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Windows Media Player 11 and Urge
j0e_average writes "The Washington Post is running a review of Microsoft's next version of Media Player, and its integration with MTV's new music service Urge. According to reviewer, Rob Pegoraro, 'Not only does this new, Windows XP-only software promote Urge to the exclusion of other retailers, you can't shop at this store-- or even just play your Urge downloads -- in any earlier version of Windows Media Player.' The Microsoft/Urge subscription model contains a new twist as well: 'Urge also lets you rent songs: $9.95 a month (or $99 a year) lets you download all the tracks you want to a computer, while $14.95 ($149 a year) lets you transfer those downloads to most newer Windows Media-compatible players. These rented songs can't be burned to CD and go silent if you stop paying the fees.'"
"These rented songs can't be burned to CD and go silent if you stop paying the fees"
Oh reeeeely? We'll see.
I am not left-handed, either!
Is there someway we can apply this technology to all of John Tish's music and then not pay the fee?
I'm betting someone (probably here) will figure out a way to bypass the security M$ put on the songs and get them free. Makes me think of their "Genuine Advantage" that was hacked with some javascript. Already shown by P2P programs, if people want the songs, they'll find ways to steal them.
echo YOUR_OPINION >
How many hours before the Urge/WMP DRM is cracked, turning their plan into a one-time fee for downloading thousands of songs you can play anywhere?
I tried out the beta of windows media player 11... It's pretty nice looking, and the new organization for the music library is a lot better, but all in all it feels like a skin for windows media player 10 sometimes (not that there's anything wrong with that...) It does look much sleeker than version 10, but I'm hoping they'll make changes to skin mode as well, which currently looks the same as it did in version 10.
Where do I sign up?
Not.
You are not the customer.
People still pay attention to MTV?
How is this a "new twist"? Listen Rhapsody has been using this model for years.
The Online Slang Dictionary
As in, I stopped paying my bill, and now all my music is "purged" from my computer.
Music should be simple to enjoy. Music doesn't need safeguarding the way the industry jealously guards their Jewel Crowns.
I do "support" outside my everyday professional experience for family and friends, and describing "how to" is a minefield and Media Player 11/Urge don't help.
I've not verified what the article says, but the warning is WMP11 is more than an update, it's an upgrade, i.e., the only way to recover from it to previous versions is with System Restore. WTF?
I guess that helps me decide, I'm not going to load it, I'm going to steer anyone who's interested away from it, and anyone who has questions about it, I'll turn away.
I won't single out Microsoft for the miserable state of music and the ability to enjoy today. Everyone seems to be trying their best to squeeze money from entertainment. I'm not opposed to paying for entertainment, but I come from an older generation where:
I remember early on with CDs the promise of things to come. Heck, my first CD player actually had a DIN connector on the back of it which was referenced in the manual only as "for future use". I dreamed of liner notes running to the TV, lyrics, lots of cool stuff. It never happened.
And when did album info become available? When the public contributed it via the early public CDDB database. That was a great thing, but was (and still is) fraught with errors and the fickleness of description by the first contributor in.
This was the first of many betrayals by the music industry, and I've not seen any push back that looks promising.
WMP11 is just one more non-contributor to the music-enjoying demographic. They're all selling themselves as providing an entertainment "experience". They're all full of shit.
Even with MTV and Microsoft pushing it together, I think that the fact that you can't burn the music is going to turn away most of their potential customers. People are stupid, but given the choice between owning DRMed music that you can burn or renting it and watching it all vanish when you stop paying...well, I'd hope that people aren't that stupid.
Goo goo g'joob.
The geekier folk knew this is where Microsoft was heading with this technology from the outset.
Now the decisions about our rights are in the hands of Democracy's second teir. Will people vote to oppose this technology with their dollars or ignore the implications to their rights and spend $179.40 a year for the ability to hear all of last years music this year too?
you can't shop at this store-- or even just play your Urge downloads -- in any earlier version of Windows Media Player
It's not a defect... It's a feature!
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I guess I don't get the whole "fix it if it isn't broken" mentality.
Heres where someone needs to chime in and mention that i'm forgetting about 8.1 surround sound and other high def things... my retort - i think i'm like most in that my needs are simple - and think that something that will make an air conditioner sound in a movie sound, is lame.
I'm going to play some battlefield 2 now (btw, we need to add modifiers that say "what the hell +1"
I think that's just sick. They take our culture, make it proprietary, then rent it back to us at an astronomical fee. It's OUR culture, it should be free.
People still pay attention to Microsoft?
Sorry, but I'll stick to buying CDs and rip them to MP3s... it's cheaper and more flexible.
I have the URGE to avoid this.
someonoe
Not only do I declare you a grammar Nazi, I also declare you a spelling Frenchman.
Microsoft imposing its own proprietary standards using dominant position in OS market... Such a cliche
Without iPod support, this service will go over like a fart in a confessional.
I give it six months of hemmorhaging money before they give up and quietly pull the plug. A year, if Microsoft is especially stubborn.
And then they'll go right back to making loud pronouncements about how the iPod/iTunes juggernaut is on borrowed time, and plotting their next doomed attempt to compete with it.
they dropped a hint/clue here:
"it will only play on media player 11"
Ain't buying it. I bet it is possible to play it on 10 and avoid the drm, that's why they want you to "upgrade" to the more locked down version.
I'm not a windows guy but you folks who are so inclined and equipped, I would look there (at ten) first before trying to figure out how to dodge it in 11.
At least this is not going to be a vista only thing.
1) Do you really want to fulfill Godwin's law so quickly? (one message?)
"Godwin's law" (which the term itself I hate) is so stupid that it's a shame that it's even still mentioned anywhere.
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving any subject matter approaches one.
It's just plain foolishness that people invoke "Godwin's law" to defend themselves.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
This would also appear to be conditional access. Restricting copying is digital rights/restrictions managment. But, by making you pay to keep your music from quiting on you, they are employing conditional access. MAKE had a good article about it.
Not.
Yes very funny, you don't know how many bottles of champagne were popped and subsequently wasted because of your delayed 'Not' comment.
Please stop entering code 2,2,7,6,6,4
Looks like the teasing from the CEO of CRM got microsoft in a squeeze. Subscription this, subscription that. People aren't going to be too warm and fuzzy to the idea of having to pay continuous fees just to listen to music. I mean, a lot of music you just listen to off and on, and paying over and over again just seems absurd.
Electricity, water, resources that have fixed, continuous costs, that makes sense in the consumer's eye....but software? Music? Digital stuff with practically zero reproduction cost? This is what drives people to piracy...they can't visualize the need for software et al to have continuous fees...it feels like extortion.
