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Review of Amazon's DRM-Less Music Download Store
fdmendez writes to tell us that he had a chance to check out Amazon's DRM-less music download store that was recently released as a beta trial. "Amazon one-ups the iTunes store in every way except for popularity. Never once did I find an album to be more expensive on the Amazon store in comparison to the iTunes store. The download experience was pleasant, and the lack of DRM truly makes it YOUR music. I don't know of any other download service that could top the Amazon MP3 store."
"I don't know of any other download service that could top the Amazon MP3 store."
Bittorrent?
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
I just jumped over and bought a couple songs. Very nice.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I don't know of any other download service that could top the Amazon MP3 store.
AllOfMP3.
I tried the store out yesterday (bought 1 track) and was very impressed. No special software needed (making it Linux friendly). This might just get me back into buying music again instead of listening to all my old stuff.
God is imaginary
> I don't know of any other download service that could top the Amazon MP3 store.
Any that sell FLAC for a start!
I hope this service takes off, as competition between iTunes and other services only means less DRM, higher quality songs, and better selection for all of us. Amazon just needs to land some deals with record labels...
"the lack of DRM truly makes it YOUR music"... and YOURS, and YOURS, and HIS, and HER, and THEIR.
Not to appear as an Apple fanboy, but do they have any way to sync with an iPod?
I've been getting my music either free or DRM-free or both from Emusic, Jamendo and Magnatune. I don't see any reason to start paying for mainstream music again.
It had the music I wanted -- Didn't require a special download -- Is DRM free -- Is properly priced. When will MAFIAA shut it down?
That would be any site that sold the actual .cda track, rather than an MP3. Without DRM, of course.
Amazon trumps iTunes on DRM-free volume, but iTunes trumps Amazon by selling 256kbps AAC, as opposed to the 256kbps MP3 that Amazon sells.
"the lack of DRM truly makes it YOUR music"... and YOURS, and YOURS, and HIS, and HER, and THEIR.
Irrelevant. Given that we a dealing with digital goods, whether the source for the MP3 was Amazon or a CD-ROM rip is of no consequence, trivia.
Assuming of course the Amazon MP3 is not watermarked in some way to indicate the original purchaser.
is amazing! Prokofiev symphony #2 revealed 156 hits! Now that is some obscure music (his least popular symphony), and the fact that they would have multiple recordings of it right there for 90c... wow.
And it works well.
I purchased "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict (1994 Digital Remaster)" off of the "Ummagumma" by "Pink Floyd"and got it to update iTunes (and my iPod) without a hitch.
It works and the selection seems to be pretty good.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I've been reading the articles last couple of days. It seems to good. maybe I'll have to start d/l'ing music again instead of listening to the stuff i d/l'ed before i got scared off. $.89 ain't a bad deal at all.
They are watermarked, and you have to install their software.
No, that is not a comparison to iTunes, just some facts.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Major Record Labels jumping from AmazonMP3 like rats from a sinking ship in 3...2...1...
Now this, children, is what we call "elitist fuckery."
I'd bet ANYTHING that you cannot differentiate between 256kbps MP3 and FLAC.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
and found your credit card number in it.
For now it's US only. I emailed Amazon and asked this will be available to other countries and got the expected "we apologize for the inconvenience" non-answer from them.
I guess that it is too little too late. The music industry has really gone so far as to push me away from purchasing music in any form that I simply don't buy any mainstream music any more. I find that I can just find good things to listen to freely downloaded from indie bands and, more often than not, live tracks served up at archive.org or the likes. Then again, well, I really don't want much of what is being pushed out on the scene these days anyhow.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
$8-$9 is too much for an album.
It's like they took the distribution costs of a CD, (which could be estimated at $5-$8,) chopped them off, and are still expecting to make the same profit. Why can't they charge much less and make up the profits on volume?
No, I will not work for your startup
I'm still anchored in my love for tactile product, I'll stick to cd's for now.
Amazon trumps iTunes on DRM-free volume, but iTunes trumps Amazon by selling 256kbps AAC, as opposed to the 256kbps MP3 that Amazon sells.
Isn't that 256kb AAC the optional higher priced version?
More importantly the improved "quality" of 256 kb AAC over 256kb MP3 is largely hypothetical, few if any could tell the difference. However even if we accept marginal quality and size improvements these are overwhelmingly outweighed by the universal nature of MP3 files. Every digital player supports MP3. Portables, cars, home stereos, etc. There is no vendor lock.
is this music shop US only?
I tried to buy a song, but you are required to choose a state when you fill in billing address. I don't feel comfortable lying there.
That makes it viable. Good luck to Amazon, and I hope they can help to show the RIAA the pointlessness of DRM.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just tried it. XP & VISTA or MAC OSX ONLY for Albums!!!
-------------------
You have selected to purchase:
GREATEST HITS by Elton John
(Amazon MP3 Purchases are limited to U.S. customers.)
You must install the Amazon MP3 Downloader to purchase albums. (learn more)
* It automatically adds your music downloads to iTunes or Windows Media Player
* It takes just a few clicks and less than 30 seconds to install
DOWNLOAD NOW -- WINDOWS XP & VISTA
I agree to the terms of use | Download Mac OS X version
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
-S
Thanks. I did not know that.
Only for single tracks, not for albums. From both TFA and TFFAQ,
WTF? That's a weird restriction.
Linux users can download tracks, but not albums, and Amazon is porting this "download manager" thingy to Linux.
That immediately rang my spyware warning bell, but the FAQ page offers one non-evil clue:
If all the "downloader" does is verify that the licensing requirement of "album downloads entail a download of every track on the album" is met, that's reasonable.
But it's still such a weird and artificial restriction that while spidey-spyware-detector may not have pegged itself into the redline, it's still firmly into the yellow.
