Slashdot Mirror
Digital Music Downloads Too Expensive?
threeofnine writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has an article written by a copyright and technology lawyer asking if we are paying too much for digital downloads. From the article: 'Parallel imports are unavailable in the Australian digital market, however. Australian consumers cannot purchase downloads from iTunes or Wal-Mart in the US, which are often cheaper than downloads available here, without a US-issued credit card. And restrictive licensing conditions imposed by copyright owners also limit the sale of digital downloads across international borders. For both reasons Australian consumers miss out. And retailers cannot buy downloads from overseas and resell them here, even if it is worthwhile for them to do so. In a recent analysis, the prices of Australian-made CDs of artists such as Bon Jovi, REM and Robbie Williams were compared to those of legal parallel imports. It was found that the local product was as much as 300 per cent more expensive.'"
Interesting key (and somewhat conflicting) points from the article:
and:So, in addition to lobbying in the United States to encumber music and entertainment beyond any previous restrictions (to the point of unusability if they get their way), the music industry tries to layer artificial geographical artifacts over the internet to further increase their (already obscene) profits. I find it interesting the entertainment wonks get away with this under the "protection of artists and intellectual property" canards juxtaposed next to the argument that many people lose their jobs to outsourcing as a result of the "global economy" and the breaking down of these alleged geographic boundaries.
Seems like those in power define by expedience.
(As an aside, another tasty tidbit in the article:
I find this an interesting question -- maybe when Americans are also charged a fair price for music (they aren't today). Sigh.... AllOfMp3.com?
I find Allofmp3 to be quite reasonable! About 10 cents per song with no DRM. You can't beat that.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
There are websites like allofmp3.com that sell mp3's in bulk with a set amount per meg.. seems pretty cheap to me, set the bitrate, if you want higher quality music than you can get on limewire or soulseek..
.. but, there are alternatives.
iTunes is too expensive
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
And restrictive licensing conditions imposed by copyright owners also limit the sale of digital downloads across international borders.
Is it any surprise that the Australians are abandoning the commercial ship and are now sailing from the Pirate Bay?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Did anyone notice the article summary has no connection with the title whatsoever...?
To The United States Congress: We are the customers and former customers of the member labels of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). We love music and will gladly pay a fair price for it, but we are outraged by the RIAA's tactics in suing ordinary Americans for filesharing....
Let's slashdot the Senate and House Commerce!
Why do CDs cost as much as vinyl LP albums did? The production costs for (digital) CDs are several of orders of magnitude less than they were for (analog) LPs, yet the price-point never moved.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Companies have been practicing price fixing for years based on location.
Don't believe me? Compare your cost of cable TV to people in other local cities.
This has also been the case for years with things like software, movies and textbooks where the producer will likely lower the price in some areas and raise it on others.
This is simple economics of pricing an item at what the market will bare. Don't like spending so much on a ____? Don't buy it then!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
These digital music stores suck. Paying more for not getting media, cases and artwork is nothing to be missed. Buy your cds in the store or download the mp3s from p2p and usenet. This iTunes and whatever is a big media and Slashdot hypefest. The music distribution monopoly has yet respond to the internet in a meaningful way for consumers. Until they do, you aren't missing out on anything.
AllOfMP3? Good call. So, instead of illegally downloading a song, you can illegally download it AND pay a fee that never gets anywhere near artists' hands.
Want to know why Australians pay so much more for imported goods? It's because Australians are willing to pay more. If Australians just stopped buying overpriced foreign goods, the manufacturers would start lowering prices. But whinging about the problem is never going to fix it.
You're under some illusion that mp3 downloading is about helping artists or "sticking it to the man"? How naive.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
While that is normally true, music is not a free market. The music industry has both a macro and micro monopolies over music. By that I mean only a few music companies control the vast majority of music and set prices accordingly. And then each individual music company has exclusive monopolies over particular artists. So if you want to buy Rage Against the Machine, you have to buy it from Sony.
If you want evidence that the music industry ignores supply and demand, look no further than CD prices. Despite the enormous drop in CD sales the prices have not dropped. In fact, the music industry has raised prices over the same time period.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
...and live at 10, the sun comes up in the east!
Seriously, though - they're 'diiscovering' that record companies are using predatory pricing, collusive behavior, and generally refusing to recognize that the 'costs of distribution' in the digital age doesn't really explain their bajillion-percent markup?
Teh?
-Styopa
The difference between digital media and other goods is that, for the latter, the price is determined by the cost of production and distribution plus extra which is kept as a profit. Digital media however, has zero production and distribution cost (for each individual download i mean), hence the price is entirely determined by what the record companies think is the optimum price, cheap enough for people to buy, expensive as possible to earn as much money. This means that in a third world country, the optimum price might be 10 times lower than the optimum price in a first world country. In order to make as much money as possible they have to price their downloads differently in different countries - selling it at first world prices everywhere would mean they lose out on profits in less well-off countries, selling it as third world prices mean they don't earn enough in first world countries. That's why they are so intent on limiting downloads accross digital borders. And hence, measures such as region encoding.
Actually, in the US it is not illegal. Actually, there is a little known loophole in US law that allows you to import music from outside the US without any copyright violation.
17 USC 602(a)(2) says that "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" is NOT infringement.
Thus, if you "import" one song from say, allofmp3.com, or from some other foreign server, for personal use, and do not distribute it to anyone else, the RIAA could not legally come after you.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Why is nothing there only considered news here when some fancy schmany outfit says the same thing many months later?
i mports_australia/
d ownloads_fail_two/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/08/oz_legit_d ownloads_fail/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/16/parallel_
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/09/oz_legit_
El Reg users have known it sucks to be an Aussie if you want online tunes for a long damn time.
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
It seems that everybody wants everything, and think it should be free.
Are record companies greedy and evil? You betcha.
Are they gouging customers and musicians both? Right-o.
