Slashdot Mirror
Universal Offers iPod-Resistant Music
dprovine writes "Universal is now offering music through Spiral Frog as free downloads supported by advertising revenue. But according to Daily Tech, the files being offered won't work on iPods. 'The move to not allow its content to be played on iPod's appears to be a clear snub by the Universal Music Group, similar to NBC's recent move of its television content from iTunes to Amazon.com. Apple has not commented on this development. For many, though, SpiralFrog.com presents an intriguing new business model that may present a legal alternative to file sharing or spending large amounts of money on CDs or paid download services, such as iTunes.'"
or less.
come on. let's get real here.
universal is gonna get owned.
How can it not work on an iPod?
MP3 is a clearly defined standard. These files either are, or they aren't, mp3's. If they are, iPods will play them. If they aren't, then they shouldn't be sold as MP3's.
sig?
This is a great service. Well, it's great as long as you only listen to music sitting in front of your computer. And don't use a Mac. Or Linux. And don't mind paying for music that may one day dissapear because the service has been discontinued or you move to a Mac or Linux.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
The reason their "MP3"s don't work on iPods is because they're not MP3s. They're PlaysForSure DRMed WMAs. This is high quality journalism at work. Slashdot editors should be proud.
She loves me: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 She loves me not: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688BF
Now Universal just look like idiots. One can easily argue the business sense of delivering content in a price-controllable way. Business 101 - when the demand increases, limit the supply and profit by increasing the prices, or changing the delivery mechanism to make more money on the same supply. Demand for downloadable music has increased while CD sales decreased, thus the allegory.
The stupid part of this idea is removing 70-80% (the share of iPods in the portable music market) of the market for your product. Just try to buy a gas station and switch to only selling ethanol and see how well that works if you need an example. The phrase shooting one's self in the foot comes to mind, but the recording studios seem good at that.
as noted in the comments to the DailyTech article itself. Slashdot editors ftw.
According to TFA, "Files from SpiralFrog are digitally protected and can be played on mp3 players, but cannot be burned to CDs".
I'm not aware of any way MP3 files can be "digitally protected" and not burned to CD.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Just render the mp3 to a wav file then encode it back to mp3. Presto, done.
Wow.... that was just, like, sooooo hard....
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How many times will it take the various media conglomerates to finally learn that any DRM they try to shove down the throats of their customers will be broken fairly quickly by those same customers? They create some digital lock to protect their content, but they have to provide the keys somehow to the end-user so that they can access the content, and there are plenty of very intelligent people all over the world willing to work on breaking those locks with the provided keys.
The summary and article suggest that these are MP3's. I won't (and refuse) to sign up for the service to see for myself, but if they were really MP3's they would work on iPods and could be burned to CD's. Unless they have some type of DRM I've never seen attached to these MP3's, these are mostly likely some type of other media format. 1st, Universal is crazy to think they can maintain this through ad-revenues. 2nd, I'd like to see how much of this ad-revenue is given back to the artist. And 3rd, free music for everyone after their DRM is hammered into submission!
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
sincerely,
The Internets.
This will work if the hacker community can strip the DRM out of the files with an easy to use software tool that the mass consumer can implement. iPods have what, 75% marketshare? So why would anyone download songs with DRM that can't be used on THEIR player, even if they are free.
We see the rise of another doomed business.
Of course it won't work on iPods, they're using DRM-out-the-ass WMA files that won't work on any OS but windows and players made by companies that bought into the Plays for Sure nonsense that not even Microsoft themselves use.
So it's free, so what. You get a combination of advertising and no control. I'll stick to my usual of buying CDs and ripping them to AAC, even if it means less music overall.
Ha Ha. So take that, Apple. We'll show you.
(Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Anyone who believes the Windows DRM will make life easier for anyone is a damn fool.)
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
I'm not aware of any way MP3 files can be "digitally protected" and not burned to CD. They work because they're not MP3 files, and the vast majority of national brand MP3 players other than iPod® are also WMA players.
The move to not allow its content to be played on iPod's appears to be a clear snub by the Universal Music Group
Played on iPod's what?
The real story here isn't DRM. It's that the music is "free" and ad supported.
