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EMI Launches Advertising-Supported P2P Service
SirClicksalot writes to tell us that EMI is launching the first ad-supported peer-to-peer music downloading service called Qtrax. With Qtrax users will have two tiers of membership available to them, which EMI hopes will draw in a large segment of users to try it out and graduate many of them to stay on with a monthly fee or purchase music permanently. From the article "In the ad-supported, free tier, users will be able to search the network for specific tracks, and those tracks registered with Qtrax will be made available for download in Qtrax's proprietary ".mpq" file format. Users will then be able to play the downloaded .mpq file in full-fidelity sound quality for a pre-defined number of times. Each time a consumer plays a track, the Qtrax player will also offer fans click-to-buy purchase options, as well as the opportunity to upgrade to a premium subscription service for a flat monthly fee."
Why is this better than iTunes? Because with iTunes, the money comes directly out of your pocket but you're still forced to decrypt those files you're buying. The primary difference is that iTunes gives you the sense that you'll always be able to play that song after you've paid for it, but does anyone have this in writing?
I'm not sure but I would wager that the "Premium" tier service for Qtrax operates in much the same way as iTunes
Having been in bands that only play the local scene, this new "P2P2A" just looks like another level of penetration preventing bands from "making it big." For a second there, it looked like the internet & P2P networks would allow starting bands to release their stuff for anyone if they so chose (something that used to require signing a label). Now, you have to be signed on a label and it has to be the right label with deals worked with iTunes or Qtrax to make your music available. If consumers are moved to use primarily one of these two programs for their music, how will they ever be exposed to bands on indie labels or bands not on labels at all?
What I'm trying to say is
My work here is dung.
Yes, it's yet another online music service whose music won't work on iPods.
In fact, since they're using their own custom DRM and relying on you seeing adverts while you listen (how many people look at the screen while listening to music, then?) it won't work with other portable players, either.
So why are you going to want this, other than for the free version to try out tracks occasionally (and possibly record them to a less encumbered format)?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Qtrax's proprietary ".mpq" file format
There, out of business before I was able to read to the end of the article.
This will only work if there is a wide variety of material. It's not clear that this is will be the case considering the service is from EMI -- I guess only EMI-signed music will appear. Silly squabbling such as Beatles tracks not being available on the iTunes music store doesn't cut it with consumers.
Oh, requiring Microsoft DRM is pretty rubbish too.
Let's see... I get a "free" version of this P2P. Said P2P software contains adware and r00ts my system. Therefore, I pay a monthly fee for songs that are so DRM'ed that I can't play them more than a few times? Am I the only one that thinks there's something broken with this?
So, that means that I'll be buying
Oh, and on an unrelated note ThePirateBay is back up again.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
As long as it works with even one sound card for which Open Source drivers exist, this DRM scheme is defeatable, just the same as any other DRM scheme that has ever existed or will ever exist. Every penny spent pursuing what is demonstrably a mathematical impossibility is a penny wasted.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
This sounded fine, until I read the fatal words: Qtrax's proprietary ".mpq" file format
No, not a virus, but a political bate and switch; give the people a way to use DRM that "benefits them" so they cozy up to it as an idea to control media standards. As soon as that happens, profit, for you now control major media formats, ship all CDs with DRM and probably rootkits, too.
I smell RIAA funding.
Great Intellect...
FTA:The premium subscription service tier uses Microsoft's Janus DRM technology, which allows consumers to pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to music in the Qtrax network. Subscribers will also have the ability to transfer content to Windows Media enabled portable devices for as long as the subscription stays active.
Services like this will never work. Their formats aren't compatible with iPODs and their proprietary formats and 'listen as long as you subscribe' business models are just plain stupid.
How about a service where it's fifty cents to download a song, you can choose what format you want it in and it doesn't expire.
How about letting me download it and listen to it first to see if I like it. If I don't pony up the two quarters it expires in a week.
How about making an online store that doesn't require iTunes, Windows Media Player or any of the other bloatware mp3 players out there.
How about putting together an online music store that people will actually use, until then me and everybody else I know of is just going to keep pirating.
signature goes here
I like the idea. I will likely subscribe. As soon as I put my hands on .mpq to .mp3 converter.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
My guess is that as different record companies and consortiums launch their p2p services, we're going to see mounting pressure for the consolidation of these companies into massive conglomerates, a la the telecom industry. Then once there's only one record company left in the world, a single p2p service will be all that is available and (like with telecom customers) we the users will then assume the classic position: on all fours and ready to take it with a smile.
