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.'"

Comments

How is this a new twist?

[WalterGR]

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.'

How is this a "new twist"? Listen Rhapsody has been using this model for years.

What's the logic here?

[Gothic_Walrus]

Please tell me they're not seriously expecting this to compete with iTunes.

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.

Re:What's the logic here?

[WalterGR]

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.

I subscribe to Rhapsody, so I guess I am that stupid.

I know some people feel very... passionately... about "renting" music rather than "owning" it. But I like having access to thousands upon thousands of tracks that I can listen to at any time. Rhapsody has two million tracks.

Am I going to listen to all two million? Of course not. But I have extremely varied tastes and like exploring new music. Last week I was listening to my favorite indie tracks, then I got bored. So I started checking out world music - African, Caribbean, Brazilian. Then I got bored and listened to some hip-hop. Then I got bored and listened to some music from Rent.

In a given week, I'll listen to hundreds of different tracks - most of them brand new to me. How much do I pay? About $12.

But that's ok, call me stupid. ;)

Re:What's the logic here?

[phillymjs]

Who says they need to compete with iTunes?

It's Microsoft, dude-- they can't just co-exist with a competitor, everything's got to be an Us-vs-Them-to-the-Death battle.

Personally, I have a 30 gig iPod. If I wanted to fill it up with mp3's purchased at iTunes, it would cost me THOUSANDS of dollars. It would be much more financially responsible to fill it up with "rented" songs, as I could pay $150 a year for decades before it would have been more cost effective to buy them outright.

Why does everyone who makes the "Cost to fill my iPod" pricing argument always ignore the fact that most if not all iPod buyers have a preexisting CD collection with which to populate their device? Also, it would be even more financially responsible to add to your music collection by buying used CDs-- $150 a year would get you at least 15-17 of them, you can rip those tracks to whatever format and quality level you prefer, and they're yours to keep forever with no DRM.

I've got a 30GB iPod as well, and the only songs on it that didn't come from my personal CD collection came from "free song" codes during the iTMS/Pepsi promotions.

~Philly

Re:What's the logic here?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Why does it matter whether you can "burn" an audio CD? For music, you may as well use a Bic lighter. Portable audio players are so dang small and can hold a hundred albums in a third the volume of a single CD jewel case, such that there is no point in CDs except as a purchase medium.

It is clearly a subscription service and shouldn't be treated as if that is the only choice you get, you can still buy single tracks or buy physical CDs. You trade "buying" 10-15 CDs a year (though you can still buy if you like) for the ability to legally sample any of a few million tracks at any time without having to commit to buying them, and still get to time-shift. To me, that sounds like a decent trade-off.

I don't think a subscription service where you get to subscribe to a huge library for dirt cheap and you get to download what ever you want and keep them forever is a viable business model. I understand basic psychology, people would subscribe for a month for the cost of a single CD and acquire a library of a lifetime and unsubscribe. What you want seems to be the have-your-cake-and-eat-it variety, which frankly, makes you seem a lot like how the RIAA behaves.

Re:i bet

[AuMatar]

Didn't PlayFair do that over a year ago?

But this DRM shit is why I refuse to use itunes- allofmp3.com for me.

Re:i bet

[Ruff_ilb]

I don't think it's that no one CAN... I think it's that no one cares enough to even bother.

Considering the fact that high-quality, free music can be obtained without any sort of DRM cracking, there's really no incentive to crack the iTunes DRM system.

Re:That's sick.

[Stoutlimb]

People contribute just by living their lives. Are you saying that just because my son is too young to contribute to culture, that he's not allowed to sing Happy Birthday to his friends? It's his culture, he inherited it. It's our culture, each and every one of us, regardless of age or contribution, owns it. We should all have an equal right to participate.

Civilization and culture flourished for thousands of years, and we've only had copyright for about a hundred. I think it's a perversion, and copyright laws especially for music should be repealed. Musicians should go back to making money the old fashioned way, performing. The rest of copyright law should be seriously re-examined too.

That's my opinion.

Re:i bet

[complete loony]

Or there's Virtual Audio Cable which creates a fake sound card that lets you redirect it's output to another applications input.

URGE in practice

[benwaggoner]

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.

Re:i bet

[clockwise_music]

Just make sure that you mute the record output (monitoring) level - otherwise you'll end up with a wonderful feedback loop!

It's actually more difficult than you might expect to be able to record your computers output - it actually would be an easier solution to use a second PC. Just make sure that you've got your equalizer set to something reasonably flat, otherwise you'll have too much bass and treble.

Pretty funny how we've now come full circle - doesn't this remind you of the tape trading days? Next thing you know we'll be playing back + recording sounds at twice the speed (so that you could tape an album in half the time...) - ahh, those were the days. Made it easier to slow down a fast guitar solo :)

I'm so unimpressed.

[twitter]

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 ... 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.

Re:I'm so unimpressed.

[benwaggoner]

Sure, there are lots of alternatives.

But as a busy guy with three small children, searching out the good stuff via those other means just isn't worth the time and attention involved. That was my problem with Napster back in the day - just too darn much of a pain in the butt to get a full album, well encoded, with correct metadata. Better to spend that time to write an article, get a check, and just buy the CDs. The scarcity isn't music. It's the music I wan't, in high enough quality that it doesn't bug me, with the right metadata, with a pricing model that doesn't penalize me for experimentation.

$15/month isn't even 10% of our monthly entertainment budget around here, but it's sure more than 10% fo my entertainment value right now.

10 years ago, I had a $200/month used CD habit. URGE gives me the same shopping experience for a lot less money and shelf space, and naked (it's a muggy night here in Portland...).

Oh, FYI, WMP does do lyrics (look in the Options), although I haven't seen much yet with that data populated.

Alas, allofmp3 is going, going...

[javachip]

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.