She loves me: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 She loves me not: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688BF
OK, now, I understand what the big music industry people are trying to accomplish. They're trying to keep from going the way of the buggy-whip makers. They're pulling out all the stops to keep from becoming irrelevant. That's understandable. But jeez, this is just pathetic.
They're trying anything and everything to keep people from buying their music. They're putting up every kind of conceivable roadblock that they can come up with, as malicious and as pointless as they may be. These guys are really getting desperate, and it shows. Pretty soon, even the average brain-dead consumer will understand what they're trying to do, and then it really will be all over for the entire industry.
I don't respond to AC's.
Well, there's probably a similar thing going on here... they're either working a deal or have a deal with another provider to try to exclude Apple's products. Aside from conversion to one format then to MP3, it won't be more than a day or two before someone has a standalone program or plug-in for an existing one that will do the conversion.
OCO is Loco
What other players won't support the files? I'm not sure my Archos Gmini 400 will play .WMA's.
since it seems to support "Plays for Sure" which doesn't play for sure on a Zune.....
Monstar L
If it was MP3, it may not play on iPod due to some intentionally corrupted sequences. But it sure would be burnable to CD by some of hundreds of available tools. I say it's WMA and "MP3 player" in the article is a misnomer.
Because Apple dropped them. NBC didn't pull their video from iTunes.. Apple did.
ffmpeg will probably support the format. So I'm not too worried :)
The game.
So not being playable on the most common portable music player is touted as a feature?
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
For $0 a month in cash, I can download a sizable selection of music to my Playsforsure (Creative Zen Vision M) music player, but I have to spend my rare and precious time watching advertisements. Right off the bat, the real economic cost of this service based upon my opportunity costs is over $50 per month without exaggeration.
Or, I can pay $15 a month for Rhapsody or Napster and not have to spend my time being subjected to advertisements. $15 a month, which, and let's be honest, is not a lot of money to have access to a library of millions of songs.
My cynical take: this service is essentially an advertising gimmick by its financiers to draw people to superior services, such as Rhapsody. The increment from $0/month to $15/month is not too much at all for the tremendous jump in convenience.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Of course it won't work on iPods. According to TFA, the music can't be burned to CDs, meaning it's using DRM. The only DRM working on iPods is Apple's own FairPlay which they're not licensing. (According to their FAQ, they're using WMA DRM, which has never been compatible with iPods.) Basically, there's no legal and future-proof way to make their business model work with iPods without Apple's support, no matter how much they might want to do that. (And I guess they's jump at the chance, considering the iPod's popularity.)
Gee, those have worked so well in the past. Good luck with that, guys. Say hey to Urge and Sony Connect while you're decomposing.
Another tech crook got money from clueless managers to implement the impossible. Get a life, music execs! You are being cheated by all of your staff! This "protection" is simply impossible! It's enough for 1 (ONE) copy of the song to get into the wild, and it's game over. GAME OVER. Deal with it like men, and do whatever you can to survive. But don't waste your money on snake oil "copy protection" because IT NEVER WORKS, just like there's no philosopher's stone, perpetuum mobile or flying saucers. Don't believe me? Stop and think about it. Has there ever been a song that you've released and that hasn't been pirated on p2p networks in the wild? Name just one song. Just one. That has been protected. Then I might agree that you aren't being robbed by tech "experts". Otherwise, all you've been paying for DOESN'T WORK and the FACTS are clear on that.
It seems to me that Universal et al see "downloading music for free" as the entire problem. They somehow don't understand that the biggest reason to download music for free is to put it on your mp3 player. They may have provided free music downloads, but DRM'd music is useless, and won't solve the problem.
Apple offers songs on their music store that are incompatible with anything but an iPod, including songs and samplers they give away. How is what Universal is doing any more noteworthy or deserving of scorn? It sucks all around.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
For everyone jumping down Universal's throat for "snubbing Apple", it should be noted that this is no different than what Apple is doing when it restricts iTunes downloads to Apple-supported hardware. Yes, there is some DRM-free music available on iTunes, and I applaud them for it. But Universal is snubbing Apple about as much as Apple is snubbing Zune and every other music player out there that it refuses to license Fair-Play to, including the Linux operating system. There is absolutely no reason to believe that this had anything to do with their recent contract spat with Apple or that this wasn't coming out regardless of how their negotiations turned out.