This isn't about individually serialized/watermarked files. First off, I've got no problem with serialized MP3s -- we're not supposed to be sharing the files we download from the service in the first place. But if (and that's an if) Amazon's taking the serialization approach, the serials can be embedded just as easily from the server at the time of download.
All of which makes me wonder just what, precisely, this "download manager" actually does. Amazon's making a damn good offer here: the music I want, in the format in which I want it, at a fair dollar price. But this "download manager" needs a wee bit more technical info before I sign up. Not every cost is measurable in dollars.
$8-$9 is too much for an album. It's like they took the distribution costs of a CD, (which could be estimated at $5-$8,) chopped them off, and are still expecting to make the same profit. Why can't they charge much less and make up the profits on volume?
Well the main reason is the consumer's willingness to pay. But record labels also need to recoup their investments and one "successful" artist has to pay for many "unsucceful" artists.
Artists need a label if they desire a certain level of commercial success. It takes a lot of money to promote an artist and bring them to the attention of the mass national or world market. Artists can not afford to do this on the money they making playing in small venues, among their core audience. If they manage to feed themselves they are doing above average, if they can support a family they are so rare they are nearly an anomoly.
The label system persists because there will always be some artists who want large scale success. Of course these successful artists gripe when they think about the small percentage they receive themselves but the truth is they are getting a small percentage of a much larger pie. If you are only getting 5 cents on the dollar, but you are generating several hundred times (or more) the revenue then they are far ahead.. To be faiir to the labels they need a disproportionately large cut from one artist to pay for the dozens of other artists they had *speculatively* financed they did not attain large scale commercial success. Please understand that I am not saying the current label/artist split is correct, I have no way to calculate what the split should be. I am merely arguing that the label system is quite logical and it is economically justifiable for the labels to receive a large percentage due to the speculative nature of their investments.
Artists have almost always needed patrons throughout history. Centuries ago it was the church, royalty, or the wealthy. Today the record label fulfills that role.
...I'll respond.
I can't tell the difference between a 256kb MP3 and a FLAC. I've done the ABX, and my threshold on good equipment is somewhere in the 224 range, give or take a bit depending on the program. That said, I can usually tell the difference between a 256mp3->128kbmp4 and a FLAC->128kbmp4. Bad experience with past formats made me re-rip my entire collection to FLAC. Those are my "masters" and I recode to the format-of-the-hour (on the fly to my portable with media monkey) for use on the road.
I like the Amazon store, and I'm pretty likely to use it. I'd be happier if they offered FLAC. Hell, any uncompressed would be okay, since I'd just transcode to FLAC, but getting it native would be nice.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Granted, there probably aren't a lot of them, but it looks like an album with one very long track only costs the price of one track.
Good hit on BitTorrent and other 'free' channels...but how about some of those Russian sites?
Are we still supposed to loathe Amazon for their patent nonsense with crap like the 1-click issue? I mean...I thought we weren't supposed to buy from them and support evil patent trolls. But now, we are supposed to buy from them to show support for non DRM music stores. But we aren't supposed to buy from Apple anyways because of their iPhone shenanagins. But we are supposed to love Apple because its trendy. I am so confused. Will someone please deconflict the groupthink so I know if I'm allowed to buy non-DRM (good) music from Amazon (bad) instead of DRM music (bad) from Apple (both) or if I am supposed to loathe all of the RIAA music and not buy DRM or non-DRM music from any source if it is RIAA owned. What about indie music with DRM? Where does that fit in? God, someone please help... All I know for sure is the MS music store is 100% evil and the Zune will eat your soul.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Steve Jobs announces a fix will be released with the next version of Itunes to put a stop to this Amazon hack.
RTFG - Read The F#$%ing Google!
You're going to purchase the pre-ripped and tagged version of the album, they're throwing out the "distribution costs" that aren't applicable, and you're mad they're not giving you a better deal?
This is what most people have been asking for: DRM-free, downloadable tunes that are priced without the distribution overhead.
I suspect you won't be happy until it's free. I hope you enjoy leeching the new Britney Spears album off of Bittorrent.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Aside from a few "killer samples" that are specificly known to reveal weaknesses in the MP3 format, I agree you'd be very hard pressed to tell the difference between that and lossless.
But when I transcode to a 96k AAC for my portable (my desired format for bitrate/space) from that 256k MP3, it sounds worse than a file transcoded from a lossless source. No, I don't have ABX data to back this up, but it's a very reasonable assumption given previous test results.
A FLAC or other lossless file gives you the ability to transcode the music into YOUR format/bitrate of choice without additional artifacts being introduced, and this is a real plus to those of us with low capacity audio players.
It seems to me that if the only issue is whether tracks are licensed for individual sale or not, they could probably solve that by offering the album as, say, a ZIP archive containing the album tracks. If a track is only available on an album, and not individually, then you only put it in the ZIP.
.amz file is just a zip archive, just with a different extension so that it'll open with the Amazon Downloader and automatically extract itself.
Heck, for all we know, maybe an
Amazon are not the only game in town (although a welcome addition).. personally I quite like emusic which provides plenty of drm free mp3's for a small subscription fee..
http://www.emusic.com/
You can of course keep your downloaded mp3's after your subscription ends and while you remain a member you can re-download everything you previously downloaded as many times as you want.
You wont get the latest top of the tops crap but you will find lots of really great music in many genres such as jazz, reggae, folk, classical, rap, rock and much more.
Even better they provide a download manager for linux! From their FAQ..
Q. Does DLM 4.0 work with Vista, Linux?
A. Yes, DLM 4.0 has been tested to work with Windows 98 SE, NT 4.0, 2000, XP and Vista. As well as Mac OS X (Intel & PPC), Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva with KDE and Gnome interfaces.