Despite how justified/neat business model it may be, that's what the average person deep down thinks. RIAA et al do not understand this. MSFT seems to have followed the same path.
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
I was happy as a Clam when they folded.. and i'll happily NOT install this version on anything I have. For just 1 million dollars you might actually be able to OWN a song and put it anywhere you want it.. But it'd have to be DRM'D so you could never give it to anyone else. Bah music companies sicken me.
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
Any time consumers agree to rent music is bad for copyright* and fair use. If $.99 is too much, use allofmp3 -they have a great pricing model and if the music industry was truly a free market, we would see more of it.
When we rent music from MSFT or anyone else, we are agreeing to the farce of an idea that we have only purchased a license to listen, and a license that we must renew each month. I, for one, like to purchase things once and be done with it. If i have to buy it on credit, that is one thing - a house or car is a major purchase. but music does not require long term financial consideration.
*yes, copyright. the DRM'ed version that MSFt and RIAA promote is a bastardization of the real version and harmful to the concept. A reasonable limit with fair use...that would be nice.
I was fine until the [1].
Signed,
A random apostrophiser.
I'll just keep stealing my music.
Game... blouses.
Have you tried VLC Its basicly a no-frils media-player that runs on everything and plays almost-any file type. Its one of my favourites, as it does playing songs and does it well (well it also streams stuff and converts between formats, but it doesn't shove all the extra stuff in your face) see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player
...fills me with an URGE to defecate! - adapted from Pink Floyd "The Wall"
Spend $200 on your local geek, you cheap bastard, and have him hook you up with a real AV system.
Dom
$14.95 ($149 a year) lets you transfer those downloads to most newer Windows Media-compatible players.
So-- most, but not all, "newer" WMA-compatible players, eh? Well that means that some of those newer players won't be compatible, and chances are that those newer ones were stickered with the "Plays For Sure" logo.
"Plays For Sure," indeed. Looks like we're right back to the usual Microsoft way- "It should work, but it might not, but if it doesn't we don't know why, but it's not our fault."
Uhhh, how about the big stab in the rear end this is to Napster, the other "also rans" and their customers? If you have a subscription to one of these other services, you might wish you could have burned those songs because M$ is (from the article),
doing something drastic: It's throwing its own MSN Music store under the bus and launching a new music program that spotlights another company's service.
So Napster is going out of business and everyone gets to download all of their rent-a-music again? Loser. How long till those five gigs of Napster tunes quit playing on your snazzy M$ player? Hey, if you pay extra, the new service will let you walk around with your music on ONE device. Now that's the kind of stability and service we have all come to expect from the M$ Monopoly. Total loser. Given that, who the hell is going to buy into the next loser service?
Pigopolists, screw them all. Get a Tekstor (does ogg and mp3), any cheap-o music player from Walmart or a used Iriver and Rockbox. Get Amarok. Keep all your old music from CD and get your new music from archive.org and magnitune.com. Never worry about DRM again. The only people between you and your music should be one or two crazies in the mosh pit.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What Urge is missing - and what I was looking forward to - was a low low intro price for the first year. I got the first year of Yahoo - including to go - for $60.
Also, Urge is more expenensive than Yahoo as you can get the non-to-go version for only $5 at Yahoo rather than $10 at Urge.
All the other complaints in the article - old news. Either the PlayforSure thing is for you or it isn't.
This sounds exactly like something I, a 22 year old CS major, would love. I mean, being a CS major, I love Microsoft, and who in the right mind doesn't want to have all sorts of restrictions put on their music? Combine that with MusicTV, who is just so popular with everyone over the age of 13, and you've got a recipe for for some great sales. I can't wait to get episodes of Yo' Mamma for a monthly fee. I'm not sure why everyone else is talking about music or competing with iTunes since MTV hasn't played any music in years, but at least we can look forward to Date My Mom on our computers.
Who says you have to stop paying your bills to have that happen?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'll take purchase-to-own for $0.99, Alex.
As much as people tend to bash it, but speaking in relative terms, iTMS still has the most consumer-friendly terms compared to other major players out there. Subscription models work only for magazines and pron accounts... an no one takes my magazines away if I end my subscription to it.
Hasn't the EFF proposed a compulsory license plan as a solution to the problem of file sharing? That makes it good, right?
It sounds like a unique complaint, which is silly, because any song downloaded from iTMS on iTunes >= 6 can't be played on iTunes 6, and iTMS is just as locked into iTunes.
MTV doesn't play music recorded over 17 years ago, which is nearly all I'm interested in listening to. Original copyright law released all monopoly control of those recordings. By rights, I shouldn't have to pay anyone to listen to the folk music from the previous generation.
If the recording industry actually worked under that fair system, they'd have to sell a lot better quality new music to actually earn a living off current recording artists. Instead, they just rip off everything they possibly can, and pump brand new unlistenable crap at us.
--
make install -not war
I believe you would be looking for the Hymn project.
And just for shits and giggles, you could use FreeMe or DRM2WMV for Windows Media 10 DRM'd files.
Trust me, cracking 11 is just a matter of time.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I've think I'm having an urge to use some other service.
DRM2WMV.
(Posting anonymously to not karma whore.)
This is just one more peice of software that won't get supported by computer repair shops. I will as usual point to the company the customer bought the music from, and say "Call them. And ask them why they sold you broken music.".
When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. - Jefferson
You're just a freeloading parasite.
Consider this: A lot of people are paying similar amounts of money for XM or Sirius satellite radio, and they mostly listen to music. Satellite radio has hundreds of channels that play all kinds of music, but it's still decided by other people what songs you're going to listen to. You can't just turn over to "Classic Rock Channel #12" and get Stairway to Heaven instantly. But when you cease to pay your Sirius bills, you don't keep getting service. So it doesn't seem horribly unfair to me that Microsoft/Urge might cease to let you have access to their music library when you stop paying the bills.
Obviously, satellite radio has other things to offer as well, such as Howard Stern and Jim Breuer and other talk or comedy shows, live sports games, the ability to receive it into your car, etc. But a lot of people are mostly into it for the music.
Also, there are advantages to using Apple's music store, or other online music stores. Obviously on the plus side is the fact that you get to keep the music you buy. The obvious downside is that you have to buy individual songs, and you don't really get to hear whatever is on the site.