Has everyone's perception of value been altered by p2p downloads, cracked software and other Internet-rendered amenities?
Without a doubt.
-1 Flamebait.
do() || do_not();
And yet here you (and your ilk) are, pissing and moaning about how the RIAA is unreasonable and unwilling to persue a mutually-beneficial compromise. Shame on you for ruining it for the rest of us.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
And the mention of "artists such as Bon Jovi, REM and Robbie Williams" is surely an opening for some joke about criminal records...
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
It's not copyright violation -- it's a customs violation.
Wrong! Some buyers are willing to pay $1 a song. The fact that people are still pirating and using grey-market sites like allofmp3.com shows this. Anyone that has taken Econ 101 knows that the supply and demand are not matching up here. The songs are worth whatever price point the market determines. The fact that all songs are priced the same regardless of consumer demand shows that the music industry is a cartel and is fixing prices. You can argue that people will always take free over pirating, but that is misleading too. There is a "value" to not running the risk of being sued. If the price matches the market demand, there will be fewer pirates. Fewer pirates means that the few left will be much easier to catch. Besides, if enough people quit sharing because they are now buying, the piracy market will become much less appealing because of fewer seeds/sources.
now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
In the long run, it's simply not going to work for companies to try to prevent parallel imports of digital media over the internet. That's the real issue discussed in this article, and piracy has little/nothing to do with that.
i recently did a study...
- I pay too much for gas
- I pay too much for cheeseburger
- I pay too much for clothes
What's the news here?
I both buy albums, and download music (illegally), and to tell you the truth, from a moral standpoint I feel worse about paying for it.
By paying for music I am propping up an anachronistic distributing chain whose business practices I take issue with. Which, for me, is more of an issue than violating a business friendly law, or depriving the artist of the miniscule cut of the sale he'd be receiving.
For me something that is mutually beneficial would support both the artists and the consumer; paying for music ain't. I'd rather see no one pay for music and watch the record labels go down in flames (artists can still make money touring), so that when I do want to buy an album I can know that the artist is getting a reasonable cut of the sale.
It is really worth my while to buy the cheap releases in Hong Kong and resell them here, but the man wants to keep me down.
in a p2p network, nobody demands money from you to get what they have on offer.
Well the only possible sympathy I have in the examples given are for fans buying REM. Nothing could make me care about what people pay for Bon Jovi or Robbie Williams.
Maybe the way to really fight back against the music industry is to stop buying crappy music, and patronize your local used CD store. The big profits, I would imagine, come from the big multiplatinum albums, of which - maybe - one out of every 20 or 30 represents quality music?
Completely subjective, I know. Smaller labels that have not slashed prices really should, and people should make the effort to seek out independent music from these labels. People should explore new genres. I have a smattering of CDs I bought right from the small labels' websites themselves, for $10.00 for a new album, which isn't bad considering what new big-name artists' CDs sell for.
As for the issue of international markets and price gouging, nothing new here, either. In any case, when it comes to music, you don't necessarily get what you pay for either in Australia or anywhere else.
When you buy a top 40 album, you buy an image created by advertisers for the most part. There are probably half a million unsigned artists the world over who make music as good as or better than what you hear on your local top 40 station. Maybe they're not good looking, or don't know how to stand like a bunch of idiots with their hair hanging down in their eyes, or don't have the bodies to slut it up real good for MTV.
There are alternatives. Someone mentioned emusic.com - that's a good place to start.
But if you're really angry because the last Madonna CD is out of your price range, well...I'm trying real hard to care, but...
Yes, I'm middle-aged & I tend to listen mainly to classic rock albums with a little blues & soul thrown in. Most of the stuff I listen to, I can get fairly cheaply either second-hand or on eBay/Amazon marketplace - generally, I'll pick up a brand new CD for around £6 ($10). For that money, I get a nice uncompressed shiny CD with some liner notes and a hard case that I can rip at whatever bit rates I want to (I do listen to a lot of MP3-based music when I'm travelling or in the gym).
I don't go near Virgin or HMV record stores in the UK because I simply cannot justify paying anything up to £17 ($28) for a new CD but the prices that I do get my CDs at seem to be as cheap as paying to download each track individually - plus I get something tangible in the process.
I know a lot of people don't want to buy "filler" tracks on CDs and prefer downloading the tracks they want but I still don't get it - I've a collection of about 800 CDs at home and I'd say at least half of those are recordings I consider as "classics" that I can happily listen to from start to finish as completely good albums.
I'm certainly not trying to provoke a "the music of today is rubbish compared to the music of yesterday" argument because I just don't listen to enough modern music to have a valid opinion of it - but I've more than enough great music in CD album format to last me a lifetime now & if the younger generation of today has difficulty finding modern albums that are themselves "classics" in their entirety, then doesn't the "pick and mix music tracks" attitude perhaps make more of a statement about the quality of modern music than music downloads as being "the modern way" of distributing music?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Can you say "artificial trade barrier"? In an ideal Internet, location would be irrelevant. That concept is unacceptable to the many corporations that have built their business on the model of regional distribution monopolies.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It appears that as long as it is for personal use that importing music from allofmp3.com is not a customs violation. IANAL, etc.
Don't like the deal the RIAA is offering you? Don't buy it. Neither your opposition to the price, nor your moral objections to their business practice entitles you to their product for free.
Most people around here aren't honest enough with themselves to even consider the possibility that their actions are at least partially responsible for the RIAA's aggressive litigation. Don't expect them to change if you are equally unwilling.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I couldn't care less about the price for a song in the iTunes Music Store. I will never buy anything from it anyway.
CD's solve the DRM, quality, backup and price problems in one go.
Did I piss in somebody's Wheaties? Fsckin' mods.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I don't necessarily agree with the term "pirated" either. "obtained from an unauthorized source" is probably more accurate. Every industry loses some profit to "theft". If the "piracy" problem is as bad as the music industry is saying, it tells me that they are determining the price for the market instead of the other way around, which is how it is supposed to work.
now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
Why shouldn't a company (barring certain necessary industries) be allowed to charge what the market will bear?
