them to the format du jour.

Having said all of that, there are still some issues that need to be fixed to make music renting even better:

Portability. Rented music is tied to the PC. This is the biggest problem, but all the services are working on device solutions, so hopefully this won't be an issue for much longer.

Incomplete Licensing. You won't find the Beatles on any subscription service yet (or download store, for that matter.) Lots of artists and labels are still holding back from allowing their stuff to be distributed online. I'm hopeful that this will also be resolved soon as well. In the meantime, all the labels and artists that do participate are making extra dough.

Sound Quality. In general, the sound quality is good. But as an audiophile, I won't be happy until it's lossless. This will take longer, both because the average consumer won't demand it, and because the the bandwidth is expensive. But hopefully this too will come to pass.

OS Support. None of these services work with Linux (or Mac, if you care about that.) That would be nice... but ultimately, I expect the service to operate directly with my stereo and my car stereo and my cell-phone/music device. So the OS will be embedded, and I won't really care what it is.

Re:10 years out

[EuroMike]

Remember, it's only illegal if you're caught :)

Doing things this way means you're a lot less likely to incur the wrath of the authorities than trading in billions of music files on peer-to-peer networks.

Let's face it, we all taped each other's records to make our own greatest hits compilations in the 70s, and most of us with home computers did the same thing with that software in the 80s - I personally cost the software industry hundreds of euros, and I was typical of my friends - but because we were doing it on a small scale with our friends, and more importantly not worrying about making a profit, we could pretty much do it with impunity. When we heard about software pirates, those were the guys dealing in thousands of units at a time, to make money, and therefore making themselves conspicuous.

So the strategy now seems to run something like this: Go down to a local second hand CD store, buy the CDs you like, rip 'em, take 'em back, accept you're going to lose some money on the discs and feel thankful that you're still "sticking it to the man" by not buying the albums at full price. Plus, as I said, it is very unlikely that you will be targeted by the authorities, particularly if there's two second hand CD stores in your town and you can buy from one and sell to the other.

Re:10 years out

[adelord]

with a stereo-mini to rca apapter any mp3 player can feed a home stereo, and there are a couple of different ways to easily feed a car stereo. soon enough we'll all have solid state memory devices holding our video and audio collections, and i also want my audio to be lossless, thank you very much.

those of us locked into the apple world have no problem using whatever software fits our needs, but iTunes is it for audio playback, and that limits our formatt choices. if apple should implode a few years down the line (i give it a 30% chance over 10 years) i'll have to convert my libary, but unless that happens i'll remain sitting pretty, iPod in hand, secure in the knowedge that the only part of the song i'm missing is from the inherent approximation of digital playback.

Selection matters more than anything else.

[muel]

The most important part of an online music store is the selection. The biggest reason I download music on Soulseek is because I'm almost guaranteed to find the song I'm looking for at any given moment. No record store or legal online music service can guarantee me that high a probability.

So, let's say I get online and want a few things: a song by ABBA, a death-metal track from some obscure Norweigan band, an unreleased mash-up remix that combines Nine Inch Nails and 50 Cent, and an album that saw limited release in a small community in Oregon.

There's no way I can download all four of those on iTunes, or any other online service, for that matter. iTunes has come the closest by garnering unprecedented label support, but until they can spread their wings as far as the Internet stretches, I have little desire to use their service in place of what I've already got.

I guess the ultimate service, in my opinion, would be a Soulseek-style service that is p2p (meaning I can download anything in the world) and then charges me small amounts per download, much in the same way songwriters are compensated in the BMI/ASCAP system when a song is played on the radio. Only pennies a download (same exact charge as BMI), and whatever song title I download is cross-indexed and the pennies I spend go to the artist in question. On top of that, a small monthly fee to cover the costs of the cross-indexing system, which I don't think would ever need to exceed $3.95/mo. However difficult that system would be to create and implement, it would still best marry the infinity of Internet song selection and the rights of the songwriters/musicians in question.

re firsites

[Anonymous Coward]

or not.

Isn't that what Mall Visa debit cards are for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not jumping on either side of the is-it-legal argument, posting AC, and not admitting to ever using the service...

I'd guess that buying a pre-paid VISA card at your local mall and opening a dummy account would be prudent.

Be sure to get %1 extra so you don't waste any. E.g. go to the Mall and buy a card that has $20.20" on it so that those annoying little extra charges don't screw up your ability to buy even $5/10/20 increments at allofmp3.com

Better-than-CD-quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I won't sign up for any online music store until they offer better-than-CD-quality music. For example, if they sell 24bit/96kHz recordings with lossless compression, I will shift over. Until they do that, I don't see any compelling reasons to buy my music online. CD's sound better, last longer, are more compatible, etc., etc., etc.

Additionally, I won't shift over until the online shops stop splitting up the artists' art into slices. Selling music "by the song" is completely offensive and utterly stupid when it comes to many artists. It's like selling paintings by the inch.

magntune.com

[phr1]

The perfect online music store is already up and running. It has mp3 downloads and streams of entire albums under Creative Commons licenses. If you want WAV, Ogg, FLAC, or other formats, you can pay for those. They are still under the CC license permitting non-commercial redistribution so you don't have to click on agreements allowing RIAA thugs to inspect your underwear drawer. If you want to use the music commercially (say as a movie score), the licenses for that are right there on the site: select the one you want, print it, sign it, and send it in with a check for the specified amount.

Admittedly, there's nowhere near as wide a choice of CC-licensed music right now as there is of RIAA-style proprietary music, but that doesn't bother me. There's been so much music recorded through history that there's no way to ever listen to it all, and everything I've downloaded from Magnatune has been excellent. There's enough selection there to keep me happy for quite a while. I've completely lost interest in RIAA music and haven't bought a CD from a record store in years. (I've bought a few directly from performers at live shows, but that's about it).

affordable albums, period

[X_Caffeine]

No DRM or compression, just twelve bucks per CD, choice between free slow shipping and expensive overnight. Q.E.diddledeeD

Mod Parent Up

[beldraen]

This appears insightful.

OT: Are MP3 "Copies" - Legally?

[NotQuiteReal]

Call me stupid, lazy, or both, but has there actually been a court ruling on lossy digitized "copies" (e.g. MP3).

This is not a troll, I am genuinely curious if this has been ruled on.

We all know a good quality encoding is, for all practical purposes, as good as the original, but have the i's been dotted and the t's crossed? legally, or does everyone just settle?

Launchcast

[nwbvt]

...would be fine for me if they were only to port it to Linux. I discovered a lot of new artists through their service when it first came out, though they sort of went downhill when Yahoo bought them.

Like this will happen...

[curtlewis]

My dream list:

$0.49 song pricing
$5.99 album pricing

(there's absolutely NO mfg cost and distribution costs are pretty low, this is completely affordable for the fat gluttonous record execs)

60 second stream ... fairly low quality is ok, as long as it isn't HORRIBLE quality.

I couldn't care less about a radio station.

Pay per song/album. No subscription BS for me. Individual pricing makes atrist payment much simpler.

File formats: DRM is going to have to be there to make it have a chance of happening, so that limits the file format options...

AAC

If universal DRM were applied to other formats, I'd be interested in:

MP3, FLAC, perhaps OGG if I felt really stupid

Selectable bit rates of 128/192/256/384

Accurate and complete info tags for everything as well as album art for the formats that support that (AAC).

Discount for hard copy purchase. Half the cost of your downloaded files applied to purchase of physical CD. Don't make me pay twice for the same songs, just charge me for mfg/distro costs. Half credit doesn't come close since the industry rapes us on CDs, but it's a compromise I think people can live with.

and finally...

The largest selection known to mankind!

I want to be scoring a Hat Trick in Hell while body slamming Lucifer on a goal run before I can't find a song or album I want.

Hay Right :FREE MUSIC

[Anonymous Coward]

The saying goes, ' if it got class, you gottta pay 4 it' Hmmm ....all free stuff has to be shitty i figure then. Napster music was great, then they figured it was too much of a good thing and axed it. Internet Radio is the next big thing that they will cripple. Then any free video streams like BBC, WTF?

My opinion

[MedHead]

The perfect online music store would be iTunes, with every song ever made available, and the ability to play the song anywhere. However, since the latter request would make the former request impossible, I'd just like to see iTunes with all music available. The sound quality of the songs are great, and the price can't be beat (legally, and no, allofmp3.com is not legal).

I'm sure many people will say it but....

[the-build-chicken]

...allofmp3.com

it's got it nailed. Great service, great price.

magnatune - stream for free

[chocolatetrumpet]

Magnatune lets you stream their entire catalog in mp3 format, free of charge. They have a station for each genre.

It's good stuff. See 50 other posts in this thread about magnatune :-)

idea for music industry (at a tangent from topic)

[real_smiff]

The news that Green Day is selling packs of their-own-labelled CDRs + artwork (for 8USD) a couple of days ago got me thinking: call it a proposal for the music industry. sorry this is slightly OT, but the level of disatisfaction expressed with all current or forseeable offerings in this thread made me think it was worth adding.

Let me repost what i posted on another forum, so more people can see it@

[people commenting that they'd buy the CD pack if they came with the music]

my answer: "no of course you can't sell 5 CDs with the music on for $8 because then you're competing with [totally undercutting] shop stock. however, [the industry] can sell the artwork on its own and let people warez the music, because a few dollars per CD is better than no sale at all, which is what happens when someone illegaly downloads the music now. if they decided to let people share the music freely (remember, that's done at our cost, we pay for our net connnections), and charge for the artwork/posters/merchandise, i think we have a business again.

P2P fans should be happy with this [decision to sell printed CDRs] anyway. they don't know where you're getting the music. now you've got a source for nice artwork. that's what i originaly thought this was. i still think $8 is good value for that. the industry is getting a clue, just very slowly. eventually they'll realise the recorded music is not worth trying to charge for/control.

AND they can still sell prerecorded cds in shops, just not as many as they once did. plenty of people still like them.

they just have to weigh up whether they'll lose more to piracy when the art is available, than they gain in prerecorded sales from not having art available. i bet they don't. In fact, i bet they've already done that math. which makes the whole [expletive deleted] thing [the crusade against P2P] a lie. Music companies, are you selling content or things? make up your minds. until then, i'm not buying anything. but i'd rather buy things. "

well, maybe it was mad, but i don't think i've heard this in this form considered yet. since then i've thought of more things they could sell, like branded portable player skins (like mobile phone cases, they sell a riot). remember, fans like stuff.

$0.99 may be ok if...

[Mixel]

Personally, I'd like to see a store that has a 24/7 internet radio station, on-demand streaming, $0.99 downloads

If $0.75+ out of those $0.99 didn't go to record companies, who then use the money to buy lawyers to make sure that things end in tears, I would be a happier bunny. I'd like to see more independent artists and online stores bypass the middle-men for mutual benefit. But that may be wishful thinking...

Or is it? Here's a cool indie music site to cheer you up (including political tracks of the season). Their artists "are given 65% of the end-user sales price". Hope they fix their site images up real soon.

no RIAA artists

[lightspawn]

so I could be sure my money would never be used to support the RIAA agenda.

Re:no RIAA artists

[muntumbomoklik]

Yeah, a site that adheres strictly to the RIAA Radar's listings.

Very, very, very simple.

[writermike]

As a person who helps a lot of people get used to using the web, one of the continual frustrations in the legal online music world is that there are so many holes in the various collections online, especially in stuff not played on commercial radio. It's really disappointing when you get beyond the well-known stuff. World music, for instance.

So, the perfect online music store would have every song that's current in catalog and can be purchased at a store.

I like the iTunes Music Store

[csoto]

It has the tunes I want, in the format I want, and with the interface I enjoy. Plus, with most albums, it's at a price I like ($9.99).

OSS!

[recharged95]

All I want is a simple fat/thin client interface that allows me to search all the record labels to find the song I want to purchase. Then I can goto that distributor via link/shopping cart and downland my choice of format (or available formats). I hate it that iTunes only has a few labels. This would be a perfect opportunity for an OSS effort (maybe already?) where the labels/middlemen can contribute funds...

Almost sounds like Amazon.com... Oops, I said simple client interface...

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

To all the above. Enough said!

not an online store, but...

[SilentT]

Barterbee is a great site for trading your old CDs (DVDs and games, too) for something new. The site is based on a points system; you get 5 points for joining and points for each item you trade. You use your points to request items; most CDs are only 1 or 2 points. The cost is only $5 a month. Check it out.