- Stealth dave
Evil is as eval("does");
Bleh. The site only works when you've got javascript enabled. What with the latest revalations about MediaDefender, I wouldn't be surprised to see spiralfrog.com trying to pull something on your computer.
Spiral Frog will self destruct in 3...2...1... *hack released* *poof*
yet more proof that these organizations are run largely by people with their heads partly up their asses (the technical part).
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Going to chime in on the "great" editing on this story and the Slashdot blurb. How the frak MP3s won't play on the iPod got through I'll never no. In point of fact the article only says MP3 players and that "Apple's wildly popular iPod MP3 players" won't be able to play them. From Sprialfrogs support link: http://www.spiralfrog.com/pages/support.aspx They clearly state "We require you to be running Windows XP or Vista at SpiralFrog for the simple reason that Windows Digital Rights Management is the only standard available for independent music stores like us to protect the songs and videos as required by the record labels' licenses." Which should come as no surprise since any method to limit burning and playing requires some form of DRM which is not compatible with the MP3 spec. Sprialfrog also says "Windows Digital Rights Management is not supported by Apple Macintosh computers. Macintosh supports the AAC Digital Rights Management, but it is closed to Apple's own use only." Well it's not supported by Apple no. On the other hand Apple isn't preventing someone from making an application that does support it. Would it work with iPods? No. But would it work with all the other MP3 players on the market? Very probably. So this caveat is an exercise in lazyness.
This is sorta dumb... They are, like many music stores, offering music in protected WMA format. I don't think this has much to do with Universal wanting to give Apple the finger, but a lot to do with the fact that Apple doesn't allow third parties to interoperate with FairPlay DRM. I think it's fine for Universal not to care -- Apple is being selfish, so why should Universal add value to the iPod with free music?
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
"Our Apologies.
At this time, the SpiralFrog Web site is available only to residents of the United States of America and Canada."
Oh grrrrrr!!!!. You deserve to be pirated just for that !
I'm just tired of waiting 6 months to see the movie in a movie house when I can just go and download it for free... and it's actually of better quality since the audio is not fucked up with dubbing. As a matter of principle i never go and watch movies that are released more than two months after the US release.
I never bought a single DVD because of the zoning. I never considered it worth the trouble (again i can download DivX for free)
I do buy audio CDs (i mean the real audio CDs those without crappy not even working copy protection...). Oh and yeah. I'm sick and tired of never finding the CDs I need coz they're not imported (sorry i downloaded those)
I wish you all the worst. May this business venture collapse and bring your company to bankrupcy. The world and the artists will be better off. You are a tool of the past. Artists do not need you for distribution. The only thing you can provide to artists is "marketing". You should become a mere tool in the hands of artists. Artists should squeeze you out to get the best deals and not the other way around.
Fuck you universal. Die!
It's called radio.
Now everyone will talk about how great free music is, but then they'll complain about having to listen to advertisements. This, of course, will lead people to pine for some service where you could pay to listen to radio without advertisements.
"Take away, take away
Take away this ball and chain
Well I'm lonely and I'm tired
And I can't take any more pain"
-Social Distorion
Now just hoping no one decides that violates their copyrights...
NBC Uni may have just helped Apple more than hurt them. I'm sure this is going to come up in the impending anti-competitive lawsuit against iTunes that the EU is planning.
So it's ad-supported? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10 FTW
Wouldn't it be possible to use Wireshark (to figure out the URL of the actual file in the HTTP GETs), download the file, then proceed to record directly from your soundcard to Audacity? From there, one could simply export it as LAME MP3.
substitute "cork" for "cock" and it would be an apt analogy. Better to know who is screwing you.
Well it depends on how you look at it, NBC wanted to force Apple to carry more shows, Apple decided not to since they shows weren't likely to be downloaded.