It's not "elitist fuckery", it's a combination of good equipment, an original source recording of high quality, and perhaps better-than-average hearing. I've had this argument many times, and there are some recordings that reveal obvious flaws in even 320 kbps CBR mp3 to my ears with my headphones and amplifier. For 95% of what I listen to, the difference is minimal or nonexistant, but for the other perhaps 5% of my music library, I do find FLAC (or the original CD) more enjoyable. Somewhat tangentially to this point, the Amazon mp3s don't cost much less than the full album (when we factor in production costs of the physical CD, shipping, etc). For example, I'm looking at one recording in particular where I can discern a difference between FLAC and high bitrate mp3 - Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium . It's $14.99 for the CD but $8.99 for the mp3s. I personally don't see the value proposition of paying $6 less to receive no physical item and a digital item of lower quality than I would receive for paying slightly more. Sure there are countless examples where I do see the value, but not this one.
The question is not whether you can distinguish one from the other. Anyone can do that. The question is, if you're not told beforehand (blind), can you pick out the higher quality recording more than 50% of the time. And the answer is you can't.
Best slashdot comment
We tried this out yesterday. As noted in other comments, whole album downloads are only available with their download client. With your web browser you download a small file (something.amz) which opens with the download client. The client in turn gets the mp3s.
.amz file download (such as from Firefox's download dialog), Amazon's system registers you as having downloaded the album even if you haven't actually gotten the files. Try it out for yourself on one of the cheaper albums. It'll only cost you $5 ;)
.amz file.
The problem is that if you cancel the
There is no repeat download available and this system prone to error from accidental clicks. Really, if they're going to the trouble of having a separate app for downloads, they should base the confirmation on its activity, not whether or not you've downloaded the
That's funny! At one time I thought the same thing. Anecdote: I was going through the tedious task of ripping my CDs, and after going through my collection of Nine Inch Nails and Autechre discs, I got the bright idea that instead of ripping my Aphex Twin collection, I'd just download a torrent. Same end result, right? I figured Aphex Twin fans would be fairly careful about audio fidelity, so I grabbed a torrent of some giganto Aphex Twin collection.
The end result was all over the map. Sure, there were a number of albums that were alright, some of them were terrible, with skips and low bitrates and mistitled songs, not to mention whole albums of "rare and unreleased" mislabeled garbage that wasn't even by Aphex Twin. I would have better spent my time continuing to rip them myself.
Alternatively, if I didn't already own the CDs, I would have happily bought large chunks of the Aphex Twin catalog from Bleep.com, which has been doing the DRM-free $1 MP3 download thing for over three years now.
I am Leviathant and I approve this message.
I just bought an album from there, and I have to say that the ease of purchase, price and convenience is extremely good. It was also a particularly obscure album that I couldn't find anywhere else for less than $15 - and I picked it up for $8.99. However, I've just noticed that the Comment ID3 tags contain what looks like a serial number. Not that this matters to me of course, since I won't be sharing it. It could be worse I suppose - it could have been my credit card number .... :/
I just bought a track... It took my credit info that was stored (my fault, I suppose) and charged it without asking even once. (I have never turned on that 1-click crap.) I (wrongly) assumed it'd go in my cart and then I could purchase it. Luckily, I intended to follow through the whole process.
The download was quick, and I'm playing it on Amarok right now, no problems.
There's been a few songs lately I thought 'I'd buy that, if it were easy and reasonable.' Hm, guess it is, now. I'll probably pick up a few more soon as well.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
OK it works for the UK too, unlike Apple...
Because the "cost of doing business in the UK is higher" songs from Apple are _twice_ as expensive than in the US.
All I have to do to use Amazon is get a Zip code that fits in a selected state and bob's your uncle! Half price music!
This is not strictly a lossy-codec issue. As the anonymous grandparent implied, there are those of us who like to listen to a whole album, and this can differ from a playlist of single audio files. Ripping individual tracks from the CD often screws with the pauses between the songs and the relative loudness of tracks... easily perceptible, no fuckery required.
There are ways to specify play-time volume adjustments in the metadata of some container formats, which can be used to handle the issue in the other direction -- something that sounds right as a quiet movement in the middle of a longer work might sound way too quiet on a shuffled playlist. To reduce the wrongsoundingness when a user wants to play a whole album, a player could support special if-played-as-original-work-not-a-shuffled-playlist behavior that would keep (or simulate) the original volume and between-track timing. I've never seen anything like that, so in the mean time having a single-file rip of a CD is a way to avoid this annoyance.
Another nice feature of ripping a CD to a single-file FLAC -- you can reproduce the original red book audio CD exactly, which is nice if you wanna, say, look up data on freedb (rip now, tag later.)
When my hard drive crashes I could have lost my entire music collection but when my CD collection crashes (to the floor), I can just stand it up again. Will they let you re-download stuff you have brought? iTunes allows you once I think.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
The company hosting TECH.BLORGE.com seems to be experiencing problems- the article is also available here: http://www.blorgable.com/2007/09/26/the-real-itunes-killer-review-of-amazons-drm-less-music-download-store/.
While I agree (mostly), those lines of thinking side-step things like convenience (I download it when I like, from the comfort of my home, probably while doing other things) and format (I use mp3's exclusively, so buying 'hard' media simply adds an additional step between me and the music).
So while I agree that you end up paying more for less (no album cover, no liner notes, no physical media) it comes close to being a wash (not quite) with the immediacy and the convenience.
Quack, quack.
Is a 256kb mp3 twice the size of a 128kb mp3? If it is then isn't this just a scam to make us buy bigger iPods/Zunes/Zens/etc? Make the files twice the size (with no real difference in sound) and suddenly you can only fit half as much music on there.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
Well bully for him.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
This is what I've been waiting for, I bought over 160 songs last night... The experience is great, one click will buy and import into iTunes just like apple. The 30 second previews load in just a couple of seconds. The music for the most part is cheaper than Apple. I got a couple of double-CD sets for under $10. I think this is one reason Universal is snubbing Apple, they wanted some control over song pricing and Apple only allows the flat 99 cent rate ($1.29 for the non-DRM songs). Some songs are more expensive on Amazon, I think I saw a few that were $1.99, but most are only 89 cents.
