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Microsoft's Music Subscription Service
An anonymous reader writes "In a bid to compete with Apple's iTunes music service, Microsoft is planning to set up its own subscription-based online music store later this year. It is said to be working with record labels and copyright holders in preparation for the launch. Last September, the company unveiled its MSN-branded music site but it didn't have a subscription plan." From the article: "The tentative features of the new service -- which is still under development -- include advanced community aspects and playlist-sharing. But sources say Microsoft is also considering a more direct attack on Apple, seeking rights from copyright holders to give subscribers a new, Microsoft-formatted version of any song they've purchased from the iTunes store so those songs can be played on devices other than an iPod."
I don't understand either. I mean, it only takes about 2 minutes to find a program on the net to strip the tags and then another 1/2 mintues to do it so in 5 minutes you can have the file in same quality without the stupid security tag ... really, why are so many companies getting their undies in a bunch about format issues, everyone knows and likes mp3, just go with it already.....
.wmv is horrible format I'm sure you seen the files where if you open up in windows media player you it launches a bunch of IE browsers, more then likely containing porn, now what stops these websites from contain malware I'm forced to keep IE on my machine because of some sites that don't work with firefox (my college site doesn't support firefox well) and now I'm almost being forced to use it because windows media player automatically triggers these pages to display and load. For this reason alone I switched to windows media player classic and I recommend it to anyone over the normal Windows Media player.
Having worked with downloadable music content I can tell you that getting the music industry labels to agree to non-DRM'ed content in any format is practically impossible. They are so paranoid about their music being "stolen" that they won't accept anything else.
(which, to be fair, the volumes traded on Kazaa do give their paranoia some justification - even if DRM has been proven time and time again not to actually work or prevent it)
The music industry attitude that I've come across is simple ... if you aren't prepared to sell our content with DRM, then you don't get our content.
Granted, the big labels aren't the be all and end all and there are labels which have a more enlightened view - however 80% of a services revenue will be chart related and, as such, they have to have the big labels on board to be able to provide that coverage.
Finally, I do understand that there are some legitimate sites out there that do sell MP3's with no DRM. I've never been to them, but if they are selling big label content like this legally then I have no idea how they managed to agree such a deal.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
What?! Are you saying you prefer to buy music that is artificially incompatible with your MP3 player and is likely to disappear entirely when you upgrade your computer?
DRM is the reason I don't buy music online, and it boggles my mind that the record labels are so myopic that they think crippling their product will improve sales.
http://www.emusic.com/
http://www.magnatunes.com/
Well, is there any reason to think Apple is lying?
Assuming this isn't a lie, this would constitute a majority of the market share, and begins to breach monopoly status. I was speaking to a more general point, however, in regards to loss of market share. Call it hyperbole if you wish. Here's some more support of the market penetration in the legal downloading category by iTunes.
The Crimson Dragon
Bull. Dream Syndicate (an 80s era rock band) is hard to impossible to find, as are the Hoodoo Gurus. Natalie Merchant, Rage Against The Machine, Al Stewart, Janes Addiction, Paul Simon, Pink Floyd, Widespread Panic, Rush, The Police - all artists for whom I own tapes or damaged cds, and can't easily replace via p2p. Sure, you might get some hits, but whole albums? I think not. It took me almost a year of searching ('though not every day) to find all of Everclears first album. I never did find Pond, and so purchased it from the ITMS. Even some newer music, such as Dr Dre, is difficult to track down. If my 13yr old got fed up with p2p, then really, how easy is it? And we use Poisoned, which searches FastTrack, Gnutella, Ares and OpenFT from one browser.
(tig)
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
wm files can contain scripts (I think quicktime can, also). That's what cause your media player to pop up web windows. You can tell your media player not to execute scripts and it will only play the audio/video portion of the file.
In any case, if you have a problem with those files, stop downloading them. Limit yourself to legitimate download and you are unlikely to find spammy video clips that take you to porn sites. Or go with mpeg vids.
No sig
From the Microsoft page:
You can restore your licenses on a maximum of two unique computers. If you replace hardware components in your computer or reinstall the operating system, Microsoft considers the changed computer to be a new unique computer.
So if I reinstall the operating system more than twice, ALL protected-wma music that I bought online is now GONE.
They must be on drugs to think people will knowingly go for this.