I guess they figure that, for most people, DRMing music that's intended for a short-term trial is more effective than having a click-through license that makes you promise to stop listening to it after 30 days. I'm not saying this will work, but there is some method to their madness.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I don't see the problem. iTunes has/had an iPod lock-in, and WMA-based stores have WMA lock-in. It seems like fair business to me. Although maybe it's not too fair to customers who don't understand what they are getting into buying these AAC and WMA formats.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
And my snub to UMG is to download it for free, in the universal MP3 format, which plays just fine on the iPod.
Hey Universal, you've still got another foot to take aim at!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I don't think this is an intentional snub at Apple. To play the music on the iPod it would either need to have no DRM, or use Apple's DRM. Since UMG already refused to use iTunes, crawling back to Apple and asking to use Apple's DRM would be somewhat awkward.
Of course, they can't release the music without DRM as that would allow pirates to use it.
NBC and Universal are the same company, so this is an extension of NBC's departure from the iTunes Music Store. One thing that most certainly freaked out NBC was the low cost of material distributed through the most popular distribution model (Apple's). NBC wanted more money and they now have that. They also wanted to be able to put commercials into content: Anyone looking for rebroadcasts of Today Show interviews has to sit through an ad before they can see the rebroadcast.
Problem with NBC and the other big networks is a lack of compelling content. If they also reduce the available venues for rebroadcast (via Internet) they'll also sharply reduce their audience. I sometimes wonder at this attitude.
I have a number of friends who work for a company that distributes magazines that sell stuff. A kind of "paper CraigsList." Most of the people who pick up this magazine aren't all that sophisticated and the people who are placing ads there don't usually use computers at work -- save to do their books. Management in that company wants a buy-in for every corporate initiative, no matter how dumb. Many of these new initiatives (like let's not use glossy paper because it costs too much so we'll tell the sales staff to stop selling color pages -- even if that cuts revenue) make Dilbert look like he's working for a very well-run organization by comparison.
NBC Universal is doing the same thing. If one of their Vice-Presidents start an initiative, everyone in the company from top to bottom has to enthusiastically support the idea. And anyone who questions an idea or suggests that it might not be a well-thought-out plan is slated for dismissal.
Watch for NBC to lose more market share. Watch for Universal to have trouble getting its content into the hands of individuals. And then watch for GE to spin off these units because they're not making any money for the stockholders.
But the real reason why they're not making money is because they "won't buy the good paper stock so that the advertisers can pay more for color." In other words they are creating an environment that causes fewer people to be interested in their content. Quality in television, television shows and in Universal features is not important to the "Suits." They seem to think that the NBCU brand name will be all that's necessary. I don't download music or watch shows because GE is the parent company, I download music and watch shows that are compelling to listen to and watch. But the GE executives don't seem to understand that.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
It was a two-phase divorce: First NBC said they would not renew their contract to provide videos to the iTunes Store, as of its expiration in December. Then Apple said they would not sell any new content, effective immediately, because that would mean they would sell partial seasons of many shows (ie you could buy in October but not in January, so your collection would be partial at best).
I buy online music. I do so usually from iTunes. I probably spend $10-20 per month there. I do so to avoid P2P networks and advertisements because they get on my nerves and are just plain aggravating. I, like 99% of people, go to work, work 8 hours per day on salary, and bring home a fixed check every 2 weeks. The remaining 16 hours per day net the same income whether I'm eating cheetos or programming: $0. Now, I know some people do contract work and such, but one still is going to generally accept a certain amount of work, do it, and have left over free time. To translate some fraction of that free time into cash as if you get to meditate really deeply during every free minute that you're not doing something and defecate wads of cash is just crazy.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
My money is on less than twelve.
Rather funny that Spiralfrog.com seems to be having some response issues at the moment... don't think they intended it to be marketed to an audience as large as slashdot, anyhow glad to see the .aspx extension on its pages.
Excuse me, but, shouldn't that be They're PlaysForSure except on Microsoft Zune DRMed WMAs.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Okay. There is a very very simple reason why FairPlay will never work with anything but iPods. iTunes exists solely to sell iPods. It makes little to no money for Apple in the first place - some have said that it operates at a small loss for Apple, after the content suppliers' cut is removed. What possible reason could Apple have for letting anyone put that music on a Zune or any other mp3 player? Is the suggestion they should do this as a public service? Should they include free ponies, too? Once again, let's review. Apple is a HARDWARE company. Its OS and content exists to sell more HARDWARE. If there is no incentive for the customer to use that hardware, Apple would be a company of fools to give away everything else.