A-Bomb
So I have that file on my computer. And then... I can listen to it every time I'm on my computer. Ok.
I can do that already with internet radio. For free. Now, again, why should I pay for that service? I didn't quite get that part, but maybe I'm just too dumb to see the insightful, grandious idea that marketing spun there.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
wow this sounds like the only p2p system more annoying than kazaa!
-- lol pwned
Finally we have a service that combines the advertisements we love with the digital rights management software that keeps our music safely encoded! Bonus feature: we get to enjoy the advertisements all over again when our favorite song expires!
-Z
The peer to peer aspect of this service provides no benefit to the customer, it's just a buzzword that people associate with free music. Why should I get this service and then help EMI host their crippled music files? If they're going to make me watch ads and charge me for the music I think they can afford to host everything directly from their own servers.
That is definitely a step in the right direction - no doubt. Kudos for marketing, strategic planning staff at emi.
The problems they need to eliminate now are the inter-operability between devices, the 'expire' annoyance.
Read radical news here
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
As far as I can see, P2P has 2 benefits:
1 - It's free.
2 - People share their entire collections, which may include a lot of obscure media in a number of formats and encoding types.
Since this has none of these advantages, I can't quite see why anyone would want to use this service.
What they really need is a way to track the legitimate rights holder for all files shared on a P2P network, and a means of charging for it. This may not be possible, but it's the only way you could make people pay for P2P.
Mac, or Linux?
Seems like an already lost cause when you consider iTunesMS supports Win & Mac (sadly Linux is still missing...)
...as soon as someone writes it.
Probably in a couple of weeks.
-- My Weblog.
You have to use it together with a CueCat while you simultaneously order stuff from boo.com and watch PointCast news.
Er, well! Nevermind...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Algerath
Seriously, my home stereo IS a computer. Using a proprietary player is not an option; that would be like using a CD changer except for a handful of CDs that requie their own proprietary player, which you have to plug into your stereo whenever you want to listen to them.
My solution is to only listen to music that is available in usable formats. That basically means MP3 and _real_ CD audio. Funny thing is, now that I don't pirate any music, I am also buying less music, simply because it's that much harder to get into new stuff. In fact, I only buy new music when I have a chance to listen to what my friends who still pirate music are listening to.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
This could be more interesting than people realise, EMI and the Beatles have a history, the question is, do EMI have enough access or ability to include The Beatles in this new service?
Probably not, but it is something to think about.
As much as I usually side with companies on their efforts to retain profit, this proposal looks like a DOA to me for two reasons. First, the reported use of a modified tcpip.sys file makes the least informed computer user reconsider the download even if they want the premium service. If EMI has to use such an invasive procedure to reduce piracy, then why bother? I say just simply sponsor Shareaza or whatever and be done with it. As much as that sounds crazy, I bet they would see more CD sales from that than this Qtrax idea. The second reason why this is a bad proposal is that it would lead to worse PR for the money they spent to 'develop' this Qtrax scheme. If I were a VP or President of a department I would have already thrown my left shoe at the moron that devised this little gimmick for the wasted money and ire they raised.
All in all, I admit it was a half-way effort, but it wasn't enough. They need to simply consider using an inclusive instead an exclusive method to get people to buy CDs, like buy one get one free of your favorite EMI artist...Or report that their CDs are root kit free, thus not prone to the rootkit viruses or spyware/malware. And even sponsor Shareaza as I said before, even though it sounds crazy I still think the PR from that would be enough to boost CD sales...
-- Bridget
Linux support? I guess not...
Great business proposition this one: The users pay a monthly fee to allow EMI to use their bandwith and other computer resources to distribute EMI products. In exchange for that, the users get music files in a proprietary format, which they cannot play without Microsoft DRM software. I can't wait to trash my ipod and sign up for this thing. I'll take some lube just in case they decide to rape me the old fashioned way.
I dunno if you ppl. have heard this piece of utility called 'Total Recorder' [ http://www.highcriteria.com/ ].
It is used to rip off music that comes out of our soundcard directly to MP3. It is very powerful and easy to use.