The reason people in Austrailia pay more is because they choose to pay more.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Since corporations are allowed to outsource anything they want, I've decided to outsource my shopping as well: http://www.mp3spy.ru/en
Less than $1 for most CDs, nearly every CD you can think of, and they happily accept foreign credit cards (and no funny business happening with the card either).
Yeah yeah, the thing is I'm not a zealot.
Don't worry I'm not standing on a soap-box, I know that what I do isn't entirely right - but really I don't care. I'm not offering advice or recommendations. Honestly, I feel a little dirty no matter which way I procure my music.
The only thing that I'm trying to say is that I feel just a bit dirtier after paying for it.
I don't expect the RIAA to change even a little. Because even though my apathy might seem disgusting to a slashdotter, I can assure you that the people filling Sony's and BMG's coffers care a whole lot less than I do, and have adjusted their habits accordingly.
Hmmmm actually I havn't compiled any kernels or kernel modules in a while. Frankly, I gave up on it long ago... though perhaps you have some less well supported hardware or something?
Actually as I remember, madwifi did give me some major headaches when I realised that I needed it on my last laptop and the debian stuff just wasn't quite there.
Tho on the current laptop, I just installed ubuntu and have had no issues... and frankly... kernel updates are only so so important (usually). I mean sure every now and again a really important one comes out but as often as not, I find even the security ones are for situations that don't affect me.
Then when one does come out... eh I upgrade... from the standard package. Though, I also grew out of bragging about uptime a long time ago.
Course now it takes me so long to hit a record uptime that I just stopped looking on any of my systems that are always up. Maybe thats what really killed it. Once you hit the better part of a year once... you start forgetting to check.
(my best current uptime on a system I manage is 125 days though)
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
From the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allofmp3):
In the United States, many supporters of AllOfMP3 have pointed to limited exceptions in US copyright law, most notably 17 U.S.C. 602(a)(2), which provides a personal use exception to the rule that importation of copyrighted items constitutes infringement. A corresponding exception does not exist in 602(b), however, which governs whether importation is prohibited. Under 603, where importation is prohibited, the federal government may seize or forfeit prohibited items "in the same manner as property imported in violation of the customs revenue laws." Thus, it appears possible that "importing" digital files from AllOfMP3.com does not constitute copyright infringement but does constitute a violation of customs law. There is no private right of action for violations of customs law, as there is for copyright law.
Whether downloading can be construed as importation is open to question. Importation is defined as a form of distribution of copies and phonorecords (17 U.S.C. 602(a)), which are defined as tangible objects (17 U.S.C. 101), which of course can no more be downloaded than a brick can be. Federal courts in the United States have settled the question of whether unpaid downloading can constitute infringement on the part of the downloader in cases as diverse as Napster, Grokster, Marobie-FL, and Intellectual Reserve: it is infringing on the part of the downloader. However, there have been no rulings in U.S. courts to date regarding the specific legality of purchasing music from AllofMP3.com.
You're under some illusion that mp3 downloading is about helping artists or "sticking it to the man"? How naive.
That's not what the GP post said. He said that downloading from Allofmp3.com doesn't help artists either. I don't know about you, but when I pay for music I want the artist to get the money, not some random other people.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Just buy an US itunes gift certificate on Ebay ; then (if you have not been ripped off by the seller...) redeem the gift certificate on itunes AND THEN create a new login with a phony US address. Here you go, Desperate Housewives complete season 2 (not to be found anywhere else at the time I tried this...)
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
In accordance to the licenses' terms MediaServices pays license fees for all materials downloaded from the site subject to the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights"
a l&rnd=863407
http://music.allofmp3.com/help/help.shtml?prm=leg
Exactly. Canadian iTunes cost $CDN 0.99. US iTunes Cost $US 0.99. I'm sure there's a lot of americans who would love to pay $US 0.88 (wow look how the american dollar has dropped). I'm pretty sure the songs are being downloaded from the same servers. Yet the Canadian songs are cheaper.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time...
Google comstock (example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Comstock) wherein hyper-moralists blocked even anatomy textbooks from being delivered by the postal service.
Very interesting. Thanks! I guess it's not "little known" anymore.
This point should be stressed: "There is no private right of action for violations of customs law." Thus, the RIAA still could not come after an Allofmp3 user directly.
The RIAA is going ballistic over allofmp3. But they are trying to handle it via the governments involved, not directly with the users. Considering that the RIAA has no problem suing customers, I find that very informative.
My guess is that the RIAA does not want to risk an unfavorable ruling regarding 17 U.S.C. 602(a)(2). Can you imagine if that occurred? Suddenly downloaded music from foreign servers, even on P2P, would not be infringement. The shit would really hit the fan.
Thus, the RIAA's first step is to get Russia to shut the site down but pressuring the US government. When and if that fails I'd guess that they'll have Congress amend 17 U.S.C. 602(a)(2) to specify that it does not apply to downloaded music. Heck, their probably already working on that! Once that is amended, then they'll start suing Allofmp3 users.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I lived in Australia for a while in 1989, 1990. At the time Aussie politicos were investigating price fixing of CD's. It looks like the more things change the more they stay the same, but what do inflated prices have to do with rights? Do people have a right to low prices? What a strange concept. Maybe if it is AIDS drugs, a case could be made, but music downloads?
San Francisco Photographers
What about being able to download lossless if you want for the same price? MP3 128kb/s and 192kb/s is just junk with a decent sound system. FLAC all the way!
Can you say "artificial trade barrier"? In an ideal Internet, location would be irrelevant. That concept is unacceptable to the many corporations that have built their business on the model of regional distribution monopolies.
Agreed, and that's why we should visit places where monopolies, market collusion, and DRM are neutralized like emusic.com and allofmp3.com.