My perfect music store

[MykePagan]

First off, it would have ALL the music. iTunes was missing three artist I was hunting for last night, and I am frustrated. Heck, iTunes doesn't even have the *good* Elvis Costello!

Encoders: mp3 is fine for me. I think it would be nice if you could choose the bitrate though. Maybe you could get 128 kbps for one price, 64 kbps for something a bit cheaper, VBR for a bit more money.

DRM: I'd be OK with "storm door" DRM. The kind that keeps honest people honest but doesn't get in the way when I switch to a new computer. Tight DRM always seems to make it too hard to actually enjoy the music the way I want to.

Pricing: iTunes is blowing it with the flat-rate $0.99 per song. Some songs should be cheaper, some should be more expensive. The hot single that's getting airplay every 10 minutes on ClearChannel could go for $2, while old Dixie Dregs that nobody but me wants to hear could go for $0.20 per song. Wasn't a Nobel prize given out recently for some economists who showed that it was best to price things this way (Black-Shoales, no?).

There should also be a discount for buying the whole album. This would incent people to listen to some of those tracks that aren't geting heavy rotation. Some of my favorite songs were the ones that grew on me over time as I played a CD through. Now with iTunes I tend to cherry pick only the new songs that I've heard or been recommended.

There are a million other pricing schemes that could be done that might make both the artist and the buyer happy. How about an artist offering a single flat-fee for access to their entire catalog? Maybe a subscription to an artist who promises to release songs on a regular basis?

Almost any business setup will do. Just as..

[taj]

long as none of the music is NOT comming from the RIAA cartel. Poor quality, poorly paid musicians. Fat cats buying fat legislation. Thats not what I will pay for in any form. They pissed us off and its payback time.

The ideal business is going to REJECT all RIAA bands and focus on quality, diversity, music. Having a service that screens out that crud would be high on my list.

Vote ...

[theguywhosaid]

... with your wallet I say. It is the only one that still matters.

Couple Problems:

• CDs do not last forever. (Easy enough to keep a working copy)
• You did not buy© the music.

I will be voting small business with my next purchase choice.

Artists take

[tsunamifirestorm]

http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/
It's a good article on artist's takes from online stores.
Apple says iTunes is "better than free" because it's "fair to the artists and record labels." That's simply not true. First of all, Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract...

Online Music Stores

[trogdor8667]

I've used Napster and MusicMatch, and they're both great. My only thing with them is that from the music company's perspective, when they encode them in WMA format, all you have to do is burn them to a CD and rip them back into MP3 to get around all of the copyright protection stuff. Personally, I wish they would just encode them in mp3, as it would make it far easier on everyone.

Da Perfect store...

[KD5YPT]

This might just be a dream, what with the current attitude of the music industry.

Here's what a perfect music store would be (heck, I WILL start buying music when it exist, if not, well, I don't need music that badly).

1. MP3, minial DRM or none (I want to be able to burn them, stick them on ANY MP3 player, playable in car, playable on Winamp, and etc).
2. Allow independent artist to sell their music easily (haven't find one that I really like, but it would be nice for a lot of people).
3. Ability to order custom designed CDs, with custom CD covers and names. (I would think people will be more inclined to pay for music if they can have them custom made with all the music they want). A good price would be $1 * number of sound + $3 (for CDs and processing fee).
4. Individual sountrack cost less than $1 each.

Like the old eMusic

[1in10]

I want something like the old eMusic.

$10 a month for unlimited (well, actually the sent you nastygrams and cut you off after 2000 a month, but it's close enough) mp3 downloads. Lame --preset-standard quality.

That was perfect for me, because I considered it 10 bucks a month to find new bands and get a big supply of music to sample. I don't consider digital music in any format to be a substitute for the warm and fuzzy fealing of a physical object.

So to get me in, it's going to have to be a pay X per month deal. I'm not paying a per song cost, it's not worth it for something I don't consider particuarly valuable (a digital file). I'm paying for access to a range of music 24/7 at fast download speeds. In other words, convenience over P2P networks.

Personal ownership, not corporate ownership

[fleener]

The best store gives me a license of ownership for the music I purchased. Not a file. Not physical media. The music will not use DRM because DRM only hinders my legal, future use of the music I purchased.

I will never knowingly buy DRM music. If DRM is the future, then I will be saving oodles of money soon. Every time I listen to a DRM tune it would remind me that corporations own my property, not me. I don't like being a corporate slave.

you are a thief

[Anonymous Coward]

If you rip the data from the CD, it's theft to then resell the CD to somebody without destroying your copy.

For example, if you have Microsoft Word, you can't just install it and then give away the installation media.

doesn't matter if it seems really cost effective, it's theft.

hell, why not just cut of the middleman and shoplift your music from Borders Books, rip them, and then drop off the "worthless shells" in the middle of the night in their video returns box?

talk about 128 LAME. that's just really really lame dude. wait till people are ripping off your hard work.

probably not something you have to worry about ;)

Re:you are a thief

[Anonymous Coward]

so he's a thief. how does that change anything? he's still a potential music buyer and the music vendors still should pay attention to his demographic.

Re:you are a thief

[Anonymous Coward]

If you rip the data from the CD, it's theft to then resell the CD to somebody without destroying your copy.

Sneaking into a Broadway play isn't theft, it's trespassing. Lying about your income to the IRS isn't theft, it's tax evasion. Failing to destroy a CD might be a crime, and it might be immoral, but it isn't theft any more than it's robbing an ocean liner.

Re:you are a thief

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boo hoo. I'm really crying for the companies that still make a billion dollars a year despite a few people giving away the CDs they bought.

Get off your high-horse, asshole. Life is short, nobody's putting these fucks into the poor house with what they're doing, so who cares.

Re:you are a thief

[Bloody Pulp]

For example, if you have Microsoft Word, you can't just install it and then give away the installation media.

Actually, I believe the the licensing agreement only prevents the installation of the software on more than one computer at a time with the same product key. I don't believe there is anything in the license agreement preventing the change of ownership of the physical media.

Re:you are a thief

[drmabuseuk]

to play devil's advocate, if you sell a CD to a used shop or give it away, how exactly is the label or the artist gaining, financially? Now that situation is 128 LAME!

Re:you are a thief

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another fucking moron. Copyright infringement is not theft.

Re:you are a thief

[monsted]

I don't think you get the point. If the parent poster gives his CD away or sells it, the label doesn't earn anything for that copy. If, on the other hand, he stashed them away in the attic, someone else would have to go out and buy a new copy instead of his used.

Re:you are a thief

[GlassUser]

If you rip the data from the CD, it's theft to then resell the CD to somebody without destroying your copy.

It's not theft, it's copyright infringement. A crime, sure, but in a different area and of a different type. Claiming that copyright infringement is theft is like claiming backing out on a contract is murder.

Re:you are a thief

[kelnos]

If you're going to argue legal terms, then remember: it's not "theft", it's "copyright infringement". They are not the same thing.

paypal

[poptones]

I just used paypal to pay for them. Apparently they can't take it anymore, so next time I'll spend an extra couple of bucks and use a stored value card from one of the credit card companies.

And it doesn't really have anything to do with getting caught; it would be trivially easy for the US to track down every single person that gave these people money - all they need to do is compel the cc companies to report such use (just as they do already with many illicit businesses). It's more a matter of commerce in the new world of capitalism, and PR regarding enforcement. It's alright for Dow to pay a buck a day to exploit workers in a nation with no enforcement of environmental laws, spew toxic crap into the world with no regard for safety (remember the chlorine leak in India?), but it's not ok for us to order music from a nation with the "intellectual property" equivalent to this sort of non-protection?

I don't think so.

Re:paypal

[jargonCCNA]

It's alright for Dow to pay a buck a day to exploit workers in a nation with no enforcement of environmental laws,
Dow Chemical's internal protocols for process safety are some of the most stringient (sp?) in the world, going above and beyond legal requirements by, in all probability, every nation or state where Dow exists--and they're quite widespread. The same protocols are sought after by many companies, which is in fact why my father was hired away from Dow--Irving Oil (the largest/only oil company in the Maritimes) had no process safety protocols and needed someone with a very firm grip on what Dow did in order to improve their own record. As a result, they're paying him much more than Dow ever did to create a system based on the rules of a system he's been enforcing for years. Petrochemical companies know that good process safety will save you far more than exploitation of local laws. Furthermore, the repercussions within Dow for violating their own protocols can, if I understand things correctly, can mean your job.

spew toxic crap into the world with no regard for safety (remember the chlorine leak in India?)
1) That wasn't Dow Chemical at all, that was Union Carbide. Carbide has since been purchased by Dow, but at the time they were completely unrelated. Do not associate Bhutan with Dow. It's practically libel.
2) The Bhutan accident occurred over twenty years ago when the protocols weren't as strict--because something on the scale of Bhutan seemed statistically negligible to the process safety engineers, if it seemed possible at all.
3) The Bhutan accident is known worldwide as the ultimate reason why every company dealing with potentially dangerous chemicals needs a process safety division, in order to prevent such things from happening. No one saw it coming at the time (and there was also the human factor--by the time anyone realised it was happening, it was too late to stop it), but now that the accident has been analysed, it can be prevented.

Long story short, anyone involved with the petrochemical industry knows that Dow is one of the most responsible companies around when it comes to safety. True, when there are fuckups in the industry, they're large.. but when the protocols are there, they're few and far between--and they always figure out why it happened so it can be prevented in the future.

It needs to have every song ever created (ideally)

[comrade009]

I mean, its a said day when I can't get ANY Led Zeppelin on iTunes.

Really to me, pointless

[sarareku]

If you look at the list of releases this week, you'll find most of them cost $7.99 - $9.99. One example is Hilary Duff's release this week. It is 17 tracks total, for $9.99. ITunes has each song for 99 cents, costing $17 to download in ONE format without photos, lyric books, hard copy, or CD case. Anyways, music stores serve no point because I mostly listen to Spanish and Japanese music. Most stores don't offer imported music, so buying the album is a must..

musicmatch.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like a music store that gave a few selected picks from genres and allowed me to explore albums based upon what songs I liked and didn't like.

check out musicmatch.com -- it does that, and it can stream related songs on a pseudo radio station based on your selected artists/genres

also, yahoo has launch.yahoo.com which is a radio streaming system which is sort of similar.

iBill

[poptones]

What's that credit card processor that all the porn sites use? I can't remember which one it was, but they were also apparently used by just about ALL the "teen model" sites - and many of the offshore gambling sites as well. The the bosses in washington started cracking down on the credit card companies and bingo, they suddenly decided they couldn't use that sort of business anymore, and now it seems a new grey market moneychanger pops up every month to fill the niche, leaving the gambling and child model site operators scrambling for income. No more visa, no more trustworthy US billing agent.

Gee, wonder why they can't do that here?

Re:iBill

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, I'm hoping to start work as a copyright lawyer next year, so if it hasn't happened yet, maybe I'll give it a go.

However, given that the criminal prosecution arms of the government is more interested in cracking down on child porn and gambling than they are on copyright infringement, I suspect that that's why. It might be more difficult in a civil suit, than a criminal one.

(The FBI and DoJ do have some interest in going after pirates. But kiddy porn crackdowns seem to be a higher priority, which is okay with me)

Most of AllOfMP3 transcoded

[Alaska Jack]

I'd like a service that recorded everything in FLAC or other lossless encoding, then let you choose to either download that, or transcode it to whatever you want.

(AllOfMP3 transcodes almost everything from 384 kbps MP3s. The exceptions are its "Online Exclusive" offerings, which let you encode off the original .cda audio, but those offerings are pretty few.)

- Alaska Jack

My perfect online store

[__aailob1448]

First and foremost, $1 a song is not an adecuate price. Neither are 99 cents, or 88 or 50 for that matter. A song should not cost over 10 cents, period. The 99 cents you pay today (and I say "you" because hell will freeze over before I pay that much for a song) are only a necessity because they serve the powers in place.

The artists who made the song would get the lion's share. Something around 75% of those 10 cents. The bandwidth costs would be drastically reduced because the users would contribute some of their bandwidth in exchange for those low prices.

Think the best P2P network you can imagine. Faster than Kazaa and more complete than eMule. Because it'll all be legal, Nobody will be scared of sharing so uploads will soar. There will be no need to use all those tricks that slow down the effective speed because of the need for decentralization. ISPs can set up local nodes and cache the most popular songs (even more speed!), etc. etc.