Ofcourse there wont be any loss of quality as our mpq extension will be play the tarcks without loss of quality.
--
Any System like Every Other System has its own Weakness
I missed the part where you get indemnity from RIAA lawsuits if you subscribe to this service and accidentally listen to a song on the wrong player, or maybe write down your login information on a sticky note and your 12 year old's best friend picks it up and logs in from a different computer. (Gasp! Say it 'aint so!)
Or is this just a phishing excersize for EMI Legal?
null sig
What do they consider to be 'full-fidelity' sound quality?
If this is some lossless compression scheme, great.
It might even be worth putting up with (some limited) DRM restrictions.
If it's lossy compression comparable to MP3 at bitrates of 192kbps or lower it just doesn't isn't worth paying anything for regardless if it's DRMed or not.
So, in other words, I get pestered to listen to bad music. No thanks.
All over again... I never bought any DIVX Disks, and will not participate in this shite either!!
----- I have bad karma for a reason! -----
Itunes makes it obscenely easy to "remove" drm. When you have itunes files, just burn them to a cd. This can serve 2 purposes:
1: Backup . Mom always said backup frequently and often.
2: DRM free version. This version is DRM free. You can rerip. I've tried it reripping as mp3 (256). I couldn't notice any noticable decrease in quality. If you can you probably shouldn't be buying 128 kbps aac's in the first place..
3: Jhymm (cough)
"download in Qtrax's proprietary ".mpq" file format"
err. no it wont.
While I do agree with most of the negative comments here, I think it's a step in the right direction. It's an actual record label that's doing this, rather than another Napster. Epitaph did it with emusic, now EMI. One by one all the record labels are going to start seeing the light, and finally make RIAA redundant.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Always chack for the CDDA logo when buying CDs, as if they follow the CDDA standard it won't b0rk up when playing on older players or your PC. Also disable autorun, unless you like their crap hidden in your PC.
h2g2bob
We've heard our fans and understood the correct way to our mutual benefits: large income for us and our artists, and affordable music with great quality, on any device - for you.
Well, maybe not for artists, but, I mean, come on, we're doing everything 'round here.
Not for any device, but, you could just buy a PlaysForSure player (damn you iPod!).
Ok, not for a great price, we kinda exaggerated: no free lunch you know. In fact, you can't buy it at all, it's a monthly fee.
The quality may suck a little, it's a low bitrate lossy format, it's mathematicians and programmers fault. With new algorithms, we'll have it by 2045.
There's also a list of known issues, like we're collecting privacy info, tracking what you play and other minor things, that, since you don't know it, why you should care about it.
Well, wish us and you plenty of luck with our newfound image of customer care and friendly relationships!
PS: Oh and we might still need to sue 12-year old girls from time to time, you know how it is.. Come on..
Doesn't Napster do the exact same thing?
Qtrax's proprietary ".mpq" file format.
Next thing you know, there'll be rumors flying around about how you can listen to the music in every one of Blizzard's games by plugging Bliz's *.mpq files into the Qtrax player.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
It appears that EMI has seen that P2P can be a legitimate medium for which to distribute music to consumers, but it still has a lot to learn:
The premium subscription service tier uses Microsoft's Janus DRM technology...for unlimited access to music in the Qtrax network. Subscribers will also have the ability to transfer content to Windows Media enabled portable devices for as long as the subscription stays active.
1) You don't ever own the music. It's being licensed, and as soon as you cancel your subscription, the DRM will stop the music from playing.
2) You can't burn the music to a CD, still the most common method for playing music.
3) You can't play the music on any portable device that doesn't support Windows Media, meaning iPod owners can't transfer the music to their iPods.
EMI doesn't seem to understand that consumers want to take their music with them, not leave it on the computer. The #1 portable music player right now is the CD player, and iPod is #2. You can't have a viable competitor in the market if you cut off the top two music players, parading your DRM agenda. This service won't fly.
So taking EMI's brand do we know which arists they will be putting up? As an indy artist would I be able to put something on the network? Looks nice on paper but do we really want to install another p2p client to infect our PC's?
Cheap UK and US VPS
Your PirateBay link, that is. Anything you click on at the main page (http://www.thepiratebay.org) takes you to http://thepiratebay.org./ And a lot of the funny legal notices are missing.