I love previewing the songs, what would be perfect is if Amazon had radio stations to play the song previews. I could sit all day and just listen to the previews to find new music. I spent four hours yesterday looking for music. If it was just playing in the background all day I could open my browser and buy a song when I heard one I liked...
As much as I like the iTunes store for pricing and convenience, you've hit the proverbial nail on the head. This is the first service I can recall seeing with:
There've been plenty of services that had one, or even two of these factors. Add in backing from an undisputed giant* of e-commerce, and I'd say this has some serious potential.
I'm going to have to do some shopping tonight and put my money where my mouth is. Vote with my wallet, and all that.
(*Not that they haven't stumbled from time to time. I mean, they had huge plans for the A9 search engine, and ended up scaling it back massively.)
Is there a media player software that allows you to listen to these single-file FLACs (together with their .cues) as if they were ripped tracks? I.e. can you have the best of both worlds? It's a tremendous waste of storage and also a huge inconvenience to keep a single FLAC for your when you're in a "whole album" mode and when you're in a "just single track" mode.
Now just sell us the files in FLAC or some other lossless format, and make sure that it's always cheaper, by quite some margin, than buying the CD. Then you might see some of my money. I will not buy downloadable music from anybody until this is what they offer.
I bought the same song twice, with a different account, different credit card, different IP address. The files are identical!
It's not "elitist fuckery", it's a combination of good equipment, an original source recording of high quality, and perhaps better-than-average hearing.
Every actual study I've seen shows that except on certain "hard" classes of recordings it's wishful thinking or other psychology--with 99% of normal music (be it well-recorded classical, a capella voice, rock, whatever) the 256kbps VBR LAME settings Amazon uses haven't been distinguishable to anyone in any scientific study I'm aware of.
I've had this argument many times, and there are some recordings that reveal obvious flaws in even 320 kbps CBR mp3 to my ears with my headphones and amplifier
If you can do it regularly, then you should pretty easily be able to make thousands of dollars for a few hour's work by claiming any of the numerous prizes offered for people who can succesfully distinguish 256kbps VBR MP3 of a wide array of popular music from uncompressed originals in a double-blind A/B test.
Now, if you're just talking a handful of special-case horrible-for-mp3 recordings (like, say, the well-known Eig "LAME killer" sample) then that's another story; some people can certainly pick that one out at 320 kbps VBR.
You can easily start off using a free ABX program like PC ABX (Windows) or LinABX, or a more expensive hardware solution. Just see if you can actually ABX them at home and if so, you should be good to go claim some cash.
It's pretty fun to see what you can actually distinguish, too. I have a nice setup with a good pair of Grados; out of my library of 4000+ songs there are maybe 3-4 I've found so far that I can pick out a 192kbps Ogg from FLAC. Before doing such testing, I was "sure" I could pick out the difference between the original and the 320kbps encodings I usually make. Most people who come over to my place can't distinguish 96 kbps from uncompressed except on a handful of nasty test samples, but if you actually learn what the common artifacts are it gets a bit easier for some people.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
The sample clips sounded decent, unlike the ones on BMG's site.
Zunior.com sell's FLAC's for $2 (CDN) extra.
STFU about slashdot bias.
I definitely can't tell the difference personally, but I still archive in FLAC. Why? Transcoding without artifacts. I play local in native FLAC, convert to relatively low bitrate mp3 for travel (enough ambient noise that storage density outweighs fidelity), stream in vorbis so that I can decode in-browser with Cortado.
Note that the terms of service prevent you from legally reselling or even giving away music that you purchase from the Amazon music download store. The music labels may be losing hope (for the moment) of having DRM everywhere, but they are apparently trying to get rid of the market for used music, much like they have in the past tried to banish the sales of used CDs.
Many people will not care, but there are reasons you might. Say you buy an MP3 album from Amazon, then later it's released in a surround-sound format, or as a high-quality remaster, and you purchase the new version. Now you own two copies, but you have no legal right to sell the old copy you no longer need, or even to give it away to a friend.
Alternatively, maybe you want to will your music collection to your spouse or your kids or a friend when you die. (Maybe they want the music, maybe they just want to sell it and get money for it.) Nope, can't do it - your music collection apparently dies (legally) when you do.
Maybe you lose your job and have a desperate need of money. Well, too bad - selling your music just isn't legally an option.
Maybe you want to buy some music as a gift for someone else. You have to just give them money and tell them to buy it themselves, because you're legally prevented from transferring the license to the music.
After checking it out some, I was getting pretty excited about the Amazon MP3 store, but this is a big issue for me. The iTunes music store has had much of the same effective restriction for their music with DRM, although you could at least transfer your ITMS account in total to someone else. But as far as I can tell from the iTunes terms of service and terms of sale, they don't actually prevent transfer of ownership, and thus with their DRM-free stuff you really could sell it or will it to someone (one of the reasons I've started buying DRM-free albums from the ITMS).
The Amazon MP3 Music Terms of Use:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=dm_fo_eula/104-3500699-5015933?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200154280
iTunes Store Terms of Service: http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/service.html
iTunes Store Terms of Sale: http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/sales.html
-andrew
I live in Norway, just googeled up a random US zipcode and added a new shippingadress and voila! I could buy music to my hearts content! I reallt love this store, they offer more of the music I like (classical and opera) than iTunes does and its so easy to doesnt feel like a pest to download the songs from outside iTunes.