So the way I see it, this Microsoft/Urge thing is cool. They're doing something different from Apple, which is great. If Microsoft came along and said, "We'll take a loss by selling songs for $0.50 each and paying the record companies the difference in cost. Then when iTunes fails, we'll raise our rates." See, THAT sounds like the Microsoft we all know and love. But instead they're going with a different business model and trying to compete fairly. So why give them a hard time? Either stick with iTunes or try Microsoft's model and see if you like it.
Lets make a patriotic themed song, then when it gets encrypted and people can't listen to the song after a month or so, we can accuse this company of terrorism.
I'd really like to see that in court.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I don't understand... At some point between the uber-DRM'd WMA files and your ears the music is converted to an analog signal - Why can't it be captured at that point in a more open format?
To be honest at first when I read this I scoffed but I'm not sure it's that bad of an idea. Granted, I have a large CD collection and wouldn't do this but for the types that don't mind putting their cash towards subscription radio is this that much different? 10 bucks a month and you get to "create your own playlist" essentially. How much is XM or Sirius? If this service has a wide selection it really won't be that much different and the fact that you can hear the song you want when you want makes it more valuable than satellite radio.
There is a large segment of the public that doesn't want to put the cash down for a serious music collection and this could be their way of getting a wide selection without the price tag on a large permanent music collection.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
That sounds like Nazi talk to me.
I am SO TIRED of all this DRM crap. Everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - has some sort of incompatible, misconfigured, hard-to-use "Rights Management" software/encryption/whatever. DVDs have CSS, Displays have HDCP, Music has Fairplay/WMP, and the list continues. Is any of this really designed to "protect the product"? No! It is designed to protect the profit margin of the record/film company.
None of the aformentioned technologies were designed with the end-user in mind. Did anybody at Microsoft/URGE even sit down and think about whether or not their customers really wanted to be tied yet another proprietary format that works only with a certain manufacturer's proprietary player? Lets face it, the iPod/iTunes interface only works because the iPod's particular proprietary format has become not-so-proprietary because more than half of the Audio Players out there are iPods, and can use Fairplay'd songs.
Here is what I want. An easy-to-use, universal encryption scheme everyone can agree on. Make it burnable. Make it sharable. Make it brain-dead simple. Make all of the record companes pledge their unwavering support. Heck, Make it 4096-bit RSA if you really want to. Then make it easy to use, and have all new audio players - Apple, Dell, Creative, MS, etc - support it. Then drop the price to 49 cents a song and $5.99 a record, and watch your profits SOAR. Why would they soar? Because at those prices, with those features, and those major names backing it, nobody would really feel like hunting on a Gnutella network for a decent-quality version of their favorite John Tesh song. People would willingly buy the audio player they liked, because they could use their songs on all of them. Illegal song sharing would largely dry up. Record companies would be happy. OEMs would be happy. I would be happy.
Just my (slightly more than) 2 cents.
Although what else could one expect from a Musicopoly/Softwareopoly collaboration?
Anyone remember Divx? They realy had the market cornered if you ask me.
Your invoice is in the mail.
It's funny how MTV went into bed with Microsoft with these conditions: betraying music fans, trying to sell them an outrageous deal.
Microsoft is trying to prescribe "rented songs" for the music industry, as if buyers of music were corporations, who can swallow the Microsoft tax as cost of doing business. Guess what? It's a very different customer - MTV should have known this.
Microsoft will have a whole new army of younge people growing up hating them. MTV will be seen by fans as a complete sell-off to the evil Microsoft, who is trying to tax now kids with their "innovative" licencing. Just what the music industry needs: Microsoft... Someone is really out of his mind, Bill.
to stay away.
"No, I think he's implying that whoever 'owns' the music has a right to decide how it's sold."
Once that music is released into a culture, it becomes a part of that culture. That means everyone owns it. Every musician releases his/her music in the hopes that it becomes a part of our culture, even if they're not aware that's why they're doing it. Music IS culture, it's a part of culture, it is influenced by culture, it's a product of culture, it wouldn't even exist without preceding culture.
Sometimes it's easier to see other cultures' music as a cultural expression, because it's so foreign to us. We don't realize that the music we listen to on the radio is tied just as intimately to us.
There was a time when we all owned our culture. Anyone could sing anyone's song. Anyone could add to it, modify it, perform, and grow the culture even further. People used to sing songs together, and not just at Christmas. Singing together was actually a pastime people would do at the dinner table for enjoyment. Now we don't because our culture is owned by megacorps who discourage that.
I say we abolish copyright for music. It won't bankrupt any artist who can perform. That's my opinion.
For situations like this, I use tunebite (www.tunebite.com), a useful tool that lets you convert those pesky DRM encrypted files into playable files. Its only 20 bucks and best of all, its completly legal!
This is quite a match! Microsoft has software that lets a lot of crap get in to a computer. MTV creates and pumps out a lot of crap. This all makes for one grand "inondation de crap"! I hope all the people who carp about junk US culture aren't going to give their ducats to MTV.
The record industry gives you three choices..........Don't listen to music, Pay outragous prices for music, or break the law downloading music.....I've taken an option they don't offer..........I listen to free music like techno and bands that put shit out for free............I guess i'll remain forever uncool because I don't know who the hell is on the Top 10 charts.......I don't think I'll lose sleep.
This is the RIAA.
You are in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Come out with your hands up, bend over, this won't hurt a bit.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Haha microsoft likes Hail to the Thief! I forgive you Bill
Sony Wii
Microsoft Urge
Products to write your name in the snow.
This is exactly why I don't buy any of my music online. None. I buy CD's instead and have autorun turned off to avoid rootkits and then I rip the cd into 320 kbps vbr mp3's and enjoy full compatibility with practically any music player whether it's a mobile player or winamp. No DRM. If the record companies eventually stop making cd's and switch to a drm'd format then I guess I'll just have to switch to some indie labels who don't treat their customers like criminals. But that's a few years off at least. Kid's today should just do an end run around the music industry and only listen to free music - there's a lot of it out there and when you donate money it all goes to the artist not the fraction big label artists get now (after deductions such as "breakage fee's" that are even charged on digital sales).
Shh.
MTV betrayed music fans long ago, when they stopped playing videos for the most part and started wasting airtime with one asinine show after another. And again when they started censoring videos that might offend some corporation, or some special interest group or other. I remember the good old days when they reveled in controversy and the inherent free publicity/increased ratings in would bring. Now they're just another corporate whore.
And the only time of the day that they actually do show videos now, TRL, you can't even hear the music over the shrill screeching of the stupid teenage twats giving shout-outs to all their dumbass friends. Of course, considering the nosedive in quality that music has taken in the last 15-20 years, maybe that's not such a bad thing. But MTV is still a major contributor to the dumbing-down (perhaps this is an incorrect term, since it sort of implies they were smart to begin with) of America's youth.