Also, realize that major label music isn't better than indie music, it's just much more heavily marketed. If you need a marketing campaign to make you feel good about your CD, OK, but for everyone else, there's a ton of awesome music that can be bought from cdbaby.com, or used from your local store.
Chuck
...and chart music has absolutely no value.
Don't drag me into your petty squabbles.
Under the current system "some random other people" get 95%-99%* of the money
Not that I agree with paying to download from AllOfMP3.com ... if you're going to get a non-licensed version, at least don't pay for it.
*Out of which they must pay for the recording, production, legal and other costs ... bands can easily lose money making a CD, while their record company makes millions off that same CD.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
You are absolutely right. You have legally justified yourself but how does that justify doing it on moral grounds?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
You don't seem to mind taking advantage of offshoring (allofmp3.com) as long as it benefits you...
Go smack your economics teacher in the head and demand a refund. Tell them to make you listen next time. Demand is measured along a curve, in any market (diamonds, water, there is a maximum that Bill Gates would pay for a single produced item, then as the price declines more and more people are willing to purchase the item, continuing until the last person is so overly satisfied that even they would not pay a fraction penny for an additional unit. Supply and demand are matching in that market place as long as there is even a single transaction.
Now you bring up a second market that sells at a lower price but carries additional risk. Which some users percieve as having less cost than $1. This is the same as saying that because I can buy a DVD player from a crackhead for $20 there is not a market in legitimately traded DVD players. It's still the same market there's just a discount associated with the risk bundled in the grey (or black) market transactions. People can evaluate the risk and potential cost and choose to pay more with no risk or less with an element of risk bundled in. The risk isn't entirely being sued, its also the risk of poor data quality (think if the whole file was just goatse images), which is non-zero.
I think what you meant was that a large portion of music customers price those risks at well below a dollar, but no one really knows what the volume is on pirated sites (I'd be nothing more than guessing that P2P distributes far more songs than iTunes).
Even if the grey market were larger, it seems likely that a very large portion of sub $1 demand is less elastic than you appear to be projecting. The credit card companies probably take at least a dime, and if 90% of the grey market values their downloads at less than a dime (in percieved risk reduction), lowering prices to 11 cents would greatly reduce total revenues due to the price reductions more than offseting the increasing volume.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Aside from the fact that music in general is too costly, consider this:
( only speaknig averages here.. )
A uncompressed CD is 17 bucks..
To buy a CD full of downloads its costs that much or more, and you only get COMPRESSED versions..
Not too equitable sounding to me..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What if you set up a server in Antarctida on the international grounds? National laws won't apply?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Again this crap is being modded up! AllOfMP3.com don't pay the appropriate royalties to their artists. I very much doubt whether music downloaded from their site is appropriately licenced if you are buying it from outside Russia.
Like Stew77 said, emusic is the way to go if you don't want to support the big 'evil' labels. Give your money to independant labels, not dubious "too good to be true" Russian imports!
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
What about the comparison of the price against the quality of the sound?
Is it comparable to CD (44.1 KHz, 16 bits samples for 2 channels)?
If a physical CD costs, say, USD 15.- USD with 15 songs, each downloadable song should cost USD 1.
Much less if you think about the money they save by not printing the medium and not shipping the boxes all around the world.
Let's say USD 0.75 could be right. It's right if the song is CD quality, of course.
If it's a compressed format song, it should cost less because quality is worse. Let's say USD 0.50 is a fair price.
Almost all legal downloads are above this price. With no real reason!
So I'd say that prices are too high when compared to quality.
And Maybe they are too high in any case.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
And you will continue to be screwed until you change your government to be more consumer friendly. And that's also putting the blame where it's due - On The Voters!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I download music from Allofmp3. Not a lot, but I've probably spent about 30 bucks (~500 songs).
I normally don't buy music in CD form, it's just not worth the price to me (student) since I don't have a lot of spare cash to throw around. So my alternatives are:
1. Don't buy music. Artists get nothing, I get nothing, and don't acquire a taste for a lot of music.
2. Download music from AllofMp3. Artists get an insignificant amount or nothing, I get music. I also grow to like a lot of bands, and when I'm out of school and making money, I will financially support these bands.
Option 2 is far better from my point of view.
Hmmm...looks like online prices just shot up for those deleveries into Georgia.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
With iTunes (and I presume the other services) you can preview each song and buy only the ones you intended to. If the whole album is great songs, you don't get much benefit though. Preview definately helped with avoiding remixes (or non remixes if you're looking for the remix) and songs that simply aren't as interesting as you think they might be. I know you can preview at the record store, but it's usually a very limited selection.
Ahh and that brings up the selection issue. itunes vs. record store is a lot like netflix vs. movie store in terms of total volume of titles. Not to mention the instant gratification. Certainly there are drawbacks, but everything has drawbacks & benefits and the point of trade is to decide which is more important to you.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Just yesterday, several prominant Canadian musicians formed a new alliance that opposes the RIAA lawsuits and promotes downloading of their music, although for a fee of course. It's becoming possible to buy music again from mainstream artists if you shop around.
i d=177 and also my blog for a writeup on the new group.
I bought The Arrogant Worms latest album Beige online for less than the CD online price, it was $1CAN a song.
Check out http://www.huntershack.org/nucleus/index.php?item
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Yeah, now the want to be paid to illegally download music.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"perception of value" === "value"
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I realize that supply and demand are based on a curve. Digital distribution changes the way the curves are set though. The music industry wants to set the supply curve as if the costs of distribution are the same digitally as they have been traditionally. The demand curve flattens drastically because of the same reason. This is what scares them because they make their money from the distribution system currently in use.