Obviously all they do at the moment is shout "Mine! Mine! Mine!" trying to drown out anything contrary, no intention of listening. If they still have ears and haven't had them surgically removed, their fingers are glued into them pretty deep.
Infuriate left and right
So, what is next? Not buying from advertisers is stealing music?
Bert
Yes, cut out the millions of iPod users. That's how I would make something successful!!
Let's see how great this thing really is in 6-12 months with ads, DRM and limiting the product to not work on the #1 portable players.
I predict yet another failure in the pipeline. This product is about catering to the recording industry with the customer as an afterthought.
Same story, different URL.
If you don't want to (or can't) sign up, perhaps a review is what you need.
A look inside SpiralFrog...
Inside SpiralFrog Beta
SpiralFrog... Mixed Reviews
And many more.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
So there!!!
Have gnu, will travel.
Since the Zune can happily play AAC files (which are after all an open standard anyone can support) iTunes Plus music, sold from the iTunes store, will quite happily play on a Zune or even a 360.
Apple is currently trying to get other studios to support iTunes Plus until the whole store selection would be offered in that format as well...
What was your point again?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple has already sought to break its own locking, by offering iTunes Plus music (including all the recently released John Lennon songs on iTunes).
It is different, in that they are headed the wrong way in terms of consumer freedom.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is an intelligent move.
I'm betting that the guy who made this decision loses his job in the 1st quarter of fiscal 2008.
NBC and Universal are basically the same company, right? One is TV and one is music. Is that correct?
That seems to explain why they are sticking together.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
...how come all the iPod wannabes support WMA but not non-DRM AAC. Most iPod owners' collections consist primarily of AAC's ripped from CDs. Why on earth would the 2nd tier players not want to be able to play these, if only to lower that barrier to entry?
Do they all think that hitching their wagons to Microsoft (and MS DRM) will magically win the day for them? Even now? I know Apple won't let them use the iPod's DRM, which I guess is pretty nasty. But that's no reason to snub Apple customers willing to switch players if not for having to re-rip their collections.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
So this company has been working at this for more than a year (which predates Universal's iTunes melt down). A quick search on that widely reported meltdown reveals this from The Times of London:
This is not the behavior of a good business that is likely to succeed.
Nonetheless, this is going to backfire hard on Universal. Whether they (and we) like it or not iPod is clearly *the* most popular player on this continent, and offering their music in any format not compatible with it is suicide. I imagine Universal will cite the lack of sales as evidence that evil pirates are stealing their music more and more.
This is a very clever way for the Music Industry to finally make online music a working reality since it's clear that iTunes and the iPod will never really catch on. The consumers have spoken and the compassionate music industry has listened!
When their revenue stream slumps again, we know what the cry will be, don't we? "IT WUZ DEM PIRATEEEEEESSSSS!!!!"
I want some new entertainment. Watching the music industry shoot itself in the foot got boring about a year back.
That would be like making music that can't be played on Windows.
iPods are the most popular music player.
SpiralFrog is incompatible with iPods, Zunes, Windows Vista and Firefox.
I think that cutting off ipod AND FireFox users cuts off almost 90% of the potential audience. In my mind, the majority of people that don't use iPods are tech-savvy people who are DRM-resistant. These people also tend to be FireFox users.
The remaining 10% of people just use cheapy
I'm sure that there are 5 or 6 people out there with either Vista or a Zune. These people are out too!
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
BMG invented Discman-resistant CD's with a light sand-blasting just before packaging.
But, many people claimed it was derivative of Geffen's efforts to create Walkman-resistant tapes using magnets.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Gee, they should ask Napster how their business is holding up when they made the brilliant choice to rent music to people and make it NOT work on iPods.
In breaking news, we have learned that Microsoft Xbox 360 games WILL NOT WORK on the new Playstation 3.
Best RIAA post all day!