Feature-wise, think iTunes interface, Napster's billboard charts, add video clips. Make those 15 cents a pop. No drm, pick whatever format you want. Mp3, AAC, Flac, Ogg vorbis, RealAudio (just kidding) out of the list. The clients can be used to transcode songs/videos on their Idle time to practically eliminate the cost of dedicated Servers.

Not satisfied with the money you're paying your favorite artists? use the music store to buy T-shirts, merchandising, autographed cds, whatever memorabilia the artists decide to make available. They can chose to make a "make a donation" button available. In fact, let the artists put a price to their songs. If people think the price is too high, they'll get them for free somewhere else.

And what about movies? What I have said can apply to them too. I'll pay $1 for a movie. No more. At this price, I guarantee you will end up with at least 10 times the purchases of DVDs. And barely any of the costs. That's a lot more profit. Those movies would be free of DRM as well. And in multiple formats to be played on anything and everything.

And what about TV shows? Make those available for free with the embedded ads. And give an option to those with more money to pay for Ad-free shows.

And well, I got a little carried away there. But you get my drift. That would be the perfect store for me, the one that makes me stop downloading Warez.

So, in a nutshell: Harness bandwidth and CPU power from users, use the savings to offer very low prices, steer away from DRM and other snake oils. Everybody is happy.

Re:My perfect online store

[Pitr]

Sort of... your pricing's a bit off. Not because of the cost of the song itself, but the cost of the infrastructure you're suggesting replacing labels with will still require money, although far less than the greedy monopoly represented by the RIAA. All the ISPs who host nodes, etc., will require a slice of the pie. Again, a small one, a cent or two on the download (pro-rated for fractional downloads due to the decentralized nature of course). Then the software would need to be developed (or at least maintained) by some company. There are a bunch of, "hidden costs" I don't think you've concidered. Not only that, but there will still be a market for companies that get airtime for your band(But they'll work for you, not you for them, and you still own your songs, life, integrity, and soul). Although that's more of an artist's expense than part of your suggested system. I think songs would still cost between 25 and 50 cents. Artists would probably get ~50%.

price is a big one for me

[ryanvanderzanden]

I don't mind some of the services that are out there, and iTunes seems to be closest to the mark, but the only complaint I have is the price.

$.99 a track is just too steep considering you get no physical product. If tracks were half that I would be far more keen on the idea, the average full-length album would be about 6 or 7 bucks, which for me seems about right for an album without the plastic disc, case, artwork, etc.

The way it is, I prefer buying albums and ripping the tracks. Best of both worlds, with the exception that it takes longer. :)

Also (and I heard this from one of the roadies for a show at a smaller venue in my home town, I can't say for sure if it holds true across the board) if you buy CD's at a band's show, the band gets more $ from your purchase than if you buy it from a store. Something about the band getting their own CD's at wholesale, and any markup goes directly to them. So for the past year or so I've been trying to wait and buy CD's at a show.

-r-

Converting DSD to PCM

[tepples]

DSD as used in SACD is just 1-bit PCM run at a high frequency and then low-pass filtered by the player's output circuitry. Emulate this output circuitry with a sharp low-pass filter at 20 kHz and decimate by 64, and you have PCM suitable for use by a lossless codec. However, has anybody broken SACD encryption yet?

The Perfect Slashdot Digital Music Store

[JudgeFurious]

Oh that's easy. The specs on this one can be gleaned from the last few years postings.

The PSDMS would...

1. Charge .25 or less per track.
2. Have every single piece of music ever recorded.
3. Have that music in every single format ever offered.
4. Have no DRM whatsoever.
5. Have no restrictions on what you do with the track. Nothing.
6. Pay the artists the vast majority of the price of the song.
7. Have not one single large corporation involved in it.
8. Never utter a sound if the tracks end up on a P2P
9. Work with every digital music player ever made.
10. Work with every operating system ever made.
11. Be entirely based on open source software.
12. Not give a single cent to the RIAA, ever.

And of course once this thing goes broke (prior to ever selling a single track) they'll go back to bitching about iTunes and how it's such a terrible compromise.

shameless self promotion.... www.HearsayMusic.ca

[warren69]

Small, but growing. Supporting Canadian independent artists. Artists get 45 cents for each 1$ mp3.

Emusic.

[aka-ed]

Given the practical considerations that the world brings with it, I could not expect a better service for my needs to emerge than Emusic. Two of the chief positives for the service consist of what it does NOT have: No overblown overproduced overhyped releases from the corporation-grown performers that have been cultivated by the music industry for 70 years (exceptions made for has-beens interesting enough to be remembered). No DRM. What it does have is tons of music that I've never heard of, a worthy percentage of which agrees with me tremendously. They just added a label, "Saregama," which apparently owns the rights to thousands (4,179 to be exact) of soundtracks to Indian musicals...I can choose between the 1950, 1965 and 1999 soundtracks for three films named "Arzoo" for chrissake! (note: the following links are .m3u playlist items for streaming media) Most people don't think this (a sample from 1999's Arzoo) is good music, so I guess it's not for everyone, but I'm happy as a pig in shit. And stop thinking that Bombay musicals all sound alike! Here's the title theme from Dream Girl A search for Lata Mangeshkar brings 539 album and single results! I just wish they could bring back the "all you can eat" policy.

Music store?

[Sarcastic Assassin]

I personally never bought into the idea of an online music store, literally and figuratively. I don't mind getting out of the house to get a CD, in that it entitles me to do whatever I like with it (barring piracy, of course). What I really don't like is the price of CDs. I'd much rather see a drop in CD prices (to $10.99 at most, for new releases, and more like $4.99 for old[er] releases)

Let the users produce content

[blankman]

I would like to see an online music store that is also a true file-sharing network. Monthly payment for unlimited downloads and the ability to publish/share my own music on the network. User reviews, all sorts of search capabilities, including things like "Users who liked this song also liked..." and "Users who liked this artist are sharing..."
Realizing that it isn't always contractually possible, I would still like to see the artist paid directly (bypassing the record companies) as often as possible.
Preferably open, unencumbered formats such as wav, mp3 or ogg. Of course once the users can share, getting the format and bitrate you want is just a matter of looking hard enough.
Basically what I'd want is a true peer-to-peer network, governed by a collective licensing agreement whereby all the users get to keep doing what they've been doing anyway, for the price of a few bucks a month. Said monies are collected, placed in a large sack with a dollar sign on it, and sent in the direction of those who brought us the music.
The greatest thing about the P2P networks isn't that the music is easily accessible, or that you aren't paying for it, it's that anyone can reach a worldwide audience!
I'm perfectly willing to pay for music, but I won't pay for a restricted distribution channel. The whole point of the web is that anyone can produce content, that's the crucial aspect that needs to be preserved in an online music store.

Price, format, and no DRM!

[erick99]

My first consideration is always going to be price. The cost of manufacturing a song is down to almost zero. There are infrastructure costs of less than ten cents. Now, consider that the .99 iTunes and others charge represent a doubling in the royalties that the R.IA.A. wants and you can see that it is very possible to sell music for around fifty-cents per song and still be profitable. They would have to accept lower royalties than do do now. However, I think the increase in revenue would more than make up for the per-song reduction in absolute royalties. More info here: Neowin.net

I would like to be able to sample a song for at least a minute though being able to stream the whole song would be nice. Thirty seconds is not long enough, a minute would do.

ALLOFMP3 occasionally tosses out an oldie album for free. That is a nice marketing touch. This wouldn't be necessary but I would probably check back more often to see what promotions were ongoing.

I like my downloads to be unencumbered mp3. No DRM. If I am only paying fifty-cents per song I don't have a lot of incentive to cheat. It sounds like a lot to ask by DRM is a scourge. An ideal music source would also have all of the major labels and quite a bit of the balance. Not asking for much, am I?

-erick

It's been here for a long time

[drwav]

We already have the perfect online music store. It is called amazon.com

They sell these things called CDs, they contain music, and have been the standard for music for over a decade. Based upon what I'm seeing for the future, they should REMAIN the standard.

Re:It's been here for a long time

[AkumaATR]

Should I have to repurchase the discs that I have scratched? You might say yes, but I would say no.

Re:It's been here for a long time

[drwav]

I would also say no.

Of course there is no way to replace CDs for free so the best bet is to take really good care of them. If they get scratched, I recommend trying a program like CDex which has paranoia error correction and can actually error correct minor scratches. However, it is not the end all solution, I tried ripping a CD that my friend found in a parking lot somewhere, even with the paranoia correction, some of the tracks still skipped badly after being ripped.

They also have scratch repair kits, which is what my friend is going to try next on his found CD.

I'm not sure what you are aurguing for, are you saying that buying a file is better since it can't get scratched or damanged like a CD and you can just DL it again if lost. Well, I don't even know if online music stores allow their users to do that, and even if they do I'd much rather just own a CD. High quality, and it just works.

Warp Records does it right.

[plastik55]

In the Bleep store you get to listen to 30-second samples but you can click along the timeline to pick the part of the song the sample comes from. Then they give you decent-quality, non-DRM-encumbered files. To top it off, their downloads include limited-release and out-of-print records. To date they're the only store I've bought intangible downloaded goods from.

indietorrents.com

[chimericalburst]

they have the best records, and they're all free!

Flamebait? Sheesh - are you otr or something?

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon mod's - it's kinda funny.

allofmp3.com

[e40]

allofmp3.com is the perfect music store.

Be sure to use their Explorer. It makes searching and previewing very easy.

I'd like...

[JeffTL]

...iTunes Music Store, but with available (though not mandatory) Apple Lossless downloads, perhaps for $1.49. The advantage of Apple Lossless is quite simple: iPod support so people will want to buy and I imagine it'd be easier to DRM than FLAC would, a necessity if you want major labels or even many independents. Also iTunes compatability = AirTunes compatability = stream to your Hi-Fi over Wi-Fi to an AirPort Express, if you have a better stereo system than your computer's card and speakers.

Or failing that, some sort of DRMed FLAC or something for PC-based listening. But in an ideal situation perhaps the individual record labels would have the option of not requiring any DRM on the music.

What the heck

[cjpez]

May as well throw out my comment to be lost amongst the others too.

Ideally I'd like:

• ca. $5/album
• if you throw in all the album art in printable-quality pdf format or something, jack the price to maybe $6 an album.
• buying track-per-track doesn't really interest me much generally, price that however you want so long as it's no more than $1/track on the rare occasion I *do* want just one song.
• No DRM, of course. mp3 or ogg is fine, not terribly particular
• good tagging of the files I get
• No subscriptions
• Legal, of course. I like it when musicians get money.

Emusic was absolutely heavenly before they changed their pricing scheme. They're still pretty good I guess, but at ca. 23c/song (higher once you've gone beyond your subscribed monthly "limit") it's still a bit steep for trying bands you've never heard before, and seeing as though Emusic does mostly indie stuff that you've probably never heard of before, that's kind of a drawback. (Mind you, I found some really really great bands on there when they were doing unlimited subscriptions, but I probably wouldn't have heard most of them on their new subscription service.)

Bleep is great. I don't mind the $10/album thing quite so much because I'd otherwise be stuck importing a lot of those albums which drives up the average price for the hardcopy album. Plus they've got stuff otherwise only available on vinyl, etc.

They Might Be Giants' online store is great, mostly for their live shows available there, though the price ($10/album) is a bit steep for anyone who's not already a fan, and obviously the other drawback is that only TMBG is available there.

Best music store would be free...

[Anonymous Coward]

All songs, all artists, all genres - why? Because I'm not going to pay for a song that I can find for free on IRC or Kazaa. Why? Because the artists receive practically nothing from CD sales anyway (on major labels anyway) I'd rather go and see them at a gig. Screw RIAA!

The perfect online music store for the RIAA

[Calroth]

Whilst it's all well and good to discuss "the perfect online music store" from the point of the consumer (or, more accurately, the Slashdotter), you have to realise that it's only one side of the story. The other side, of course, is the record industry.

So, here I present, the perfect online music store for the RIAA.

• The ability to track the songs that consumers listen to, for advertising purposes
• The ability to charge consumers every time they listen to a song
• Only one music device at a time
• The ability to revoke consumers' access to songs
• Songs for $2 each, or better yet, a subscription
• Not allowed to listen to non-RIAA songs

Now, you may think, pffft, that's meaningless. But it's no more or less meaningless than "the perfect online music store for Slashdotters". OK, I realise that the list given is an extreme example, but I'm trying to make a point here.