Are we sure the right people are running this system, or is it a honeypot to collect IP addresses? The whole site was confiscated a while ago by police. Are we sure who's running it?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I was vaguely interested until I saw "proprietary format" that won't work in whatever player I feel like using (iTunes, or my Rio Karma, or whatever).
There are companies such as Magnatune that'll sell you 100% legal (as opposed to "of questional legality" like AllOfMP3.com), DRM-free music, without ads, or a monthly subscription, or any other sort of nonsense. There are some really interesting artists there, too, and quite a wide range of music.
I don't work for them or get paid by them, I just think they're awesome because of the way they're doing business and supporting independant artists.
- chrish
mpq format you say? Well that sounds about as useful to me as a chocolate teapot.
Will my mp3 player support it? No, Then I guess they wont be getting very many of my hard earned pennies.
As soon as the record companies wise up and start offering a decent legal download site maybe people will actually use it, in the mean time AllofMP3 will carry on strong and they'll be no WTO place for them Rooskies.
I dont read
What's to stop someone from setting recording software source to "internal," recording the song while it plays, and exporting it as an mp3? Sometimes I wonder if the people who make up these rules even know how to turn a computer on...in other ways than talking dirty to it.
I seem to recall that Blizzard [blizzard.com] has been using the MPQ format to store its games data since Warcraft 2 (maybe earlier). "Woohoo! Look at all this music that came with this! *plays hissing and garbled sound* Ouchie..." Also, what's to stop people from setting their sound system to record off the sound card what's being played, and save out the proprietary DRM'd music as OGG or MP3?
"You're awefully cute, but unfortunately for you, you're made of meat."
On a related note (and a story I just submitted to /.) Tiscali have just shutdown their JukeBox online music streaming service. Their reasons are given here Tiscali Jukebox switch off Q & A. From the article:
"Why have you decided to shut down the service today? Because after going online in total accordance with the music industry and having it launched officially, thus letting our users access it with the characteristics we tested and fine-tuned, today the music industry forwards unexpected demands."
and
"Clearly, major labels do not understand the business potential that is behind a service like Tiscali Juke Box which, by acknowledging and paying the rights for all songs being listened to in streaming mode, allows the safeguard of the rights of the industry and the artists."
You can buy a universal audio format converter for $5 at RadioShack. Apparently a loophole in the DMCA allows the sale of this product.
...will EMI's excellent (and huge) back catalog of classical recordings be available. All the article says is "EMI's catalog." But I'm not going to just assume that's everything.
Well, since Qtrax was developed by LTDnetwork, which is a wholly own subsidiary of Brilliant Technologies Inc, which brought us the evil of Brilliant Digital Entertainment's b3d Projector, it would seem to me that the evil is just being repackaged in a different wrapper.
Personally, BDE left such a bad taste in my mouth from the sneaky way that they tried to do things that I won't give them a second chance to make a mess on my computer. Many people have made other valid comments regarding how this platform is crippled from day one - who wants proprietary formats and heavy DRM that forces you to view ads to play music? I don't pretend to have a better option, but this whole idea smells bad.
Users will then be able to play the downloaded .mpq file in full-fidelity sound quality for a pre-defined number of times
... grrr ... I buy a CD so I can listen to the songs as many times as humanly possible ... with no additional cost! At work ... if I just got a new CD ... I could listen to it like 4 or 5 times in one day ... maybe more ... so it would be really really really annoying if I played it twice ... then had to re-pay ... then played it twice ... then had to re-pay. That is just ridiculous!
This is the frickin most annoying part of this crap. "for a pre-defined number of times"
WTF? How can you compare internet radio (listening to somebody else's playlist or a professional DJ with commercials) to downloads (listening to specific tracks you want to hear)? That would be like comparing radio to an mp3 player. Sure, both can play Barry Manilow, but you can bet I'll never download anything even remotely similar.
That's even worse than folks comparing satellite radio (hundreds of channels for content/variety junkies/cross-country drivers) to HD radio (one or two really high-def channels for quality junkies/audiophiles) yesterday. Totally different services for totally different markets.