Godwin's Second Law (a.k.a. Godwin's Law of the Second Order) is, of course, that any attempt to use Godwin's Law will necessarily be followed by a remark to the tune of "Godwin's Law is stupid".
I work for Microsoft (but not on Windows Media Player), so I got an early trial of the product, and have been using it for about a month now.
I didn't really get it when it was first pitched, but the hybrid subscription/paid model works great. In the years I was using iTunes, I never really did much purchasing of tracks, since it seemed ephemeral, and not really any cheaper than buying on physical media.
With URGE, I pay my flat fee, and can try ANYTHING - it isn't $9.99 ever time I want to give an album a spin to see whether or not I like it beyond 30 second previews. I can play it on any of three different PCs, and can even transfer songs to my Treo to listen to on the plane, or stream them live to my Xbox 360 for an entertainment experience. And if I like something, I can just buy it just like iTunes and burn it to CD or whatever.
As for pricing, $15/month for as much new stuff as I want to listen to? I've already got 20 new albums in rotation, stuff I likely wouldn't have bought before but found via the recommendation system, and really enjoy (I'm embarassingly obsessed with the Arctic Monkeys now). Ast $15/month, the amount I would have paid buying that music would have covered the fee for years.
A couple of cool little features:
A good selection of music videos, linked to the songs.
After setting up a new machine on your account, you can tell it to sync up to EVERYTHING you have on your other machines.
Even though there are the three recommended machines, any PlaysForSure device seems to work fine, like my Treo 700w phone, and an ancient Creative MuVo I had laying around.
Anyway, I've been really happy with it, and after years of trying to get a good home-wide music experience out of iTunes, it's already working a lot better for me, in large part to support by a much wider selection of accesory vendors.
My video compression blog
...who absoltutely, no matter what, would never, ever, under any condition, "rent" music in any way, shape, or form?
All this B.S. and they'd kill all but the most dedicated of "illegal" downloaders if they just sold CD's for a reasonable price. The absolute vast majority of people want to buy CD's, not downloads or "rentals", EVEN those that use portable devices. Most serious music lovers I know buy the CD, rip it, then store it safely away.
What's discouraged all of this is $18-20 discs that we were promised once upon a time would eventually come down in price, not up. If a CD cost ten bucks, I'd buy three or four a week; I'd even be willing to take a chance on buying a crappy album for just a couple of songs at that price. But at twice the price, I have much more than twice the aversion and I'd just rather download a few songs and listen to what I already have instead of even trying out new music, sad to say.
As to MTV selling out, come on guys - MTV reinvented sell-out at it's inception. It's part of it's charm that it's always been a corporate mouth-piece in one way or another. Otherwise why do you think it's stayed on the air this long? It ain't Laguana Beach or whatever that psudo-reality crap they show between thinly veiled payola-based commericals (better known as TRL).
AE
I have the Urge to Wii
As far as I know, it's illegal to rent any Microsoft software.
Music is obviously a second-class intellectual property.
It's just been renamed. It's also a bit more complicated to get there now. If you go to Winamp.com, click on the basic player (as opposed to the "Pro" player which costs. Has anyone ever actually bought that anyway?). This gives you four options (it would be three options, but they still give you the "pro option"). Choose the "Lite" option. This gives you the old player.
It's actually good to get this "lite" version instead of old versions because there are a few security flaws in the old one. This "Lite" version is up-to-date with regard to the security flaws, but it has none of the bloated frills of the full version. It's just the good ole 2.0.
Here's the link, by the way: http://www.winamp.com/player/free.php
Being an Apple guy, who uses iTunes to rip CDs, organize audio and download podcasts almost exclusively, I downloaded WM 11 on my Windows machine just to see what it was like. Well, I'm baffled. No way I'm going to sign up even for a "14-day trial", and then watch things come in on my credit card. I'm not interested AT ALL in buying music I won't own. (Even sounds like a rip-off straight off, right?)
.99 cents, right? They seem to be pulling a double-shift on you for this. You can give them a credit card number to do that only in the context of a 14-day "free trial," no? Not interested in renting sounds. Uh-uh. I wouldn't mind terribly giving them credit card info, just to see what the purchase "experience" is like -- but I can't seem to do it. It's just as annoying as trying to download Real Audio without getting stung with the subscription to CNN, ABC, etc., all of which is now free.
But there seems to be an option to just go on, like iTunes, and buy a track for
You may not like iTunes. I can fully understand the distrust of FairPlay and DRM generally, and of compressed music. Sure. But at least the experience is pretty clear, and there are lots of uses to iTunes that don't even cost money. Oh, yeah. An iPod. Well, I own one of those.
Singing together was actually a pastime people would do at the dinner table for enjoyment. Now we don't because our culture is owned by megacorps who discourage that.
I tried this once, but I spilled gravy on my guitar. Still, I blame the megacorps.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
DRM pisses me off, too. The best thing you can do about it is to just ignore products that use it. It'll make your life far happier.
Instead of watching another mindless hour of junk on TV, go to your library and take out a few books on subjects that interest you. If you would have been watching CSI, get a book on criminal forensics. If you would have been watching football, get a league almanac from the 1970s or 1980s, and see how much you remember about the teams from then.
Some other people I know started playing instruments to meet their desire for music. They get together informally, and create their own unencumbered tunes. You can take the $100/month or so you'd spend on cable, DVDs, CDs, at the cinema, etc., and spend it on a guitar and some lessons. With some practice, you'll be able to create music far more enjoyable to yourself than the latest shit from the pretty-faced "artist" of the week.
You not only hurt the bottom line of these companies by avoiding their products, but you also can do something that benefits yourself far more. You'll probably find it far more enjoyable, too!
Microsoft put off Vista for this...
Wait wait I know I'm insane... But so is the music industry, and it's the site of a MASSIVE IP battle.
The kind of battle in which monopolies are formed, legislators lose their minds and the music industry is crapping itself.
The OS market is saturated and the money involved is a drop in the bucket compared to digital media.
No one needs Vista... Microsoft knows that, they don't care if they cut features... But this feature... key... just like IE was back in the day.
And nobody would ever buy anything as trival as dry-cleaning or ring-tones either!
I can't imagine a car owner who wouldn't wash his own car...
etc. etc. etc. et. e. . .