:(
Kudos to Amazon! My bittorrent activity has dropped to a bare minium after I got access to these legal music stores online (eMusic, iTunes and now Amazon) but my visa is hurting
Now, all that is lcking is LOSSLESS music! Give me that and Il promise not to download a single illegal mp3 for the rest of my life!
When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
Seriously people, the truth is that this is too good to be true. It's a short term solution for the record companies to take pricing power away from Apple. All they had to do was do everything Apple wanted them to do but with Amazon, who doesn't have the pull to make long term contracts for specific pricing. Now everyone's jumping out of iTunes and the record companies have bargaining power that will allow them to charge whatever the hell they want to. I know that the prices are all lower now, but it's just the introductory rate and they are sure to go up given time. Hell, gain enough power back in the online music industry and they can even slip DRM back in. That leaves us with an end game of higher priced music heavily controlled by the record companies.
Also, for those saying competition here is a good thing, remember that these distributors are running at extremely low margins. What they are basically doing is competing against each other for how much the record companies will give them out of the profits. They aren't competing for the consumer's money so much as for the record companies' money. All this does is give the record companies the power that normal competition should give the consumer.
> ...they're intended to be heard in the context of other songs.
Not always. Sometimes an album is an integrated 'experience' that doesn't work as singles at all, sometimes the singles can stand alone but make more sense listened to on the album and some 'albums' are just some random unrelated songs sold as a bundle. It really just depends on the artist. Please avoid making sweeping generalizations.
All recording artists are not Pink Floyd. And even though I like a lot of Pink Floyd I still think it is good that not all music comes in such inseperable slabs.
Democrat delenda est
> oh, and about .zip files, do you have any idea how much the creation of a .zip taxes a server's CPU ?
.mp3 files won't compress enough to justify the computing overhead I'd assume an outfit as IT savvy as Amazon knows the Linux/UNIX/Posix/etc zip command takes the -0 switch to store files in a zip archive without attempting to compress them. RTFM dude.
> specially when compressing files that are _already_ compressed ?
Something on the order of zero load. Since you are correct that
Democrat delenda est
Your search for "ashlee simpson" found no results.
Right now, the #1 song download is 1234 by Feist (the song in the new iPod nano commercial) and the #1 artist downloaded is "The Apples in Stereo." I've never even heard of them; how much you bet that neither of these is actually the top download and someone at Amazon just put them at the top to get cute?
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Check this out:
Nightwish - End of an Era
If you want 'Ghost Love Score' (which is the best piece on the album and the one song I actually wanted), you're forced to buy the entire album. "Now you don't need to buy the entire album for one song", they said.
So much for the "buy only the song you want" bit. They deliberately prevent you from buying the best songs seperately.
What they really meant was "Now you don't need to buy the entire album if you're just looking to buy the song you don't want". Yay! Go Amazon!
-
Impressive.
Give me each signal on a mixer with the song playing in sync and a nice pair of headphones. With many recordings, I will be able to tell.
I really don't get this. I didn't state any universal absolute, and a bunch of people got on my ass (I'm the grandparent). If I had said "MP3 sounds bad," your posts and this argument would be valid. But there is no disputing matters of taste and I said to my ears.
I have more discriminating taste than many, yes. That doesn't make me or anyone else wrong. I train my ear to recognize subtle differences in sounds--I'm a musician. Most of you probably don't. Most of you probably couldn't tell Just Intonation from Equal Temperament. I can. You could too, if you trained your ears. I have.
Stop treating legitimate comments and concerns like flamebait.
You can pay only with debit cards and credit cards. So, too bad if you have any money in a GC; guess you'll be buying something else with it. Like, maybe an iTunes Music Card? Heh.
-- PondScum, SamThe
Note that it doesn't support Windows 2000 which is what I got & that is fusking lame. I would wager XPSP1 is also out due to .net
That "song" is just an hour and 15 minutes of noise. Listen to the demo they give you there. That's the entire song.
Oh well, it was only a dollar.
God, someone please help...
Just remember this mantra, and you'll be OK:
If it looks cool, it is Good. But if someone else has something almost as cool at a lower price, they are Gooder. If someone gives you something almost as cool for no cost at all, they are Goodest.
If it looks like a turd, embraces DRM, and squirts, it is made my Microsoft and is Evil. If the RIAA supports it, it is Eviller. If Microsoft AND the RIAA support it, it is Evillest.
Glad to be of service, folks. I'm off to round up the Axes of Weevils now.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The first song I downloaded was Jimi Hendrix's version of Johnny B. Goode. I searched for that CD over a year ago and I couldn't even find it at Amazon at the time. The rest of the stuff on that album were not my cup of tea, but man that song is sweet.
Uh Emusic? No DRM.. and the price is about half to a third of what the other stores charge.
i'm sorry about the ignorance of the rest
"I'd bet ANYTHING that you cannot differentiate between 256kbps MP3 and FLAC." I can on a gapless album where one track is meant to seamlessly meld into the next. MP3 just doesn't do that.
As long as you make use of all your downloads in the subscription package, emusic still comes out to something like 25-50% (depending on the plan) of the price of Audio Lunchbox or Amazon. All three have a very similar catalog of music.
Who gets to choose the test samples? How is the test set up?
I bet there are some samples where I would have trouble telling the difference but I also bet with decent equipment and a reference sample to compare with that you could easily tell the difference with some audio samples.
This isn't just extremely uncommon cases either, any live recording with applause seems to give problems for MP3 codecs that I have tried, (AAC too). I still use compressed music on my portable player (192kbit/s AAC) but I do notice on some tracks even without a reference for comparison and I buy the music on CD still although not so much these days.
Overall I'm pleased with the Amazon mp3 store. Good interface. Good prices. Previewing tracks and albums is intuitive, the samples are high quality, and you don't wind up with a desktop full of little .rm files after previewing them all.