Most music stores today are a compromise between what consumers want and what the record industry want. It's fun and informative to come up with ideas for that perfect store, but remember that the real world is out there.

you got the wrong tree

[poptones]

Dude, I didn't say kiddie porn. These sites are largely based in the US, feature US models, and are still around. And right after I hit submit I remembered the name of the company - it's called verotel. As you can see they list themselves as being in the netherlands, but a little (maybe a lot) of pressure from visa caused them to drop dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of sites.

You are completely overlooking several important facts, cap'n.

The exchange rate. Perhaps you don't know this because you don't buy Russian music, but ALL russian CDs are dirt cheap. The exchange rate might not mean much if you want a nice apartment in Kyiv or Moscow, but music from there - even after importation through "legit" channels - is dirt cheap. I have a whole stack of CDs here of Russian artists, and the most expensive one of the lot was six bucks.

To do business (legitimately) in Russian means complying with their laws - just as here. So, who do you think runs MTV Russia? Fully half the artists on the top ten over there are American recording artists - on labels like RCA and Elektra and Columbia. Even with all this evil mean and nasty piracy over there - by all estimates I've seen only about a third of the music sold in stores being legitimate copies, these companies still find it worthwhile to spend money there on mearketing and selling their wares.

Why haven't they complained about them doing business? These companies are legit under Russian law, and the record companies do business there of their own volition. There's simply nothing they can do except spend some of that barely earned money on lobbying for different laws - just as they do here (oh, and good luck with that).

It's not illegal for me to import for my personal use, and it's not illegal for them to sell abroad. Both Ukraine and Russia are Berne member states and WIPO signatories. What it comes down to is this: the very same factors - cheap communications, ease of international commerce - will have the net effect of lowering prices to the lowest common denominator. What goes around comes around... god bless the internet and new capitalism!

Re:you got the wrong tree

[cpt kangarooski]

Perhaps you don't know this because you don't buy Russian music, but ALL russian CDs are dirt cheap.

That is precisely why we don't allow willy-nilly imports of copyrighted works. It would undercut US copyright holders. (and in the past we also wanted to protect US publishers and printers, but that's a seperate thing)

It's not illegal for me to import for my personal use

Generally, it is. 17 USC 602(b) prevents you from importing so-called piratical copies into the US, even for personal use. The 602(a)(2) and 109 exemptions are very, very narrow. There is simply NO blanket 'personal use' importation exemption. There is an unbelievable amount of misunderstanding of this section. And it's awfully worded, so I can see why, but it's still very sad.

Liner Notes

[corian]

If I purchase an album digitally, I'd still like to download a PDF/Flash/something of the album art and liner notes. It's important content that the artist (or perhaps the label) feels complements the music, and that's why they are sold together. Although I'm puchasing music in a different format than a jewel case, I still want the same experience.

What I want to see

[badmammajamma]

Personally, I don't use any of the existing services for the following reasons:

1) They don't support ogg. I HATE mp3. It's a horrible format and provides crappy quality anyway you slice it. AAC is good but I'll be damned if I buy an iPod or any of it's relatives. WMA is acceptable.

2) When I purchase tunes, I want them upgradable. What this means is that if in the future they come up with a new compression algorithm that can say compress stuff down to very small sizes but still sounds great, that's what I will change to and I don't want to have to buy the damn song over again. The current services don't provide this upgradability. Now, if it's a radical change like a new format that plays in 4 channels instead of stereo, I'm ok with paying an upgrade fee to get it.

3) I want to be able to re-download stuff I already paid for. This is somewhat inline with issue #2, but really what I'm looking for is the ability to restock if my machine explodes. (Yes, I know I should make backups but I'm a stupid user.) I realise some services already provide this, but I just want to make sure it not lost.

4) I want some flexibility in the bitrates. Most of the existing service provide jack shit for bit rate options and in all cases they are lower than the bitrates I find acceptable.

5) I want to be able to hear the songs IN FULL before I make a purchase. Thirty second samples are fucking worthless.

6) DRM needs to be fairly lax. I don't want to have issues copying the music to my two different players and I want to be able to hear the music on my PC and laptop.

Since none of the services provide what I want and since I won't buy a CD unless I know I will like at least 4 songs on it, I use Real Rhapsody to listen to albums and then I buy the CDs if I like what I hear. Then I rip them into OGG. I'd like to skip these extra steps. I really have no desire to buy CDs ever again.

Ultimately, the easier they make all this and the more flexible the more people will buy into it. A service that provided all of this would blow iTunes and their proprietary bullshit away.

apples and...

[poptones]

you know the rest. The reason Magnatune doesn't have the "success" Apple does is because Apple has close affiliations in Hollywood (ever heard of Disney? Pixar?) and, therefore, a rack of mainstream artists - while Magnatune has... a bunch of altruistic geeks and a business model built on anti-industry ideals.

Here's what I want

[sahonen]

1) I am not going to pay 99 cents for a song in a lossy audio format. I will pay 99 cents for an open lossless format that I can transcode to a small lossy format for portable listening.

2) If it is lossy, I want listening tests that confirm that there is no audible difference between the lossy file and the original. For MP3, I want LAME using the --preset standard switch.

3) No DRM. I am not a theif and I'm not going to be sharing large lossless audio files anyway. If I do share a file, it will not be on P2P, and will be in a low-quality format with the suggestion to the sharee to buy the higher quality version themselves.

4) Good mastering. Thanks the the horrible plunge in audio quality in recent years thanks to the trend of trying to push albums as loud as possible, I will not be buying any music unless I can be certain that I will not be hearing the clipping, distortion, loss of transient impact, and nonexistant bass and treble associated with albums that have fallen victim to this "Loudness Race." Case in point: Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf. That album sounded so fucking awful I wished I had been deaf.

The "normal crowd" cares about MP3 too

[Mr2001]

Sony is now supporting MP3 in their players. Not because angry Slashdotters want it, but because the public realizes that MP3 is the lingua franca of digital music:

"MP3 is the ultimate in terms of inter-device compatibility," Yankee Group senior analyst Mike Goodman told TechNewsWorld. "One of the most important things for consumers is portability and transferability and you are lacking in any of those areas with the proprietary formats."

The ideal online music store would sell tracks that users can play on all their digital music players: portables, handheld computers, car head units, cell phones, DVD players, and PCs. That means MP3, or possibly unencrypted WMA.

Previously Purchased CDs

[AkumaATR]

I want an online store that will allow me to take in my crapped out CDs (I just tried ripping a 250+ CD collection to flac -- I am unhappy with the results, as many of my discs have errors DESPITE using a quality drive/ripper) to a local site and trade them in for access to their downloadable counterparts (flac or equivalent lossless codec of course). I am so pissed that most of my older disks have errors (you will find the same due to the nature of audio discs -- no CRC equivalent like data discs) due to scratches/rot/etc. CDs are not the investment I once thought they were. The license you get when purchasing a CD should include access to that media in whatever 'lastest and greatest' format is avail. in the future (or, atleast something bit-for-bit identical to original). That way I can stream my stuff from satellite to my mobile player while jogging in 2012. You get the point. Please people, figure out a system in which we can get all of our prior purchases (not just future) in LOSSLESS format. Ever look at a frequency analysis graph for mp3 track? Trash. Consumer support is making this the main format for future devices. Arg. About the trading in my CDs for their downloadable counterparts... couldn't we have some tamperproof device with private key hidden away... governed by whomever (RIAA hehe). Whatever -- I don't care -- I just want what I paid for.

for whatever it's worth

[Anonymous Coward]

- FLAC (and for the next year while hard disks are still on the slightly small size: also Ogg Vorbis).
- No DRM.
- $0.50 a song.
- Independent artists. Start with the cdbaby collection, and then get all the other independent artists on board as well.
- available everywhere in the world.

Ogg Vorbis & FLAC Please

[Bob9113]

Should it have OGG and FLAC tracks, as well as MP3?

I'm sure this is highly redundant, but yes, I would like Ogg Vorbis and FLAC. Roughly speaking I would pay 50% more for FLAC over MP3, and maybe 25% more for Ogg Vorbis than MP3. MP3 at anything less than 256 VBR sounds like tin cans and string. Vorbis can comfortably go down to the 196 VBR range. (of course, this is only my experience with LAME, OggEnc, a mid-range DAC (Echo Gina), and Sennheiser headphones - YMMV) As for a true CD substitute; FLAC is the only real choice.

Please mod this up

[shimmerkid]

Audiolunchbox.com has lots of great indie artists, sells straight-up MP3s and OGGs, and gives the artists a great deal. http://www.audiolunchbox.com/

The Real Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm one of the people busy writing the code for the music store being obliquely referenced in the article (don't thank me yet). I've been asked to relate the current plan to y'all for two reasons:
1) hope for constructive feedback on specifics
2) i good typer

First, from the PTB, thanks to everyone who has posted here :) A lot of good ideas and a lot of improvements to our own :) I told the guy that asking /. would be a good idea.

Now, the plan.

The site is aimed at independent bands and labels (as far as online sales goes) worldwide. Royalties from sales MUST be paid directly to the band or the label, which means any RIAA labels (many of which are independent) which require payments to be made to the RIAA or some other controlling organization will be locked out. Consequently, the site will be open to any garage band who has made a recording of at least decent quality (ie. using a ghetto blaster outside the door is probably not a good idea).

The payout breakdown is, we believe, the highest in the industry. Single tracks are priced at $0.99 if they're less than 60 days old, $0.79 when they hit 60 days. That's for 256kbps MP3 or 225kbps OGG. Add $0.40 to each of those prices and get the FLAC version (which, incidentally, allows you to download the MP3 or OGG version as well without paying twice). And you can listen to the entire song via Shoutcast on-demand stream at either 24kbps or 96kbps (though we might go with 112) before purchase. For an additional $0.99, you can download the CD art (if we have it). If you *just* want the CD art (for whatever reason, wink wink), it'll be $1.49. A complete album will be $9.99 for a new release, $7.99 after 60 days (add $4.00 for FLAC version, which includes either the MP3 or OGG one as well). Music videos will be streamed for free at both 100kbps and 250kbps (Quicktime for sure, probably RealVideo as well), and you can purchase a high-quality MPG version at either 500 or 1200 kbps (price undetermined at this point, though likely only a couple bucks or so). Radio stations are free (only 1 for now, but there will be genre-based stations added as the selection improves) and Shoutcasted at both 24 mono and 96 (or maybe 112) stereo. Additionally, bands/labels can give us merchandise stock, and we'll sell that too - CDs, shirts, caps, hoodies, whatever they've got. Shipping in one business day, too (possibly same-day before a certain time). Those prices are entirely up to the band.

For each digital music download, regardless of format, the artist or label receives between 65% (for a $0.79 download) to 80% (for a $9.99 album download). For merchandise, we take 5% to a maximum of $2.00 (plus shipping, of course). Is it not spiffy? For album art, we keep $0.29 and give the rest to the band/label. We reserve the right to increase payout amounts as our business improves, due to the fact that our merchant company will lower it's percentages as we perform more transactions. We will *NOT* increase our cut, since we have a locked maximum fee for transactions.

I noticed that very few people described their perfect music store from the band's perspective.

A band subscription is $20/year, and allows them to sell unlimited digital and physical merchandise through us. The band subscription fee includes us ripping 2 albums per year at no cost. Extra albums are $20 each to post online as digital media. Discounts are applied when moving a back-catalog to us though. Hell, we're negotiable when it comes to that. Label subscriptions haven't been nailed down yet. I should point out that the site will have a LOT more than just stuff for sale. But that's still secret ;) There will actually be a large incentive for both bands and labels to sign up. And that's besides the profit-sharing.

We are planning on adapting some practices from other stores - notably multiple licensing similar to MagnaTunes for bands that wish to go that route. We'll be encouraging CCL support, but we

Re:The Real Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoops, forgot to mention a couple of newer parts.

As a result of reading through the posts here, you *WILL* be able to re-download previously purchased tracks in the event you lose yours. There is no cost unless your original download was MP3 or OGG and you want to download the FLAC version. This also covers future codecs - no cost for similar quality, but you pay the difference if you want the higher quality versions afterwards. Certain, to be determined, controls will be in place to try and prevent blatant abuse of this policy.

Also, we will be implementing some Amazon-like cross-referencing - "People who purchased this album also liked..." kind of thing. And a wishlist.