1) Put all the albums up that aren't selling anyway (Boston's Third Stage; Queen's Stone Cold Classics) from name artists
2) Slap on a DRM standard that even the standard's devloper doesn't support
3) Profit
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Files from SpiralFrog are digitally protected and can be played on mp3 players, but cannot be burned to CDs.
If they can be played on MP3 players, they can be burned to CDs, and played on the iPod.
If they can't be burned to CDs, or played on the iPod, then they're not MP3 files, and whatever you're playing them on is something other than an MP3 player.
I assume they're WMA, these things usually are.
So this is basically just Rhapsody with even more restrictions. Not a story.
if you can make more money selling ethanol than petrol and want the market to switch, switching petrol to ethanol in the considerable number of stations you control is the obvious way forward.
... until someone breaks the DRM. Why do they even still bother spending $$$ on technologies bound to fail?
The editors edited something and actually improved upon the article?
*universe implodes*
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
If you want to sample music for free, use the radio.
- Sammy / with iPhone and shuffle and nano
iTunes music doesn't work on non-Apple MP3 players, so isn't it only fair that companies would start selling non-iPod music?
If it seems unfair, perhaps there should be an equal amount of outrage directed toward Apple... right?
Actually, it doesn't "beg the question"... it raises the question, but it doesn't beg it.
""Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which an argument is assumed to be true without evidence other than the argument itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.
A simple example would be "I think he is unattractive because he is ugly." The adjective "ugly" does not explain why the subject is "unattractive" -- they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question."
I'm only pointing it out because I made the same mistake in a paper recently and my teacher called me on it... not trying to troll! It's a common mistake!
Check out last100's SpiralFrog review
As I see it, the "problem" with SpiralFrog's business model is that there's no reasonable way to stop the process from being automated, with the possible exception of captchas or similar onerous and tedious measures. The longer the lengths they go to prevent automated downloading, the further away they push their potential customers. For that reason alone, I don't think advertising will be a viable business model. Alienating iPod users is just the nail in the coffin.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
They must be getting desperate - they've escalated their war to where they're now attacking not only their customers but Apple too. These media corporate suits are used to getting their own way but this time they're way over their heads.
It's becoming clear (to me at least) that the media middlemen are intent on destroying themselves in a spectacular fashion. The only thing that's unclear at this point is how many bad decisions they'll make before their corporate offices are replaced by smoking craters...
The only catch -- the music is supported by the site's advertising revenues,
"We believe [SpiralFrog] will be a very powerful alternative to the pirate sites, with SpiralFrog you know what you're getting ... there's no threat of viruses, adware or spyware."
So there is no threat of adware, but there is the promise of advertising.
And frankly, that name is stupid. "With SpiralFrog you know what you're getting". Really? I'd be expecting a helical amphibian, not a music download service...
In fact, I think I'll start my own service: Twisty Salamander. And the files won't play on the iPod, or any portable music player, or even a PC -- you'll have to come over to my house to hear them. Oh and you'll have to be an 18-29 year old blond female with an open mind. And I'll be doing to you what Universal is trying to do to its customers.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
They're NOT Mp3. TFA doesn't say they are, though it says "plays on MP3 players". If you read on you see they're DRM WMA. This "IPOd-resiatant music" headlne is just idiotic, especially for a site like Slashdot where the audience as a whole understands that MP3 is not a synonym for "music file".
The poor SOBs that take this music while being inundated with ads are pathetic. Serves them right to live with one song one or more ads. Anyone that goes for this crap sucks.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
In the end Universal is crippling itself.... they also just released DVD's with out even so much as a menu (ie, zero special features) you put the disk in, watched a couple previews you didn't want to watch, and then the movie started.
How is this bad? I would frankly really prefer a simple "movie only" DVD. Having to wait for the menu video intro to play and then shift the cursor around to "play" every time I stick the disk in is not as convenient as simply inserting the disc and having it play right away as it does for the DVDs I make from our camcorder.
Having several hours of extra "documentary" footage on how wonderful it was to make the film really doesn't do much for me. I realize that some people might like it but does it really sell the DVD? Your comment seems to suggest that there are people out there who will base their decision on whether to purchase the DVD on whether it comes with these extra features and not on whether the film was any good.