So here's a question, I like a lot of variety and exploring new music as well - and I satisfy that need via internet radio. When I really like a song though I like to buy it so that I know I will always have it to listen to.
So, why not user iinternet radio (which is free) to take the place of Rhapsody? That's what I really don't understand about the rental models, what makes them that much more appealing than free options.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think that the fact that you can't burn the music is going to turn away most of their potential customers.
How's this a "fact"?
According to the article, you are allowed to burn the music if you choose to buy it for 99 cents (similar to how iTunes works!).
From the article:
"Urge sells music under the same basic terms as other stores: Songs (99 cents each) and albums (usually $9.99) can be played on five computers at any one time, and you can burn seven audio CDs from any one playlist of these downloads."
Renting is just one of the options they offer.
I will definitely not support it. Mostly because I don't run Windows-anything. I will however continue to smoke the fine fine stuff Steve Jobs is selling me. ahhhhhhh
Start Running Better Polls
Is someone crying becuase new software has new features, and they aren't going to port it to previous versions? huh?
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Decoding an MP3/WMA/AAC file doesn't introduce distortion, but it exposes it. So when you play your purchased/rented/ripped music, there's a little distortion on top of it, ideally not too much. But when you take that now-distorted music and re-condense it to MP3/OGG/AAC/etc., you get original distortion plus more distortion. To avoid this, you need to rip it at a high bit rate, meaning that only half as much music fits on your portable player and it still sounds worse.
Plus which, this requires attention in real time, you have to type in ID tags if you want to know the title/album etc., and pretty soon you wonder whether your momma spent years of her life raising you in order for you waste 3 minutes so as to not spend $0.94 from some distributor and $0.05 on some artist you "like." (As in, "well, not really enough to send him a few pennies for his work.") That's $20/hour tops that your time and values are worth and is that who you are?
We jazz fans have it easier... many of the artists only sell their work thru their own sites, and none of the BS about the moneygrubbing RIAA applies. When you rip these tunes, you're plain & simple insisting that they play for you for free.
"Inquiring Minds Want to Know!"
Luckily Microsoft wasn't around when people used magnetic tape, they would have sent the heavies around with fridge magnets ;)
a channel that hasn't played music in a decade???(i don't remember) i guess in fairness mtv2 or 3 or whatever the fuck there other channel is may play music occasionally?? Anyway were was i, oh right anyway how does MTV still manage to make popular music worse.... even when they don't play any.
...DRM ...etc bullshite started i really just stopped giving a damn... I now buy 1/8th maybe if that as many CD's as before.
... fuck em...
... downloads...
of course it seems to me, m$ is trying to make everything about computing kinda suck more for their part.
what is funny is the time that the Napster mp3 free for all was going on was the time I bought the most music ever in my life...
when all the Lawsuit/RIAA
I will not use itunes, URGE or any other DRM'd d/l service
I don't mind eMusic however DRM free mp3
consumers really need to reject this DRM garbage.... people are not.. not buying CD's cause they can get free illegal downloads... they are not buying music because the the major labels keep making total CRAP.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Let me guess, MS thinks this renting business is going to kill ipod+itunes..
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
So this is what happens when Microsoft tries to copy off of Blockbuster's idea to rent movies. I suppose next we'll see a "No more later charges" on DRM music, eh?
There are two things I use for "renting" music. Because I view renting as listening before I buy. That way I can keep the ones I love forever and drop the crap that sucks. The first one is http://www.pandora.com/. It's awesome for finding similar types of music using it's own techinique. The second is http://www.last.fm/. It requires an install, so not too handy at work, but it bases your preferences off other people. And it shows all the songs you have listened to and how many times. I use the blend, http://pandorafm.real-ity.com/, so it picks similar songs, but I still get the points in last.fm for listening to it and chat with other people about what they like. Plus at work I don't want to install the last.fm player, so the in-browser playback is nifty. And it's freeeee~ And thus I have infinite amounts of music to listen to and try, and I only have to buy a small(ish) amount that I want to have at all times.
As for pricing, $15/month for as much new stuff as I want to listen to? I've already got 20 new albums in rotation, stuff I likely wouldn't have bought before but found via the recommendation system, and really enjoy ... Ast $15/month, the amount I would have paid buying that music would have covered the fee for years.
Wow, for fifteen bucks a month plus the cost of all the newest M$ toys and software, I can stream my music to my TV where my $40/month cable subscription already pipes 30 channels of endless hours of music I already don't listen to? Fantastic! Besides that music source I don't listen to, there's plenty of online music streams these days. You know, like the internet archive and their 34,000 live concerts? Don't forget the creative commons people, who also want to promote worth while music. Why would I want to rent a source of music from the usual RIAA pigs again?
What was it that WiMP has that Amarok was lacking? Wait a minute, WiMP does not do lyrics, cover art or even wikipedia lookups?
Sarcasm off. The RIAA and Microsoft are both based on a scarcity that does not exist. The music publishers are damaged and people have routed around them. Microsoft too has been routed around. There are plenty of alternatives to both. Restricting your users while other do not is fatal. Your supposed world of plenty looks awfully limited.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
So I no longer have to see FaroLatino?
URGE also offers $0.99/track purchasing as well as the subscription model.
My video compression blog
Yes, this is indeed a very nice media player, but I got hold of it last Wednesday and reviewed it then :P
It's a lovely piece of kit, excellent media player with good functionality and the library, well, it's amazing. Good bye iTunes (which was originally used because it had a good media player).
Let's hope the rest of vista is like this.... *dreamily stares away*
Ferret
Sadly, that we can't publicly perform songs we have so much internalized is a clearer reflection of our culture than the music itself.
Morally, I agree with you: copyright on anything that can be internalized (everything) should at least be non-renewable. The importance of artifacts such as music is being undermined amid petty squabbles over ownership: Time Warner owns Happy Birthday, James Joyce's descendants say stop public readings of Ulysses, etc. It's disturbing, yes, and it makes a monster out of what should be heritage.
On the other hand, there are men and women who have dedicated a non-renewable chunk of life to perfecting a novel, album, whatever, and no one member of public, and certainly no collective, should have the right to stand up and say, "We own this. We internalized it and declare it our own!" Public domain is a state free from ownership, not of surrogate ownership.
I'm saying it's a good thing that copyright helps artists pay bills, which helps them make more art. I'm saying it's a bad thing when reading a book out loud in a library or singing a song as you walk down the street is viewed as stealing from the original artist.
And DRM is probably not just immoral, it's unconstitutional. Think about it: even once the copyright has expired (and in theory, all copyright expires), the DRM ticks on... is it protecting an artist then?