The rest of your argument is crap. Your DVD player analogy is backwards. The files you buy from allofmp3(crackhead) are of better quality than you get from legit retailers like iTunes. You set your bitrate and format (no DRM). If a site sells files that are all goatse images, then that site will not be able to continue to stay in business. People will notice the scam and another site will get their business. This is not the fault of iTMS either. Do you think they would still be selling at $1 each if they hadn't been strongarmed by the big labels?The credit card companies don't figure into this either. Any site that would allow a credit card transaction for a single download would be shooting itself in the foot. The solution would be a subscription/user account setup with defined amounts ($10,$20 purchases) in order to minimize the impact of the cost of using their services.
The music industry is pure and simply using monopolistic practices to fight off alternative distributions of the same product. There are very few valid reasons to ever fight against a free market on any good, digital or otherwise.IANAE but I'm not an idiot either
now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
The GP is pointing out the difference between buying music, buying illegal music and downloading illegal music for free. In the first, the artist profits but you have to pay. In the second, the artist DOESN'T profit, and you STILL have to pay. In the last, no money changes hands. Sure, there is a middle man in both the first and second scenarios, but in the first, the artist gets a look in - is encouraged to make more music. If you're not going to pay the person that matters, why bother paying anyone, unless you get quality - bitrate, for example.
im in ur
So if I travel to Europe and buy a CD I am not allowed to bring it back? Yeah right
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Music cannot be compared with physical goods which are easy to produce and to create knock offs of. Music, on the other hand is a service. The musicians provide a service to you which is supposed to entertain. The fact that you can purchase a reproduction of that service for your own use within your home does not change this reality.
You all seem to forget that musicians in the middle ages performed to provide a service (entertainment) for their patrons. With advances in technology, we are now able to capture and reproduce this service for distribution but it does not change the fact that the initial performance itself is not a product but rather a service.
You speak of fundamental market forces but you insist on not having your wages affected by those same forces. Isn't that hypocritical?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
No, it's just sick when you manipulate the legal system to determine whether someone is innocent or guilty.
Strange, all the ones I download are completely free... hang on I think I hear somebody knocking on my door...
nothing
I was buying compact discs in 1987 and the average price was $12.95-13.95. A used CD went for around $9.95. It doesn't seem like much has changed -- except that a vinyl LP now costs $14.95.
Breakfast served all day!
From TFA:
This issue resonates in Australia, where consumers may be paying almost three times more for digital music downloads than they should be.
In a recent analysis, the prices of Australian-made CDs of artists such as Bon Jovi, REM and Robbie Williams were compared to those of legal parallel imports. It was found that the local product was as much as 300 per cent more expensive.
If these savings were available in the digital market, consumers would be paying as little as 67 cents for a digital download, instead of the $1.69 to $1.89 a track they pay at present.
Emphasis mine. Beyond the idiocy of using words like "should" when discussing what things cost in the real world, the comparison made here is completely vacuous. Just because the cost of printed cds in Australia is 3x higher than the imports doesn't mean that the cost of digital music is as well. In fact, it's clearly not.
(AUD) $1.89 to $1.69 is (USD) $1.41 to $1.26. So, at most, Australians are paying 42% more than they "should be." It's obvious that no one is selling digital music for AUD 0.67. Well, except some enterprising Russians.
Help prevent the slashdot effect; stop reading the articles.
The moral quandry of "ripping off" the RIAA?! God, you're hilarious! When is your HBO special airing?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
How many years has it been since you last used Linux?
I've done several kernel updates, and there was no recompiling anything. Just a simple apt-get install linux-image-2.6.whatever does the job, and even updates GRUB by adding the appropriate entries for the new kernel.
Granted, a kernel update does indeed require a reboot to take effect. But that's a good idea anyway, just to make sure nothing went wrong. And if it does break something, then I can always select the previous kernel to boot when the GRUB screen comes up.
This space unintentionally left blank.
who says you have to? How do you justify speeding, that is immoral because of the danger you are putting others in.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I don't know where you live, but here in the U.S. (specifically California)... I'll agree with the price of gas, but clothes don't have to be outragous, and the fact that you can go buy a double cheeseburger for $1 at McDonalds, I have to really disagree on that point.
People can evaluate the risk and potential cost and choose to pay more with no risk or less with an element of risk bundled in.
So, I can pay less and download my music off P2P networks. The cost of getting a bad quality song? I delete it and download a higher quality song. So far, in 99.5% of the cases where I have downloaded, the quality has been excellent. In those 0.5% cases where it has not, it took a matter of 5 minutes and no additional money to find a suitable quality version.
Or I can choose "less risk" by buying a CD in a store? Such as, a CD from Sony with malicious software that installs without my knowledge, causing all sorts of harm and may require a total system reinstall to remove it?
Which is the greater risk again?
"buying illegal music"
Brilliant!
Please explain how buying from AllofMP3 is illegal.
Then tell me why I should care that an artist doesn't feel royalties from Russia are worth registering with ROMS? If they choose not to, I shouldn't buy their music? BS. They can register any time they want and start getting royalties.
Because the artists in questionc an register with the russian equivilent of the RIAA (ROMS) any time they wish?
Just because they don't, or choose not to, isn't breaking my heart.
I don't really give two shits about how much it costs a business to do business.
/me/?
I only care about one thing: How much does the product cost
It is absurd that if a piece of media on a CD costs $1 in one country that it should cost $2 in another.
This, of course, is why the media cartels love region codes - so they can control how much different parts of the world have to pay for their products. It's all about squeezing each market for as much as it will bear. Sorry, Charlie, for digital data, there is only one market - the world.
This is the other edge of the double-edged sword of globalization. Corporations are reaping the benefits of manufacturing wherever it is cheapest. Consumers deserve to be able to SHOP wherever it is cheapest.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Okay, mod the parent down please. Its a shame too. Because you had such a good start: $0.99 is WAY to high of a price point for me. I'm not willing to pay $15 for the contents of a CD, sorry. Its just not worth that much to me, and I think a lot of other people probably feel the same way. If they started selling at $0.10 or $0.25 -- then they might have a customer.