All well and good but SpiralFrog not work outside US, kinda lame if u live in australia
You're forgetting the DRM-free AAC files available on iTunes that will play on any player that supports AAC, including the Zune. The last time I checked, Steve Jobs was trying to encourage all of the record labels to follow EMI's lead and drop the DRM.
"iTunes has/had an iPod lock-in."
Thanks for not reading and just cross-posting your dumb response.
itunes->CD->generic mp3 player = you're wasting CD-Rs and time to do this. Seems dumb
itunes drm free mp3s = great, but they cost more and don't make up a majority of the songs available on itunes.
It seems iTunes originally had a real iPod lock-in to it. And it persists, to a lesser degree today. You can play WMAs on any WMA player, as far as I know. (I'm a Linux user, I don't use that WMA shit so I'm no expert)
DRM and iPod lock-in are issues perpendicular to one other. iTunes still won't sync your Zen/Sansa or whatever. Apple may eventually change, but currently there is iPod lock-in on iTunes.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
When are these douche bags going to learn that screwing over their customer base (the people that actually pay for their content) is not making them any money?
By crippling their wares they are actually increasing this so-called "piracy". They are helping the people that offer it illegally.
It's almost as if Universal wants their stuff pirated and offered for free on some P2P network.
Fact of the matter is: the portable media landscape is largely inhabited by iPod users. And by cutting them off, Universal is cutting into its own fingers, because they are in fact limiting their market to such a degree, that it almost useless to even release the music.
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.... pass the url of this discussion to some people working in Universal?
For goodness sakes, is anybody there remotely computing or technology literate?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The self-delusion was quite breathtaking.
Who are these buffoons in charge of the record labels? Are they really this stupid? Or are they really living in a fantasy world where they believe they wield the power?
Sounds much better than MP3. Its really the replacement for the MP3 but for some reason they went with a new name.
Let's help these poor souls and tell them what it will take to get at least some of us to buy music legally.
1. Offer a huge selection of music on a very easy to use website. Accessible to Canadians too!
2. Offer it in a variety of high quality formats as well as mp3s.
3. Offer it without DRM, tracking bytes, or my name embedded in the file.
4. Offer it for no more than 25 cents per song (approx $5 per album). 99 cents is way too high considering I'm not getting a physical CD, case, booklet, lossless format, etc.
5. Offer ways that loyal customers can earn points for free songs. Allow me have my family buy me credits. Make less popular/older songs cheaper.
6. Allow me to listen to a song or half of a song, before I buy it.
There problem solved. There's no way in hell I'm paying 99cents for DRMed crap. But, if it was easy, friendly and affordable then I'd be all over it.
spell check is your friend
The only reason I even looked in iTunes was because getting 256bit AAC files with no DRM would finally allow me to stop buying CDs, burning them at a lower (256) resolution (fair use), and then giving them to friends. Since this is not available for all of the music on the service, and I purchase a lot of independent music, this ultimately is not possible yet.
Who cares, until they stop making CDs... Then, I'll play pirate!
Did anyone notice that the article has a picture of a Zune with a Skull and Bones on it? It sounds like the service uses WMA files with a different encryption. Should be easy to record with Audacity on another PC.
Love the Analog Hole
Science is the Real TRUTH!
So here's how I buy music:
1) I find a band I like
2) I look for the band on iTunes
3) If not on iTunes, I go buy the CD and rip it, never touching the CD again
As for label, except for some bands on the Metropolis label, I have ZERO idea what label any of the bands are with. The only reason I know that label is that it's small and specific to a type of music I like. Big labels cover so many different types of music that I would not know, nor care who they were.
This is such a waste of time and money by Universal. Most of the MP3 player market is iPods. If they really want to focus on the Zune market, more power to them, but I don't see that going much of anywhere.
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I recently discovered http://we7.com/ and it offers free music, DRM free, to own. The files are compatible with all MP3 players and it is extremely new artist friendly. The service is sponsored by Peter Gabriel and seems very innovative. The only downside is that there isnt as much music available as with spiral frog, but Im sure this will change. Once the content grows more (and its permanantly on the rise) my money is on this to be the king of the ad funded models. NB its only 3 months old!! http://we7.com/