The selection can be lean, even with slightly out of band tastes. I can only find one full VNV Nation album, while Rotersand turns up a remix album, and Seabound is MIA. That said, discovering new acts based on what you already know is easy and -- dare I say it -- fun, at least in the heavily incestuous world of electronica.
I didn't enjoy having to install an application to download full albums. I also didn't enjoy being forced to purchase using "one click" -- why can't I shop and then check out? I read through the terms of service, and there's no mention of watermarking or inclusion of my account info in the files, but I wouldn't call that conclusive. Will I get a nastygram from Amazon if someone swipes my SD card? Hopefully we won't find out.
Once I'd made my purchase and installed the application, the downloads were quick. On my Mac, the Amazon application created an "Amazon MP3" folder in my music folder and generated subfolders for artist and album in the iTunes style. The tracks were automatically imported into iTunes, although I found it odd that the application didn't create a playlist of the album. One question I haven't found an answer to is whether, like in iTunes, I can purchase the remainder of an album for the (discounted) album price if I have already purchased tracks individually.
Bottom line, Barry Adamson's "King of Nothing Hill" sounds great in iTunes, will play in TCPMP on my Palm Zire and can ride a thumb drive to my client onsites. At the same album price offered on the iTunes Store for a track that's locked to play only in iTunes on my own machine, I'd call that a deal.
The Chinese got us beat in the legal downloading schemes. You can find a kiosk in many supermarkets, plug your USB flash drive in, insert a 1RMB coin, and download current pop songs for 5 minutes. If you are fast with directory navigation, you can grab at least 10 MP3 songs in this time. Note that the artists supply their songs to the kiosk service provider, ie. these are not bootlegged songs even though many other things are bootlegged here. Not everyone in China can afford a computer, however it's easy to find combination optical disc players with a USB port in front. With a market of billions in Red China, this scheme has our DSL-dependent MP3 hoarding schemes beat.
-- Jimtown Kelly
Oink invites are kinda tough to get. Users who have a ratio of 1.05 get a couple of invites to hand out per month. The other problem is that once you give an invite to someone, you are responsible for their behavior. So if you simply give one out to a stranger, and he/she tries to use a hacked torrent client to lie about stats, or behaves badly on the forums, you can/will lose your cherished Oink account as well.
Oink is super serious about music quality -- they tell you exactly what EAC/LAME settings you MUST use and will check each torrent for transcoding evidence (going from 128kbit to 192kbit etc) In fact, if they catch you uploading a transcode, you get banned immediately. Since Oink has a pretty brutal ratio (50%) system, it beats even eMule as far as finding non-popular older albums. Unlike Piratebay, Mininova, etc, Oink users will never remove their uploads because they are in fear of going under that 50% ratio.
Yes, public trackers and the eDonkey network really blow when it comes to music quality. I downloaded a U2 discography and played part of it during a party. Well one album had all kinds of really bad screeching and pops during some of the songs. That's where the music industry really needs to hit hard with making DRM-less music at cheap rates.
Yes, I can. But I have good high-frequency hearing and I know what to listen for. (Implication: some sounds are a lot easier than others to differentiate.) Good monitoring doesn't hurt either...
What software and technique do you use to convert your CDs to mp3? I use EAC to grab the
"Today the record label fulfills that role."
Tomorrow, the Internet will. There will be less risk for artists, because their fans will already know who they are.
I don't think so. Advertising will gravitate towards popular sites and the ad rates will favor the well funded. The fact that an artist will get coverage somewhere is not all that different from the not to distant past where they got attention from alternative/local radio, alternative/specialty retail outlets, local TV/cable, specialty newpapers/magazines, etc. In short, every band always had access to media of some sort, the differences were in the reach of individual media vehicles. The internet is replacing one vehicle with another, but it is not replacing general trends. The better funded will get the better coverage, even on the internet.
You could have smaller touring agencies working for a much smaller share than a label, because they can estimate the risk so much better when you know how many fans you already have in the area.
This model has always existed, there have always been local/specialized outfits to work at that level. Tthe only difference is emailing an MP3 rather than snail mailing a cassette. More importantly there were and always will be artists who will not settle for such limited success. They want the national and global success and sign with the larger labels. Personally I'd say that the more talented are probably more attracted to larger more capable agencies.
Bought four songs myself. Worked great on my OS (Kubuntu). Will be back to get more once I can recall what I have been wanting.
My tastes are em... eclectic, I was able to find some of what I wanted - more Kraftwerk than I expected - was hoping for some PPOT but, alas, neither Steps (I take it there probably will be some lack of European music, pity).
Only concern I had was there was no easy to access "Sign Out" button (given that you don't have to verify CC for each song purchase this is a necessary feature if you leave the computer).
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
If my wife finds this service....
"As if millions of pennies suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."
During the first purchase of that logged-in session, note the checkbox in the first confirmation dialog; you can check it to confirm each purchase.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Pretty seamless on a Mac. I live in Canada so entered my Canadian address and a CA zip code. Was able to purchase an album right away. One prob... one of the songs from the album is silent from 3 seconds in to 26 seconds in. Let their feedback folks know, will have to see how good their customer service is now to replace this one song with a non broken version.
The album was Classical Graffiti by The Planets. Track 01 Rodrigo is the bad one.
The only thought I've had to explain the difference in my perception of the music between FLAC and mp3 is that the mp3 may be subtly quieter. I understand that the human brain interprets differences in volume as differences in quality, and that even a significant fraction of a db can alter one's perception. I admittedly have not paid careful attention (nor have I measured with software or hardware) to see if this is the case.
Wait, last I heard we were all boycotting Amazon for the 1-click patent. Did they give up that patent or did we get impatient and greedy?