Finally, the music will be sorted in a few different ways. The main way is by genre (Rock, Pop, Jazz, etc.) using the FreeDB genres as a guide. The other way (which some may prefer) will be by mood - like Driving Music, Dancing Things, etc. It will be a learning feature, and will hopefully become more accurate (or at least reliable) as more people use it. There will also be an "Added since your last login" thingy. Finally, you'll be able to list music by label instead of by band or year (those are options too).

Seriously, any reasonable suggestions made here can (and may) be implemented. If you've been holding back because you think no one is going to listen to you, think again. Who knows :) You might help revolutionize the industry ;) We're gonna give it a go :)

BTW, some people think the store is 80% of the site, others think the (other part) is 80%. There will be far more than just music and video available when all is said and done. We're just getting started.

has to be lossless to replace cd

[unwesen]

as the subject says, imho it needs a lossless audio format to replace the cd. unless that's offered for a lower price, i'll always go for the cd. currently i use flac to rip my cds to disk. harddisks are getting cheaper and cheaper...

FLAC + Bittorrent - DRM

[mihib]

My Perfect Online Music Store would be a store, where you purchase FLACs for cheap price. You don't download the FLAC you just get a .torrent, and get your files via Bittorrent (that could help keeping the prices low). Important would be no DRM so one can do whatever one wants with the FLACs. copying should be regulated by laws not by technique. Nice would be album downloads with some artwork, so one can do his CD at home. Direct Purchasing from artists schould be motivated.

FLAC and no DRM

[wolverine1999]

The perfect music store for me would have no drm, and would offer tracks in FLAC format.

Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[rduke15]

... is that the artists don't get anything!

While allofmp3.com may perhaps be technicaly "legal" (of which I'm not even sure, IANAL), it doesn't matter because it's still definitely not ethical.

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[aussie_a]

it's still definitely not ethical.

Ethics are not objective, they vary from person to person so therefore saying it's not ethical in an argument isn't a very good argument.

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[akadruid]

Why do the artists get nothing? allofmp3 do pay their licensing fees. There may be a question what the Russian government does about passing those fees on to the artists but realistically, the copyright model is such a tortured, twisted shadow of the original intentions, that I feel no guilt about buying music there. I am breaking no law but yet I am not supporting Big 4 concept that would spend my money on 'pop idol' and the top 40. When they realise I am a discerning consumor and not a 13 year old girl perhaps they will market products that interest me. Until then, I will buy my music where I please and support my artists at gigs and festivals.

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[rduke15]

Why do the artists get nothing? allofmp3 do pay their licensing fees.

Look at how much you pay for allofmp3.com, and you will understand that artists cannot get anything from it.

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[akadruid]

read this:
http://3cx.org/item/21

I obey the laws of my country because it is right. They also do a medium-to-reasonable job.

I do not support the abuse of copyright law, and I do not buy from the Big 4. When the artists employ the promotion companies, as happens in every other industry, only then when the abuse stop. Did you know that even artists such as Westlife actually lose money on CDs? At best, artists get 10% of the profit on a CD. The rest goes to the promotion companies, to make more pop idol shows and bombard the 13 year old girls with tv adverts.

I refuse to spend my money on yachts and mansions for the directors of the Big 4.

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[afc99]

allofmp3 say they pay license fee's on their site, but I don't think anyone knows who they pay or even if they pay, it is a certainty that no-one from writers, performers, publishers, labels, manager see's a fraction of a penny from this service

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying that an argument isn't a very good argument isn't quite an oxymoron but it comes pretty close. Stupid aussies! Go back to molesting your livestock and jailing refugees.

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't think most of the people who post care if artists get paid. I mean, look at the comments on this board. They want what they want when they want it at the price they want it--which is--essentially, free. And they create all manner of tortured justifications for why they shouldn't pay for music. The RIAA is evil. New artists don't produce any good music (but it is evidently good enough to download and listen to). A dollar is too much for a track. I don't like DRM. And on, and on, and on. But essentially, these folks have discovered that they can "share" music with relatively no consequences, and they don't care if the people who make it get paid. Drumroll please, and cue the "The RIAA doesn't pay artists either" justifications. And don't forget to mention that anyone who has this opinion is a shill for the RIAA. All I'm saying is that I, for one, like music. And much of the music I like is/was released on RIAA labels (much wasn't). And the music and artists I like are capable of releasing albums with 10 or more good songs (I always wonder about the people who find only 1-2 good tracks on an album--what kind of crap are you listening to, anyway?). And finally, for me, a dollar a song is not a lot to pay for something I may listen to and enjoy hundreds of times. But I accept that my views are not shared by everyone.

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[aussie_a]

Go back to molesting your livestock

I'm sorry you're thinking of new zealanders. The jailing refugees is DEFINITELY us though :)

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[poptones]

I really don't think most of the people who shop at wal-mart care if factory workers have jobs. I mean, look at the comments on this board. They want what they want when they want it at the price they want it--which is--essentially, free. And they create all manner of tortured justifications for why they shouldn't pay more for goods and services...

It's called capitalism, bud. pay less for more is the way of the buck, and we've spent a century moving toward this ideal. Only problem is somewhere along the way the capitalists in charge forgot what could happen once it became too easy for the proletariat to utilize their very same international channels of commerce.

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

How true, how true. Unfortunately, once there is no more money for goods, no more goods get made. So be it, no?

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[NateTech]

I think a lot of people are willing to pay $1 a song if it's delivered to them in the FORMAT they want it in. All the concern about illegal copying aside, if someone did that - an awful lot of people would find it convenient enough to use it.

Re:Another big problem with allofmp3 ...

[akadruid]

exactly.

the problem is that the tortured copyright model that we have been spoon-feed since childhood by our media overlords does not stand up in the face of modern technology.

In another industry, a product that is artifically overpriced will disappear from the marketplace. Only in the recording industry can that be prevented by ever changing laws.

The answer is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... anything that is actually available in Australia

Artists' share, who counts as artist,? and DRM

[rduke15]

- I'd also like to see the artists being paid more than 10%...
Yes, a good share to the artists is important. And possible in a system where distribution costs may be low.
Note also that "artists" are not only the visible (or "audiblde") performing artists, but also people like producers (what would the early Michael Jackson music have been without Quincy Jones? Ever heard of Phil Spector? to name a few of the most well-known), sound technicians, etc.

As for the rest of the poll, here it goes:

- Should it have OGG and FLAC tracks, as well as MP3?
Yes, and with high bitrates available.

- Would you rather pay per-song or per-month?
Per song.

- Would you want the option to purchase hard-copy as well (like the actual album, or even band merchandise)?
Yes

- Should the song samples be 30 second downloads or full-song streams fed on-demand?
Full-length streams (can be very low quality)

- Is a radio station important for an online music store?
Not for me.

And last but not least, the question which was not asked:

- Should the songs have DRM?
NO. If I buy a song, I do whatever I want with it, and can copy it to all my MP3 players and home computers, whatever OS they are running, and don't have to worry about some arbitrary restrictions.

Re:Artists' share, who counts as artist,? and DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason the DRM question wasn't asked is because it's not in the hands of the store. Some labels want DRM, and they won't let their music online without it. It's not a consumer choice, and it's not our choice.

We will be discouraging it's use wherever possible, but in the end, we probably won't have the final say. Not going to stop us from trying though :)

Trolled Slashdot Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was this even posted? It sure isn't a story. It SURE IS something everyone likes to gave a giant pissing contest about, so maybe that is what this somehow made "headlines" here. So glad I subscribe to arguments. News For Nerds indeed...

"piratical?"

[poptones]

You're still losing. Provide some reference that supports your insistance these copies are "piratical" when they comply with all local laws.

In a case where the copies or phonorecords were lawfully made, the United States Customs Service has no authority to prevent their importation unless the provisions of section 601 are applicable.

And 601 says:

The provisions of subsection (a) do not apply -

where importation, for use and not for sale, is sought -

by any person with respect to no more than one copy of any work at any one time;

That's from the very code you keep parroting.

This isn't a case of offshore material being lifted - as I have pointed out to you repeatedly, these corporations are actively doing business in russia and are, therefore, both knowledgable and compliant with local laws. Maybe Britney's CDs are being pressed by the bazillions in pirate CD factories in russia - but that has nothing to do with this site, which provides full credentials regarding their legality.

So far as "undercutting US copyright holders" - well, there again: where is the difference between "undercutting US copyright holders" (record companies) by employing our telecommunications capabilities and "undercutting US workers" by offshoring call center jobs? Near as I can see, the only difference is who gets screwed out of their "potential income." What goes around...

Both morally and legally, your argument lacks consistency and - from what I have seen thus far - utterly lacks any objective merit.

Re:"piratical?"

[cpt kangarooski]

Provide some reference that supports your insistance these copies are "piratical" when they comply with all local laws.

602(b): In a case where the making of the copies or phonorecords would have constituted an infringement of copyright if this title had been applicable, their importation is prohibited.

Those works right there are the 'piratical works.' They are not lawfully made, because the only law that is being referred to is US law. Foreign law, whatever it is, does not count.

This should be pretty damn obvious, given that the one sentence precedes the other, and they divvy the world of foreign-produced copies into halves.

So importation is absolutely prohibited when a work was made in a fashion, or by a party, that could not have legally done so within the US.

But ANYWAY, no importation is going on here. Downloading is inarguably a form of reproduction, not importation, which is defined as a form of distribution. So 602 is not really important (I merely included it here to refute fools that think it's relevant to the discussion at hand, as you'll note if you read through the postings), whereas 106 and the definitions in 101, and the caselaw dealing with downloading is vitally important. And uniformly comes out against the downloader in this matter.

Sharing the Groove

[tyndyll]

For those that prefer they're musicv live check out sharingthegroove.org . Mostly downloaded by bit-torrent, in FLAC format. A lot of stuff by taper friendly artists

ethical?

[poptones]

That's really funny. Record companies routinely "cutout" releases within weeks of their release, which means any release that is not wildly successful goes into the loss leaders bin. That means the record company gets all the money and the artist gets to try again to get out of the immense creative debt she put herself in.

Citing "ethics" in defense of hollywood record companies is like citing Joan Crawford as a model for child rearing methodology.

That said, no one forced those artists to sign to those labels. It's simply not my problem that they are unable to obtain my money. If they were not slaves to the landsharks they would be able to (for example) release their work through magnatune, or even sell via their own website (as many - successful - artists already do).

Re:ethical?

[rduke15]

Citing "ethics" in defense of hollywood record companies

I was not defending big hollywood record companies. Just noting that allofmp3.com is not the answer either. Artists are entitled to some revenue (if they get nothing, I don't consider it "ethical"), and any solution has to take this into account somehow.

That said, no one forced those artists to sign to those labels.

Many artists have no sense for business at all (and some others do, I know). I recently saw a documentary about Jimmy Hendrix, who apparently signed anything presented to him without reading it. Not very smart of him, sure. But he was a great musician.

Just dismissing the problem of getting some revenue to the artist with "It's simply not my problem that they are unable to obtain my money" is arrogant and stupid.

Please God No!

[SpooForBrains]

Napster was notable only for being the first. Other than that it was a crappy underdeveloped implementation of the technology.

1. It didn't support resumable downloads. You know all those half finished tracks you keep pulling off [insert p2p network of choice]? They probably came from Napster and
2. It didn't group songs and download from multiple sources.

Audigalaxy was close to my idea of perfect. The interface was minimal and the seperate satellite was a genius idea.

Well.....

[MukiMuki]

Man, I wish I'd seen this earlier. Okay, perfect online music store.

1st, DRM 'cause RIAA is whiny. But this is where it is decent.

A single FLAC file that is DRM'ed to hell is stored on your HD. It requires an online connection dependent on the user's input. (e.g. every three weeks, every three months; never is unfortunately not an option but read on to see why).

If the connection isn't made in time the file becomes innactive until it's reconnected to the server. Why? Because if the event that a hard drive crash occurs, you do not lose your entire music collection. It's still on the server, you can check it all out again, as soon as the connection period is over, as the file is considered "checked in" at that point. If it sees two licenses up, the older one is disabled.

Changing the period doesn't take effect until the current period is over, and a file can't be checked in until likewise (by default the file would be checked in every time the period was over.)

Onto buying. The base cost would be $10 a month. For that you get 10 credits per month, regardless. More songs are $1 a piece. This allows for a more stable financial platform. (prices could be different, I'm just throwing up standards AFAIK) Credits stay regardless, so if you have a slow year, and suddenly a bunch of good music comes your way, you can download 100 songs in a row~! Plus a $10 a month for music makes it easier to keep it and forget it (it's like 33 cents a day), like an online game. Bigger plans for people who want 'em, probably with a credits discount.