Here's what I don't understand about this idea: Why the fsck would I want to use a P2P service when I'm paying (in advertising or money)? If I'm paying, I just want to download from a web site; I don't want to forward a port on my router, poke a hole in my firewall, let people into my computer, and saturate my upstream bandwidth. Not to mention waiting to search others' computers, slow/failed downloads, etc...
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
... said it best!% 20pistols%20emi/
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZiE7qoO26lY&search=sex
Some time ago, a company tried something like this with DVDs. They sold special players and special disks that could only be used in those players. You could only watch the movie X number of times before it wouldn't work anymore.
My point? Has anyone heard of this in the past year from someone who liked it? My guess is no.
Why would anyone rent a song, when downloading it for keeps, legaly or illegaly, is soooo cheap? It just wouldn't make any sense. I don't know who approved the funding for this new idea, but I'd like to talk to them. They just might fund my new company, "The Happy Donkey Natural Fertilizer Co.", where our slogan could be, "You step in it you buy it." (We're still working on that slogan.)
"In a world that exists without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
.. with DRM can easily be thwarted using an audio capture program such as GoldWave.
/* Begin Sarcasm */ /* End Sarcasm*/
If you can hear it, you can capture it using such a program.
Their efforts won't accomplish anything.
Unless they require us to pay a licensing fee for having ears. With the gubment passing a lot of stupid laws lately, look for a lobbyist to "convince" someone to back-door this into another bill.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Anyone else reminded of Monty Python?
Listen, EMI. If reading a summary of your service gives me a migraine, it's unlikely I'll ever try it. So, if I've got it right...
I search for a user who has the track I'm looking for, ignore all the ads, download it in
Sorry, EMI. Life's too short to figure out your service.
First off, I must say that I am not totally against the direction this service is headed. The idea of selecting the songs I want to hear to demo tracks I wouldn't normally get a chance to hear on the radio is always a plus -- and I use other websites which already do this kind of thing. What I hate is the format these files come in... compressed audio. Gah! What a horrible thing to do to music. For my portable player I don't care because my headphones are not of sufficient quality to hear the distortion. But my home stereo, which isn't that great (JBL ND310's, HK Stereo Amp[75w & 42amps]), most definitely picks out compressed audio distortion. So as much as I enjoy sampling music for free, I would never ever pay for compressed audio -- I'll compress it myself, thank you very much.
Now what I see here is the recording industry positioning itself to prevent the inevitable end of standard music marketing. No longer is a recording company required to produce and push an album to make a lot of sales. Sam Roberts recorded and produced his first hit album on a Mac in his house. On the net, word of mouth and user picked playlists drive interest in new music -- not music videos and airtime on the radio. No longer is a recording company required to record, produce and market the music. No longer are quality recording devices the exclusive property of the studios, no longer does music require airtime on radios to be heard, and no longer does marketing require the weight of a recording giant to push songs onto the airwaves and make flashy videos to generate interest. Surely EMI and others realise this and are pre-emptively positioning themselves into the new way music is distributed and heard. Heaven forbid music distribution sites start allowing artists the chance to get their music to the masses without the aid of a recording contract.
I fully welcome the ability to download and listen to music for free, I just have a few requests. 1) Offer uncompressed file formats (and no, high sampling rates won't fix the problem), 2) Cut out the record companies, their day is past and now they are just leeching on a system which doesn't need them anymore. 3) Buy the damn music! If you listen to it and you like it pay the guy or gal who made it!
I can hardly contain my excitement at the thought of how successful this is likely to be.
Every single one of these entertainmnet media schemes is relevant to them trying to find a way to keep making the same sort of money per copy they were back when making copies for redistribtion was expensive. Now that it has dropped to the incredibly cheap level, they will not lower prices to reflect this. Ever single one of these steps seeks to somehow keep a similar pricing level when it is not needed, they need drastically lowered prices to hold market now. And that's the problem, they simply will NOT lower prices down to a level that technological advances dictate as more fair pricing.
download in Qtrax's proprietary ".mpq" file format. Users will then be able to play the downloaded .mpq file in full-fidelity sound quality for a pre-defined number of times.
./'ers stopped at "proprietary". When will they learn? I don't want to deal with that crap. A file that only plays "X" times before it dies? Great, I purcahsed this mighty computer with a brain the size of a planet and I am using those cycles to determine how many times I can play "yellow submarine".