No, that is not "the question". It is "a" question, and a relatively lame and academic question. If music is about pleasure, then a more useful question is: what does a given listener enjoy listening to? This will vary from listener to listener. I find well-recorded CD and vinyl to be very enjoyable. MP3 for me is less enjoyable. That's what matters to me as a listener. Now, if you get your jollies from participating in blind listening experiments, please enjoy!
This marks the first time I've ever bought music online. I chose to do it this time because it was easy. It didn't require me to have Windows or special software. Now, I would have liked to have had the Linux version of their download software because I wanted to download an album. But, considering they addressed this shortcoming in the faq and promised it was coming, I forgave them and downloaded a few singles.
I expect that I will use their service more.
Actually, I'm the writer of the article, Danny Mendez, and when I bought the album Global by Paul van Dyke, the MP3s flowed seamlessly from one song to the next. The whole album is like one giant trance song that subtly transitions from song to song. MP3 can do it.
"Even better they provide a download manager for linux!"
They provide Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X versions of the download manager. The Windows version wouldn't install under Crossover office but would under vanilla WINE. However it still wouldn't run post install.
There is an interview with a Amazon rep floating around the net somewhere where I saw mention of an upcoming Linux client - guess the FAQ writers jumped the gun a bit.
I think that Amazon MP3 may be the best online music store out there right now. It beats iTunes on price most of the time (if you only count iTunes-Plus), and it's DRM-free selection is better (due largely Universal's inclusion). But it does have it's warts:
The Semi-required Downloader. Amazon allows users to download single tracks via plain old http, but requires the use of their download-manager to buy albums (which are generally cheaper then buying the individual tracks, and are the only way to purchase some items such as Radiohead's works). This sucks for anyone on an alternative platform (mainstream x86-linux users will supposedly get a port of the downloader eventually, but the rest of us will remain out of luck).
Watermarking. Amazon has admitted that some of their MP3s are watermarked (with the company it was purchased from and the the time of purchase). They claim that there is no personally identifying information in the file, but if the watermark is encrypted or the watermarking scheme is unknown that claim cannot be verified. (for comparison, iTunes-Plus DRM-free songs are not watermarked, but do contain the purchaser's Apple-id (generally an email address) in a plain-text tag (which, unlike a watermark, can be easily examined or removed and does not affect sound quality)).
Universal's anticompetitive tactics. Universal has basically said that, at least for the next several months, they will sell DRM-free music to anyone but Apple. Basically they've decided that a free market where consumers can pick the store they like is too dangerous, so they're going to use their monopoly on certain music to artificially undermine their most popular distributor rather than just selling DRM-free music to anyone who will pay and letting the market decide.
And one thing that isn't really a problem at the moment, but seems likely to become one eventually is:
Variable Pricing. Prices range from good (45cents), to standard (89-99cents), to insane ($14.51 for one 2minute track).
Searching for all songs and sorting by price, you can see that only about ~15000 of their tracks are more than $1.35 and only about ~7500 track are less than $.88, so most of their 2.3 million songs fall near the 'standard' range. And searching for some random nonsense and sampling the results makes it look like roughly half of the store is $.99 or more, while the other half is less. So for right now, variable pricing doesn't seem too onerous, but if the big labels do manage to take a real bite out of Apple's market share with DRM-free sales through stores other than iTunes, and no longer feel the need to undercut Apple's fixed pricing, I expect those variable prices to rise gradually, almost imperceptibly given the confusion of multiple price points, and unstoppably.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
His point was, can you tell the quality of a *single* recording. not comparing two sources.
if you cant identify the single recording's bitrate, you are wasting you time (was the OP's point)
They can't stand it that Amazon is going to wipe the floor with Apple in the song download business. ITMS, R.I.P.
Have you considered why Amazon is cheaper? It isn't due to Apple, it's because the music companies are attempting to break Apple's hold so that they can force them to use differential (higher) pricing. Bronfman has said this pretty explicitly already. It simple terms, that means the average prices will go up (you didn't think they were upset because they were getting TOO MUCH money, did you?).
In short, using Amazon in this case will help the RIAA eventually raise download prices. Stay away from it.
I think that Amazon is really great and all, but they should look at Allofmp3.com. If your a *nix user and a new one at that it's kind of difficult to get their download software to run properly. Not to mention that it would be just as simple to just zip it and make the customer wait 3 minutes. Sure there's always the instant gratification issue, but if you can't wait 5 or so minutes for cheaper music and DRM-Free at that then go ahead and use iTunes.
All this talk over file quality bothers me because I _can_ hear the difference and succeed more than 90% of the time in picking out an Amazon/iTunes purchase from an ogg rip off a CD. And I go to music school with several hundred other people who likely can too. If bandwidth is the concern, then I'd rather pay an extra 10 cents to have a better quality file. When the difference between the CD and the MP3 album is $12.98, with no middle ground, that's not right. But if I have to keep buying bulky, environmentally unfriendly CDs, which give more money to the artists and musicians anyway, then I guess I will.
To order, one can use any valid combination of state and ZIP code, like CA for California and 95014 for Cupertino. ;-)
After all, there's no physical delivery...
That didn't exist for my first one. I saw it as I was playing around later, though. They obviously got a lot of complaints.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
What I am sure happens in most cases is that the CD is just stored somewhere never to be seen again.
For some lucky CDs you'l check the cover once or twice at most, and as for most "cover art" I am sure most people look at it once or twice at most before moving on to something else.
One buck saved for all this unnecessary stuff is money well saved.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In most cases pop artists sell you a single and then the CD with all the other songs.
This nonsense about albums being complete works is just a myth, very few artists work in that fashion, and curiously enough most CD tracks are exactly of the length required for broadcasting. Quite a curios way to go about artistic integrity.