The other feature the service would have would be radio. Based on Flash, (allowing interbrowser compatibility, a much stronger method for security as you can route all the information through a php page) it allows you to get a steady stream of music whenever at decent bitrates. Stations seperated by genre and the user can keep a few in his/her favorites for easy switching. If you hear a song you like, you can download it immediately.

A backlog of songs played on the radio are kept as far as 3 days back, allowing you to search through them sequentially or BY LYRICS. (allowing you to buy that real cool song you heard this morning with minimal trouble)

Going back to the FLAC file (I can't believe I forgot about this~!), it spits out mp3's or wma's or whatever you want through the drm application, along with any custom bitrate (or frequency? or bit depth? volume? bass enhancements? the possibilities are limitless) the user wants. Make a dozen mp3's for all your players. Have fun.

Looks like everything I'd like. Oh, and it uses a combination of GPL software to make a multi-platform application to sync your library with your digital player of choice. (iPod, Rio, we don't care.) Even mount the thing as a HD! Of course, the combo program will be GPL'd as well.

Merchandise, like plushies, will also be sold. Yay. Oh, and 5.1/surround music, too~! (converts to Pro Logic II/Circle Surround mp3 or DTS or AC3 file, or WAV file of either for CD players w/ digital out)

If it ain't hip....

[EuroMike]

I actually find the p2p networks a great place to look for all those songs I liked growing up in the 70s and 80s - you'd be amazed what you find from that era there. With the additional plus that said songs, when you download them, tend to be the real McCoy instead of a fake.

Daylight Robbery

[Anonymous Coward]

I would just like to see the end of the daylight robbery which the British have suffered for years. Now it has been extended to downloads. Why the hell should we have to pay 0.99 GBP for something that everyone else pays 0.99 USD for? The cost of shipment?

I've only used a music store once, but they blocked me from using a cheaper US site. Where can I get my music from and not be ripped off?

9.99 US Dollar = 5.52483 British Pound

Key Features for me

[Anonymous Coward]

10 cent per track high quality ogg vorbis downloads.

At my request track my purchases for making of custom or album CDs.

Whenever I say, burn me a CD from original WAVs or better in the order I specify (from already purchased tracks) and send it to me, all at cost. And no fancy accounting to inflate cost.

Other features would just be frills.

Even at all this, it may be too late for me. I am starting to move towards giving my attention only to music released under a Creative Commons License or something similar.

The big boys may have missed the boat, it remains to be seen.

A Nony Mouse

complicit

[poptones]

Arrogant and stupid? Arrogant perhaps, but stupidity is trying to pretend the artists are not responsibe for the hole they dig themselves into. So jimi Hendrix signed everything they put in front of him.. sorry, but that was one of the least of jimi's problems. What is rational (or even ethical) about watching someone paint themselves into a corner and then treating them like it's not their fault? What is ethical about denying someone responsibility for their own fate?

Artists are part of this game just as much as the record execs. The reason the record execs have that power is, in large part, because the stupid artists allow them to have it. If things are going to change the pressure has to be applied across the entire industry.

Re:complicit

[jasmusic]

I wish I had a spare point to mod this up. It's very difficult (if not downright impossible) for an artist to achieve fame and fortune without the boost of the record companies, even if that boost comes with countless strings attached. Therefore, do bands whine and complain when they get signed? Of course not! But they do pay a price for it; that's just how the game is played. Just don't try to offload a sob story onto *me*.

A music store for DJs

[iso]

What I would really like to see is a music store that caters to DJs. Something with DJ-friendly categories (not just mishmash of tunes thrown into "Electronica"), and with MP3, AAC, and WAV/FLAC downloads.

I still buy most of my stuff on vinyl, but it's becomming more and more common that there are CD decks or Final Scratch available when I play. It would be fantastic if I could get some great music for a buck or two instead of spending $10-$15 for a track on vinyl, especially when most of that price goes to shipping and pressing costs anyhow!

I'm surprised this hasn't happened more often! The only online DJ music store I've been able to find is BeatPort, which is a great start, but I need more selection!

bleep.com

[nicky_d]

I already use a near-perfect music store: bleep.com, Warp Records' online marketplace. Every song has a full preview (with occasional fade-out), the pricing is reasonable (99p / track wth hefty full album discounts), and the files are great quality and DRM-free. In terms of what they supply, that's everything I'm after. the downside is their annoying JavaScript-heavy interface, with scores of ridiculous custom scroll arrows and the like. but if you like Warp music and the like, you can't - surely - go wrong with Bleep. Unless you don't allow JavaScript or rely on a text browser...

Cut the RIAA off at the knees

[hcob$]

I would like to see an online music store that has the guts to say "screw you RIAA" and deal with artists directly. You could probably see a drop in prices by about 30-40% and the artists would be rolling in the dough....

*wakes up from a dream*

oh, well I haven't bought music in 4 years... I like the radio :)

No, RIAA is a pimp

[gyg]

Do you remember how much the artist gets out of the $99 on iTunes? $.10

Remember what pimps are? The guys that get rich off the girls that do the actual work, and keep the girls poor (check out "The American Pimp" movie).

I buy CDs from CDbaby.com - they charge a flat fee and give the rest to the artist; and directly from websites when available. As for major labels: Morally, I don't owe them shit. Legally, try and catch me. I don't have to pay pimps.

Also, Elvis is dead. How can dead people have copyright? At the very least, anything by a dead person or a long since broken-up band is morally public domain.

Re:No, RIAA is a pimp

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the songwriter isn't dead? Is it still morally public domain? Songwriters should be compensated for the song you enjoy hearing, no? After all, Elvis never wrote a song. Nor did Sinatra.

Re:No, RIAA is a pimp

[JimDabell]

Songwriters should be compensated for the song you enjoy hearing, no?

Only to the point where it allows them to make a living from songwriting. Letting them control the scarcity of the songs perpetually actually reduces the amount of works coming into the public domain, as successful songwriters have less pressure on them to continue to work; they can simply sit back and watch money come in for work they have already done.

Re:No, RIAA is a pimp

[captainClassLoader]

gyg asks:

Also, Elvis is dead. How can dead people have copyright? At the very least, anything by a dead person or a long since broken-up band is morally public domain

IANAL, But typically, an artist's works are owned by their estate once they die, unless the estate decides to sell the works to someone else. For example, most of Jimi Hendrix' royalties go to his stepsister Janie Hendrix, who runs his estate.

Re:No, RIAA is a pimp

[kelnos]

I think the point of the parent was to illustrate the absurdity of it all. Dead people's works are still copyrighted? Why? To use your example, why does Janie Hendrix deserve money for something her stepbrother created? To play devil's advocate with myself, I can understand it in the case where the deceased was directly supporting a dependent (such as a spouse or non-independent children) with their copyrighted work when they died. But otherwise it's just silly.

It was called mp3.com

[Anonymous Coward]

no drm in their files, you could buy an actual cd and get the mp3s, or just download the mp3s for free.

Now they suck.

WIPO

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen any mention of WIPO yet. Aside from a handfull of countries in the Mid-East and South America, It looks to me like the rest of the countries in the world, including Russia, are members. Would WIPO prevent this?

My view on the matter..

[mowler2]

This might seem trollish. However I have no intention of using any online music store until they meet my wishes/demands of toally free music, I see no reason to pay for information.

Until then, I will simply download it from trackers, and such (wich is not illegal where I live - yet).

I Want My MP3!

[SuperChuck69]

Everyone I know is getting sick of me saying it: I want my MP3! Not WMA or whatever proprietary DRM'd crap they feel like this week.

When I buy something, including music, I want it to be portable. I don't need a (personal) MP3 player for the gym and a seperate one for working in the yard. I can take it out of my gym bag and clip it to my belt. Why, then, should my music not be portable?

allofmp3.com

[zelphi]

This is precisely what allofmp3.com does.

WMA?!? What's wrong with you?!?!?!?!?

[TimothyKB]

I hear so many ppl complain that iTunes doesn't support WMA, I'm sorry, but that's because WMA SUCKS! It's the second worst codec I believe.

It's pretty easy really.

[Another AC]

The perfect online music store would:

1. Have all music ever made.
2. Allow downloading in a DRM-free format (probably mp3).
3. Remember what you've bought forever, and allow you to re-download it as many times as you'd like.
4. Charge a reasonable price (99c a song is okay).
5. Have a nice interface and let you preview the songs.
6. Be legal.

More Artwork

[Anonymous Coward]

On top of having more independent good music which most of them seem to lack, it would be nice if they had all the cover art and lyrics that is included with the CD.

What I would like in a Music Store

[Anonymous Coward]

I am posting this information in hopes that someone will have the motivation to implement a good music store. I mostly use iTunes, but I run Linux. And I usually burn my purchases to a CD, and then rip them into MP3s. I am hoping that Codeweavers will create a Wine package that will run iTunes for MS Windows on Linux. I am hoping Apple and Microsoft will freely open their technology to other platforms, without a huge cost cost. (That last one is a bleak hope at most.)

This is what I would like - an online music store, where I can legally download music, and play that music on any computer system I choose with technology that is platform independant.

I do not want to have to use a software cracker to decode the encrypted file to play on a system other than MS Windows or Apple.

I do not want to have to burn my music to a CD with an Apple or MS Windows System and then rip it to a more platform compatible format, such as MP3.

I think that in light of the current music industry, a secure format file was needed. However, I do not like how attached the companies are to that standard. I think we need an open standard that everyone in the computing world can use, on Linux, BSD, Apple, MS Windows, Solaris, Amiga, etc. Why just limit it to MS Windows and Apple?

I am hoping Linspire.com will come out with a Linux compatible Music Store.

Music stores currently do not provide EVERYTHING that I want. So I have to wait for the stores to provide what I want? And I don't not get music files so I can resell them. I get them so I can enjoy music. Please, do not forget who I am or what I am about when it comes to implementing a consumer market in online music. So far, big media and computer companies, you only have your corporate interests at heart. You are suppose to serve the consumer, not the other way around. Is the government always in need of riding your ass about this?

And I do not want all music to locked away forever. I would like a copyright to exipire after so many resonable years so the work can not be hidden forever, even if the artist wants it that way. Eventual forced community sharing of resources.

Perfect music store is pretty simple, really...

[HerculesMO]

Unlimited downloads per month, flat rate price. Currently the record industry makes $.80 per song on $.99 charged, then the music store has to subtract overhead like bandwith and server costs, and then is left with a miniscule profit. It's obscene and the RIAA is just trying to run a cartel with the music industry. People will continue to pirate if there's still a premium on soft copy of music -- at the same price hijaack that we complain about CDs. If you buy 12 songs (or one CD) it's $12, and you can buy the actual CD with cover art and all for the same price -- there's no discount even though you're missing all the extras.

Secondly... there *has* to be a LAUNCHcast type service (from Yahoo!, it ROCKS). It's an online radio station that lets you -- get this! -- skip songs you don't like and rate what you do like, and the radio will customize to let you listen to what you may like.

I don't personally care if they use a 'protected' format, as long as the quality is good. AAC seems to be great, and OGG is obviously great, but the record companies want security, so let them have it. Just give up on overpriced music -- consumers can decide for themselves what is good and what is not. I'd pay $15 a month for unlimited downloads that I can burn to CD and put in my car. It encourages artists to go and sign up with this service (at least for GOOD artists) because people will be more likely to go see their concerts -- and anybody who knows music, knows that musicians make most money from touring, not from crap record deals. It's only the artists that won't be around long (ala Nstink, Backdoor Boys, etc) that need those CD sales because whatever money they get... won't last, and every penny counts for their short lived careers.

For the last few months ...

[simbiotic]

... i've been programming up a music store that sells non-DRM FLAC, Ogg Vorbis and MP3 alongside the CDs. The independent record labels have been very receptive the the idea of no DRM - helped a lot by Apple ignoring them in the UK. We've only got a few labels online so far but will be adding many more in the next few weeks.

The perfect lossless medium

[johnnye]

Go to the store and buy the damn CD. You have your WAV files in uncompressed format. The price is right. You have the artists artwork for ideal physical storage. The record label is happy. And when the next best audio compression format comes along, RIP again.

Re:The perfect lossless medium

[poleydee]

What if you could download an album... if you liked it and want to keep it in your collection, pay a few extra bucks and they send you the CD? Total cost: the cost of a CD!