In the meantime, by statute, whoever owns the copyright, owns the exclusive right.
$200 a month on CDs? My wife loves CDs, but she's always used record clubs. Generally she'll spend a buck or two on one and get the others for free. We've been using this method for well over a decade now. I just got Tori Amos Beekeeper for free. Paying for any compressed music is something I'll never do willingly. $15 a month to rent music is absolutely lame in my book and I hope it's practice that quickly becomes obsolete and dies a painful death.
It's kind of sad that peeps would willingly allow other companies to own their assets.
I personally uses iTunes, but not to buy music, but to listen too and find new artists. No other app has yet to come close to being as intuitive as its interface for browsing music, with as many unintrusive features, not even WM11.
<]=)
this new, Windows XP-only software promote Urge to the exclusion of other retailers
It's safe to say that WMP will start promoting iTunes about the same time OSX starts promoting URGE.
Don't give me the crap about market share, it's noone's fault that Apple has a low market share but Apple's.
Hey, he was just trying to stick with in-words of the early nineties!
Jeez, cut him some slack, it's hard to stay up to date...!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Must suppress the Urge. :-)
"Urge to kill... rising..."
You must think in Russian.
Or just use vsound. It's very easy to use and great quality without the trouble of hooking up two computers.
Someone should tell Microsoft that MTV doesn't actually play music any more.
(Or did another person make this joke already?)
Oddly enough, "purge" is what I did to my stomach contents when I read about this story about Windows Media Player 11...
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
This sig all sigs devours
"Not only does this new, Windows XP-only software promote Urge to the exclusion of other retailers,..."
WMP11 supports many retailers besides URGE, as can be seen here.
Here's a link to the PCMag review of WMP11 that contains the above page.
The retailers shown in the above links are:
MSN Music Store
audible.com
Napster
MovieLink
WallMart
XM Satellite Radio
f.y.e.
Live365.com
PureTracks
PassAlong
URGE
That's fewer than the number of retailers that WMP10 supports (WMP supports the above (minus URGE) plus CinemaNow, CourtTV, emusic, ESDC, MLB, msn/soundsgood.com, MusicGiants, MusicMatch, musicNow, MyStation, SongTouch, soundBuzz, GetMusic), but WMP11 is still in beta, and may very well support all of those when the RTM version is released.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Works for me. I've never bought a drm'd tune and never will, and I've got a ****load of albums in the basement.
the difference between its and it's is only punctuation, just like Nazis and Nazi's
the editor seems to uphold the same principles as you do. He just didn't include the footnote.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
If it comes out of my speakers, I can grab it to a unprotected mp3 using many different programs e.g audacity. Don't see a problem here.
Yeah, that'd be true... IF the fucking apostrophe had no fucking meaning. You idiot.
Prepare your wallets, Microsoft would like to earn more :)
Pixel image editor - http://www.kanzelsberger.com
That damm URGE thing looks *so* *much* like iTMS!! M$/MTV seem not to think about user interface twoce and plainly ripped it off of iTunes/iTMS.
P.S. Would Apple sue for stealing look'n'feel? I guess - as long as URGE remain underdog - not. But then again, with all the limitations would it be able to dig into the market? I guess not. New product trying to compete with e.g. Napster giving *less* for the same money? What's the guy are smoking over there?..
P.P.S. IMHO M$ sould ditch the "Windows Media Player" altogether. The name has bad reputation. In fact none of my friends use it, since everyone knows it is broken. Even if M$ fixed version 11, many people wouldn't even know about the URGEnt thing because the first thing they do is installation of some other media player. God knows, even Apple-made iTunes is magnitude better compared to pretty unusable WMP 8/9/10. (WMP: "poor UI" && "crap quality WMA" => unusable, iTunes: "useful UI" && "AAC above average quality" => "works for me" (-: )
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
"An easy-to-use, universal encryption scheme everyone can agree on."
Who is this 'everyone' you speak of? Presumably you mean the people providing the music and making the players. The decryption can't be handed to you, because its you they're protecting the music from.
Likewise lots of tools you would like to use, can't have the decryption either.
So it's not everyone, its just *some* companies, and as new things come along they will be shut out.
There's no such thing as universal encryption. By definition the encryption must be protecting something from someone and that person is part of the universe!
run a patch cord from your soundcard to the soundcard of your friends computer.
:-(
Will work until the next generation, when music will be watermarked and these embedded DRM will be recognized by every audio equipment...
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
As well as Vista...
"promote Urge to the exclusion of other retailers,"
Yes, setting a default music store, that is optional during the install, is excluding all others. And you can still add whatever music store you want. iTunes lets you choose from all of one music store and one mp3 player...
"you can't shop at this store-- or even just play your Urge downloads -- in any earlier version of Windows Media Player.'"
So if that really bothers you, don't use it...
"The Microsoft/Urge subscription model contains a new twist as well: 'Urge also lets you rent songs: $9.95 a month (or $99 a year) lets you download all the tracks you want to a computer, while $14.95 ($149 a year) lets you transfer those downloads to most newer Windows Media-compatible players. These rented songs can't be burned to CD and go silent if you stop paying the fees.'"
Because this is the first time anyone has ever done this... Damn Microsoft. Damn them all to hell.
Shift happens. Fire it up.
allofmp3 appears to be leaving the building, heading toward that "jukebox in the sky". The only thing left is that the fat lady hasn't starting singing yet.
Translation: You can still connect to the servers using alltunes, but cannot order music at this time.
The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race. - Don Marquis (1878-1937)
People don't want to pay for radio, and quite frankly it's too ad ridden for them to have to (even XM and Sirius). Besides, IMO, Podcasts are putting the squeeze on that market already in the same way open source is cramping shoddy closed source commercial development.
Who In their right mind would pollute their system with this CrapWare? And I thought Version 10 was a turd!
doubles the length of the blank file
SNDREC32 can even convert to mp3 with LAME
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
1. Actual physical CD's sold at CDBaby.com
2. Individual songs sold on iTunes
3. Entire CD sold on iTunes
4. All the subscription sites (napster, rhapsody, etc) combined
However, the most EXPOSURE I've gotten in the subscription sites. True, I only get paid 4 cents per song per listen, and it takes a lot of listens to add up, but an independent artist is much more likely to get people to listen to them via the subscription services. So I like the model. As a consumer, I have no interest in it, but as an artist it's helping me gain exposure.
Music - www.richardmac.com
Stealing music is a cinche. If that's what you want to do.
Why sign up for some over-priced subscription service, and then try to circumvent the DRM? Use those Russian services, or Limewire, or torrents, or whatever.