I am sure most
I'll just stick to free music and podcasts, thanks. I want some more DRM in my life, but I'm good. No, really I would love some, but I'm all set.
I have a feeling this will be a fabulously fascinating experiment of what a p2p network with 10 users is like.
... to figure out. we're gonna run into a problem regarding the loss of historical information both long term and short historical data. yeah, music, videos, and other cultural flotsom often record important insight into a culture that dry historical records do not. stone and clay tablets last for centuries and don't require a playback device/software. neither does photographic, printed material, or other analog forms of recording. creating yet another format only for the purpose of making money is reaching pandemic proportions, and the ones who lose are the generations that come after us, not being able to read the obscure media formats that were created in the late 20/early 21 century. big business is ruining our current and future cultural historical records becasue of their greed! what a pity...
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
I'll keep it short and sweet: They're still not learning that I want to own the music, not rent it.
I toggled a toggle and buttoned a button, but when I got done, I was done doin' nothin'.
Grab a camera and a microphone.
Put on something you'd expect to see a broadcast journalist to wear on TV
Grab a friend to operate the camera.
Go out on the street.
Interview random people about "The Sony Root Kit Debacle."
Watch the clueless looks you get, even if you try this stunt on the MIT Campus.
Joe Six Pack and most the nation most the nation know nothing about the Sony Root Kit.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
I have a subscription to audible.com
You know what? If I were to cancel the subscription, I'd STILL be able to listen to all that media without paying an extra penny.
Hell, I'll even be able to download a new copy from audible.com at my preferred quality level.
All without paying extra or maintaining a subscription.
While I'm sure the iPod compatibility helps a lot, they were doing well when they were selling their own player, and the Audible Otis was CRAP. Hell, they were doing so well, Apple approached THEM about making the iPod compatible with Audible.com content.
My point is, if you offer a reasonable price for content, even if it's DRMed out the wazoo, iPod compatibility is optional.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Joe doesn't really care, as long as he can do everything he expects he'll be happy. ;-)
maybe Joe is right, a lot less worries thatv way
From:
0 3&from=rss
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/23/14162
eMusic sells straight MP3 files.
And they even have the entirety of the Frank Zappa Library.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
I think that the sentiment here is still valid.
"there's unlimited supply and there is no reason why i tell you it was all a frame they only did it 'cos of fame who?"
I never clip my fingernails for fear of dangling symbolic links.
Well yet another hair brained, illegal (more rootkitting ?) scheme from a bunch of idiots. "But they clicked yes on our EULA..."
Honestly the ludicrous schemes that the record companies keep coming up with to stop people listening to "their product" are simply proof positive that overindulgence in cocaine rots your brain and makes you into a paranoid, vindictive, crazy egomaniac. In the future business schools will use all these awful schemes as examples of how to kill off your own industry.
But once again the unsuspecting users will simply install it then will bitch and moan when they shortly thereafter find their Windows system is broken again. Yet another good reason for them to find an alternative.
Forget about desktop linux becoming "good enough for granma to install and use". It's crap like this which will kill off Windows for the home user.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
I think something that people are missing is that the fact that this is P2P is actually in some ways a bad thing. What advantage do we get out of it? - None. On the other hand, we have to give up our upload bandwidth so that others can download music from us. In other words this is basically the same stratergy as before, just instead the music label doesnt have to pay any real hosting costs as people won't be downloading from them.
This service seems like an actual answer to the p2p users who defend their actions by saying that they only use p2p to preview music before they buy it. If EMI provides a way to legally listen to songs for a limited number of times for free this could be just what is needed to make this preview system valid and leave the sales model to Apple, they seem to have that market covered.
At $.22 per track, decent VBR MP3 files with no DRM, over 600,000 tracks to choose from, HELL YEAH!
Of course the picky among us will still refuse for dubious reasons (30 second previews, don't like the way files are tagged, no Brittney, etc., ad nauseum).
But I, for one, support the things they are doing right (great selection, no DRM, you bought it - you own it) by subscribing. Get your 15 free tracks, browse the collection, see if you don't feel the same...
It's a chance to put your money where your mouth is.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Qualcomm might take issue with it... http://www.qualcomm.com/qwbs/solutions/prodserv/qt racs.shtml
So that means it's compatible with StarCraft, right? Awesome!