That way, you get to try it out and get all the instant access of download, but none of the risk of buying a hyped album that turns out to be a bunch of cack!

Would anyone do that?

you are a moron

[steve_bryan]

With apologies to the community for being abusive in the wording of a subject, I think it is justified in answering the original abusive reply. You may disagree with a person without blurting out the accusation that the person is a thief. I would save that sort of claim for the case of shoplifting. One of the aspects of language that can be quite useful is its ability to be used to make distinctions.

Buying a CD and then disposing of it in a manner which you, the RIAA and their lackeys find fault is hardly the ocassion that warrants name calling. The person involved actually purchases a CD and at no time sets himself up as a competitive commercial distributer of the material. He doesn't even mention the possibility of non-commercial distribution, just disposing of the physical disc which he purchased.

If a business model is so fragile that it requires authority over the contents of a legitimate customer's hard drive and the legal right to approve or disapprove sale of used items, then that business model is hopelessly broken. Passing increasingly draconian regulations to prop up something so clearly broken does little beyond increasing disdain for authority which is needed for legitimate causes. Thomas Jefferson was opposed to copyright law because of his concern for its potential for abuse. For most of us it took over two hundred years for those concerns to start becoming obvious but it is hard to ignore his concerns now.

Re:Ethics are not subjective

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of moral relativism? It's the argument that "what's ethical for you may not be ethical for me." It is a flawed reasoning and any first year ethics student can tell you all about it.

Ethics are objective. Otherwise ethics are necessarily meaningless.

http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/index.html?h ttp://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Evil_MoralRel ativism.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_relativism
http://www.moral-relativism.com/

The perfect music store is NO music store

[serutan]

As long as the outdated concept of buying copies of music lives on, we will continue to fight the battle of the recording industry's rights vs everybody else's rights.

Anybody who thinks musicians make money from sales of copies of their music should read this detailed explanation of how recording contracts work. Briefly, musicians generally do not make a dime from the sales of CDs because standard recording contracts are written such that all the expenses of production, manufacturing, marketing and distribution get taken out of the musician's share of the money. So when you read that a musician gets 50 cents per CD or 10 cents per CD or whatever, that's their share BEFORE all the expenses get taken out. After the record company accountants do their job there is usually Zero actual money paid to the musician. I honestly don't know if online music sales work this way, but I can't see why they wouldn't. Record companies don't give up revenue streams to artists. They don't have to.

Working musicians make their money by performing, just like they always have, just like they did in the centuries before the recording business existed. What musicians get out of record sales is Exposure, which gets them more fame and better paying gigs. They get the same exposure whether you buy music on CD or listen to it on the radio or download it, paid or not, it doesn't matter. It only matters to record companies. Keeping them in business is the only reason to pay for copies of music.

We could continue to perpetuate the pay-per-copy mentality, paying not just for the music but for the enforcement of the various damn-the-side-effects laws that have been written to protect the record industry, and to live with all those side effects on how we personally use technology. Or we could evolve to a situation where musicians simply release copies of their songs to the public to get the exposure they want without signing away any rights.

Re:The perfect music store is NO music store

[delta_avi_delta]

I'd like to see artists selling their own mp3s from their website, getting *all* of the cut. I mean, I can buy t-shirts and even cds from my favourite indie artists at their sites, so why not mp3s also. That way I'd get a warm fuzzy feeling for supporting my local gigging musician, rather than the unpleasant sensations associated with both of us being simultaneously shafted by a business model. Business models don't use lubricant.

Simple really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the iTunes Music Store, add a choice of AAC bitrates up to 300 (don't care about OGG if they would just bump up the bitrates), a FLAC or Apple Lossless version, tracks that download with or without metadata viewable in iTunes or on the iPod (lyrics, lineart, artist notes), an advanced music ratings system, and a mini-IRC or video chat with artists, or live concerts right in iTunes (purchasable files after the concert finishes).

Oh, and generous selection of non-RIAA music.

The ideal music store gives you the files you want, in the format you want, and also is a place where you can explore new artists and new music. iTMS is pretty close- with the above changes it would be perfect.

Old model is hopelessly broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Online music stores are just a stepping stone.

Think about what is going to happen in a few short years when everyone has a 200-GB iPod. Are they going to buy 30,000 tracks for $0.99/each? No. They will simply copy a full collection of pirated or ripped material from a friend. Online trading will decline rapidly - why spend all that time and take all those risks, just to get poor-quality, badly-tagged files? But untraceable copying via USB and firewire will be rampant - it probably already is.

Eventually this will lead the record companies to offer a general license. What if you could license every song for $249? And maybe have a yearly update for $20 which includes all songs released in the current year? Let's see...$250 times 300 million Americans = $75 billion, and that's just for one country. And the yearly update generates $6 billion a year - also just for one country. The music industry could EASILY survive, even thrive, on this revenue model - and people would be free to download, upload, trade, stream, and copy any music they wanted.

We will get there eventually, but for now we have baby steps like iTunes.

Cable TV-esque

[FreakinCapuccinoJunk]

Why do RIAA and friends insist on wasting time on copy-protecting, sueing, prosecuting, etc? The business model is there, tried and tested, and it's the one cable TV follows:

1. You pay a monthly fee, and have full access. There are access levels, for example: you get 20,40,60 channels for a different price), and there are special channels you need to pay extra, and of course, pay-per-view events.

2. TECHNICALLY speaking (please, no flame-war on legal issues), you can record whatever you want, and pass it around. Of course, you dont record and share that much because:
a) Your friends also have cable TV
b) You can buy each time more and more DVDs from worthwhile shows, with bonus material, at a reasonable price.
In a nutshell, you dont record and share because it's illegal, but because it MAKES NO SENSE anymore. Yes: the right business model can beat most of the legal problems. An excess of legal issues is a sign of an erroneous business model.

3. Each channel specializes in something. In the end, there are channels you watch a lot, and channels you simply could ignore.

Translating this to music, I would think of the following:

1. You pay per month, not per download. This way I wouldn't think twice to download a song of an artist I dont know; I'll just get it, hear it, and possibly love it (and buy stuff from it, go to concerts, recommend it...). In this same way I dont ask my wallet every time there's a new sit-com; I just watch it once or twice if I feel like; I might as well like it.

2. MP3, FLAC, AAC, even WAV, possibly. No DRM. What for? I wont need to tell my friend "here, copy this mp3-filled CD and listen", I'll just hand him some URL (or whatever the name of the reference to the song/artist/genre/playlist) and s/he (a paying customer also) would go and get it. What??? You're not a customer, you lamer???
In the end, the (happy) customer base is your best PR.

3. For mainstream audience, a label generally doesn't mean much. But once you go deeper, you tend to recognize labels and seek for (or avoid) their releases. Quite probably, with such an online store, labels would make more sense to the general audience.

The closest to this that I know is EMusic.com. But nowadays they limit you the number of downloads per month (they didn't use to). 90 songs per month is a bit low for me (and that's their Premium service), but it's not that bad. At US$19.99, the price is certainly interesting.

They are focused on independent labels, so you'll certainly not find everything (mainstream) there. But there are some fine choices around. Choices I would have to pay quite much more if I bought the import CD. They are completely legal, no DRM involved, you keep your files even if you cancel your membership, good quality MP3s. Very interesting. There's even a free trial period.

reproduction?

[poptones]

If it's reproduction then there is a historical chain of SCOTUS protection for the user. And the RIAA and IFPI could put an end to the problem as simply as getting onto the credit card agencies.

Last I looked, they still take a number of them. So again...

Re:reproduction?

[cpt kangarooski]

If it's reproduction then there is a historical chain of SCOTUS protection for the user.

Such as?

He Just Hates it that you're right

[FreeUser]

I have to say, watching this little exchange has been quite informative (from your side) and quite entertaining (from both sides).

Where the fuck are you coming up with this crap?

Really, you should be more respectful of others opinions. This sort of attitude will alienate others from you.

He's upset that you are right and he is wrong.

I suspect he is even more upset that Russian law can actually apply to purchases in the United States. Most Americans are used to exporting their own laws and imposing them on the rest of the world (up to and including abducting non-Americans abroad and bringing them to the United States for having violated American law outside of America). We are not used to having the treaties we've shoved down other nations' throats come back and bite us ... it upsets our notion of How Things Should Be (tm).

Personally, I rather enjoy this turnabout ... but judging the be vehemence your verbal opponent substitutes for reasoned argument, and his willingness to swear and demean those that do not parrot his opinion, I'd say you hit a nerve.

The answer of course as to why the RIAA hasn't made an issue of allofmp3.com is that they recognize it as legal and know better: the last thing in the world they would want to do is draw attention to a legal download service as fine as allofmp3.com by raising a fuss ... iTunes et. al. would be out of business inside of a month.

Re:He Just Hates it that you're right

[cpt kangarooski]

No, I'm just sick of the inanity here. Of course it's getting better; more and more people are recognizing that unauthorized downloading is illegal. This means that they can not only make an informed decision as to whether or not they'll break the law (personally I couldn't care less) but also understand just how bad the law is, and might push for reform.

Russian law can actually apply to purchases in the United States.

Oh, that's certainly true. In fact in the US we are very pleased to enforce foreign laws when appropriate. We're used to it since the laws of each state tend to be different, and are all different from federal laws, and yet our federal and state courts routinely have to apply the law of their fellow domestic governments, and more rarely foreign governments, in order to see justice done.

I never said it couldn't.

But the trick is, if our law overrides an application of foreign law, as it does in this matter, then it is not appropriate to even consider the foreign law. It's a nullity.

reproduction

[poptones]

Look... you say it's not "importation" because it's a reproduction. But if it were illegal to reproduce music via the internet we wouldn't have itunes and all the others. So how do they get away with it? They have contracts in the US, based on US copyright protection, and enforced by US law. Then you say "but these copies are "piratical" because they're cheap" (or "not rom the US" - or something.. frankly, I don't know what the hell you're saying there) - but cost doesn't get mentioned in any of these laws you cite. And these companies all do business in russia and, therefore, are bound in russia by russian laws the same way they are bound in the US by US laws, and in canada by canadian laws (etc). These nations have all signed the same relevant IP treaties.

Basically you seem to be grasping at straws here - but every one of them comes up short. Don't feel bad... I'm sure the sharks in hotown are experiencing the same frustration. That's why they've been unable to do anything about this legal service which offers downloads licensed according to the national laws of a TRIPS signatory.

And you still seem to be ignoring the fact that, as costs go, asking someone to pay $2 or more for MP3 downloads of a CD in russia isn't much different than asking someone in the US to pay $8. And once we get to the high quality custom encodes... two cents a MB x 350MB? that's like seven bucks - roughly the equivalent of itunes charging damn near thirty bucks in the US!

Most of the rebukes against this service seem to spring from the cost - "it's so cheap, it must be illegal because the copyright holders get nothing." But the fact is they do get something: they get their works protected in russia, by russian law. This exchange is provably lucrative for them, as they continue to increase their business affiliations (ever seen "red dot" CDs in a record store? Rememeber TATU? Ever heard of MTV?) and spend money marketing US artists there. The simple fact is the laws are just different - because the culture is different. I've heard no one arguing japanese record stores are all pirates because they allow consumers to rent CDs and encourage them to make copies. The only difference here is the copies are easier to transport because of the internet... big whoopee.

Until some relevant laws are changed, this service is legal... even in the US. You may claim it isn't.. but thus far you've done a really poor job of proving it.

Re:reproduction

[cpt kangarooski]

But if it were illegal to reproduce music via the internet we wouldn't have itunes and all the others.

If it were legal to download music, we would have Napster back. iTMS et al obtain permission to operate in the United States from the US copyright holders; and copyright law does not generally forbid a copyright holder from doing the things it forbids you or I from doing.

And of course, 17 USC 106(1) states that the copyright holder has the exclusive right to reproduce their work. So that also settles the matter.

Then you say "but these copies are "piratical" because they're cheap" (or "not rom the US" - or something.. frankly, I don't know what the hell you're saying there)

I didn't say that they are piratical because they are inexpensive. I said that common sense should be telling you that when a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

It is piratical because it lacks permission from the US copyright holders and is not otherwise legal. It wouldn't matter if it was free, if it was cheap, or if it cost an arm and a leg. It wouldn't matter if everyone on Earth outside the US, other than the US copyright holder, including any foreign copyright holders or authorities said it was legal within our borders; they have no power here.

But the fact is they do get something: they get their works protected in russia, by russian law.