They're banking on the world-beating success of the other music services that lock out the iPod and rent you your music.
>
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
There is Wiki for it I know but better is this:
1) Learn the bitrate of the offered file
2) Get mp3, aac, RA 10 (high bit rates are AAC too), Ogg examples (reference) from professional sources
3) Get a reference WMA 11 (same bitrate as MTV) from Microsoft.
Listen.
For example I am listening to a DRM RealAudio 8 64kbit stream (a pro radio) right now and I can easily trade it with 128kbit mp3. It is highly subjective that is why I suggest listening yourself.
Who cares... really -=grey=-
Except, you don't really own beer, so much as rent it...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Am I the only one who noticed that the New York Times is bashing WMP11 for not giving people a choice for what store to download from, but applauds the ease and integration of Apple's iTunes software. The only differecne is that MTV is not a sub company of microsoft(YET!). On the other hand, at least WMP11 and URGE give you a choice of player. Try downloading iTunes Store material to a non-iPod. Say what you want about WMP being bloated (don't get me started on the Windows version of iTunes) or buggy or what ever... but the simple fact remains that it's darn easy to replace as your default media player. Also iTunes Store didn't work with previous versions of iTunes. Finally, and I'm sure this will get this post flamed, deleted, or edited, you don't have to be on any other operating system besides Windows to be comercially successful. Roughly 94% of the world's personal computers are running some flavor of windows with 90+% of that being Windows XP! To say that a program only supports windows or only supports windows XP is like saying it only targeted at 90% of the population. Put your religious soapboxes down and think about it logically for a minute. Those of you who program know what a pain in the butt programing for multiple OS's can be. Would you pay double the cost to develop for 5% more target market? I don't think so! 80% effect with 20% of the money is the general business principle behind the most comercially successful companies.
There's a couple of important things about this-
rental is a valid business model for many users (e.g. those who listen to music at their PC, those who own compatible WMA players). I have no issue paying a subscription to rent all the music I want. I (pratically) do the same with Sky (Satalite) TV, I pay a subscription to watch the content, not to record it and that suits me fine.
Microsoft's monopoloy will make it unfair for similar business models to succeed- seriously, why do they think they can get away with it again...
DRM is annoying, but tolerable when it doesn't interfere with your ability to enjoy the music- unforunately as long as people complain, hack DRM and pirate music DRM will be tightened up and increasingly restrict access to said music.
The easiest way to beat DRM is to use a stereo cable and feed it back into your PC.
Cory Doctorow's comments in his CC licensed books make a fair point (better than I could) about why artists have to change - sooner rather than later-
"I still don't know how it is artists will earn a living in the age of the
Internet, but I remain convinced that the way to find out is to do basic
science: that is, to do stuff and observe the outcome. That's what I'm doing
here. The thing to remember is that the very *worst* thing you can do to me as
an artist is to not read my work -- to let it languish in obscurity and
disappear from posterity. Most of the fiction I grew up on is out-of-print, and
this is doubly true for the short stories. Losing a couple bucks to people who
would have bought the book save for the availability of the free electronic text
is no big deal, at least when compared to the horror that is being irrelevant
and unread. And luckily for me, it appears that giving away the text for free
gets me more paying customers than it loses me."
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency (Eugene McCarthy)
Yet I've never even seen anyone online being compared to Pol Pot, Heidegger, or Tiger Woods. The probability is approaching 1, but I'm only going to be alive long enough for it to hit 1e-4. Hitler/Nazism comes up in about 5% of discussions. There's something to Godwin's Law.
In a capitalist society tyranny begins with the control of the flow of money.
The gas prices were doomed to rise a bit with the recent U.S. activities, but the fact that they've shot up sufficiently to create record profits for George's buddies isn't a simple coincidence. They are a good example what happens when a few people with far too much control have a chance to weigh the benefits of the public good versus the benefits of lining their pockets with cash. In thie case, the president could have suspended or lightened the ethanol % mandate to increase supply, and lower demand and pricess. Gas would still be > $2.25 a gallon due to other factors but it wouldn't be $3.25....
When Panasony-Soft owns the rights to the last 5 years of the music industry's output, and is the only legal source to obtain the last Beattles album, how much anti-religious or controversial content can they purge without loosing more than 2% of their market share. Probably all of it.
It won't be about censorship to them, it will about profitability. Free speech, and the right to record it is only profitable if people vote for it with their dollars.
Please do.
It didn't stop that guy from cracking the iTunes DRM before. What was that program? Hymn? Now it's just gotten a lot harder thanks to that guy so people can't crack it any more.
It's too bad that Windows Media Player didn't locate cover-art images reliably -- most of my library was illustrated with generic blank-CD icons. For every obscure indie artist's cover art that the program found, it missed two or three releases from big-name acts. And this feature doesn't work at all if your music files (like many Internet downloads) haven't been tagged with the right artist and album data; Windows Media Player 11 is supposed to fill in such missing information automatically but often did not.
Missing big name acts is pathetic when you are the music company and the free alternatives can do as well. Amarok with musicbrainz, Amazon search and easy tagging worked better than the above when I moved my vinyl. It did not always work, but the cover manager, which is easy to find, lets you put in your own images so everything missing is a quick Google image search away. Once again, the music community outdoes the pigopolists.
$15/month isn't even 10% of our monthly entertainment budget around here, but it's sure more than 10% for my entertainment value right now. 10 years ago, I had a $200/month used CD habit.
Well, if you've got money to burn and don't mind your collection dissapearing when WiMP 12 rolls around, WiMP 11 might just work for you. I trust neither Microsoft nor the RIAA to keep the deal, even if it is as wonderful as you say it is. WiMP 11 is screwing over Napster and MSN, so that's going to be gone soon. What happens to your music collection then? Will M$ come to your rescue and buy them out or will it all just fade away? How long will Purge work for you? Considering the abominable state of commercial radio, I'm never going to put my music world into the RIAA's hands again.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Sure jb stalker, you can read the article:
It's too bad that Windows Media Player didn't locate cover-art images reliably -- most of my library was illustrated with generic blank-CD icons. For every obscure indie artist's cover art that the program found, it missed two or three releases from big-name acts. And this feature doesn't work at all if your music files (like many Internet downloads) haven't been tagged with the right artist and album data; Windows Media Player 11 is supposed to fill in such missing information automatically but often did not.
Sounds like I'm better off with Amarok, which did not cost me anything to begin with.
BTW, saying WiMP does not make you a big man.