My point is that songs in CDs in the immense majority of cases are just a bunch of songs by the same artist slapped together in the same CD, no connection whatsoever between the songs bar that they are being performed by the same group of musicians.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Even Picasso understood that.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Classical music, being a niche genre really, has to be more creative about how to sell things.
:-P
I have still to find one of those noxious root kits or idiotic copy protection measures in classical music CDs, after all you want to reach the widest audience possible.
Several classical music labels (Naxos, Chandos amongst them) have been selling DRMless stuff for long time, as well as renowned orchestras in their own websites.
As always classical music is the avant garde that shows the way where eventually everybody else will follow
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It looks like doing a cmp or diff command proves that the
files do not have watermarks either.
Why aren't more people using SpiralFrog? Absolutely free music (because of an ad generated revenue model) with recognisable/big name bands. Nice easy interface... just discovered it this morning and I've been downloading stuff like crazy.
Did I mention it's FREE?
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Or indeed, they could perhaps document the protocol that the "downloader" uses to fetch an entire album, and then it could be integrated into applications like Amarok and Songbird, thus avoiding the need for a separate tool. I believe Amarok already integrates with the Magnatune music store, for example.
2.3 million songs isn't nearly enough. Can I buy the Foo Fighters new album? A few months ago, I couldn't buy ANY Foo Fighters album, nor any other mainstream rock bands. Maybe that's changed, but of course, you have to pay them money to find out.
None to my satisfaction, of course... but they do exist, some discussion in the hydrogen audio forums.
"Amazon.com does not yet offer the complete cataloge. Not all record labels have approved all of their music for sale as MP3s, but we're working to expand selection."
Here is just a smattering of music I own that isn't available on Amazonl.mp3 (yet).
Dave Matthews Band
Foo Fighters
John Mayer
Trivium
White Stripes
Los Lonely Boys
Fall Out Boy (hey, don't laugh, I have a wife who has "music" too)
Kelly Clarkson (again, wife)
Rush
Led Zeppelin
The Who
Paul Simon
Dixie Chicks
(I think that is a large enough sample of various music I listen to)
So either there is something wrong with their search engine, or there simply is no content! I've been looking for 15 minutes and haven't found a single (non-jazz) artist that I have in my 5000 song iTunes library! I they have are karaoke and tribute versions.
But they do have most of the Hardbop jazz stuff (yay!) to include my favorite, Hank Mobley. Albeit most of those tracks are $1.94, so I guess I don't mind DRM so much and I won't be switching to Amazon until the get a much larger library.
As if DRM couldn't be worse - I bought a CD last week and ripped it to my computer only to find that I couldn't play the songs. When I try to download the license - the server for obtaining it wasn't responding. Kind of makes you not want to buy CDs anymore, and if it weren't for my obsession with having the actual packaging and lyric book - I wouldn't after that crap.
And even MORE importantly than that, if you have only ONE sample, and nothing to compare it to, you REALLY won't know it is better or worse than other types of files. In otherwords, if you have 1000 128kbs MP3 files, you won't know what you are missing (if anything at all, still debatable). It tends to be tech nerds who dread the thought that there might be a better tech out there and they are missing out (hence the preoccupation with specs).
You search mininova for your band. There's an RSS in the results. Add it to your reader. When a torrent comes out (around the time each album is released), it will show up in your reader right away, you will hop on, and it will always complete by the time you get home from work. ALWAYS. End of story. Though Demonoid going down isn't helping.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I used the only valid combination I could think of: CA/90210. No problem.
When I was researching this topic I found that iomoio.com a Russian site has $0.15 drm-free mp3's. There site says it has 67071 artists.
It doesn't have the largest selection, but for current popular music, it did have what we wanted.
You can download a couple songs for free after signing up and then you have to deposit some money into your account $20 minimum (if I remember correctly). So check that it has enough songs for you to get you money's worth.
The songs we downloaded thus far sounded great.
It's been confirmed by an e-mail... Amazon is currently working on a Linux version of their download tool which will allow you to buy an entire album instead of just single tracks. This is a great thing!
Old Winamp? It's what I use.
Um... No. Eat shit all your life and you start to think its gravy?
"It's like settling for a JPG of the Mona Lisa."
Exactly! For most of the population who is even aware of the Mona Lisa, finding a free JPG of it on the Internet is all they'll ever need. Maybe they'll set it as their desktop wallpaper.
Maybe some of them will be inspired by the JPG to go and buy a $5 poster of the Mona Lisa. Some might buy a more expensive print that perhaps better matches the color of the original, maybe spending as much as $30.
And then there are the truly hardcore, who will spend money on plane and/or train tickets to go see the ACTUAL Mona Lisa.
For most people, an MP3 is good enough. Some people would rather pay a little bit extra to get a higher quality copy, be it FLAC or CD or a DualDisc or SACD or whatever. Still others will not be satisfied unless they can go see the band in concert, and come home with a shirt.
I am Leviathant and I approve this message.
http://mindawn.com/ would be the rival.
Don't lose your music either, you can't re-download stuff you have paid for, like for instance, your proxy server blocks their little downloader app (which is currently the only way to purchase entire albums from the store). Still waiting on a response for this issue.
If you're going to get music from someone who doesn't pay for the rights to distribute them, get them for free instead of paying the Russian Mafia for them.
Apple better act quick if it wants to keep up because, as of today, all that's going for the iTunes Store is its popularity. DRM on music is dead, and any company that doesn't understand that is going to get left in the dust.
I think this quote from Jobs in Rolling Stone back when the iTMS was introduced suggests that they know that: "When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content. [...] What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it." -- Steve Jobs
Jobs has been on record from the start as saying that DRM is only there in iTunes to mollify the copyright owners. EMI acquiescing to reality was a change in EMI. If Bezos has managed to get the rest of them to accept this, everyone will benefit... including Apple.
Linux users that don't know what a zipfile is?
Tech Public Policy stuff