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

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.