Where you got yourself in trouble was mentioning Napster and Metalica. Metalica didn't bring about the downfall of easy P2P (and with the current protocols and clients: uTorrent, eMule, etc), its still not that hard to steal music, if you want too.
Metalica sued because there was unfinished studio recordings being swapped around, and to be honest, its not difficult to see where they're coming from in wanting that material yanked.
Think of it like a sex tape or something else similarly embarassing -- you sure as hell wouldn't want something like that viewable to the world.
Homer: "Free? yeah, I think we can afford it! HAhaha"
Actually, I use iTunes, but couldn't resist the quote.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Digital media however, has zero production and distribution cost (for each individual download i mean),..."
ignore the production cost across when figuring distribution is unwise.
However, Digital music does have the cost of servers, bandwidth, support etc . . .
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Oh come one. Half the "news" on digg is not really news. It's some dude's blog. If we're lucky those blogs link to real news stories from months ago.
I used to love Digg when it was a tech site. But now that it has been discovered by the ignorant masses and dumbed down with crap, it's essentially worthless.
What someone needs to do is create combination Slashdot/Digg. Where the stories are submitted and posted by users like Digg, but where editors can go through and weed out the asinine crap like on Slashdot.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I normally buy my own music which is my personal choice. I don't mind it really; I wish a new CD was around $9, but that is ok. Usually I buy because I like the whole experience of going to the record store, thumbing through the music, picking out the one CD out of ten that I really want; not the ones that I had fancied in a fly-by-night moment. Sometimes I copy albums from friends; sometimes they from me. I know that I rarely listen to music that I don't purchase, the exception being when the player is on random. I view the trend of pirating software, downloading music and videos as just another facet of the throw away society. It troubles me that in music and software people don't expect to have to pay for the merchandise. It troubles me that the dogma behind this is strangely a form of communism. Music and software by the people and for the people. It is troubling because someone who truly believes that "free stuff" is the way of the future will be fanatical towards me for believing the opposite. If they were in charge this would make them a music and software dictator. They hope to be charge eventually by sinking the companies who charge for their products. When artists and developers alike lose the incentive for the art that they create the "creative well of inspiration" dries up. People have to earn money to live and the logical conclusion is that eventually you must take sponsorship. The one who pays the bill for product development is the one who guides and controls the development the product. You might as well hope to have a Wal-Mart O/S or a McDonald's O/S, maybe even the Target and GAP bands. The logical conclusion is that trying to cause a society of free music and software will only create a much worse one in which large corporations will swallow up the freeware. That is not the type of society that I want to live in and you shouldn't either. There should be moderation in everything including moderation itself. You should pay for things sometimes and sometimes they are provided to you from the bounty.
Where's the 0xBEEF
The RIAA manages to sue their customer base on legal grounds only forgetting about the moral part. They certainly will get no sympathy when the reverse happens.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Actually I believe there are several services already doing this generically, ePassporte for example.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You are saying the Slashdot crowd doesn't understand the costs and other factors of local economies.
This same crowd his been discussing to death and is being subject to outsourcing to India and other cheaper local economies.
I think it is you who is in denial. Your textbook economics come from a time when there was no global economy the scale we're now in, and there was no Internet. It is outdated.
Now you can say, hey, play by my rules and textbook, because I have local costs, you dummy, and stick to the old world, and wither and die.
It won't work because consumers will vote with their wallets.
If another economy offers it cheaper, you better addapt instead of turn into a missionary and try to lock local markets in denial of global forces. It doesn't even matter if you're right. It just won't work.
I agree it is not necessarily a good thing. I live in a country where we have to compete with countries which hardly have any social security and low taxes/loose laws aimed at bringing quick succes at the expensive of the environment or even rights of the people. The consumers vote with their wallets for products produced under the the most poluting, least social local environments.
it is not a loophole. It is there for a very specific reason. Calling it a loophole indicates that it wasbn't intended, and it should be 'fixed'.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
17 USC 602(a)(2) says that "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"
So it is not illegal.
Enough people by music through non standard channels, the more musicians will look to provide it themselves , at a reasonable price.
There is a big opportunity here.
Get me 10 million dollars, and I will change the music industry forever.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
don't underestimate perception. .99 cent is the magic number because it is less then 1 BUC(Basic Unit of Currency)
With downloaeable music, you need to charge the same everywhere because people will figure out how to buy from the cheapest source
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We already have Walmart and Target OS, they are called Microsoft Windows and Apple OS. They are large companies that make money not only by creating a product people will buy, but then going steps further to make sure no one can do the same things they did to make money. That's not how capitalism is supposed to work, price is supposed to be the deciding factor, and if you want to sell something that another person can create in their spare time and give away for free, you'll be on hard times. Move to producing something people aren't providing free, and better in another way.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
A full CD would cost you 9.99 in itunes.
..." once again, it is copyright infringment, not stealing. Not that it is better, but it is a different crime.
A full CD with your choice of songs would be 99 cent per song.(a deal for you Zep fans!) But you get all good songs.
"If they started selling at $0.10 or $0.25 -- then they might have a customer. "
you mean besides the billion downloads they already have had? Based on the amount of sales they have, they have hit a good price point. Not to you, but to a great many people.
"...steal music,
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Let's face it. The bottom line is this is a classic case of an entrenched supplier reacting - in our opinion, futively - to a disrupting technology. Like any "monopoly", they are doing their best to influence the creation of laws that favor their outdated methods of doing business. If market forces were allowed to work their magic, with only enough necessary government oversight to ensure "fair play", then those "monopolies" would have to evolve or die.
We consumers also have to adapt, or continue to pad the pockets of corporations who employ what are essentially indentured servants - the artists. More and more consumers will get smarter about where they make their music and other media purchases. More and more artists will follow the models of the Arctic Monkeys and others, bypassing the record labels, promoting themselves via "viral" and guerilla marketing techniques until they have enough recognition to deal with the labels on their own terms - not the labels' terms.