Yes, but eating too much does.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You might want to square the tip in your sig to this.
LL
Don't quote me on this...
in most soundblaster-compatible soundcards (including every built-in one). In Windows XP (and 98 too I think), you can go to Audio properties > Advanced... > find the input device and check off "stereo mix".
Now the advanced mixer, under "recording", will have an option for "stereo mix" as the recording input device.
Open up Sound Recorder, hit play on iTunes or Winamp or whatever, and hit record. Make sure its not clipping (too loud on the playback).
I usually use SoundForge (or something sufficiently advanced) so I can normalize the track and trim off the few seconds of dead air at the beginning and end of the track.
Now convert the .wav file to .mp3 or whatever using whatever tool you want (Again, SoundForge has built-in mp3 conversion; most of the good Audio Editors out there do as well).
Better than lining out to a friend's machine -- it keeps it in the digital domain; no loss.
body massage!
I noticed that my teenage son and his friends are trading DVDs full of MP3 songs. The mind boggles at the number of songs on such a thing. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a backpack full of DVDs...
Oh well, what the hell...
- Opening sequence: WINDOWS the MOVIE -
:Voice of distraught windows user::
:Voice of h4x0r::
:MK Voice over::
(In the distance the sound of power supplies and disk drives coming alive)
"...These rented songs can't be burned to CD and go silent if you stop paying the fees..."
"not for long..."
(Insert Mortal Kombat theme music here)
* It has begun!
* The Unofficial Windows Security Challenge of 2006!
* Get the Urge!
You're right. It is foolishness. And if you'll note the number of (5 Funny) post on /. at any given time, you can see that people tend to enjoy 'foolishness'. A joke isn't very funny after you've had to explain it.
An opportunity to give Microsoft more money for crippleware!
With offers like this I might just go back to buying CD's.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
Marketing knows better when targeting people. As a marketer myself, I know that a 30GB Ipod has 75% of users going around with a 45% empty device. Out of the 55% full, they listen 20% of the songs mostly time.
And no, a minority of the ipod-users will go and rip their own CD's, first, that is "not cool" and remember this is a cool-based market. Secondly, the whole point of the digital device is to get rid of the CD's. Just plug-pay-play and get the song, not cd that you want.
Very few started recording their vinyls into cassettes and then the cassettes into CD's. Consumers prefer to "refresh" their collection by adopting the format of the new recording devices with the promise of better quality and sound.
Renting music will also fail because it will invite even more vandalism.
Because of the size of Microsoft, anytime they decide to compete it looks like they want to take over. There is not such thing as "co-exist" with the competition, that would defeat the purpose of capitalism and enterprise and companies that adopt such mentality end up in the gutter.
Paid subscriptions don't have much value. There are plenty of great free podcasts - from the iTunes podcast page. I subscribe **freely** to several podcasts and get over 8 hours of great content daily - comedy,news, and all varieties of music, oh and also FREE video podcasts as well. Plus I get to keep it forever if I want to and load it to my ipod. Who needs paid subscription services when there is free audio and video podcasts
You'd know that:
Or, you can just that that audio cd (with the DRM now stripped from the files) and reimport them as non-DRM'd AAC or mp3 files, which you can then download onto your non-iPod player.
Apple pretty much has said that upfront. It's admitted that it(s DRM is a joke and) can be bypassed pretty simply. Then it asks you not to steal music. Seems like a fair deal to me -- Apple gives its users a simple means to bypass this DRM and you agree not to steal music.
DRM gets people's undies so bunched around here, people don't bother looking into how some of this stuff works. Or, in this case, arguably doesn't work. But if it shuts RIAA up and gets them to drink the kool-aid, then more power to FairPlay
... and for those who claim you can hear the difference between compressed files burned to an uncompressed audio disc then recompressed using a reasonably high bit-rate, then you either need to go to some louder concerts or forget digital music and go back to vinyl.
I looked at the screenshots, and what strikes me is that WiMP is emulating iTunes. This comes as no surprise, but it is surprising that nobody else here at /. has mentioned it.
It's M$ doing business as usual: imitating successful models poorly.
"...who search the reason of things
Are those who bring the most sorrow on themselves." --Euripides, The Medea
Records for sure! :p
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Though it's in it's earlier development stages (currently version 0.1.1), song bird looks promising as an open-source alternative to Windows Media Player or iTunes. It's being built off of the Mozilla Firefox codebase, and from their website they suggest that it will allow you to, "Play any MP3 on the Web without leaving the page. Songbird can view Web pages as dynamic playlists that it can play, save, or automatically download every day. . . . Songbird has all the features you expect in a desktop media player. And Songbird constantly improves. Like Firefox, Songbird's features may be improved with user installed and contributed cross-platform extensions." FWIW, the builds just look attractive, too.
Tried it. Yuk, comapred to iTunes it is just ugly. C'mon Microsoft, get it right :-(
Karma? Sorry, i don't believe in superstition. http://talk.thinkingmatters.org.nz
Real with Rhapsody. Not the regular Rhapsody, but Rhapsody.com. It runs right through your browser via plugin and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. The only problem is that at $9.99 it's a little to expensive, and the web-based version still has ads even for subscribers. Granted, it's only in version 0.1 Beta, but I could see this being the alternative to iTunes. It would be intresting if Rhapsody.com cost a little less, didn't have ads to subscribers, and had a linking system that would let you buy the CD straight from Amazon.
I was really surprised to find out that I can run Rhapsody.com and have access to the entire library on my Mac.
Full story on how onerous the license agreement is can be found here. An excerpt:
"For example, we shall (and you agree we are permitted) to transmit and arrange for automatic installation of any and all updates, modifications, and/or even full re-installations of the Software to address security, digital rights management, interoperability, and/or performance issues.....
The Software also includes automated features that collect information that uniquely allows the Software to automatically identify your computer and your system, the version of the Software in use and to manage some or all of the digital rights associated with Content. These features may be remotely activated in order to update security components used by the Software, including, without limitation, portions of the Windows Media Player associated with your use of Urge. These updates, modifications, re-installations and other modifications to the Software can occur periodically or when necessary and without any notice to you....
We may use your Personal Information to tailor your experience on Urge, review your content libraries and files to better understand your preferences and make recommendations, to display Content, Promotions, information or offers we think may be of interest to you...
he Software is also capable of monitoring itself to detect tampering or other security-related activities and has the ability to automatically transmit and communicate information about attempted tampering and other security incidents. "
Note that according to this story, using Microsoft Defender's own definitions for Spyware, URGE is considered Spyware.