Not so. If indeed Russia complies with any copyright treaties, they cannot proffer such a Hobson's Choice. So it would have to be mandated -- and that means that it is simply not a deal or contract. Putting aside the fact that where one is forced into a contract by economic duress, that contract typically won't be enforcable.

I've heard no one arguing japanese record stores are all pirates because they allow consumers to rent CDs and encourage them to make copies.

Given that that occurs entirely within Japan, and does not occur at all within the United States, duh.

Besides -- I'm not accusing allofmp3 of being pirates. I'm accusing the people in America who download from them of being pirates. Their activities DO occur within Russia.

The only difference here is the copies are easier to transport because of the internet... big whoopee.

Copies are defined as tangible objects in section 101. If you know how to send tangible objects via the Internet, please feel free to send one to me. Just put one paperclip, say, on your server, and I'll download it, and be able to hold it in my hands when it pops out of my NIC or wherever.

But if you can't arrange that, then please admit that you cannot move an extant copy across the Internet, but can only create a new copy at the downloading end, based upon a preexisting copy at the server.

Re:reproduction

[poptones]

I didn't say that they are piratical because they are inexpensive. I said that common sense should be telling you that when a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

ROTFL. You did it again! and after I just pointed out to you how silly this is!

You cannot make a rational argument by appealing to emotion. Your argument is (amazingly, given your apparent credentials) completely oblivious to matters of international commerce and, when that fails, you resort to the very same fallacious posits as all the rest of the laynaysayers... but... but... it's too cheap! It must be bad!

Sorry bud. You know I look for your posts and I enjoy these exchanges, but on this one you've really not proven your mettle. Gotta get back to work now on something that actually might mean something... someday...

Re:reproduction

[cpt kangarooski]

Sigh.

I didn't say that BECAUSE it is cheap it is illegal.

I said that you should be suspicious of it, because it is very irregular. You can of course be suspicious of something and have it turn out to be above board. And that's fine. But you shouldn't take it as granted that it will be; when something is suspect, you should examine it carefully to be sure of its nature.

When Apple says that they have a music store, and it's legal, I generally trust them because it is reputable. Their offerings, taking into account all the downsides (EULA, DRM, lossy codec, price, etc.) all tend to indicate that they're dealing with the appropriate entities. After all, why would they degrade their service if they didn't have to in order to get permission to act lawfully? And why would they act unlawfully, willingly, when they have so much to lose by doing so? So I'm not very suspicious of them. What they're doing pretty much fits in with what I would expect of a lawful actor.

OTOH, allofmp3 offers an amazingly good deal. It's cheap as dirt, unencumbered, lossless, and has an even better catalog. That's great, but in comparison to EVERY OTHER MUSIC STORE OF NOTE it is highly suspicious. Who are they to be able to offer such a good deal? And then we find out that they're protecting themselves by operating out of another country, with different laws, and that they probably have little to lose by breaking the law, because they're comparatively judgment proof in the US. So now I am dubious.

And while being dubious is not grounds for saying that it must be illegal, it does mean that they deserve a good hard look because there is a very real possibility that something shady is going on. It's like when a man in a trenchcoat in a back alley offers to sell you a watch. He COULD be acting legally. There's no evidence that he is or isn't. But you'd be foolish to just believe that he is without some further evidence of it.

Therefore I _did_ look into it, and lo and behold, they're not acting legally according to all the information that is available.

Do you understand now what I am saying about being recalcitrant about deals that are too good to be true?

completely oblivious to matters of international commerce

I'll bite. What matters of international commerce?

Re:reproduction

[kelnos]

Copies are defined as tangible objects in section 101. If you know how to send tangible objects via the Internet, please feel free to send one to me. Just put one paperclip, say, on your server, and I'll download it, and be able to hold it in my hands when it pops out of my NIC or wherever.

But if you can't arrange that, then please admit that you cannot move an extant copy across the Internet, but can only create a new copy at the downloading end, based upon a preexisting copy at the server.

You're contradicting yourself here. If I download a song from allofmp3.com and store it on my computer (assuming I never burn it to a CD) then this entire point is moot, because you are actually asserting that no one has made a copy in the first place. A "song" is not tangible, and neither is the "data" of it that crosses over the internet or is represented by magnetic patterns on your hard drive.

Now, I haven't been following this discussion too closely, so you may just be talking about import law when you're defining a "copy" here, but if not, and what you're asserting is correct, then downloading an MP3 from a P2P service is _not_ an act of copyright infringement because a copy has not been made! So all the so-called "pirates" on the P2P services are innocent.

Now, I'm not saying I believe all this: you might recognise my argument as an example of reductio ad absurdum. What you've apparently forgotten here is the fact that copyright has _absolutely_nothing_ to do with tangibility. In fact, the entire _point_ of copyright is to protect that which is intangible.

Re:reproduction

[cpt kangarooski]

neither is the "data" of it that crosses over the internet or is represented by magnetic patterns on your hard drive.

Your hard drive is the tangible object in question. The precise means by which it is stored are not relevant, so long as it can be further reproduced or perceived from the tangible object, as is indeed the case here. Read the MAI v Peak decision, or any of the numerous cases that are based on it to witness courts finding reproductions into RAM to be amazingly illegal.

so you may just be talking about import law when you're defining a "copy" here

I'm saying that no importation occurs whatsoever.

To import a thing, it must already be a copy, i.e. a tangible object in which the intangible work is fixed. Importation occurs via airplanes, ships, trains, cars, and so forth.

To download a thing, a new copy, i.e. a tangible object in which the intangible work is fixed, comes into being at the downloading end. (prior to the fixation of the work into the tangible object, the tangible object is merely a blank medium; it's not a copy yet).

This isn't amazing. Think of a xerox machine. You put an original on the glass platen. There's a bright light, and various xerographic processes going on within, and the intangible information on the original (which is the copyrighted WORK) is reproduced onto a previously blank medium, producing a new tangible COPY in which the work is embodied.

Works, being intangible, can exist simultaneously in multiple copies.

what you're asserting is correct, then downloading an MP3 from a P2P service is _not_ an act of copyright infringement because a copy has not been made!

No, that's wrong.

A copy HAS been made. When you download, information is embodied into tangible media such as your RAM and hard drive. Volatility is irrelevant to the law (people have tried that tactic and lost).

Would you like me to give you a quote from a court stating this in very plain language? It's no trouble.

copyright has _absolutely_nothing_ to do with tangibility

The works that are protected by copyright are intangible. The protection, however, deals in large part with tangible objects in which those works happen to be embodied. In fact, we don't protect anything until it has been fixed in a tangible medium at least once! So it's hardly irrelevant.

The perfect online music store...

[Dredd2Kad]

The perfect online music store should contain only FLAC files obtained from vynil sources, because FLAC is lossless and any self respecting audiophile knows vynil is way better than a CD.

Also, the store should be free if it only has lossy formats like MP3, WMA or OGG, because when I put an oscilloscope to the music, I can clearly see the quality is inferior to vynil. Why should anyone pay for an inferior product?

Acually, the store should be free regardless, because, DAMMIT...capitalism is just evil.
</sarcasm>

Re:Ethics are not subjective

[aussie_a]

I may have heard of it, but I can't say it's name stuck if I did.

It is a flawed reasoning and any first year ethics student can tell you all about it.

Now how is it flawed? Person Abab has lived a moral life beating up his wife. Person Jake has lived a moral life saving wife's from being beaten. Both Jake's and Abab's societies morals say that they are both moral people. I don't see how it's possible to prove one is more moral then the other without using someone's moral code.

Ethics are objective. Otherwise ethics are necessarily meaningless.

It isn't meaningless at all. I myself believe ethics isn't objective, shown by the fact my own ethics have changed numerous times over the years. But I still (try to) live an ethical life (based on my ethics).

Interesting reads by the way, thanks for the links. But I saw nothing saying how moral relativism is flawed. I saw some hints of flaws, such as life without a Christian God leads to chaos, right and wrong do exist (but with nothing to complement that statement it is meaningless). But it didn't go on in any detail to explain them.

Weedshare Is it

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been using http://weedshare.com/ for a short while now, Not only have I been pleased with the music I have purchased, but also pleased with the money I have made from reselling songs. thus, allowing me to purchase more music which allows me to sell more music so I can buy more music... Do you get the picture. I never purchased a single song by download until I discovered Weedshare

Let's see.

[deusdiabolus]

I would like to see an online music store that: --allowed pre-payment by check or money order (send $20-$50 and once it's credited to your account, download that much in songs). Not everyone has a credit card. --supported all the major digital formats (I hadn't really considered that, but now that it comes up...): MP3, OGG, WMA, etc. --gave a higher percentage of royalties to the artists in question --supported independent artists significantly

My ideal store...

[arothmanmusic]

I'd like to see something along the lines of what iTunes offers, but with:

• more information about each artist
• integrated voting-based ' radio stations'
• unsegregated indie and major label content
• forums
• lossless encoding
• unbiased professional review panels
• tie-ins with music placement services for more indie recognition

Yup.

shakespeare

[poptones]

Actually, according to Strunk and White, that's optional. I would say it depends more on whether you want to sound like Shakespeare, or Shakespeare's sister.

"I choose to not park there"

"I choose not to park there."

The split infiinitive is technically more correct, since the shakespearean version is ambiguous - is a choice being made, or is it not?

"To be, or not to be.. that is the question."

To be, or to not be - that is the choice.

There are very good reasons language evolves, you know.

it ain't the ears

[poptones]

I would suggest it's not your ears, but more likely some cheap-ass computer speakers. Which means you will hear a difference if you ever upgrade - at which time, you will likely be wishing you'd never upgraded.

Given that you can now buy a 160GB hard drive for less than 100 bucks, and a spindle of 50 CDRs for about ten bucks, it's just stupid to waste time encoding music to anything less than (the quality of) 256mp3.

Re:it ain't the ears

[Flamesplash]

In this case it is. I've had friends point out how certain songs are worse at lower rates and I just don't hear it. Aside from that I'm pretty sure it wastes no extra time to encode to a lower quality.

Ukraine and publishing

[poptones]

Actually, Ukraine isn't doing most of that publishing. The FACT is the copies are, by and large, produced in Russia. Ukraine has been closing down plants, although enforcement of copyright within Ukraine (or Russia, for that matter) is unlikely to increase in the near future, as most see it as undesirable. The spoken policy within Verkhovna Rada has been "increasing enforcement would simply drive up the price of entertainment, taking income away from the people at large while providing them no greater benefit."

It doesn't help that, by and large, the money would mostly just go to Hollywood.

And I doubt bullying is going to work for us much longer, either - for example, Ukraine sits on one of the largest deposits of coal in the world... and most of their mines have been sitting idle in spite of the comparatively low standard of living there and high unemployment. Meanwhile, our own energy needs seem to be going up exponentially. Now, which is more likely in the long term? The US comes knocking on Ukraine's door for coal - or the Ukraine coming to the US asking if we need it?

How about a vote for most compassionate dictator?

[poptones]

Most responsible chemical corporations? Is that like jumbo shrimp and military intelligence?

You're talking to a native Detroit boy, bud. Gonna have a hard time convincing me how "responsible" these folks are. Why, look! here's an article from just this week...

Responsible chemical corporation at work

Re:How about a vote for most compassionate dictato

[jargonCCNA]

And how long ago was it since the dioxin spill? Right, right.. sixteen years. Besides, if you read into the article, it states that the reason Dow still hasn't performed the cleanup as recommended is because they're still determining what has to be done. How much it's going to cost.

And, ooh, concrapulations for being from Detroit. I'm a native Sarnian. I get a distinct feeling I'm quite a bit more familiar with the petrochemical industry.

inaction = cheap buyout

[poptones]

duh.. yeah, they're still spending money on "research." Of course they are... spending ten million dollars to put off a three hundred million dollar cleanup is a cheap investment.

You may know how the chemical companies claim to work, but it seems quite apparent you've no idea how the world works.

Re:Ethics are not subjective

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey:

Try this one out: http://www.souldevice.org/ethics_morality.html. It makes the argument a bit more clearly.

In the wife beating example you produced, I think you are mixing up morals with mores.

Bon Jovi

[KnarfO]

Bon Jovi did something like this with their last album (Bounce). Not to the degree you propose, but a start: if you bought the CD, you got a pass code to the web site that gave you "inside access" to fan stuff, merch, and first notification for concert announcements in your area.

Very cool ideas you propose.