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Not too many OC-192's or STM-4's reaching down into Antarctica...
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Given the U.S. credit card industry's record on theft and security and Russia's general record on corruption, can you actually use your credit card on that site and not end up ripped off?
Sorry, from the other posts I was under the impression that downloading from allofmp3 was illegal in the west. Never mind, the point stands. There is no difference, other than giving away money to some russian organisation, between downloading MP3s from allofmp3, and downloading MP3s illegally. In the latter case, there's a (small) chance of getting booked - unless you download them from another country where you're not going to be.
im in ur
"Wrong! Some buyers are willing to pay $1 a song. The fact that people are still pirating and using grey-market sites like allofmp3.com shows this. Anyone that has taken Econ 101 knows that the supply and demand are not matching up here. "
That's a good basic fundamental for Econ 101, but in the real world, the supplier gets to pick the point on the curve that's optimum for them. That point may not be the point of highest volume, or -- and this is the tough one -- the point of highest profit.
The iTMS is a runaway success by any means. My guess is that Apple is perfectly happy with the volume and growth. Plenty of Slashdotters say things like "If only songs were $0.80 or $0.50, then I'd go legit, but in the meantime I have no choice but to pirate" (you may laugh, but that's a common attitude around here). Frankly, I don't think there's a lot of elasticity between a buck and $0.80, but even if Apple's research shows otherwise, it may not be worth their while in the long term to take pricing to $0.80 at this point.
Music is somewhat of a commodity item (which is why, believe it or not, it's a low-margin industry), but this point can be explained better by looking at luxury goods. Most people would say that Ferarris are too expensive. Ferarri might have higher sales and even higher profitability if they lowered their price points. Yet their prices are only going up, and Ferarri sells every last car it can build.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
but when I pay for music I want the artist to get the money, not some random other people.
So pay allofmp3.com $1.50 for providing an excellent download service, then find the band's mailing address on their web site and send them $2. The album costs you far less than you'd pay for it in the store, the artist makes significantly more, you get the music now, in your choice of format and DRM-free, and the relevant RIAA member gets *nothing*.
I can't find a downside there. Looking up the band's mailing address, addressing an envelope and sticking $2 in it is a bit of a chore, but less work than going to the mall.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Under 603, where importation is prohibited, the federal government may seize or forfeit prohibited items "in the same manner as property imported in violation of the customs revenue laws." Thus, it appears possible that "importing" digital files from AllOfMP3.com does not constitute copyright infringement but does constitute a violation of customs law.
OTOH, if you travel to Russia and buy less than $X worth of CDs (IIRC, X is around 500), you can bring them back to the US without paying any import duties. And the limit is based on what you paid for the items, not what their market value in the US is. So it's possible that as long as you spend less than $500 (or whatever X is), you're legal from that perspective as well.
I don't know that, of course, I just know that you can bring small amounts of stuff back when you travel abroad, and speculate that the same rules may apply here.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"For me something that is mutually beneficial would support both the artists and the consumer; paying for music ain't. I'd rather see no one pay for music and watch the record labels go down in flames (artists can still make money touring), so that when I do want to buy an album I can know that the artist is getting a reasonable cut of the sale."
The "they should just be happy with making money touring" line gets thrown around a lot, but a few weeks ago when Slashdot covered news of concert ticket prices going up because of piracy, Slashdotters replied with a collective call of "bullshit."
I think many Slashdotters honestly and truly think that if an artist makes more than, say, $10,000 a year at their craft, then it's simply not fair. It's the "if you're trying to make money, then you're a businessperson, not an artist" mentality. It's sad that many see technology as a way to put others in their place.
The good news is that it's already possible to opt in to the business model of releasing your own stuff without the benefit of a record label (which means that you're on your own for recording, mixing, producing, and promotion -- tough old beans if you're not an expert in all of these disciplines!), and then try to make your money only by touring. I guess this presupposes that you find touring to be fun or glamorous. There are indeed some bands who do pretty well at touring even though they no longer release CDs -- but it was CD sales that got them to that point.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
I am a hardcore free-market advocate so I have no problem with any supplier setting their prices however they want. The problem with the RIAA is that they use lawsuits and strong arm tactics to shut down cheaper means of distribution for the sole purpose of fleecing their customers. They are the middlemen in the chain and will do absolutely anything to keep it that way. They have a built in conflict of interest by being the producers (own the rights anyway) and distributors. ANY other business that is a producer would kill for a virtually free means of distribution.
You discredited your own example of Ferarri. If they are already selling every car they can build, then they wouldn't gain anything by lowering their prices. They would only lose money (and cause a shortage of Ferarris) by doing so. Oh well, just another bad car analogy I guess.
now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
So pay allofmp3.com $1.50 for providing an excellent download service, then find the band's mailing address on their web site and send them $2.
Or download it with bittorent and send the band $3.50?
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Am I misreading you, or are you under the delusion that artists get the money when you buy a CD? Under the current system "some random other people" get 95%-99%* of the money ... it might as well be nothing.
That's assuming you get an RIAA CD. There are bands that make their own CDs, ya know.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
>>> "if you "import" one song from say, allofmp3.com, or from some other foreign server, for personal use, and do not distribute it to anyone else, the RIAA could not legally come after you"
... even then they can probably just get them for assisting you in copyright infringement.
Possibly not, it probably hinges around the legal interpretation of the "importation" part. I suspect as you haven't personally carried the recording across the border then you won't be deemed to have imported it?! It's not important to the RIAA (when they sue you) who did import it, they only need to know that when they sue the company that sold you the recording
that humans (with good hearing) can hear up to 20KHZ. by the niquist sampling theorem that means you need at least a 40KHZ sample rate.
However the niquist sampling theorem assumes perfect filters in both encoder and decoder. Perfect filters cannot exist (they are non-causal) and so you end up trading off sharp response (nessacery to keep noise caused by aliasing down) for phase distortion (which manifests itself in the time domain as different delays at different freuquencies) or other types of distortion caused by digital filtering.