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
If suddenly there were no more music copyright protections, would artists stop making music? I suspect not. They would be forced to tour if they wanted to make decent money, but most would still do what they are doing. Therefore, why do we still allow copyright protections to exist? The purpose was to promote creation.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
This sounds a little fishy to me. I wonder how long it will be until the industry tries to sue them. I can see the thoughts running through the executive heads now, "You mean they can listen to sa whole song before buying it!!! Betty, get my lawyers' numbers. We are going to court." I would like to try it and it sounds great. Most of the time I listen to a song a few times and then don't listen to it for a long time. This would give me a chance to listen to it multiple times before I decide to buy it. The only thing I don't like si the file format. Am I going to need another piece of software in order to play it. Don't we already have enough media players installed. I'm tired of placing a DVD in my drive, and it trying to install another crappy DVD player. I already have one installed you idiots. Go away and leave me be.
The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak. ->JB Bossuet, Politics from Holy Writ. 1709
Start the clock!
I would rather stick needles into myself than give these companies any of my money. They are stealing from the artists (who no longer need them), they are stealing from the consumer (who no longer needs them), and they are buying laws in corrupt countries to take our rights to use media that we own away. Don't give them the pleasure of stealing from you. Record companies are the modern day Pirates.
In the EULA for Windows(PDF) it says:
This is confirmed on a knowledge base article. Notice how it says at the bottom:
So a record company, who get so upset when you break the licence you have to the music by sharing it on the internet, are telling you to break your licence agreement with Microsoft by letting more than ten computers connect to yours (it is 5 if you have XP Home).
The politicians are beginning to see through the lies of these fatcats as far as their other "online services" go, so now they are going to put down another "effort" to reach out to consumers.
This way, they can go back to legislators and say "look, we gave them p2p and they still refused to pay us, look how unreasonable they are, help us get more draconian laws like mandated DRM and drug-law style imprisonment"
good move i guess.. i can't fault them for their consistency, and the sad part is politicians with an agenda against this technology now have another 1 line sound byte to deliver to an uneducated public.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
this is ghey
EMI should save their money.
I'm quite a big fan of Yahoo Music Unlimited.
It's $5/month. If you don't like the monthly payment then why not slap $1200 in a 5% CD (the financial kind). Each year you'll get back the $60 to pay for your subscription, so I figure that a lifetime of Y! Music costs about the same as 100 cds.
Of course right now I work mostly with Windows, if I get a gig doing solaris or linux again then I'm sure my sentiments will change.
Its the mopaq format that blizzard used in starcraft to hold all their videos and sounds. mmmmmm.....stardat.mpq
For some reason people seem to have gotten the idea that this whole service is run and created by EMI. Not true if you read the press release all the way through. EMI was simply the first company to license their catalog of music to Qtrax, an entirely different company. Qtrax will have all EMI music available, but it is definitely not an EMI company. So if you don't like the restrictions or the software, complain about Qtrax, not the music companies, and use something else. EMI and other music companies license to many different services, so there shouldn't be a shortage of options.
They'll lower the price of music as soon as Columbia lowers the price of cocaine, and not a moment sooner. What, you expect music industry executives to go without their cocaine? How else are fat balding 50-something men supposed to stay hip and with-it and get the hot 18 year old chicks?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I will most definitly check out emusic. Thanks.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Janus, the twofaced roman god of old and new year (JANUary) and the god of change. All usages of Janus in literatury and movies are simular. There are two, and sooner or later the evil one is going to betray you. See Goldeneye, see Judge Dredd (the movie). And yet the call it the Microsoft's Janus DRM technology. I wonder if this is the good one or the evil one. I can't imagine anything more evil, yet I can't imagine a good variant of this either.
Where is this install guide you mention? I can't find it anywhere, and the Qtrax site doesn't have anything available for download.
Strangely enough, it mentions that Qtrax 5.0 was released on January 1, 2005. Did they take it down?
Sounds pretty fishy to me, at any rate.
Did anyone else notice that the old data files used by Starcraft are .mpq files? I wonder what that could mean...
Enough said.
This is an absolute downgrade. Why would I want a propritary format? Why would I want a limited number of plays? Even though it is free, so is P2P but without all of the limitations.
Someone at EMI didn't think this all the way through.
Libertas in infinitum