P.S. i can't hear the difference myself.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Artists usually get about 5%, that means from a $20 CD they get $1. It is amazing the distributors (who create nothing) get the lions share of profit. In this society creativity isn't rewarded - distribution is.
Not to mention the artists would be better off if you download an mp3 from p2p (or allofmp3) and then send them a check for $5. Or a check for $2. Either way.
Didn't Australia and the US just recently sign a free trade agreement, that was meant to open up the economic boundaries between the countries. Shouldn't have this also opened up the internet boundaries as well. How can the american companies get away with only selling to american. Typical shelfish greed of the Music industry. Lets hope a lot more artist follow the Canadian group. I might even start buying music again.
I have a hard time figuring out how the federal government may seize or forfeit prohibited items when the items are not tangible objects. Also, I wonder if the volume of music purchased from allofmp3,com and then imported into the US is significant enough for it to be a concern. Then there is the matter of whether a Russian web site would comply with an American subpoena. If a federal court decides that music downloads are not tangible objects, I wonder if that could affect the efforts of certain states to collect sales tax on downloads.
I both buy albums, and download music (illegally), and to tell you the truth, from a moral standpoint I feel worse about paying for it.
You need to take a step back and re-appraise your ethics, re-align your moral compass.
I mean, paying RIAA companies for music is what scum does. Don't be scum. It's like paying for sex.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Or download it with bittorent and send the band $3.50?
Not worth my time. Finding stuff to download via bittorrent is slightly harder and I can never know that it will be the format I want, with all of the tags properly filled out, etc. Allofmp3.com makes it very easy and fast, and that's worth the buck fifty to me.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
there's just so freakin' little that hasn't been corrupted by the *AA it's easier to assume that people are talking top-40/RIAA.... :(
I like alternative music: stuff that'll never make top-40, and still I find the bulk (all???) of it is on an RIAA label. (or so they claim...)
why? what've you got?
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
Actually I believe there are several services already doing this generically, ePassporte for example.
epassporte is no good because when you sign up you have to give you address that is verified (against another card). So although you have a 'US' card it has a non US billing address and iTunes needs the billing address to match the card. Obviously once you give a non US address your cover is blown.
Try yourself. You'll see what I mean. Nice thought though.
because that was exactly my point: but it applies to tangible goods, also.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
1) 9.99? That implies a want all the same music on a CD, which I, and a lot of other P2P users, have found to be a very outmoded format. Of course, I could be happy with 10 songs on a disc too. Woo.
2) Economics. You sell for less, and you make more sales. In theory, if you decrease your margin X and increase sales Y, guess what? You made Y-X more money on the product you sold. In businesses that sell physical material, this often hits a wall when moving all that product cuts into the margin. However, these are bits flying along fiber with little to no cost of transport. The cost to produce these products largely lie in paying for the greed of record execs and recording artists. But, maybe you're right -- maybe the accounts say they'll lose money. But, I bet its not Apple's accounts that say that -- I bet its the recording industries (and maybe they're just being stubborn.
3) Steal vs. copyright infringment. Ya know what? In this case, it really is the same thing. IANAL. I'm betting neither are you. So, lets just drop the semantics for the sake of argument. In this case, people are getting material that they normally have to pay for without paying for it. That is theft, inspite of all the conscience massaging BS that the P2P proponets shove down our throats about how what they're doing isn't wrong or civil disobediance. That's crap. And I've used P2P many times, but at least I'm honest about what it is.
Yeah, because P2P guarantees such excellent quality. The songs are *never* mislabeled, right?
I'd choose a legal alternative that's cheap, high quality, and fast, however grey, over P2P anyday. I'd hope anyone would. Otherwise, perhaps RIAA does have a case.
Red Wanting Blue is cool, my friend knows them. I also like Bitch & Animal, they're unique, and there's some also some more well-known artists, like Ani Difranco and MC Lars, that are cool and not RIAA.
You can check at www.riaaradar.com to see if a band you're interesting in is RIAA or not. There's getting to be more and more that aren't, which is really cool.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
If downloads get to expensive perhaps these people should just buy the cd from a local retailer or abroad?
Hell, what the RIAA needs to realize, is that it's worth more than that to many of us.
If they came out with a service that allowed downloads in formats from WAV to Flac on down the line with no DRM, properly filled out tags, and guaranteed quality, many of us would quickly, easily, and without hesitation buy tracks at $1 a pop.
10 good tracks for $10 is one hell of a deal compared to 12 or so crap tracks and one decent one for $16.99.
Absolutely. $1 per song is fair, assuming I can do what I want with it when I get it. Just last night I was at my neighbor's house helping him with a music problem. He was making a slideshow and needed a couple of songs. He'd bought them three different times from three different on-line services (one was iTunes Music Store, I don't know what the others were, but they sold him Windows Media files) and had spent two days screwing around with all these files trying to figure out how to get them in a format his slideshow software could read -- in other words, fighting the DRM. He had no problem paying the money for them, but was extremely frustrated at his inability to do what he wanted with the music he bought.
I'm sure I could have figured out how to get his AAC files into MP3 format by first burning them to a CD, then ripping them, but it's too much effort. So I hopped onto allofmp3.com and spent another 15 cents to download them yet again, but this time in the format he wanted and without any DRM to irritate him.
That's what people want -- music that is convenient and that they can do what they want with. iTunes Music Store is successful because it almost gives them that. If the record labels were to wise up and offer DRM-free downloads for a low price, with tools that make it easy to find and get what you want, they'd blow iTMS out of the water (actually, Jobs would immediately renegotiate to remove the DRM, and iTMS would *really* take off).
But they just can't believe it would work.
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...despite the proof staring them right in the face from across the ocean.
Tells ya something about the size of the blinders these guys wear.
You nailed it, though. A universal format (like MP3, WAV, etc) should be a requirement for any decent download service.